Saray boş, çeşmesi susmuş,
Kadim ağaçlar kırık ve kuru . . .
İstanbul, İstanbul! Son büyük göçün
Son ölü kampı.
Ivan BUNIN "Stambul," 1905
In April 1903 Bunin departed for Constantinople (today Istanbul, Turkey). He had just read the entire Qur’an, and he wished to see the city that had played an important role in the history of Islam as well as in early Russian history. It was the first of many trips to Constantinople, Greece, and the Middle East, and he recorded his impressions in a series of travel sketches from 1907 to 1911. A reading of these sketches together with the poetry he wrote during the period reveals several underlying concerns. First, Bunin sought to identify the essence of a religion or culture by studying the environment in which it developed. Islam, he wrote in “Ten’ ptitsy” (1908, The Shadow of a Bird), was born “in the wilderness,” whereas the myths of ancient Greece were born from “sun, sea, and stone.” Surveying the ruins of Egypt, Syria, Greece, and Palestine, Bunin became aware that every civilization seemed to undergo a cycle of birth, expansion, and annihilation. His appreciation of the inevitability of a civilization’s decay took on topical significance when he returned to Russia and witnessed continuing dislocation and change at home. Strikes, demonstrations, and violent repression in 1905 convinced him that Russia was on an irreversible downward spiral.
Bunin’s firsthand observations of the remains of earlier civilizations also deepened his preoccupation with death and loss. Annihilation was not merely a personal event; it affected civilizations, cultures, and religions alike. Nonetheless, Bunin always looked for signs of survival and renewal. Observing in “More bogov” (1908, The Sea of Gods) that “Vremia” (Time) has swallowed up the manifestations of solar worship practiced in ancient eras, Bunin exclaims: “But the Sun still exists!” Furthermore, by achieving an emotional or spiritual contact with relics of ancient life, the writer felt that his own life span had been expanded. As he put it in the poem “Mogila v skale” (1910, Cliff Tomb), the sight of a footprint left by a mourner in a grave five thousand years ago resurrected that moment of parting, and “The life given me by destiny was multiplied by five thousand years.” Such moments of transcendence were immensely consoling to Bunin.
Mavi Boncuk |
Ivan Bunin [1]
"I come from an old and noble house that has given Russia a good many illustrious persons in politics as well as in the arts, among whom two poets of the early nineteenth century stand out in particular: Anna Búnina and Vasíly Zhukovsky, one of the great names in Russian literature, the son of Athanase Bunin and the Turk Salma... Nonetheless, there were several reasons why I was not widely known for a considerable time. I kept aloof from politics and in my writings did not touch upon questions concerning it. I did not belong to any literary school; I was neither decadent, nor symbolist, romantic, or naturalist. Moreover, I frequented few literary circles. I lived chiefly in the country; I travelled much in Russia as well as abroad; I visited Italy, Sicily, Turkey, the Balkans, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and the tropics. According to the words of Saadi I tried to “look at the world and leave upon it the imprint of my soul.” I was interested in problems of philosophy, religion, morals, and history."
Won the Nobel prize for literature in 1933.
Prize motivation: "for the strict artistry with which he has carried on the classical Russian traditions in prose writing."
(22 October [O.S. 10 October] 1870 – 8 November 1953) was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
His mother, Lyudmila Alexandrovna, introduced him to Russian folklore, and he began writing poetry and prose at an early age. He traveled around Russia, southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans.
He was noted for the strict artistry with which he carried on the classical Russian traditions in the writing of prose and poetry. The texture of his poems and stories, sometimes referred to as "Bunin brocade", is considered to be one of the richest in the language.
Best known for his short novels The Village (1910) and Dry Valley (1912), his autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1933, 1939), the book of short stories Dark Avenues (1946) and his 1917–1918 diary (Cursed Days, 1926), Bunin was a revered figure among anti-communist white emigres, European critics, and many of his fellow writers, who viewed him as a true heir to the tradition of realism in Russian literature established by Tolstoy and Chekhov.
IVAN BUNIN AND THE MIDDLE EAST: A Poetic Encounter
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