Editing Ivan Bunin (section)

== Biography ==
=== Early life ===
Ivan Bunin was born on his parental estate in [[Voronezh]] province, the third and youngest son of Aleksey Nikolayevich Bunin (1827–1906) and Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (née Chubarova, 1835–1910). He had two younger sisters: Masha (Maria Bunina-Laskarzhevskaya, 1873–1930) and Nadya (that latter died very young) and two elder brothers, Yuly and Yevgeny.<ref name="heywood">{{cite web| author  = Heywood, Anthony J | url  = http://www.buninivan.org.ru/md-ar-author-282/| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071221211237/http://www.buninivan.org.ru/md-ar-author-282/| url-status = dead| archive-date = 21 December 2007| title  = Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin| publisher  = University of Leeds| access-date  = 1 January 2011}}</ref><ref>Four more of Liudmila Aleksandrovna's children died at an early age.</ref> Having come from a long line of [[Russian nobility]],<ref>Berger, Stefan and Miller, Alexei (2015) ''Nationalizing Empires'', Central European University Press. p. 312. {{ISBN|9789633860168}}</ref> Bunin was especially proud that poets [[Anna Bunina]] (1774–1829) and [[Vasily Zhukovsky]] (1783–1852) were among his ancestors. He wrote in his 1952 autobiography: {{quote|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.<ref name="autobio" />}}
[[File:Бунин, Алексей Николаевич.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Alexey Nikolayevich Bunin]]
"The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince [[Vasily II of Moscow|Vasily Vasilyevich]]," he wrote in 1915, quoting the Russian gentry's ''Armorial Book''. Chubarovs, according to Bunin, "knew very little about themselves except that their ancestors were landowners in [[Kostroma|Kostromskaya]], [[Moskovskaya Oblast|Moskovskaya]], [[Oryol|Orlovskya]] and [[Tambov]]skaya [[Guberniya]]s". "As for me, from early childhood I was such a libertine as to be totally indifferent both to my own 'high blood' and to the loss of whatever might have been connected to it," he added.<ref name="IX_auto_1915">{{cite book |title=Autobiographical Note from The Complete Collected Works of Ivan Bunin, Vol 9 |year=1915 |pages=353–380 |language=ru }}</ref>

Ivan Bunin's early childhood, spent in Butyrky [[Khutor]] and later in Ozerky (of [[Yelets]] county, [[Lipetskaya Oblast]]),<ref name=brit/> was a happy one: the boy was surrounded by intelligent and loving people. Father Alexei Nikolayevich was described by Bunin as a very strong man, both physically and mentally, quick-tempered and addicted to gambling, impulsive and generous, eloquent in a theatrical fashion and totally illogical. "Before the [[Crimean War]] he'd never even known the taste of wine, on return he became a heavy drinker, although never a typical alcoholic," he wrote.<ref name="IX_auto_1915" /> His mother Lyudmila Alexandrovna's character was much more subtle and tender: this Bunin attributed to the fact that "her father spent years in [[Warsaw]] where he acquired certain European tastes which made him quite different from fellow local land-owners."<ref name="IX_auto_1915" /> It was Lyudmila Alexandrovna who introduced her son to the world of Russian folklore.<ref name="noblit_ru">{{cite web| author = Smirnova, L. | year = 1993| url = http://noblit.ru/content/view/410/33/| title = I. А. Bunin 'Russian literature of the late 19th&nbsp;– early 20th centuries'| publisher = Prosveshchenie| language = ru| access-date = 1 January 2011| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110823085606/http://noblit.ru/content/view/410/33/| archive-date = 23 August 2011| df = dmy-all}}</ref> Elder brothers Yuly and Yevgeny showed great interest in mathematics and painting respectively, his mother said later, yet, in their mother's words, "Vanya has been different from the moment of birth... none of the others had a soul like his."<ref name="bio_1" />

Young Bunin's susceptibility and keenness to the nuances of nature were extraordinary. "The quality of my vision was such that I've seen all seven of the stars of the [[Pleiades]], heard a [[marmot]]'s whistle a [[verst]] away, and could get drunk from the smells of [[Lily of the Valley|a lily of the valley]] or an old book," he remembered later.<ref name="bio_4">{{cite web| url  =http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-3.htm| title =  A.I. Bunin biography| publisher  = bunin.niv.ru|language=ru | access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-3.htm| archive-date = 11 October 2012}}</ref> Bunin's experiences of rural life had a profound impact on his writing. "There, amidst the deep silence of vast fields, among cornfields&nbsp;– or, in winter, huge snowdrifts which were stepping up to our very doorsteps&nbsp;– I spent my childhood which was full of melancholic poetry," Bunin later wrote of his Ozerky days.<ref name="IX_auto_1915" />

Ivan Bunin's first home tutor was an ex-student named Romashkov,<ref name="rustranslator" /> whom he later described as a "positively bizarre character," a wanderer full of fascinating stories, "always thought-provoking even if not altogether comprehensible."<ref name="autobio" /> Later it was university-educated Yuly Bunin (deported home for being a [[Narodniks|Narodnik]] activist) who taught his younger brother psychology, philosophy and the social sciences as part of his private, domestic education. It was Yuly who encouraged Ivan to read the Russian classics and to write himself.<ref name="noblit_ru" /> Until 1920 Yuly (who once described Ivan as "undeveloped yet gifted and capable of original independent thought")<ref name="heywood" /> was the latter's closest friend and mentor. "I had a passion for painting, which, I think, shows in my writings. I wrote both poetry and prose fairly early and my works were also published from an early date," wrote Bunin in his short autobiography.<ref name="autobio" />

By the end of the 1870s, the Bunins, plagued by the gambling habits of the head of the family, had lost most of their wealth. In 1881 Ivan was sent to a public school in Yelets, but never completed the course: he was expelled in March 1886 for failing to return to the school after the Christmas holidays due to the family's financial difficulties.<ref name="bio_3" />

=== Literary career ===
[[File:Ivan Bunin 1891.jpg|thumb|upright|Bunin in 1891]] 
In May 1887 Bunin published his first<ref name=brit/> poem "Village Paupers" (Деревенские нищие) in the [[Saint Petersburg]] literary magazine ''Rodina'' (Motherland). In 1891 his first short story "Country Sketch (Деревенский эскиз) appeared in the [[Nikolay Mikhaylovsky]]-edited journal ''[[Russkoye Bogatstvo]]''.<ref name="kirjasto">{{cite web|url=http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ibunin.htm |title=Ivan Bunin |website=Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi) |first=Petri |last=Liukkonen |publisher=[[Kuusankoski]] Public Library |location=Finland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050828233743/http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ibunin.htm |archive-date=28 August 2005 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In Spring 1889, Bunin followed his brother to [[Kharkiv]], where he became a government clerk, then an assistant editor of a local paper, librarian, and court statistician. In January 1889 he moved to [[Oryol]] to work on the local ''Orlovsky Vestnik'' newspaper, first as an editorial assistant and later as de facto editor; this enabled him to publish his short stories, poems and reviews in the paper's literary section.<ref name="heywood" /> There he met Varvara Pashchenko and fell passionately in love with her. In August 1892 the couple moved to [[Poltava]] and settled in the home of Yuly Bunin. The latter helped his younger brother to find a job in the local [[zemstvo]] administration.<ref name="noblit_ru" />

Ivan Bunin's debut book of poetry ''Poems. 1887–1891'' was published in 1891 in Oryol.<ref name="chronology">{{cite web | url =http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/hronologiya-zhizni.htm| title = Ivan Bunin Chronology| publisher = bunin.niv.ru| language=ru | access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/hronologiya-zhizni.htm| archive-date = 11 October 2012}}</ref> Some of his articles, essays and short stories, published earlier in local papers, began to feature in the Saint Petersburg periodicals.<ref name="chronology" />

Bunin spent the first half of 1894 travelling all over [[Ukraine]]. "Those were the times when I fell in love with Malorossiya (Little Russia), its villages and [[steppes]], was eagerly meeting its people and listening to Ukrainian songs, this country's very soul," he later wrote.<ref name="bio_1" />

In 1895 Bunin visited the Russian capital for the first time. There he was to meet the Narodniks Nikolay Mikhaylovsky and [[Sergey Krivenko]], [[Anton Chekhov]] (with whom he began a correspondence and became close friends), [[Alexander Ertel]], and the poets [[Konstantin Balmont]] and [[Valery Bryusov]].<ref name="chronology" /> [[File:Yuli and Ivan Bunins.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Ivan Bunin with his brother Yuly]] 1899 saw the beginning of Bunin's friendship with [[Maxim Gorky]], to whom he dedicated his ''Falling Leaves'' (1901) collection of poetry and whom he later visited at [[Capri]]. Bunin became involved with Gorky's [[Znanie (publishing company)|Znanie]] (Knowledge) group. Another influence and inspiration was [[Leo Tolstoy]] whom he met in Moscow in January 1894. Admittedly infatuated with the latter's prose, Bunin tried desperately to follow the great man's lifestyle too, visiting sectarian settlements and doing a lot of hard work. He was even sentenced to three months in prison for illegally distributing Tolstoyan literature in the autumn of 1894, but avoided jail due to a general amnesty proclaimed on the occasion of the succession to the throne of [[Nicholas II]].<ref name="heywood" /><ref name="muromtseva">{{cite web| url = http://www.history.vuzlib.net/book_o007_page_7.html| title = Life of I.A. Bunin. Chapter 3.| publisher = www.history.vuzlib.net| access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120301193835/http://www.history.vuzlib.net/book_o007_page_7.html| archive-date = 1 March 2012| url-status = dead}}</ref> Tellingly, it was Tolstoy himself who discouraged Bunin from slipping into what he called "total peasantification."<ref name="bio_1">{{cite web| url = http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-1.htm | title =  Ivan Alekseevich Bunin | publisher  = bunin.niv.ru |language=ru | access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-1.htm | archive-date = 11 October 2012 }}</ref> Several years later, while still admiring Tolstoy's prose, Bunin changed his views regarding his philosophy which he now saw as [[utopia]]n.<ref name="bio_2">{{cite web | url = http://noblit.ru/content/category/4/56/33/| title =  Ivan Bunin biography | publisher = noblit.ru |language=ru | access-date = 1 January 2011}}</ref>

In 1895–1896 Bunin divided his time between Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1897 his first short story collection ''To the Edge of the World and Other Stories'' came out,<ref name="noblit_ru" /> followed a year later by ''In the Open Air'' (Под открытым небом, 1898), his second book of verse.<ref name="chronology" /> In June 1898 Bunin moved to [[Odessa]]. Here he became close to the Southern Russia Painters Comradeship, became friends with Yevgeny Bukovetski and [[Pyotr Nilus]].<ref name="bio_1" /> In the winter of 1899–1900 he began attending the [[Sreda (literary group)|Sreda]] (Wednesday) literary group in Moscow, striking up a friendship with the [[Nikolay Teleshov]], among others. Here the young writer made himself a reputation as an uncompromising advocate of the realistic traditions of classic Russian literature. "Bunin made everybody uncomfortable. Having got this severe and sharp eye for real art, feeling acutely the power of a word, he was full of hatred towards every kind of artistic excess. In times when (quoting [[Andrey Bely]]) "throwing pineapples to the sky" was the order of the day, Bunin's very presence made words stick in people's throats," [[Boris Zaytsev (writer)|Boris Zaitsev]] later remembered.<ref name="IX_commentary">{{cite book |title=Commentary from The Complete Collected Works of Ivan Bunin, Vol 9 |year=1915 |pages=553–569 }}</ref> He met Anton Chekov in 1896, and a strong friendship ensued.<ref name="heywood" />

=== 1900–1909 ===
The collections ''Poems and Stories'' (1900) and ''Flowers of the Field'' (1901) were followed by ''Falling Leaves'' (Листопад, 1901), Bunin's third book of poetry (including a large poem of the same title first published in the October 1900 issue of ''Zhizn'' (Life) magazine). It was welcomed by both critics and colleagues, among them Alexander Ertel, [[Alexander Blok]] and [[Aleksandr Kuprin]], who praised its "rare subtlety."<ref name="bio_1" /> Even though the book testifies to his association with the [[Symbolism (arts)|Symbolists]], primarily [[Valery Bryusov]],<ref name="iniversalium" /> at the time many saw it as an antidote to the pretentiousness of 'decadent' poetry which was then popular in Russia. ''Falling Leaves'' was "definitely Pushkin-like", full of "inner poise, sophistication, clarity and wholesomeness," according to critic [[Korney Chukovsky]].<ref>Odesskye novosty. 1903. #5899, 26 February.</ref> Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times."<ref name="I_533" /> It was for ''Falling Leaves'' (along with the translation of [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]]'s ''[[The Song of Hiawatha]]'', 1898) that Bunin was awarded his first [[Pushkin Prize]].<ref name="chronology" /> Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.<ref name="noblit_ru" />
[[File:Russian Writers 1.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Bunin (bottom row, second from right), with fellow members of the Moscow literary group [[Sreda (literary group)|Sreda]]; From top left: [[Stepan Skitalets]], [[Feodor Chaliapin]] and [[Yevgeny Chirikov]]; from bottom left: [[Maxim Gorky]], [[Leonid Andreyev]], Ivan Bunin, and [[Nikolay Teleshov]]. 1902]]
At the turn of the century Bunin made a major switch from poetry to prose which started to change both in form and texture, becoming richer in lexicon, more compact and perfectly poised. Citing [[Gustave Flaubert]], whose work he admired, as an influence, Bunin was "demonstrating that prose could be driven by poetic rhythms, but still remain prose." According to the writer's nephew Pusheshnikov, Bunin once told him: "Apparently I was born a versemaker... like [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]], who was a versemaker, first and foremost. Finding the true rhythm of the story was for him the main thing&nbsp;– everything else was supplementary. And for me the crucial thing is to find the proper rhythm. Once it's there, everything else comes in spontaneously, and I know when the story is done."<ref name="complete_II_479">The Works by I.A.Bunin. Vol.II. Novellas and short stories, 1892–1909. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura, 1965. Commentaries. p. 479.</ref><ref>Baboreko, A.K. In the Large Family. Smolensk, 1960, р. 246.</ref>

In 1900 the novella ''[[Antonov Apples]]'' (Антоновские яблоки) was published; later it was included in textbooks and is regarded as Bunin's first real masterpiece, but it was criticised at the time as too nostalgic and elitist, allegedly idealising "the Russian nobleman's past."<ref name="bio_3">{{cite web| author = Stepanyan, E. V. | url = http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-2.htm| title =  Иван Бунин| publisher  = bunin.niv.ru| access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-2.htm| archive-date = 11 October 2012}}</ref> Other acclaimed novellas of this period, ''On the Farm'', ''The News from Home'', and ''To the Edge of the World'' (На край света), showing a penchant for extreme precision of language, delicate description of nature and detailed psychological analysis, made him a popular and well-respected young author.<ref name="iniversalium" />

In 1902 Znanie started publishing the ''Complete Bunin'' series;<ref name="bio_1" /> five volumes appeared by the year 1909.<ref name="heywood" /> Three books, ''Poems (1903)'', ''Poems (1903–1906)'' and ''Poems of 1907'' (the latter published by Znanie in 1908), formed the basis of a special (non-numbered) volume of the ''Complete'' series which in 1910 was published in Saint Petersburg as ''Volume VI. Poems and Stories (1907–1909)'' by the Obschestvennaya Polza (Public Benefit) publishing house.<ref name="I_533">The Vorks by I.A.Bunin. Vol. I. Commentaries, pp. 533–534.</ref> Bunin's works featured regularly in Znanie's literary compilations; beginning with Book I, where "[[Dreams (Ivan Bunin)|Black Earth]]" appeared along with several poems, all in all he contributed to 16 books of the series.<ref name="complete_II_479" />

In the early 1900s Bunin travelled extensively. He was a close friend of Chekhov and his family and continued visiting them regularly until 1904.<ref name="bio_1" /> The October [[First Russian revolution|social turmoil of 1905]] found Bunin in [[Yalta]], Crimea, from where he moved back to [[Odessa]]. Scenes of "class struggle" there did not impress the writer, for he saw them as little more than the Russian common people's craving for anarchy and destruction.<ref name="noblit_ru" />

[[File:Ivan Bunin-1901.jpg|thumb|left|Bunin in 1901]]
In November 1906 Bunin's passionate affair with Vera Muromtseva began. The girl's family was unimpressed with Bunin's position as a writer, but the couple defied social convention, moving in together and in April 1907 leaving Russia for an extended tour through Egypt and [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]]. The ''[[Bird's Shadow]]'' (Тень птицы) (1907–1911) collection (published as a separate book in 1931 in Paris) came as a result of this voyage.<ref name="chronology" /><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/rasskaz.htm Ivan Bunin. Works]. bunin.niv.ru.</ref> These travelling sketches were to change the critics' assessment of Bunin's work. Before them Bunin was mostly regarded as (using his own words) "a melancholy lyricist, singing hymns to noblemen's estates and idylls of the past." In the late 1900s critics started to pay more notice to the colourfulness and dynamics of his poetry and prose. "In terms of artistic precision he has no equal among Russian poets," ''[[Vestnik Evropy]]'' wrote at the time.<ref name="bio_6">{{cite web | author = Yanin, Igor | url = http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-5.htm| title = Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin | publisher  = bunin.niv.ru| access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-5.htm| archive-date = 11 October 2012}}</ref> Bunin attributed much importance to his travels, counting himself among that special "type of people who tend to feel strongest for alien times and cultures rather than those of their own" and admitting to being drawn to "all the necropolises of the world." Besides, foreign voyages had, admittedly, an eye-opening effect on the writer, helping him to see Russian reality more objectively. In the early 1910s Bunin produced several famous novellas which came as a direct result of this change in perspective.<ref>The Works of I.A.Bunin. Vol.III. Novellas and short stories. Commentaries. p. 483.</ref>

In October 1909 Bunin received his second Pushkin Prize for ''Poems 1903–1906'' and translations of ([[Lord Byron]]'s ''[[Cain (play)|Cain]]'', and parts of Longfellow's ''The Golden Legend'').<ref name="rustranslator">[http://www.rustranslater.net/index.php?object=bunin I.A. Bunin's translations // Художественные переводы И. А. Бунина] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150929212321/http://www.rustranslater.net/index.php?object=bunin |date=29 September 2015 }}. – www.rustranslater.net.</ref> He was elected a member of the [[Russian Academy of Sciences|Russian Academy]] the same year.<ref name="kirjasto" /> In Bunin, The Academy crowns "not a daring innovator, not an adventurous searcher but arguably the last gifted pupil of talented teachers who's kept and preserved... all the most beautiful testaments of their school," wrote critic Aleksander Izmailov, formulating the conventional view of the time.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Izmaylov, A.; Bunin, I.A. and Zlatovratsky, N.N.|journal=[[Russkoye Slovo]]|year= 1909|volume=252|title=По телефону из Петербурга}}</ref> It was much later that Bunin was proclaimed one of the most innovative Russian writers of the century.<ref>Geydeko, Valery (1987). ''Chekhov and Bunin''. Sovietsky Pisatel. Chapter 5, р. 340.</ref>

=== 1910–1920 ===
[[File:Buninturzhansky.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Ivan Bunin by [[Leonard Turzhansky]], 1905]]
In 1910 Bunin published ''[[The Village (Ivan Bunin novel)|The Village]]'' (Деревня), a bleak portrayal of Russian country life, which he depicted as full of stupidity, brutality, and violence. This book caused controversy and made him famous. Its harsh realism (with "characters having sunk so far below the average level of intelligence as to be scarcely human") prompted Maxim Gorky to call Bunin "the best Russian writer of the day."<ref name="bio_1" />

"I've left behind my "narodnicism" which didn't last very long, my Tolstoyism too and now I'm closer to the social democrats, but I still stay away from political parties," Bunin wrote in the early 1910s. He said he realised now that the working class had become a force powerful enough to "overcome the whole of Western Europe," but warned against the possible negative effect of the Russian workers' lack of organisation, the one thing that made them different from their Western counterparts.<ref name="noblit_ru" /> He criticised the Russian [[intelligentsia]] for being ignorant of the common people's life, and spoke of a tragic schism between "the cultured people and the uncultured masses."<ref name="noblit_ru" />

In December 1910 Bunin and Muromtseva made another journey to the Middle East, then visited [[Ceylon]]; this four-month trip inspired such stories as "Brothers" (''Братья'') and "The Tsar of Tsars City" (''Город царя царей''). On his return to Odessa in April 1911, Bunin wrote "Waters Aplenty" (''Воды многие''), a travel diary, much lauded after its publication in 1926.<ref name="bio_1" /> In 1912 the novel ''[[Dry Valley (Ivan Bunin novel)|Dry Valley]]'' (Суходол) came out, his second major piece of semi-autobiographical fiction, concerning the dire state of the Russian rural community. Again it left the literary critics divided: social democrats praised its stark honesty, many others were appalled with the author's negativism.
[[File:Ivan Bunin by Viktor Deni.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Bunin by Viktor Deni, 1912]]
Bunin and Muromtseva spent three winters (1912–1914) with Gorky on the island of [[Capri]], where they met with [[Fyodor Shalyapin]] and [[Leonid Andreev]], among others. In Russia the couple divided their time mainly between Moscow and a Bunin family estate at Glotovo village nearby Oryol; it was there that they spent the first couple years of [[World War I]]. Dogged by anxieties concerning Russia's future, Bunin was still working hard. In the winter of 1914–1915 he finished a new volume of prose and verse entitled ''The Chalice of Life'' (Чаша жизни), published in early 1915<ref name="heywood" /> to wide acclaim (including high praise from the French poet Rene Ghil).<ref name="bio_1" /> The same year saw the publication of ''[[The Gentleman from San Francisco]]'' (Господин из Сан-Франциско), arguably the best-known of Bunin's short stories,<ref name="bio_1" /> which was translated into English by [[D. H. Lawrence]]. Bunin was a productive translator himself. After Longfellow's ''The Song of Hiawatha'' (1898), he did translations of [[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Byron]], [[Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson|Tennyson]], [[Alfred de Musset|Musset]] and [[François Coppée]].

During the war years, Bunin completed the preparation of a six-volume edition of his ''Collected Works'', which was published by [[Adolph Marks]] in 1915. Throughout this time Bunin kept aloof from contemporary literary debates. "I did not belong to any literary school; I was neither a decadent, nor a symbolist nor a romantic, nor a naturalist. Of literary circles I frequented only a few," he commented later.<ref name="autobio">{{Nobelprize}}</ref> By the spring of 1916, overcome by pessimism, Bunin all but stopped writing, complaining to his nephew, N.A. Pusheshnikov, of how insignificant he felt as a writer and how depressed he was for being unable to do more than be horrified at the millions of deaths being caused by the War.<ref name="heywood" />

In May 1917 the Bunins moved to Glotovo and stayed there until autumn. In October the couple returned to Moscow to stay with Vera's parents. Life in the city was dangerous (residents had to guard their own homes, maintaining nightly vigils) but Bunin still visited publishers and took part in the meetings of the Sreda and The Art circles. While dismissive of [[Ivan Goremykin]] (the 1914–1916 Russian Government Premier), he criticised opposition figures like [[Pavel Milyukov]] as "false defenders of the Russian people". In April 1917 he severed all ties with the pro-revolutionary Gorky, causing a rift which would never be healed.<ref name="heywood" /> On 21 May 1918, Bunin and Muromtseva obtained the official permission to leave Moscow for Kiev, then continued their journey through to Odessa. By 1919 Bunin was working for the Volunteer Army as the editor of the cultural section of the anti-Bolshevik newspaper ''Iuzhnoe Slovo''. On 26 January 1920, the couple boarded the last French ship in Odessa and soon were in [[Constantinople]].

=== Emigration ===
[[File:Plaque Ivan Bounine, 1 rue Jacques-Offenbach, Paris 16.jpg|thumb|Plaque at Bunin's residence at 1 rue Jacques Offenbach, Paris]]
On 28 March 1920, after short stints in [[Sofia]] and [[Belgrade]], Bunin and Muromtseva arrived in Paris,<ref name="bio_1" /> from then on dividing their time between apartments at 1, rue Jacques Offenbach in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and rented villas in or near [[Grasse]] in the [[Alpes Maritimes]]. Much as he hated Bolshevism, Bunin never endorsed the idea of foreign intervention in Russia. "It's for a common Russian countryman to sort out his problems for himself, not for foreign masters to come and maintain their new order in our home. I'd rather die in exile than return home with the help of Poland or England. As my father taught me: 'Love your own tub even if it's broken up'",<ref>Люби свое корыто, даже если оно разбито</ref> he once said, allegedly, to Merezhkovsky who still cherished hopes for [[Pilsudsky]]'s military success against the Bolshevik regime.<ref name="lavrov">Lavrov, V.V. [http://www.belousenko.com/books/litera/lavrov_bunin.htm The Cold Autumn. Bunin in Emigration // Холодная осень. Иван Бунин в эмиграции 1920–1953.]. Moscow. Molodaya Gvardia. {{ISBN|5-235-00069-2}}.</ref>

Slowly and painfully, overcoming physical and mental stress, Bunin returned to his usual mode of writing. ''Scream'', his first book published in France, was compiled of short stories written in 1911–1912, years he referred to as the happiest of his life.<ref name="bio_7" />

In France Bunin published many of his pre-revolutionary works and collections of original novellas, regularly contributing to the Russian emigre press.<ref name="heywood" /> According to Vera Muromtseva, her husband often complained of his inability to get used to life in the new world. He said he belonged to "the old world, that of [[Ivan Goncharov|Goncharov]] and [[Lev Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, where his muse had been lost, never to be found again." Yet his new prose was marked with obvious artistic progress: ''Mitya's Love'' (''Митина любовь'', 1924), ''Sunstroke'' (''Солнечный удаp'', 1925), ''Cornet Yelagin's Case'' (''Дело коpнета Елагина'', 1925) and especially ''[[The Life of Arseniev]]'' (''Жизнь Аpсеньева'', written in 1927–1929, published in 1930–1933)<ref name="bio_7" /> were praised by critics as bringing Russian literature to new heights.<ref name="bio_1" /> [[Konstantin Paustovsky]] called ''The Life of Arseniev'' an apex of the whole of Russian prose and "one of the most striking phenomena in the world of literature."<ref name="bio_6" />

In 1924, he published the "Manifesto of the Russian Emigration", in which he i.a. declared:<blockquote>There was Russia,<!-- ''there was a large home bending under all kinds of belongings'', (please add to the article once a native speaker has reviewed this--> inhabited by a mighty family, which had been created by the blessed work of countless generations. ... What was then done to them? They paid for the deposal of the ruler with the destruction of literally the whole home and with unheard of fratricide. ... A bastard, a [[moral idiot]] from the birth, [[Lenin]] presented to the World at the height of his activities something monstrous, staggering, he discorded the largest country of the Earth and killed millions of people, and in the broad day-light it is being disputed: was he a benefactor of the mankind or not?</blockquote>

In 1925–1926 ''[[Cursed Days]]'' (''Окаянные дни''), Bunin's diary of the years 1918–1920 started to appear in the Paris-based ''Vozrozhdenye'' newspaper (its final version was published by Petropolis in 1936).<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20121112095706/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/okayannye-dni-3.htm Окаянные дни. Примечания (Commentaries to Cursed Days)]. p. 3. bunin.niv.ru</ref> According to Bunin scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo, ''Cursed Days'', one of the very few anti-Bolshevik diaries to be preserved from the time of the Russian Revolution and civil war, linked "Russian anti-utopian writing of the nineteenth century to its counterpart in the twentieth" and, "in its painful exposing of political and social utopias... heralded the anti-utopian writing of [[George Orwell]] and [[Aldous Huxley]]. Bunin and Zamyatin had correctly understood that the Soviet experiment was destined to self destruct," Marullo wrote.<ref name="Ivan Bunin 1998">Ivan Bunin, ''Cursed Days: A Diary of Revolution'', [[Ivan R. Dee]], 1998. p. x.</ref>

In the 1920s and 1930s Bunin was regarded as the moral and artistic spokesman for a generation of expatriates who awaited the collapse of Bolshevism, a revered senior figure among living Russian writers, true to the tradition of Tolstoy and Chekhov.<ref name="other_shore">{{cite book | date =January 1995| title =  Ivan Bunin: From the Other Shore, 1920–1933: A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction | isbn =1566630835| last1 =Marullo| first1 =Thomas Gaiton}}</ref> He became the first Russian to win the [[Nobel Prize for Literature]], which was awarded to him in 1933 "for following through and developing with chastity and artfulness the traditions of Russian classic prose." Per Halstroem, in his celebratory speech, noted the laureate's poetic gift. Bunin for his part praised the [[Swedish Academy]] for honouring a writer in exile.<ref name="bio_5">{{cite web| url = http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-4.htm| title = Ivan Bunin. Biography // Иван Бунин. Биография| publisher  = bunin.niv.ru| access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20121011231442/http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-4.htm| archive-date =11 October 2012}}</ref> In his speech, addressing the Academy, he said: {{quote|Overwhelmed by the congratulations and telegrams that began to flood me, I thought in the solitude and silence of night about the profound meaning in the choice of the Swedish Academy. For the first time since the founding of the Nobel Prize you have awarded it to an exile. Who am I in truth? An exile enjoying the hospitality of France, to whom I likewise owe an eternal debt of gratitude. But, gentlemen of the Academy, let me say that irrespective of my person and my work your choice in itself is a gesture of great beauty. It is necessary that there should be centers of absolute independence in the world. No doubt, all differences of opinion, of philosophical and religious creeds, are represented around this table. But we are united by one truth, the freedom of thought and conscience; to this freedom we owe civilization. For us writers, especially, freedom is a dogma and an axiom. Your choice, gentlemen of the Academy, has proved once more that in Sweden the love of liberty is truly a national cult.<ref name="iniversalium" /><ref>The Works by I.A. Bunin. Vol. IX. Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. 1965. Commentaries. p. 331.</ref>}}
[[File:Bunin Nobel prize.jpg|thumb|left|Vera and Ivan Bunin at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, 1933{{clarify|reason=Of the six identifiable people in this photograph—three men and three women—which two are the Bunins?|date=July 2019}}]]
In France, Bunin found himself, for the first time, at the center of public attention.<ref name="bio_6" /> On 10 November 1933, the Paris newspapers came out with huge headlines: "Bunin&nbsp;— the Nobel Prize laureate" giving the whole of the Russian community in France cause for celebration.<ref name="bio_7" /> "You see, up until then we, émigrés, felt like we were at the bottom there. Then all of a sudden our writer received an internationally acclaimed prize! And not for some political scribblings, but for real prose! After having been asked to write a first page column for the Paris ''Revival'' newspaper, I stepped out in the middle of the night onto the Place d'Italie and toured the local bistros on my way home, drinking in each and every one of them to the health of Ivan Bunin!" fellow Russian writer Boris Zaitsev wrote.<ref name="bio_1" /> Back in the USSR the reaction was negative: Bunin's triumph was explained there as "an imperialist intrigue."<ref name="bookmix" />

Dealing with the Prize, Bunin donated 100,000 francs to a literary charity fund, but the process of money distribution caused controversy among his fellow Russian émigré writers. It was during this time that Bunin's relationship deteriorated with [[Zinaida Gippius]] and [[Dmitry Merezhkovsky]] (a fellow Nobel Prize nominee who once suggested that they divide the Prize between the two, should one of them get it, and had been refused).<ref>The Works by I.A.Bunin. Vol.IX. 1965. Commentaries. pp.596–597.</ref> Although reluctant to become involved in politics, Bunin was now feted as both a writer and the embodiment of non-Bolshevik Russian values and traditions. His travels throughout Europe featured prominently on the front pages of the Russian emigre press for the remainder of the decade.<ref name="heywood" />

In 1933 he allowed calligrapher [[Guido Colucci]] to create a unique manuscript of "Un crime", a French translation of one of his novellas, illustrated with three original gouaches by [[Nicolas Poliakoff]].

In 1934–1936, ''The Complete Bunin'' in 11 volumes was published in Berlin by Petropolis.<ref name="bio_2" /> Bunin cited this edition as the most credible one and warned his future publishers against using any other versions of his work rather than those featured in the Petropolis collection. 1936 was marred by an incident in [[Lindau]] on the Swiss-German border when Bunin, having completed his European voyage, was stopped and unceremoniously searched. The writer (who caught cold and fell ill after the night spent under arrest) responded by writing a letter to the Paris-based ''Latest News'' newspaper. The incident caused disbelief and outrage in France.<ref name="bio_1" /> In 1937 Bunin finished his book ''The Liberation of Tolstoy'' (''Освобождение Толстого''), held in the highest regard by Leo Tolstoy scholars.<ref name="bio_7" />

In 1938 Bunin began working on what would later become a celebrated cycle of nostalgic stories with a strong erotic undercurrent and a [[Marcel Proust|Proustian]] ring. The first eleven stories of it came out as ''[[Dark Avenues]]'' (or ''Dark Alleys'', Тёмные аллеи) in New York (1943); the cycle appeared in a full version in 1946 in France. These stories assumed a more abstract and metaphysical tone which has been identified with his need to find refuge from the "nightmarish reality" of Nazi occupation.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Baboreko, A. |year=1965|title=I.A. Bunin's Last Years| journal= Voprosy literatury|volume=9|issue=3|pages= 253–256}}</ref> Bunin's prose became more introspective, which was attributed to "the fact that a Russian is surrounded by enormous, broad and lasting things: the steppes, the sky. In the West everything is cramped and enclosed, and this automatically produces a turning towards the self, inwards."<ref>Kuznetsova, Galina. "Grass&nbsp;— Parizh-Stokgolm. (Iz dnevnika)". Vozdushnyye puti, 4 (1965), 72–99 (p. 84).</ref>''

=== The war years ===
[[File:Bunin Ivan 1937.jpg|thumb|Bunin in 1937]]
As [[World War II]] broke out, Bunin's friends in New York, anxious to help the Nobel Prize laureate get out of France, issued officially-endorsed invitations for him to travel to the US, and in 1941 they received their [[Nansen passport]]s enabling them to make the trip. But the couple chose to remain in Grasse.<ref name="heywood" /> They spent the war years at Villa Jeanette, high in the mountains. Two young writers became long-term residents in the Bunin household at the time: [[Leonid Zurov]] (1902–1971) <small>([[:ru:Зуров, Леонид Фёдорович|ru]])</small>, who had arrived on a visit from [[Latvia]] at Bunin's invitation earlier, in late 1929, and remained with them for the rest of their lives, and [[Nikolai Roshchin]] (1896–1956), who returned to the Soviet Union after the war.<ref name="heywood" />

Members of this small commune (occasionally joined by Galina Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun) were bent on survival: they grew vegetables and greens, helping one another out at a time when, according to Zurov, "Grasse's population had eaten all of their cats and dogs".<ref name="VII_368">The Works of I.A.Bunin. Vol.VII. 1965. Commentaries, р.368–370.</ref> A journalist who visited the Villa in 1942 described Bunin as a "skinny and emaciated man, looking like an ancient patrician".<ref>Sedykh, A. The Distant and the Close // Далекие, близкие. p. 209.</ref> For Bunin, though, this isolation was a blessing and he refused to re-locate to Paris where conditions might have been better. "It takes 30 minutes of climbing to reach our villa, but there's not another view in the whole world like the one that's facing us," he wrote. "Freezing cold, though, is damning and making it impossible for me to write," he complained in one of his letters.<ref name="VII_368" /> Vera Muromtseva-Bunina remembered: "There were five or six of us... and we were all writing continuously. This was the only way for us to bear the unbearable, to overcome hunger, cold and fear."<ref>Smirnov, Nikolai. Confessional Lines. Vera Muromtseva-Bunina's Three years memorial. April 1961 – April 1964. Russkye Novosty, Paris, No.984. 10 April 1964.</ref>

Ivan Bunin was a staunch anti-Nazi, referring to [[Adolf Hitler]] and [[Benito Mussolini]] as "rabid monkeys".<ref name="heywood" /><ref>Kovalyov, M.V. [http://www.sgu.ru/files/nodes/10090/035.pdf Russian emigration fighting Nazism.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927010550/http://www.sgu.ru/files/nodes/10090/035.pdf |date=27 September 2011 }} – На своей вилле И. А. Бунин, несмотря на... риск подвергнуться репрессиям, укрывал евреев, которым грозил арест. Фашизм он ненавидел, а А. Гитлера и Б. Муссолини называл взбесившимися обезьянами.</ref><ref>Sedykh, A. The Distant, the Close // Далекие, близкие. Moscow., 2003. pp. 190–191, 198</ref><ref>Roshchin, M.M. (2000) ''Ivan Bunin''. pp. 205, 306.</ref> He risked his life, sheltering fugitives (including Jews such as the pianist A. Liebermann and his wife)<ref name="vinokur" /> in his house in Grasse after [[Vichy France|Vichy]] was occupied by the Germans. According to Zurov, Bunin invited some of the Soviet war prisoners ("straight from [[Gatchina]]", who worked in occupied Grasse) to his home in the mountains, when the heavily guarded German forces' headquarters were only {{convert|300|m|ft}} away from his home.

The atmosphere in the neighbourhood, though, was not that deadly, judging by the Bunin's diary entry for 1 August 1944: "Nearby there were two guards, there were also one German, and one Russian prisoner, Kolesnikov, a student. The three of us talked a bit. Saying our farewells, a German guard shook my hand firmly".<ref>[http://bookz.ru/authors/bunin-ivan/dnevniki_240/page-23-dnevniki_240.html Bunin, the diaries // Бунин, дневники. 1944. Стр. 23] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930140804/http://bookz.ru/authors/bunin-ivan/dnevniki_240/page-23-dnevniki_240.html |date=30 September 2011 }}. – Возле "Helios" на часах немец и русский пленный, "студент" Колесников. Поговорили. На прощание немец крепко пожал мне руку.</ref>

Under the occupation Bunin never ceased writing but, according to Zurov, "published not a single word. He was receiving offers to contribute to newspapers in unoccupied Switzerland, but declined them. Somebody visited him once, a guest who proved to be an agent, and proposed some literary work, but again Ivan Alekseyevich refused."<ref>{{cite journal|author=Zurov, L.|title=A letter to A.K.Baboreko|date= 4 April 1962|journal= History Archives|place= Moscow|page= 157}}</ref> On 24 September 1944, Bunin wrote to Nikolai Roshchin: "Thank God, the Germans fled Grasse without a fight, on August 23. In the early morning of the 24th the Americans came. What was going on in the town, and in our souls, that's beyond description."<ref name="complete_311_12">The Works by I.A.Bunin. Vol.VII. p. 371.</ref> "For all this hunger, I'm glad we spent the War years in the South, sharing the life and difficulties of the people, I'm glad that we've managed even to help some", Vera Muromtseva-Bunina later wrote.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Baboreko, A. |title=The Last Years of Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin|journal= Voprosy Literatury|year= 1965|volume=3|page= 253}}</ref>

=== Last years ===
[[File:Памятник И.А.Бунину в г. Грассе (Франция).jpg|thumb|left|upright|Bunin monument in Grasse]]
In May 1945 the Bunins returned to 1, rue Jacques Offenbach in Paris. Aside from several spells at the Russian House (a clinic in [[Juan-les-Pins]]) where he was convalescing, Bunin stayed in the French capital for the rest of his life.<ref name="heywood" /> On 15 June, ''Russkye Novosty'' newspaper published its correspondent's account of his meeting with an elderly writer who looked "as sprightly and lively as if he had never had to come through those five years of voluntary exile." According to Bunin's friend N. Roshchin, "the liberation of France was a cause of great celebration and exultation for Bunin".<ref name="complete_372_74">The Works by I.A.Bunin. Vol.VII. Commentaries. Pр. 372–374.</ref>

Once, in the audience at a Soviet ''Russian Theatre'' show in Paris, Bunin found himself sitting next to a young Red Army colonel. As the latter rose and bowed, saying: "Do I have the honour of sitting next to Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin?" the writer sprang to his feet: "I have the even higher honour of sitting next to an officer of the great Red Army!" he passionately retorted.<ref>''Vestnik'', Toronto, 1955, 20 July.</ref> On 19 June 1945, Bunin held a literary show in Paris where he read some of the ''Dark Avenue'' stories. In the autumn of 1945, on the wave of the great patriotic boom, Bunin's 75th birthday was widely celebrated in the Parisian Russian community. Bunin started to communicate closely with the Soviet connoisseurs, journalist [[Yuri Zhukov (journalist)|Yuri Zhukov]] and literary agent Boris Mikhailov, the latter receiving from the writer several new stories for proposed publishing in the USSR. Rumours started circulating that the Soviet version of ''The Complete Bunin'' was already in the works.

In the late 1940s Bunin, having become interested in the new Soviet literature, in particular the works of [[Aleksandr Tvardovsky]] and [[Konstantin Paustovsky]], entertained plans of returning to the Soviet Union, as [[Aleksandr Kuprin]] had done in the 1930s. In 1946, speaking to his Communist counterparts in Paris, Bunin praised the Supreme Soviet's decision to return Soviet citizenship to Russian exiles in France, still stopping short of saying "yes" to the continuous urging from the Soviet side for him to return.<ref name="complete_372_74" /> "It is hard for an old man to go back to places where he's pranced goat-like in better times. Friends and relatives are all buried... That for me would be a graveyard trip," he reportedly said to Zhukov, promising though, to "think more of it."<ref>Zhukov, Yuri. The West After the War. ''Oktyabr'' magazine, 1947, No. 10, pp. 130–131.</ref> Financial difficulties and the French reading public's relative indifference to the publication of ''Dark Avenues'' figured high among his motives. "Would you mind asking the Union of Writers to send me at least some of the money for books that've been published and re-issued in Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s? I am weak, I am short of breath, I need to go to the South but am too skinny to even dream of it," Bunin wrote to [[Nikolay Teleshov]] in a 19 November 1946, letter.<ref name="complete_372_74" />

Negotiations for the writer's return came to an end after the publication of his ''Memoirs'' (''Воспоминания'', 1950), full of scathing criticism of Soviet cultural life. Apparently aware of his own negativism, Bunin wrote: "I was born too late. If I had been born earlier, my literary memoirs would have been different. I wouldn't have been a witness to 1905, the First World War, then 1917 and what followed: Lenin, Stalin, Hitler... How can I not be jealous of our forefather [[Noah]]. He lived through only one flood in his lifetime".<ref name="bio_1" /> Reportedly, the infamous [[Zhdanov decree]] was one of the reasons for Bunin's change of mind.<ref name="bookmix" /> On 15 September 1947, Bunin wrote to [[Mark Aldanov]]: "I have a letter here from Teleshov, written on 7 September; 'what a pity (he writes) that you've missed all of this: how your book was set up, how everybody was waiting for you here, in the place where you could have been... rich, feasted, and held in such high honour!' Having read this I spent an hour hair-tearing. Then I suddenly became calm. It just came to me all of a sudden all those other things Zhdanov and [[Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev|Fadeev]] might have given me instead of feasts, riches and laurels..."<ref name="bio_1" />
[[File:Иван Бунин.jpg|thumb|Ivan Bunin's grave, [[Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery]]]]
After 1948, his health deteriorating, Bunin concentrated upon writing memoirs and a book on Anton Chekhov. He was aided by his wife, who, along with Zurov, completed the work after Bunin's death and saw to its publication in New York in 1955.<ref name="bio_2" /> In English translation it was entitled ''About Chekhov: The Unfinished Symphony''.<ref name="iniversalium">{{cite web | url = http://universalium.academic.ru/261084/Bunin,_Ivan_Alekseyevich| title  =  Bunin, Ivan Alekseyevich| publisher = universalium.academic.ru| access-date = 1 January 2011}}</ref> Bunin also revised a number of stories for publication in new collections, spent considerable time looking through his papers and annotated his collected works for a definitive edition.<ref name="heywood" /> In 1951 Bunin was elected the first ever hononary [[International PEN]] member, representing the community of writers in exile. According to [[A. J. Heywood]], one major event of Bunin's last years was his quarrel in 1948 with [[Maria Tsetlina]] and [[Boris Zaytsev (writer)|Boris Zaitsev]], following the decision by the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists in France to expel holders of Soviet passports from its membership. Bunin responded by resigning from the Union. The writer's last years were marred by bitterness, disillusionment and ill-health; he was suffering from [[asthma]], [[bronchitis]] and chronic [[pneumonia]].<ref name="heywood" /><ref name="vinokur" />

===Death===
On 2 May 1953, Bunin left in his diary a note that proved to be his last one. "Still, this is so dumbfoundingly extraordinary. In a very short while there will be no more of me&nbsp;– and of all the things worldly, of all the affairs and destinies, from then on I will be unaware! And what I'm left to do here is dumbly try to consciously impose upon myself fear and amazement," he wrote.

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin died in a Paris attic flat in the early hours of 8 November 1953. Heart failure, [[cardiac asthma]] and pulmonary [[Sclerosis (medicine)|sclerosis]] were cited as the causes of death.<ref name="vinokur">{{cite web| url = http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2003/1112/win/vinokur.htm| title = Один из тех, которым нет покоя| publisher = www.vestnik.com| access-date = 1 January 2011| archive-date = 26 September 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110926213547/http://www.vestnik.com/issues/2003/1112/win/vinokur.htm| url-status = dead}}</ref> A lavish burial service took place at the Russian Church on [[:fr:Rue Daru|Rue Daru]]. All the major newspapers, both Russian and French, published large obituaries. For quite a while the coffin was held in a [[Burial vault (enclosure)|vault]]. On 30 January 1954, Bunin was buried in the [[Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery]].<ref name="bio_7" />

In the 1950s, Bunin became the first of the Russian writers in exile to be published officially in the USSR. In 1965, ''The Complete Bunin'' came out in Moscow in nine volumes. Some of his more controversial books, notably ''Cursed Days'', remained banned in the Soviet Union until the late 1980s.<ref name="bookmix">[http://bookmix.ru/authors/index.phtml?id=105 Бунин И. А. Биография]. – bookmix.ru.</ref>