Editing Ivan Bunin (section)

=== 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" />