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Lower Manhattan, 9:28 PM. The air is muggy, ensured by a constant drizzle that pelts the brick and mortar labyrinth. On a particular branch of this urban stretch sits a defunct sauna which, in outward appearance, is of no more import than its neighbors.
Through the natural drum of the downpour, a series of unorganized whirs and clanks can be identified, and then, a disproportionate shape lurches out of the grey veil and stalks along the parking lot on tall, winding stabilizers. It is a man riding atop them, his torpid state in opposition with the arms’ erratic lunging. They allow him to descend gradually as he reaches the awning outside the dead establishment, and the ensemble of flesh and machinery bobs to a standstill.
With an efficiency gained through repetition, Doctor Otto Octavius commands a tentacle to pluck the damp trilby from his head, resulting in a few droplets tagging his neck. He huffs, and sways a little like he wishes a bed would catch him. Then his lower-left pincer punches the lock out of the door and he lumbers inside.
Rain patters against the panes and roof. The sauna’s interior is even heavier than it is out in the streets; clearly, the back rooms are not out of service, nor locked. The light implements, on the other hand, are characteristically dark.
“Sauron!” barks the arrival. “It’s a dungeon in here! … Even Warren’s lairs aren’t this repellent…”
Over the din of the weather, a response slithers to Octavius’ ears:
“I hear now that thou wouldst barter with me. What is thy price?”
“Quoting the Silmarillion, hmph. So you do take your name from Tolkien,” a blasé Octavius verifies. “I happen to be aware of the swift betrayal met by the character offered the same. Come to think of it, it was the undoing of his companions as well. Showing our hand a tad early, are we?”
“As if.”
Sounding like a heavy tarp being splayed, something unfolds from the rafters above the waiting room, to Octavius’ left. It swoops down, and across to the reception area. Octavius sizes up the wide figure; its only prominent features in the gloom are three points, devilishly crowning its shoulders and head.
“Plead your case, Doctor, and I, Sauron, will be the godsend to your campaign.”
One of Octavius’ claws snips at the air. “It’s you who needs to impress me, Doctor.”
“Bah!” Sauron screeches. “You were not already satisfied by my resume?!”
“As for my ‘price’,” Octavius reprimands, “I submit to you a part to play in removing the thorn in our sides: Spider-Man. My end of the bargain was final; your contribution is what we will be reviewing.”
This ruffles Sauron. “I just wanted to say the quote, damn you!”
Octavius, frowning, flips open the dossier provided by a tentacle rooting through his trench coat. “Firstly, you claim a kill on one of the X-Men operatives. ‘Cannonball’.”
“Yes. Full disclosure: He came around.”
“From dying.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it just the way?” Octavius muses, continuing. “Flight capabilities. Energy-draining touch. Expertise in genetic modification. Professional hypnotherapist, and by extension, able to turn desired targets against one an-“
“FFFFIRE-breathing!” reminds Sauron, as he belches out a cone of flame over the duo’s heads. His form—that of an anthropomorphic pteranodon—is brilliantly exposed for an instant.
Octavius rubs the indentations on his nose, made by his shades. “I have a man that flies. I expect to be bringing in more that specialize in illusions and biological weapons. Should I become truly desperate, I do, regrettably, know a particularly intolerable vampire. With ALL of these candidates, in fact, I have greater familiarity, than I do you. Bearing this in mind… tell me why I might have need of you.”
“Did I not breathe fire before your mammalian eyes?!”
“I’m enthralled,” Octavius snarls. “You have thoroughly wasted my time. Good night!”
“I have the Spider-Man’s true name!” Sauron squawks after his departure.
“YOU-“ Octavius’ arms rattle, and he slams the door shut, jerking back around. “LEAD WITH THAT! BLAZES, MAN!”
Sauron hops over to a specific drawer in the front desk, crestfallen. “Just once I would like fire-breath to seal the deal.”
“How on Earth could you know the man behind the wall-crawler’s mask?”
“As it were: By saving his life. My other half did, that is.”
Octavius looks at his claws. They look back. “Your marital partner..?”
“What?” Sauron blinks softly, then shakes his beak. “… No, my former identity, Karl Lykos; that veritable pheasant! He banished himself to the Savage Land, allowing himself no interaction with superpowered persons, that which must be consumed to bring forth my glorious form!”
He produces a videotape from the drawer, and motions for Octavius to follow him to the flatscreen intended for patrons. There, Sauron had seemingly brought his own cassette player. Octavius’ lower-right tentacle sighs.
Sauron pops in the tape. “But much to Lykos’ dismay, the Savage Land beckoned adventurers. Spider-Man arrived and, unprepared for the trials that awaited him, was transformed, by the mutant Brainchild, into a feral arachnoid beast-“
“Why couldn’t he have contacted me?..” laments Octavius.
“-and was set loose upon the nobler natives of the Savage Land. Lykos prevented a massacre by sapping the false mutation from the Spider-Man, but at the cost of unleashing me! Lykos witnessed the vigilante’s face as he reverted… and I was freed.”
“And you managed to put the face to a name, how? Lykos knew his alter-ego?”
Sauron tuts. “Now now, if I told you everything, it would take no time at all for a man of your acuity to piece things together… and—my usefulness expired—you would cast me off.”
“Like a broken. Crayon,” says Octavius darkly.
“In that event, I shall keep my leverage! Ah, it wasn’t rewound.” Sauron pecks at his remote, and the VCR begins complaining.
“Armed with this secret,” Sauron resumes, “I made my way to New York. The brief ’taste’ I got of the Spider-Man’s power told me that he was… an individual kind of delicacy; the likes of which, I have found in only the most astonishing of X-Men. A full meal of one such person… I imagine it could facilitate my control over Lykos for years. A decade, even.”
“The X-Men, again,” Octavius notes the recurring topic, unsure. “Are you yourself, categorically, a ‘mutant’?”
“A titan among mortals, created by a metamorphic virus carried by apex organisms that were thought to be long-extinct!” boasts Sauron. “Oh yes, but ‘mutant’ will do. Blasphemy! Lumping me in with the same barbarians that…”
Sauron irascibly tosses around more cables.
“‘That’, what?” Octavius presses.
“Never mind, you! See here, my near-triumph over our common enemy!”
On cue, the display’s fuzzy picture and static subsides into the rustling of foliage. The camera was being pushed in short bursts through dense grass. Narrating the footage was an extraordinarily phony English accent; it was Sauron’s.
“It is here, in the undergrowth, where we will have a chance-“
Sauron grunted from behind the camera, likely performing a leopard crawl.
“-to spot Ka-Zar’s courtship ritual with the She-Devil.”
Sauron—not in the video—starts mashing buttons feverishly. Octavius grimaces.
“Never before has this unique mating behavior been documented to be released to the general… oh. Oh balls.”
The choppy audio picks up the far-off bellows of a woman, then those of a man. The camera view is shown shuffling for a moment, when a wooden spear embeds itself in the muck, inches from the lens. The visuals blur, and flapping can be heard. Then a very deep, feline snarl. Then a girlish yawp from Sauron. The last image is of two rows of pure-white incisors, when present-day Sauron finally locates the fast-forward feature.
The rain still beats down while the tape zips along.
“I was feeling silly.”
“You are detestable.”
“Yes, well… never let it be said that Sauron, Master of Malice, was too much the Boy Scout!” the villain recovers. “NOW, see here…”
The video plays at regular speed, and one of Sauron’s hands is seen clutching a mason jar, turning it over to agitate the sizable arachnid it houses. The creature has an atypically vibrant exoskeleton, and repeatedly attacks the glass at the slightest upset of its prison. The chuckling of both Saurons harmonizes.
“Before stowing aboard a ship braving the Drake Passage, I stowed with me a deadly specimen: One of many ready-made weapons housed by the Savage Land,” Sauron explains proudly. “Aggressive on her best days, and positively bloodthirsty when she’s carrying her young.”
A zoom-in showcases scores of fibrous pouches speckle the animal’s abdomen.
“My plan was direct. Elegant. No extraneous moving parts… so to speak.”
The perspective cuts to Sauron’s feet lighting on the uppermost ledge of an apartment building.
Octavius shoves past Sauron to absorb every pixel on the monitor. “This is where he lives? Where is this??”
Sauron ignores him. “The first snag came up before I even began. Spider-Man somehow saw me coming.”
Doctor Octopus’ concentration on identifying any landmarks on the skyline is broken. He squints at Sauron, almost disgusted. “That’s half of his act: Sensing things. I’m sorry, how many times did you say you actually fought-“
“Watcha doin’ up here, bud? Migration been rough this year?”
Sauron rack-focused to Spider-Man, on the adjacent ledge.
“Orchestrating your demise, morsel. You and I have a dinner engagement.”
Sauron smiles approvingly at his own delivery in the video. “I had that one written beforehand.”
Spider-Man tilted his head. “Oh hey, you’re recording this? Hi future-me, who’s going to be looking at this and finding all of bird-man’s embarrassing shower karaoke.”
“Lord above, he doesn’t shut up for anyone,” Octavius mutters.
The screen rocks from Sauron hobbling to a ventilation duct. “Mock your doom. Mock Sauron the Unspeakable! But YOU will be the one caught in a web this time.”
Sauron brandished the jar containing his spider.
“Awww…” Spider-Man cooed at it, wiggling a finger playfully. “Here’s the thing: I don’t have your Ring of Power or whatever you’re here for, but I’m going to have to insist you round up any and all Shelobs you have on your person and hit the road. I’m telling you, they’ve got a serious policy about pets, the guy two doors down from me had to have a friend look after his chinchilla for-“
“Quit your drivel! I am antagonizing you!”
“-of course Ms. Rasmussen has an emotional-support dog, that’s really the only exception! Hey! If your spiders help you detect low blood-sugar, you may be able to convince the landlord-“
“Enough!” Sauron crowed. His wicked smile could practically be heard through the recording. “They’re waking up.”
“That’s ominous,” Spider-Man decided. “‘kay I’ll take that now.”
The vigilante’s web-shooters both fired; the left, snaring the spider’s glass, and the right tangling around Sauron’s wing, and part of the camera’s lens. Before Spider-Man could reel in his catch, Sauron coughed up a fiery jet that snapped the sticky band leading to the jar, then dashed the vessel straight through the grating of the duct beside him.
The eyes on Spider-Man’s mask enlarged. “Oh god!”
He sprang after the lost jar, but the camera swirls and Sauron’s great wingspan blindsided the hero back onto the gravel at the far end of the roof. Sauron jabbed through the remaining webbing as his adversary rolled upright. Spider-Man didn’t try for the vent again; he flipped over the ledge, calling,
“Storks are really supposed to deliver babies wrapped in blankets! Just sayin’!”
Sauron pursued, capturing the image of Spider-Man swinging himself through a window two stories below.
“This,” Octavius commentates, “is not… entirely uninspired. Having him chase thousands of tiny tasks with minds of their own…”
“… so that he’s too distracted and tired to stop my killing stroke,” Sauron finishes.
The escapade carried on with Sauron peaking into the apartment. Spider-Man had interrupted a family of four’s board game.
“I’m real sorry but I need you to call the hospital,” he appealed to the parents, “tell them there might be a whole bunch of people with venomous spider bites at this location! You need to help me get everyone… where’s all the vents in-“
A clump of infant spiders dropped out of the hallway air conditioning system and spread like water across the wood flooring. The family screamed, and Spider-Man yanked a bookcase off the wall to spin one-hundred-and-eighty degrees on its corner and flatten the horde. He then webbed over the vent.
“REALLY sorry,” he apologized again. “Please go, bang on doors, and don’t let these things get on you!”
Spider-Man perked up as if he heard something, and immediately launched through the front door. Sauron clambered inside, trailing the family as they too exited. From the apartment entryway, the mic picked up Spider-Man’s cries for the building to be evacuated. Bouncing from one room to the next, he would pound on and occasionally break open the door in order to block off the endless invasion of hatchlings. Soon after multiple tenants had become wise to the situation, the fire alarm was activated.
Sauron kept his distance all the while, observing Spider-Man’s fatigue from his unabating alertness. The hero traversed the walls; back and forth he sped, several minutes into fighting the disaster and only just now moving on to clear the next floor of danger. Back and forth, for all the good he could do. His shouts had grown hoarse. Back and forth.
“EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET OUT! … -J’s going to burn me at the stake when this story makes the ne… ‘-ider-Man unleashes minions on unsuspecting families!’… -lding that dumb coffee mug, and using that voice, too!”
Doctor Octopus appears bored with the uncut footage. “Let’s cut to the chase, yes?”
“This… is the chase… Oh, very well,” Sauron begrudgingly conforms, realizing Octavius’ limbs are poising threateningly.
The tape skips, and Spider-Man—defending a male resident—is facing a kitchen teeming with the newborn killers. Sauron had been gradually encroaching on his prey as the exertion took its toll on the web-slinger’s faculties, and had now barged through the home’s entrance, meters away.
To make an example, the monstrous hybrid roasted some of the furnishing to his left, then pointed the camera back to Spider-Man.
“Are you quite through?”
“Running late, dear,” Spider-Man shot back unenthusiastically.
He bumped the civilian out the window to their backs, hastily calculating and fastening to the poor man a web that would rappel him to the street. The hero salvaged his own fall with three fingertips on the sill, shifting his momentum with a kick that would send him into the next apartment over. Sauron, anticipating the maneuver, crossed his room with a combative glide and ripped down the dividing wall, right onto the arriving Spider-Man, who was pummeled by insulation, a metal stud and a full china cabinet.
Sauron put the heat on his opponent by slicing his shin. Spider-Man retaliated with more webbing, but his larger rival shielding himself with the backs of his wings, then subsequently pulled the young man—and his left-hand web-shooter—into his waiting beak, which wedged into the gadget, rendering it inoperative. This was followed up by a stab to the do-gooder’s abdomen, pinning him to the carpet for agonizing seconds. The villain then gripped Spider-Man by the throat, a portion of which was no longer even negligibly protected by red and blue spandex, due to a tear. The captive choked and flailed. As his very life-force was being stripped, Sauron relished his prize off-camera.
“Ah. As good as I remembered.”
Spider-Man built up some vitality, and cracked him over the jaw. Sauron’s taloned foot put the second web-shooter out of the fight.
“Rest now,” Sauron chided. “Rest. It’s possible you saved them all; isn’t that a lovely thought? And you can always hope the first-responders are prepared. The spider’s toxicity is of a most exotic variety, however…”
Spider-Man’s words were strangled. “You endangered all these people… AAUGH… to get to me. Big…”
One hand tore free from Sauron’s trap,
“BIG”
and then the other.
“Mistake,” he said ferociously, as though possessed by an unrevealed, primal side of himself.
He took Sauron’s webbed wings in each fist, shredding palm-sized sheets out of them. Now it was Sauron who screamed. The image quakes violently from a wild blast of fire. The screen then goes blue.
The sauna is again silent; even the rain has moved on. Sauron hangs his head.
Octavius starts at the blank display, feeling cheated. “Well?”
“I fled! Time had run out, and there was no leeway in my plan for trading blows. It was only for his incomplete commitment to rescuing the building that the Spider-Man gave me up.”
Sauron hits “Eject”.
“I failed to factor in that his concern for bystanders might be as emboldening, as much as detrimental, to him.”
“There is much to repurpose with this course of action. Your efforts are commendable,” Octavius praises, but seems perturbed. “… In all my years, trying to best him, I’ve never seen him use his adhesion so… ruthlessly.
“It wasn’t that alone,” Sauron corrects. “It burned. Enough to undermine my own hold. These mutants, they’re full of such surprises. Tricky little devils.”
Octavius’ demeanor is made irritable in an instant. “No… now this has been avoided far too long: Your obsession with the mutants. You mean to tell me you’ve thought Spider-Man is one of their kind??”
“Naturally. They worked side-by-side in the Savage Land-“
Octavius’ upper-right tentacle squeaks as a pained rodent would. The doctor’s face nearly glows red. “Know-nothing! … inept layman! You almost killed the Spider-Man, robbing the rest of us... when you have no quarrel with him?!”
“Do not try to disillusion me, Octopus!” Sauron rebukes. “You wish to get rid of me, but recycle my genius! Spider-Man is one of the Brotherhood, and I-“
“He is neither an X-Man nor part of that supremacist cabal… THOSE are separate entities too, you might be interested to learn!” growls Octavius, pacing as he does so. “They wear uniforms and start wars! Spider-Man helps old ladies with their grocery bags and throws the same three puns at you when you happen to be given the name ‘Octopus’ by the news!”
The gears turn in Sauron’s brain. “… I would… still very much like to feast on his energies…”
Octavius roars, hurling a magazine rack. “You’ve been cutting in on our vendetta… the TRUE foes of Spider-Man! How could you be so blinded to the obvious? What did the Brotherhood do to you warrant this utter lapse in reasoning??”
Sauron squirms, like a child caught fibbing. “Nothing. Nothing of-“
“WHAT, you boob?!” Octavius demands.
“They killed my wife!”
…
“They wanted my power, and they used me to kill my… my Tanya. Oh…”
Sauron burrows into the waiting room’s sofa, weeping.
Knee-deep in the exceedingly awkward interlude, Otto Octavius finds himself whisked into the past: An unprecedented, reflective condition for him, since having chosen this sinister path. A fateful day pierces the villain’s psyche. A particular laugh embraces a small, brackish heart, confronting him with a name he had hoped yet hated to drown.
“Mary.”
Sauron slurps up some snot. “Who?”
Octavius’ resentment of Sauron transitions to momentary pity. Pity, to envy. Envy, right back to resentment.
Octavius stares down at him. “Maybe there’s less distinction between you and Lykos than you’d care to admit, or maybe there never was a distinction. Whatever the case, whichever of you is in there, I’m speaking to a lovesick idiot! And your wife lies dead, waiting for you, still!”
“I-I don’t…”
“YOU SHOULD FEEL BLESSED! Having faces to put to the injustice! That she wasn’t taken from you by an accident, and all you have left is an abyss to yell into! You have the opportunity to exact your pound of flesh! Find the ones that wronged you… Get it RIGHT this time, and end them! Let your wife rest!”
“You…” Sauron sits up. “You should really see someone about these types of things.”
Octavius gnashes his teeth, and stomps toward the VCR player.
“What are you doing?”
“Collecting my compensation!” Octavius jiggles the device, unsure of how to dislodge the halfway-expelled cassette. “If you insist on being a useless dolt, I will use this tape to extract any and all clues to Spider-Man’s identity!”
Sauron dives for the tape, snatching it away and defensively backing into a potted fern. “No! My home movies are on there too!”
“Out of my way!”
Sauron’s mouth glows like a forge. “Never!”
Octavius curses in frustration. Weighing the odds, he gives it up and storms off once more through the parking lot.
Sauron peeks out from the business’ entrance. “W-where are you going?”
“To rethink EVERYTHING to do with how I will find competent applicants! Never, I repeat, NEVER contact me. And I do mean ‘ever’!”
The doctor’s lower-right tentacle waves a goodbye to Sauron. Octavius keeps grumbling, well out of earshot of his bane.
“Four hours walking through sewers… for this. Never again. They’ll come to me. I’m in charge. A nice office to work from… yes…”
***
“Aaaaalllright, so you’ve got your account’s password, bio, all of that how you want it?”
“I believe so,” Sauron acknowledges, nibbling on a claw.
“Great! You can click the ‘Complete’ button; it’ll be green,” Screwball instructs over the video chat.
Sauron complies. “… There are little hearts raining down.”
“That should mean you’re all set, let me refresh. Ooh, sweet PFP my guy!”
The icon shows Sauron lounging in a wingback chair, with a derby hat precariously positioned on his crest.
“Oh, yes, well-“ Sauron blushes.
“On. Fleek.”
“I really should repay you in some way,” maintains Sauron.
“Listen, you hold onto Spider-Boy’s real name for me if I’m ever hurting for views, and that’s payment enough.”
Sauron glances over his desk to at a folded Daily Bugle newspaper, preserved from years past: The last piece he had needed, to the puzzle of the person behind Spider-Man’s mask. In an undeservedly small article, abruptly detailed is an expedition, taken by the socialite Warren Washington III, into the mystifying, Antarctic region dubbed “the Savage Land”. As photographed, accompanying Washington had been the column’s own author: An unassuming journalist named Peter Parker. His was the face Lykos had seen appear on the monster that he stopped all that time ago, just before Lykos himself had become another monster needing to be cured.
“Certainly, but,” Sauron taps his mousepad, evaluating. “you’re sure you wouldn’t like me to put in a word for you with this alliance Octopus is convening?”
Screwball sticks her tongue out. “They’re way too mainstream, my audience would think I’m getting desperate. But hey, if you ever get back into a crime kick, I could always use a camera with wings!”
“My leave from supervillainy will be… quite extended. Recent events have caused me to, well, reconsider where I may find fulfillment.”
“C’est la vie. Caaatch you later, dino-dude!”
Screwball’s feed closes out.
“They’re not dinosaurs…” Sauron protests, but returns to his new media platform.
“A match, already? … ’madamedracheXO : 33, mutant : Self-made entrepreneur : Flexible with long-distance relationships, fire-breathing is big plus.’ Hmm.”
***
~ DOCTOR OCTOPUS’ nefarious exploits will return in INTERVIEW WITH AN OCTOPUS: BLACK CAT! ~
Mission Log # 11 – Second Planetary Survey of Ingemar
Star Date: 2551.06.10 11:00 hrs
The mission commenced at Resilient Base Briefing Room with the following crew present:
• Fazzy Constantine
• T5 “Tinman”
• Chastian Necrosa
• Noah Constantine
• Bansealgair
• Eric Regulus
The mission parameters were clear and simple:
1) Continue the investigation of the base discovered on Ingemar, which was evidently
abandoned by a group who were known to be collectors and concealers of large life forms.
2) Determine the age and function of the clearly older – and now submerged -- habitations
discovered on the first survey.
The team departed Resilient aboard the upgraded Kodiak and proceeded to the landing pad
on Ingemar. The flight was completed without incident, and the crew, consisting of all but
Tinman, departed the Kodiak for the base interior. They proceeded to the moon pool, where
the team appropriated one of the submarines discovered on the prior mission. The intent was
to better explore the submerged portions of the complex surrounding the base, using the probe
deposited on the last mission as a guidance beacon.
Upon submerging, it was clear that a much
holder habitation had been built, and given its configuration and construction, it was built with
the intent to be underwater. Brass-and-rivet beams around large panels of quarter-meter silica
glass were configured into at least two habitations, with what appeared to be a Jeffries tube
connecting them.
Much of the complex appears to be underground, but the submarine was not
equipped with scanning technology beyond SONAR. This would require more extensive
inspection, likely with EVA.
Aside from the underwater habitat, several other geological formations were encountered
including two caves, and at least two abyssal trenches. Life forms were encountered including
jellyfish, rays, tube worms, coral, and various marine flora. One configuration of coral appeared
to have several orbs embedded into it, similar to the ones recovered from Jasper McFudd, and
housed in the laboratory on Resilient. It was at this point that the survey took something of a
turn.
The submarine experienced a number of mechanical failures, with loss of propulsion and
buoyancy control. No cause could be identified within the submarine’s systems, but Bansealgair and Commander Constantine both felt a large presence nearby. At this point,
Chastian activated some portable shield generators to protect the crew. The submarine was
disabled, and oxygen and power supplies were running short. A moment later, from one of the
abyssal trenches in the sea floor, emerged a leviathan. Following a brief but loose collective
bowel movement from the crew, communication was commenced with the gargantuan
intelligence. The leviathan communicated. Listed below is the collection of remarks made:
• Humans. I know your kind. And you. Empath. You are in the wrong place. You cannot
begin to fathom our very existence.
• Impossible to leave now. You are under my serving. My servants, Thralled to control as I
please.
• Those orbs. Are my windows to the galaxy. I have watched your arrival. Your departures.
You fumble in the dark like small creatures. With each passing moment, you have no
doubt become experienced.
• [After the Commander requested assistance with our disabled submarine] My help?
There's nothing I can do for you.
• [After the Commander advises that the leviathan’s “brothers are still alive.”]
Impossible. There is...wait. It cannot be. You bear the insignia of the Shepard.
• I realize you have more orbs in the dwelling in space you call home...but my kind is
alive? We were the apex race. We will be once again.
• Very well. I will let you go. If you fight my creations...then you have my support. But I
am only doing this to see my brothers once more.
At this point, the leviathan receded into the abyss, with power and control of the submarine
returning quickly thereafter. The crew performed an emergency ballast blow, and surfaced
immediately. Once at the surface, the top hatch was opened and the crew had breathable
atmosphere. The vehicle, now depleted of battery energy, was abandoned and the crew swam
for the generator-level pad at the base, then ascended to the landing pad where Kodiak was
boarded for the return to Resilient Base.
Other Conclusions:
• The orbs recovered from Jasper McFudd appear to be palantíri, seeing stones, that allow
one to observe the activities surrounding all of the other stones. This was likely how the
leviathan was able to observe our actions. The orbs were destroyed, along with the
fume hood that housed them.
• Orbs or not, we are likely under the surveillance and possibly the control, of the
leviathan. It cannot be ruled out that this leviathan was behind our movements from
Idun, to Baldur, and the voyage to Tyr. The signals we have received from these various
destinations all may have the same creature as the origin.
• A return mission to explore the habitation carries additional risk of the leviathan
changing its mind.• There is an increasing probability that we may have to demonstrate our commitment to
“fight” the leviathan’s “creations” to remain free of the leviathan’s influence on the
team and to maintain its “support.”
Casualties: Two – Commander Constantine and Engineer Necrosa both suffered anterior
epistaxis. Paroxysmal cephalgia was reported by other crew members, but self-corrected.
Damage: None
• The submarine will need to be towed and/or recharged, but it is undamaged.
Follow-on Actions:
• More extensive review of the signals received from Tyr, Ingemar and elsewhere for
consistency and possible common origin.
• Increase telemetry with the undersea probe.
• Finish repairs to the fume hood in the laboratory.
• Library Computer research on leviathan history is indicated.
"A stop at Starbucks in Morristown is an opportunity to grab some caffeine and a crumbly cake and ogle the bike - and I’m not the only one ogling. Strangers walk by and rubberneck like they’ve just seen a supermodel. There’s no doubt that the bike has curb appeal, but the beauty is more than fairing panel deep. The Mille is filled with beautiful, thoughtful details that literally take 10 minutes to absorb - there’s so much eye candy. The twin spar frame and the twin-banana swing arm are more than simple engineering exercises – they are pieces of sculpture. The organic mirrors with turn signals and sleek tailpiece exude a sophisticated, effortless style. Despite the great strides the Japanese manufacturers have recently taken in motorcycle design, they can still learn a thing or two from the likes of MV Agusta, Ducati, and now Aprilia.
In town the bike is begrudgingly obedient - it is clearly not in its element. Mind you, it doesn’t do anything wrong like overheat or fry the clutch, but the things that make sense on the open road - the aggressive riding position, the firm suspension, etc... - just don’t make sense in the urban jungle. And like most sportbikes, a hot day and slow traffic will make you intimately familiar with where heat from the engine leaks out of the fairing. I once owned a bike that roasted my right ankle; on the Mille, the heat comes up through the seat. It’s not enough to sterilize you...at least I hope not...
It’s out on the highway where the Mille begins to stretch its paws and hit its stride. It’s more than capable of punching up big numbers on the digital speedo with just a slight twist of the wrist. While 5,000 RPM in top gear will get you to 82MPH, a meager 500 more RPM will quickly thrust you to 90+MPH and serious See-You-In-Court velocities. High speed sweepers are dispatched with effortless ease. In fact, one exit ramp was attacked at a much higher than posted speed, and the Mille clearly enjoyed it. As I rolled on the throttle through the apex, the bike settled firmly onto its suspension and powered through so effortlessly that I was sure that the bike was capable of taking this turn much much much faster. This was the one moment all day where the bike felt truly in its element."
- from my first published motorcycle review. I liked the bike so much that I bought it LOL! Design by Martin Longmore, the same Scottish bloke that designed the original, seminal, quintessential Audi TT.
[The HDR work of some Flickrers has inspired me to experiment with it myself...]
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
It's a quarter past eight and Lettice is still happily asleep in her bed, buried beneath a thick and soft counterpane of embroidered oriental satin brocade, whilst the rest of Mayfair is slowly awakening in the houses and flats around her. Her peaceful slumbers are rudely interrupted by a peremptory knock on her boudoir door.
“Morning Miss.” Edith, Lettice’s maid, says brightly as she pops her head around the white painted panelled door as she opens it.
Lettice groans – a most unladylike reaction – as she starts to wake up, disorientated, wondering for just a moment where she is before realising that she is in her own bed in Cavendish Mews. Raising her head she groans and winces as Edith draws the curtains back along their railing, flooding the room with a light, which whilst anaemic, is still painful to her eyes as the adjust.
“It’s looking a little overcast this morning, Miss.” the maid says brightly. “But this is England, the home of changeable weather,” She walks back across her mistress’ boudoir, lifts the upholstered lid on a wicker laundry basket just inside the bathroom door and deposits Lettice’s lacy undergarments and stockings, swept expertly by her from the floor, into it. “So, who knows what today’s mixed bag may hold.” She emerges and goes to one of Lettice’s polished wardrobes where she withdraws a pale pink bed jacket trimmed in marabou feathers from its wooden hanger.
Lettice groans again as she stretches and leans forward, whilst Edith hangs the bed jacket over her shoulders and fluffs up Lettice’s pillows. “How can you be so cheerful at this ungodly time of the morning, Edith?”
“Practice.” Edith replies matter-of-factly, rolling her eyes to the white plaster ceiling above. “Up you come, Miss.” she says encouragingly. “That’s it.”
As Lettice arranges herself in a sitting position, leaning against the pillows, Edith goes back to the open bedroom door and disappears momentarily into the hallway before returning with Lettice’s breakfast tray.
Prodding and plucking her pillows behind her to her satisfaction, Lettice nestles into her nest as she sits up properly in bed and allows her maid to place the tray across her lap. She looks down approvingly at the slice of golden toast in the middle of the pretty floral plate, the egg in the matching egg cup and the pot of tea with steam rising from the spout. She goes to lift the lid of the silver preserve pot.
“Damson preserve from Glynes, Miss.” Edith elucidates.
“Jolly good, Edith.” Lettice takes up a spoon and begins to dollop the rich gelatinous dark damson preserve onto her slice of toast. “I’m glad I pinched a few jars from Mater and Pater last time I went back to Wiltshire in spite of Mrs. Casterton’s protestations. I’m still His Lordship’s daughter, even if I don’t live at Glynes any more.”
“I imagine you upset her housekeeping records with your pinching, Miss.”
“Oh fie Mrs. Casterton’s records!” Lettice admonishes her parent’s long time housekeeper. She takes the knife and spreads the thick layer across the toast before cutting the slice in half with crunching strokes. Picking up a slice, she takes a dainty mouthful, closing her eyes in delight as she allows the rich fruity flavour of the damsons to reach her tastebuds. “Oh! Sheer bliss!” Depositing the bitten slice black on her plate, she rubs her index and middle fingers against her thumb to get rid of any cloying crumbs. “Any post yet, Edith?”
“Well, there is something which came via a delivery boy from Southwark Street* this morning, which I think might take your interest, Miss.”
“Southwark Street?” Lettice ponders as Edith walks the length of her mistress’ bedroom back to the open door. “I know that name. Why? Southwark Street… Southwark Street…” And then she realises why.
Lettice looks down the length of the room with suddenly wide and alert eyes, expectantly, to where Edith holds up a copy of Country Life** in the doorway. She gasps. “Oh hoorah! Bring it here this instant, Edith!” She holds out her arms, twiddling her fingers anxiously.
“Yes Miss.” Edith bobs a curtsey and brings the crisp magazine to her mistress’ bedside.
“Have you read it yet, Edith?”
“Miss!” Edith gasps, colour filling her cheeks at Lettice’s suggestion. “As if I would.”
Lettice gives her a doubtful stare making her maid blush even more. “So, you did then.” She shakes out the magazine which elicits the crisp crumple of fresh paper.
“Page eighteen, Miss.” Edith confirms with a smirk.
“Well, this changes my plans for the day then, Edith.” Lettice opines brightly as she takes up her bitten triangle of toast.
“Miss?” Edith queries.
“I was going to stay at home today, but I’ll have to pay a call on Gerald, and darling Margot en route back from Grosvenor Square.” She opens up the copy of Country life and hurriedly flips to page eighteen. “Can you pick me out something seasonably suitable.”
“Yes Miss.” Edith says, dropping a quick bob curtsey and walking into Lettice’s adjoining dressing room.
“What’s the weather like out there today?” Lettice asks before taking a bite of toast with a sigh and settling back into her fluffed pillow, preparing to read.
“As I said before, cloudy, I’m afraid, Miss. The forecast in the papers*** this morning say that it might rain this afternoon.”
“Typical,” Lettice sighs as she looks at the photos of the newly decorated Pagoda Room at Arkwright Bury captured in the Country Life photographer’s lens. “The day I have to go out, it decides to rain.
“Your Burberry****, then Miss?” Edith asks, popping her head around the door.
“Hhhmmm” Lettice purrs approvingly. “Very wise, Perhaps something neutral, say eau-de-nil, to go underneath, to suit it then.”
“Yes Miss!” Edith disappears into the dressing room again.
“Now, let’s see what my dear Mr. Tipping***** has to say about me this time.”
As Lettice glances towards the columns of elegant typeface her mind is carried back to the day she was let into Arkwright Bury by Mr. and Mrs. Gifford’s housekeeper, Mrs. Beaven to await the return of the owners of the Wiltshire house after their seaside holiday to Bournemouth.
Mr. Gifford’s uncle, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes was the one who set the wheels in motion for Lettice to visit Arkwright Bury and his nephew, Mr. Alisdair Gifford. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John is still a bachelor, and according to London society gossip intends to remain so, so that he might continue to enjoy his dalliances with a string of pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a time when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Luckily Selwyn Spencely, the handsome eldest son of the Duke of Walmsford, rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington, a baronial Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. As she was leaving to return to London on the Monday, Sir John approached her and asked if she might meet with his nephew, Mr. Gifford, as he wished to have a room in his Wiltshire house, Arkwright Bury, redecorated as a surprise for his Australian wife Adelina, who collects blue and white porcelain but as of that time had no place identified to display it at Arkwright Bury. Lettice arranged a discreet meeting with Mr. Gifford at Cavendish Mews to discuss matters with him, and was then invited to luncheon with the Giffords at Arkwright Bury under the ruse that she, as an acquaintance of the Giffords with her interest in interior design, had come for a tour of the partially redecorated house. She agreed to take on the job of redecorating the room using a facsimile print of the original papers hanging in what was then called the ‘Pagoda Room’ before an 1870s fire, reproduced by Jeffrey and Company******. In spite of her concerns that Mrs. Gifford might not appreciate Lettice decorating a room in the home she herself was decorating, Mr. Gifford persuaded her to take the commission with the sweetener that his godfather, the Architectural Editor of Country Life, Henry Tipping, would write a favourable review of her interior decoration, thus promoting her work and capabilities as a society interior designer.
Lettice took advantage of a window of opportunity provided with the Giffords taking a short seaside holiday in Bournemouth, arranging for her professional paper hangers from London to visit Arkwright Bury and hang the small quantity of wallpaper produced from a sketch done by Lettice. She then hired several of her father’s agricultural labourers from the Glynes estate for the day, to carefully move furniture intended for use in the room into place and unpack the many boxes of Mrs. Gifford’s collection, carefully laying the pieces out so that Lettice could then arrange them all in what she hoped would be a pleasing manner to Mrs. Gifford’s own aesthetic eye.
Lettice remembers sitting in the light filled drawing room of Arkwright Bury, decorated in traditional country house style with lots of chintz coverings, much to Lettice’s displeasure with her preference for more modern patterns. Sitting in a pool of light cast through the large bay window of the drawing room she heard the clunk and splutter of the Giffords’ motor long before she saw it perambulate up the gravel driveway, and her heart began race. She worried that Mrs. Gifford, with her own very definite taste in interior design, would dislike what she had been commissioned to do, and her heartrate increased as the car pulled up before the front doors, and beat still faster as the pair walked through the drawing room door.
“Why Miss Chetwynd!” Mrs. Gifford exclaimed awkwardly. “We weren’t expecting you.”
As she flew into a fluster, half apologising for missing an engagement she forgot that she even had with Lettice, and half making sure that Mrs. Beavan had taken care of her in she and her husband’s absence, Mr. Gifford tried to calm her.
“There, there, Adelina.” he soothed. “You weren’t expecting Miss Chetwynd. However, I was.”
“Oh Alisdair!” she chided him. “That’s just as bad!” She turned to Lettice, standing uncomfortably in front of one of Mrs. Gifford’s pink chintz sofas, trying not to watch the drama unfolding before her. “Miss Chetwynd, I must apologise for my husband’s forgetfulness. If he’s told me, I would have made sure we left Bournemouth earlier than we did.” She turned back to her husband. “And you were the one who told me that I had plenty of time to shop in Burton’s***** in The Square******, when all this time you knew Miss Chetwynd would be here, awaiting us, Alisdair! Really! You must really think me an uncouth little colonial, Miss Chetwynd.”
“It’s quite alright, Mrs. Gifford.” Lettice assured her with an anxious chuckle, putting out her arms, clad in the mulberry knit of her cardigan, to calm the excitable antipodean.
“Calm yourself Adelina.” her husband purred. “Miss Chetwynd is here on my bidding, my dear. She is part of your surprise that I told you about on the motor home from Dorset.”
“What?” Mrs. Gifford asked, her anxious gesticulating suddenly ceasing.
“I asked Miss Chetwynd here today because she has helped create the wonderful surprise for you.” Mr. Gifford explained. “It’s capital to have you here, Miss Chetwynd. Capital!”
“Mr. Gifford.” Lettice acknowledged the young man with a curt nod.
“I think, since it was your doing, you should lead the way.” Mr. Gifford went on.
“Miss Chetwynd’s work?” Mrs. Gifford asked anxiously, her eyes suddenly growing dark as she eyed Lettice. “What has she done, Alisdair?”
“Your husband commissioned me to do some work for you, Mrs. Gifford.” Lettice explained hurriedly, her stomach already starting to curdle, as she tried to shift any potential blame from herself and onto Mr. Gifford.
“Alisdair?” Mrs. Gifford snapped, thrusting her husband’s cloying hands away irritably as she turned her steely gaze to him. “Is this true? What have you commissioned Miss Chetwynd to do?”
“Just a little something for you as a treat, my dear.” he assured her with his usual, genial smile. “A way of saying thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into redecorating our new home since we inherited it.”
“Work that obviously is not up to standard, if you felt it necessary to go and engage the services of Miss Chetwynd, Alisdair!” Mrs. Gifford snapped.
“Nonsense, Adelina!” Mr. Gifford assured her.
“I did express my concerns about taking on this commission, Mrs. Gifford,” Lettice defended. “I was worried that you wouldn’t appreciate me interloping into your interior designs. But your husband was quite insistent.”
“Oh yes,” she replied, her mouth a narrow and bloodless line across her face. “Alisdair always wears people down when he wants his way, Miss Chetwynd. It’s quite alright. I shall lay the blame for whatever has transpired directly at your feet, Alisdair.”
“If you dislike it, my dear.” Mr. Gifford countered, a gentle and patient smile on his face, as he accepted any bitterness directed to him by his wife, as though a seasoned expert in how to manage her tirades. “You don’t even know what Miss Chetwynd has done yet.”
“Well,” she replied begrudgingly. “Perhaps you’d better show me.”
“Yes, do lead the way, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr. Gifford said blithely, waving his hand in a flourishing way toward the door leading out of the Arkwright Bury drawing room and into the hallway.
With her anxiety growing, souring her stomach, Lettice did as she was bid, and led the disgruntled Mrs. Gifford, face black as thunder, up the main central staircase of the house, with Mr. Gifford dancing with excitement and delight around the pair of them, like a little boy on Christmas Day about to open his presents, stating over and over “Capital, Miss Chetwynd! Capital!”, until finally they arrived before the door of what had been the sad and neglected study of Mr. Gifford’s deceased older brother, Cuthbert.
Reluctantly Lettice stopped before the door of the study and took a deep breath before opening it and ushering Mr. and Mrs. Gifford in with a sweeping gesture. She held her breath and closed her eyes tightly, awaiting Mrs. Gifford’s angry or acerbic remarks about the room she had so lovingly designed and pieced together with all good intentions behind her back. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and followed the Giffords into the newly created and reimagined Pagoda Room.
Lettice glanced lovingly around the small room, which was now completely transformed from what had been Cuthbert’s neglected former study. With the old, heavy curtains removed from the large sash windows and replaced with lighter and less obtrusive ones, the room was flooded with sunshine. The light bounced off the stylised Eighteenth Century orientally inspired wallpaper designs she had so lovingly recreated in green and blue, the antique Wiltshire made ladderback chairs Lettice selected from those stored in one of Arkwright Bury’s outbuildings, Mrs. Gifford’s beautiful marquetry loo table in the centre of the room, and of course, her wonderful collection of blue and white china.
“I’m sorry Mrs. Gifford,” Lettice began as the woman gasped, but she was silenced by Mrs. Gifford who held up her hand to stop Lettice’s protestations.
“Miss Chetwynd! What you have created,” Mrs. Gifford began “It’s… it’s wonderful!” she enthused. “It’s far more than I had ever envisaged for this room. I… I was going to put up a few shelves because I simply no longer had the energy, or the vision for this room after redecorating the house.”
“See,” Mr. Gifford said tenderly. “I told you that you deserved a gift of thanks after all that you have done here, Adelina.”
“Well, I can’t thank you enough, both of you.” Mrs. Gifford replied. “Now I see what a poor home for my collection a few shelves would have been. Miss Chetwynd, you have turned this neglected and forgotten room into a showcase for my collection. How can I ever thank you?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry too much about that, Adelina my dear!” Mr. Gifford piped up with a smile. “Miss Chetwynd’s reward will be a favourable review written by my godfather in Country Life.”
Sitting in her bed, Lettice now skims the article, delighted by Henry Tipping’s enthusiastic review of The Pagoda Room, calling it a ‘tasteful and sympathetic remodelling and reimagination of what might have been’ and ‘an elegant restoration of a forgotten corner of Arkwright Bury, transforming it into a stylish showpiece of interior design’. She sighs as she glances at the photographs filling the page, highlighting the paper hangings and the pieces Lettice carefully arranges about the room.
“Oh, I almost forgot, Miss.” Edith interrupts Lettice’s silent reveries abruptly.
“Forgot what, Edith?” Lettice queries.
“This, Miss.” Edith withdraws an envelope of creamy white with Lettice’s name and Cavendish Mews address written on the front in elegant copperplate.
Lettice accepts the correspondence from her apologetic maid. She turns the envelope over in her hands with interest, admiring the thickness and quality.
“It looks rather posh********, Miss.” Edith remarks. “Perhaps it’s from the palace: an Invitation from The King.”
Lettice laughs lightly. “Oh Edith! If an invitation came from the palace, it would have been hand delivered. No.” She puzzles over the envelope. “There is no return address. I wonder what it could be.” She holds it up to the morning light futilely, since the envelope is too think to give away an secrets inside.
“Best you open it then, Miss.” Edith suggests hopefully.
“You’re quite right, Edith.” Lettice laughs.
Lettice slips a finger beneath the lip of the envelope which has only been sealed at its apex, so the glue affixing it gives way easily. Lifting the flap of the envelope, she withdraws a gilt edged card, and suddenly all the happiness and joy she had felt a moment before dissipated, just as the colour drained from her face. Her smile fades from her lips as she reads.
“Bad news, Miss?” Edith asks, noticing how sad Lettice suddenly is. “Is it a funeral?”
“No – worse. It’s an invitation to afternoon tea.” Lettice replies glumly, her dainty fingers squeezing the edges of the card.
“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad, Miss. An invitation to tea is lovely!”
“You don’t know who it’s from.” Lettice remarks as she hands the card to her maid.
Edith looks down upon the card which has an address in Park Lane********* and reads aloud what is written in the same elegant copperplate as appears on the front of the envelope, “Dear Miss Chetwynd, I request your attendance for afternoon tea at four o’clock next Thursday at the above address, when I shall be at home.” Her voice trails off as she sees the signatory. She looks up at her mistress, who now has tears in her eyes and is as white as the pillows at her back. “Lady Zinnia!”
*Southwark Street is a major street in Bankside in the London Borough of Southwark, in London, just south of the River Thames. It runs between Blackfriars Road to the west and Borough High Street to the east. It also connects the access routes for London Bridge, Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge. At the eastern end to the north is Borough Market. The magazine Country Life was based at 110 Southwark Street from its inception in 1897 until March 2016, when moved to Farnborough, Hampshire, before returning to Paddington in 2022.
**Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
***Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy, founder of the UK Met Office, started collating measurements on pressure, temperature, and rainfall from across Great Britain, Ireland, and Europe in 1860. These observations were sent by telegraph cable to London every day where they were used to make a ‘weather forecast’ – a term invented by Fitzroy for this endeavour. After the Royal Charter ship sank in a violent storm in 1859, Fitzroy resolved to collect real-time weather measurements from stations across Britain's telegraph network to make storm warnings. Starting in 1860, observers telegraphed readings to Fitzroy in London who handwrote them onto Daily Weather Report sheets, enabling the first-ever public weather forecasts starting on 1st August 1861 and published daily in The Times newspaper. Fitzroy died by suicide in 1865 shortly after founding the UK Met Office, leaving his life's work trapped undiscovered in archives.
***The quintessential British coat, and now a global fashion icon, the Burberry trench coat was created during the Great War. Burberry trench coats were designed with durability in mind. Post-war, the Burberry became a trench coat that was worn by men and women. It became fashionable in the 1920s when the Burberry check became a registered trademark and was introduced as a lining to all rainwear.
****Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
*****Jeffrey and Company was an English producer of fine wallpapers that operated between 1836 and the mid 1930s. Based at 64 Essex Road in London, the firm worked with a variety of designers who were active in the aesthetic and arts and crafts movements, such as E.W. Godwin, William Morris, and Walter Crane. Jeffrey and Company’s success is often credited to Metford Warner, who became the company’s chief proprietor in 1871. Under his direction the firm became one of the most lucrative and influential wallpaper manufacturers in Europe. The company clarified that wallpaper should not be reserved for use solely in mansions, but should be available for rooms in the homes of the emerging upper-middle class.
******Burton is a British online clothing retailer, former high street retailer and clothing manufacturer, specialising in men's clothing and footwear. The company was founded by Sir Montague Maurice Burton in Chesterfield in 1903 under the name of The Cross-Tailoring Company. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929 by which time it had 400 stores, factories and mills.
*******The Square is where seven roads leading to and from all parts of the borough converge. Although not geographically at the centre of town it is at the heart of what is known as the Town Centre. The seven roads are.....Old Christchurch Rd ,Gervis Place, Exeter Rd, Commercial Rd, Avenue Rd, Bourne Ave and Richmond Hill.
********Over time the slang term posh morphed to mean someone with a lot of money or something that cost a lot of money. Adapted by the British, it came from the Romany language used by the gypsies in which “posh-houri” meant “half-pence.” It became used to denote either a dandy or a coin of small value. There is no evidence to support the folk etymology that posh is formed from the initials of port out starboard home (referring to the more comfortable accommodation, out of the heat of the sun, on ships between England and India).
*********Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from Mayfair to the east. The road was originally a simple country lane on the boundary of Hyde Park, separated by a brick wall. Aristocratic properties appeared during the late 18th century, including Breadalbane House, Somerset House, and Londonderry House. The road grew in popularity during the 19th century after improvements to Hyde Park Corner and more affordable views of the park, which attracted the nouveau riche to the street and led to it becoming one of the most fashionable roads to live on in London. Notable residents included the 1st Duke of Westminster's residence at Grosvenor House, the Dukes of Somerset at Somerset House, and the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli at No. 93. Other historic properties include Dorchester House, Brook House and Dudley House. In the 20th century, Park Lane became well known for its luxury hotels, particularly The Dorchester, completed in 1931, which became closely associated with eminent writers and international film stars. Flats and shops began appearing on the road, including penthouse flats. Several buildings suffered damage during World War II, yet the road still attracted significant development, including the Park Lane Hotel and the London Hilton on Park Lane, and several sports car garages. A number of properties on the road today are owned by some of the wealthiest businessmen from the Middle East and Asia.
This beautifully decorated room may not be quite what you think it is. Whilst I know you feel sure you could pick up a teapot or plate, you may need to consider using tweezers, for this whole scene is made up entirely of 1:12 miniatures from my collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The blue and white china you see throughout the room, sitting on shelves and tables, are sourced from a number of miniature stockists through E-Bay, but mostly from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The gild edged Willow Pattern teapot is a hand painted example of miniature artisan, Rachel Munday’s work. Her pieces are highly valued by miniature collectors for their fine details.
The round loo table, which can be tilted like a real loo table, is an artisan miniature from an unknown maker with a marquetry inlaid top, and also came from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop. So too did the Georgian corner cabinet with its delicate fretwork and glass shelves.
The ladderback chair on the left of the photo is a 1:12 miniature piece I have had since I was a child. The ladderback chair on the right came from a deceased estate of a miniatures collector in Sydney.
The wallpaper is an Eighteenth Century chinoiserie design of pagodas and would have been hand painted in its original form.
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933. 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 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.
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. Having come from a long line of rural gentry, 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:
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.
"The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince 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 Kostromskaya, Moskovskaya, Orlovskya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas". "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.
Ivan Bunin's early childhood, spent in Butyrky Khutor and later in Ozerky (of Yelets county, Lipetskaya Oblast), 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. 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." It was Lyudmila Alexandrovna who introduced her son to the world of Russian folklore. 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."
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 Pleiades, heard a marmot's whistle a verst away, and could get drunk from the smells of landysh or an old book," he remembered later. Bunin's experiences of rural life had a profound impact on his writing. "There, amidst the deep silence of vast fields, among cornfields – or, in winter, huge snowdrifts which were stepping up to our very doorsteps – I spent my childhood which was full of melancholic poetry," Bunin later wrote of his Ozerky days.
Ivan Bunin's first home tutor was an ex-student named Romashkov, whom he later described as a "positively bizarre character," a wanderer full of fascinating stories, "always thought-provoking even if not altogether comprehensible." Later it was university-educated Yuly Bunin (deported home for being a 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. Until 1920 Yuly (who once described Ivan as "undeveloped yet gifted and capable of original independent thought") 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.
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.
Literary career
In May 1887 Bunin published his first 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. 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. 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.
Ivan Bunin's debut book of poetry Poems. 1887–1891 was published in 1891 in Oryol. Some of his articles, essays and short stories, published earlier in local papers, began to feature in the Saint Petersburg periodicals.
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.
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.
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 (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. Tellingly, it was Tolstoy himself who discouraged Bunin from slipping into what he called "total peasantification." Several years later, while still admiring Tolstoy's prose, Bunin changed his views regarding his philosophy which he now saw as utopian.
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, followed a year later by In the Open Air (Под открытым небом, 1898), his second book of verse. 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. In the winter of 1899–1900 he began attending the 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 Zaitsev later remembered. He met Anton Chekov in 1896, and a strong friendship ensued.
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." Even though the book testifies to his association with the Symbolists, primarily Valery Bryusov, 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. Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times." 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. Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.
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 Turgenev, who was a versemaker, first and foremost. Finding the true rhythm of the story was for him the main thing – 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."
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." 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.
In 1902 Znanie started publishing the Complete Bunin series; five volumes appeared by the year 1909. 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. Bunin's works featured regularly in Znanie's literary compilations; beginning with Book I, where "Black Earth" appeared along with several poems, all in all he contributed to 16 books of the series.
In the early 1900s Bunin travelled extensively. He was a close friend of Chekhov and his family and continued visiting them regularly until 1904. The October 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
In October 1909 Bunin received his second Pushkin Prize for Poems 1903–1906 and translations of (Lord Byron's Cain, and parts of Longfellow's The Golden Legend). He was elected a member of the Russian Academy the same year. 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. It was much later that Bunin was proclaimed one of the most innovative Russian writers of the century.
1910–1920
In 1910 Bunin published 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."
"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. 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."
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. In 1912 the 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.
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 to wide acclaim (including high praise from the French poet Rene Ghil). 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, 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 Byron, Tennyson, 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. 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.
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. 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
Bunin and Muromtseva arrived in Paris, 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'", he once said, allegedly, to Merezhkovsky who still cherished hopes for Pilsudsky's military success against the Bolshevik regime.
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.
In France Bunin published many of his pre-revolutionary works and collections of original novellas, regularly contributing to the Russian emigre press. 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 Goncharov and 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) were praised by critics as bringing Russian literature to new heights. 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."
In 1924, he published the "Manifesto of the Russian Emigration", in which he i.a. declared:
There was Russia, 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?
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). 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.
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. 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. In his speech, addressing the Academy, he said:
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.
In France, Bunin found himself, for the first time, at the center of public attention. On 10 November 1933, the Paris newspapers came out with huge headlines: "Bunin — the Nobel Prize laureate" giving the whole of the Russian community in France cause for celebration. "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. Back in the USSR the reaction was negative: Bunin's triumph was explained there as "an imperialist intrigue."
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). 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.
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. 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. In 1937 Bunin finished his book The Liberation of Tolstoy (Освобождение Толстого), held in the highest regard by Leo Tolstoy scholars.
In 1938 Bunin began working on what would later become a celebrated cycle of nostalgic stories with a strong erotic undercurrent and a 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. 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."
The war years
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 passports enabling them to make the trip. But the couple chose to remain in Grasse. 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), 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.
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". A journalist who visited the Villa in 1942 described Bunin as a "skinny and emaciated man, looking like an ancient patrician". 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. 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."
Ivan Bunin was a staunch anti-Nazi, referring to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as "rabid monkeys". He risked his life, sheltering fugitives (including Jews such as the pianist A. Liebermann and his wife) in his house in Grasse after 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 300 metres (980 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".
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." 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." "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.
Last years
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.[3] 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".
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. 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 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. "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." 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.
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". Reportedly, the infamous Zhdanov decree was one of the reasons for Bunin's change of mind. 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 Fadeev might have given me instead of feasts, riches and laurels..."
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. In English translation it was entitled About Chekhov: The Unfinished Symphony. 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. 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 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.
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 – 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 were cited as the causes of death. A lavish burial service took place at the Russian Church on Rue Daru. All the major newspapers, both Russian and French, published large obituaries. For quite a while the coffin was held in a vault. On 30 January 1954, Bunin was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.
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.
Legacy
Ivan Bunin made history as the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The immediate basis for the award was the autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev, but Bunin's legacy is much wider in scope. He is regarded as a master of the short story, described by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov as an "archaist innovator" who, while remaining true to the literary tradition of the 19th century, made huge leaps in terms of artistic expression and purity of style. "[Bunin's] style heralds an historical precedent... technical precision as an instrument of bringing out beauty is sharpened to the extreme. There's hardly another poet who on dozens of pages would fail to produce a single epithet, analogy or metaphor... the ability to perform such a simplification of poetic language without doing any harm to it is the sign of a true artist. When it comes to artistic precision Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets," wrote Vestnik Evropy.
Bunin's early stories were of uneven quality. They were united in their "earthiness", lack of plot and signs of a curious longing for "life's farthest horizons"; young Bunin started his career by trying to approach the ancient dilemmas of the human being, and his first characters were typically old men. His early prose works had one common leitmotif: that of nature's beauty and wisdom bitterly contrasting with humanity's ugly shallowness. As he progressed, Bunin started to receive encouraging reviews: Anton Chekhov warmly greeted his first stories, even if he found too much "density" in them. But it was Gorky who gave Bunin's prose its highest praise. Till the end of his life Gorky (long after the relationship between former friends had soured) rated Bunin among Russian literature's greatest writers and recommended his prose for younger generations of writers as an example of true and unwithering classicism.
As a poet, Bunin started out as a follower of Ivan Nikitin and Aleksey Koltsov, then gravitated towards the Yakov Polonsky and Afanasy Fet school, the latter's impressionism becoming a marked influence. The theme of Bunin's early works seemed to be the demise of the traditional Russian nobleman of the past – something which as an artist he simultaneously gravitated toward and felt averted from. In the 1900s this gave way to a more introspective, philosophical style, akin to Fyodor Tyutchev and his "poetic cosmology". All the while Bunin remained hostile to modernism (and the darker side of it, "decadence"); Mikhaylov saw him as the torch-bearer of Aleksander Pushkin's tradition of "praising the naked simplicity's charms."
The symbolist's flights of imagination and grotesque passions foreign to him, Bunin made nature his field of artistic research and here carved his art to perfection. "Few people are capable of loving nature as Bunin does. And it's this love that makes his scope wide, his vision deep, his colour and aural impressions so rich," wrote Aleksander Blok, a poet from a literary camp Bunin treated as hostile. It was for his books of poetry (the most notable of which is Falling Leaves, 1901) and his poetic translations that Bunin became a three time Pushkin Prize laureate. His verse was praised by Aleksander Kuprin while Blok regarded Bunin as among the first in the hierarchy of Russian poets. One great admirer of Bunin's verse was Vladimir Nabokov, who (even if making scornful remarks about Bunin's prose) compared him to Blok. Some see Bunin as a direct follower of Gogol, who was the first in Russian literature to discover the art of fusing poetry and prose together.
The wholesomeness of Bunin's character allowed him to avoid crises to become virtually the only author of the first decades of the 20th century to develop gradually and logically. "Bunin is the only one who remains true to himself", Gorky wrote in a letter to Chirikov in 1907. Yet, an outsider to all the contemporary trends and literary movements, Bunin was never truly famous in Russia. Becoming an Academician in 1909 alienated him even more from the critics, the majority of whom saw the Academy's decision to expel Gorky several years earlier as a disgrace. The closest Bunin came to fame was in 1911–1912 when The Village and Dry Valley came out. The former, according to the author, "sketched with sharp cruelty the most striking lines of the Russian soul, its light and dark sides, and its often tragic foundations"; it caused passionate, and occasionally very hostile reactions. "Nobody has ever drawn the [Russian] village in such a deep historical context before," Maxim Gorky wrote. After this uncompromising book it became impossible to continue to paint the Russian peasantry life in the idealised, narodnik-style way, Bunin single-handedly closed this long chapter in Russian literature. He maintained the truly classic traditions of realism in Russian literature at the very time when they were in the gravest danger, under attack by modernists and decadents. Yet he was far from "traditional" in many ways, introducing to Russian literature a completely new set of characters and a quite novel, laconic way of saying things. Dry Valley was regarded as another huge step forward for Bunin. While The Village dealt metaphorically with Russia as a whole in a historical context, here, according to the author, the "Russian soul [was brought into the focus] in the attempt to highlight the Slavic psyche's most prominent features." "It's one of the greatest books of Russian horror, and there's an element of liturgy in it... Like a young priest with his faith destroyed, Bunin buried the whole of his class," wrote Gorky.
Bunin's travel sketches were lauded as innovative, notably Bird's Shadow (1907–1911). "He's enchanted with the East, with the 'light-bearing' lands he now describes in such beautiful fashion... For [depicting] the East, both Biblical and modern, Bunin chooses the appropriate style, solemn and incandescent, full of imagery, bathing in waves of sultry sunlight and adorned with arabesques and precious stones, so that, when he tells of these grey-haired ancient times, disappearing in the distant haze of religion and myth, the impression he achieves is that of watching a great chariot of human history moving before our eyes," wrote Yuri Aykhenvald. Critics noted Bunin's uncanny knack of immersing himself into alien cultures, both old and new, best demonstrated in his Eastern cycle of short stories as well as his superb translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha (1898).
Bunin was greatly interested in international myths and folklore, as well as the Russian folkloric tradition. But, (according to Georgy Adamovich) "he was absolutely intolerant towards those of his colleagues who employed stylizations, the "style Russe" manufacturers. His cruel – and rightly so – review of Sergey Gorodetsky's poetry was one example. Even Blok's Kulikovo Field (for me, an outstanding piece) irritated him as too lavishly adorned... "That's Vasnetsov," he commented, meaning 'masquerade and opera'. But he treated things that he felt were not masqueradery differently. Of the Slovo o Polku Igoreve... he said something to the effect that all the poets of the whole world lumped together couldn't have created such wonder, in fact something close to Pushkin's words. Yet translations of the legend... outraged him, particularly that of Balmont. He despised Shmelyov for his pseudo-Russian pretenses, though admitting his literary gift. Bunin had an extraordinarily sharp ear for falseness: he instantly recognized this jarring note and was infuriated. That was why he loved Tolstoy so much. Once, I remember, he spoke of Tolstoy as the one 'who's never said a single word that would be an exaggeration'."
Bunin has often been spoken of as a "cold" writer. Some of his conceptual poems of the 1910s refuted this stereotype, tackling philosophical issues like the mission of an artist ("Insensory", 1916) where he showed fiery passion. According to Oleg Mikhaylov, "Bunin wanted to maintain distance between himself and his reader, being frightened by any closeness... But his pride never excluded passions, just served as a panzer — it was like a flaming torch in an icy shell." On a more personal level, Vera Muromtseva confirmed: "Sure, he wanted to come across as [cold and aloof] and he succeeded by being a first-class actor... people who didn't know him well enough couldn't begin to imagine what depths of soft tenderness his soul was capable of reaching," she wrote in her memoirs.
The best of Bunin's prose ("The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Loopy Ears" and notably, "Brothers", based on Ceylon's religious myth) had a strong philosophical streak to it. In terms of ethics Bunin was under the strong influence of Socrates (as related by Xenophon and Plato), he argued that it was the Greek classic who first expounded many things that were later found in Hindu and Jewish sacred books. Bunin was particularly impressed with Socrates's ideas on the intrinsic value of human individuality, it being a "kind of focus for higher forces" (quoted from Bunin's short story "Back to Rome"). As a purveyor of Socratic ideals, Bunin followed Leo Tolstoy; the latter's observation about beauty being "the crown of virtue" was Bunin's idea too. Critics found deep philosophical motives, and deep undercurrents in Mitya's Love and The Life of Arseniev, two pieces in which "Bunin came closest to a deep metaphysical understanding of the human being's tragic essence." Konstantin Paustovsky called The Life of Arseniev "one of the most outstanding phenomena of world literature."
In his view on Russia and its history Bunin for a while had much in common with A. K. Tolstoy (of whom he spoke with great respect); both tended to idealise the pre-Tatar Rus. Years later he greatly modified his view of Russian history, forming a more negative outlook. "There are two streaks in our people: one dominated by Rus, another by Chudh and Merya. Both have in them a frightening instability, sway... As Russian people say of themselves: we are like wood — both club and icon may come of it, depending on who is working on this wood," Bunin wrote years later.
In emigration Bunin continued his experiments with extremely concise, ultra-ionized prose, taking Chekhov and Tolstoy's ideas on expressive economy to the last extreme. The result of this was God's Tree, a collection of stories so short, some of them were half a page long. Professor Pyotr Bitsilly thought God's Tree to be "the most perfect of Bunin's works and the most exemplary. Nowhere else can such eloquent laconism can be found, such definitive and exquisite writing, such freedom of expression and really magnificent demonstration of [mind] over matter. No other book of his has in it such a wealth of material for understanding of Bunin's basic method – a method in which, in fact, there was nothing but basics. This simple but precious quality – honesty bordering on hatred of any pretense – is what makes Bunin so closely related to... Pushkin, Tolstoy and Chekhov," Bitsilli wrote.
Influential, even if controversial, was his Cursed Days 1918–1920 diary, of which scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo wrote:
The work is important for several reasons. Cursed Days is one of the very few anti-Bolshevik diaries to be preserved from the time of the Russian Revolution and civil war. It recreates events with graphic and gripping immediacy. Unlike the works of early Soviets and emigres and their self-censoring backdrop of memory, myth, and political expediency, Bunin's truth reads almost like an aberration. Cursed Days also links Russian anti-utopian writing of the nineteenth century to its counterpart in the twentieth. Reminiscent of the fiction of Dostoevsky, it features an 'underground man' who does not wish to be an 'organ stop' or to affirm 'crystal palaces'. Bunin's diary foreshadowed such 'libelous' memoirs as Yevgenia Ginzburg's Journey into the Whirlwind (1967) and Within the Whirlwind, and Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope (1970) and Hope Abandoned (1974), the accounts of two courageous women caught up in the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Cursed Days also preceded the "rebellious" anti-Soviet tradition that began with Evgeny Zamyatin and Yury Olesha, moved on to Mikhail Bulgakov, and reached a climax with Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One can argue that, in its painful exposing of political and social utopias, Cursed Days 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."
Despite his works being virtually banned in the Soviet Union up until the mid-1950s, Bunin exerted a strong influence over several generations of Soviet writers. Among those who owed a lot to Bunin, critics mentioned Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Fedin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov, and later Yuri Kazakov, Vasily Belov and Viktor Likhonosov.
Ivan Bunin's books have been translated into many languages, and the world's leading writers praised his gift. Romain Rolland called Bunin an "artistic genius"; he was spoken and written of in much the same vein by writers like Henri de Régnier, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jerome K. Jerome, and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. In 1950, on the eve of his 80th birthday, François Mauriac expressed in a letter his delight and admiration, but also his deep sympathy to Bunin's personal qualities and the dignified way he'd got through all the tremendous difficulties life had thrown at him. In a letter published by Figaro, André Gide greeted Bunin "on behalf of all France", calling him "the great artist" and adding: "I don't know of any other writer... who's so to the point in expressing human feelings, simple and yet always so fresh and new". European critics often compared Bunin to both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, crediting him with having renovated the Russian realist tradition both in essence and in form.
On 22 October 2020 Google celebrated his 150th birthday with a Google Doodle.
Private life
Bunin's first love was Varvara Pashchenko, his classmate in Yelets [not plausible as Ivan was at a male gymnasium and Varvara at an all female gymnasium], daughter of a doctor and an actress, whom he fell for in 1889 and then went on to work with in Oryol in 1892. Their relationship was difficult in many ways: the girl's father detested the union because of Bunin's impecunious circumstances, Varvara herself was not sure if she wanted to marry and Bunin too was uncertain whether marriage was really appropriate for him. The couple moved to Poltava and settled in Yuly Bunin's home, but by 1892 their relations deteriorated, Pashchenko complaining in a letter to Yuly Bunin that serious quarrels were frequent, and begging for assistance in bringing their union to an end. The affair eventually ended in 1894 with her marrying actor and writer A. N. Bibikov, Ivan Bunin's close friend. Bunin felt betrayed, and for a time his family feared the possibility of him committing suicide. According to some sources it was Varvara Pashchenko who many years later would appear under the name of Lika in The Life of Arseniev (chapter V of the book, entitled Lika, was also published as a short story). Scholar Tatyana Alexandrova, though, questioned this identification (suggesting Mirra Lokhvitskaya might have been the major prototype), while Vera Muromtseva thought of Lika as a 'collective' character aggregating the writer's reminiscences of several women he knew in his youth.
In the summer of 1898 while staying with writer A. M. Fedorov, Bunin became acquainted with N. P. Tsakni, a Greek social-democrat activist, the publisher and editor of the Odessa newspaper Yuzhnoe Obozrenie (Southern Review). Invited to contribute to the paper, Bunin became virtually a daily visitor to the Tsakni family dacha and fell in love with the latter's 18-year-old daughter, Anna (1879–1963). On 23 September 1898, the two married, but by 1899 signs of alienation between them were obvious. At the time of their acrimonious separation in March 1900 Anna was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Nikolai, in Odessa on 30 August of the same year. The boy, of whom his father saw very little, died on 16 January 1905, from a combination of scarlet fever, measles and heart complications.
Ivan Bunin's second wife was Vera Muromtseva (1881–1961), niece of the high-ranking politician Sergey Muromtsev. The two had initially been introduced to each other by writer Ekaterina Lopatina some years earlier, but it was their encounter at the house of the writer Boris Zaitsev in November 1906 which led to an intense relationship which resulted in the couple becoming inseparable until Bunin's death. Bunin and Muromtseva married officially only in 1922, after he managed at last to divorce Tsakni legally. Decades later Vera Muromtseva-Bunina became famous in her own right with her book Life of Bunin.
In 1927, while in Grasse, Bunin fell for the Russian poet Galina Kuznetsova, on vacation there with her husband. The latter, outraged by the well-publicized affair, stormed off, while Bunin not only managed to somehow convince Vera Muromtseva that his love for Galina was purely platonic, but also invite the latter to stay in the house as a secretary and 'a family member'. The situation was complicated by the fact that Leonid Zurov, who stayed with the Bunins as a guest for many years, was secretly in love with Vera (of which her husband was aware); this made it more of a "love quadrilateral" than a mere triangle. Bunin and Kuznetsova's affair ended dramatically in 1942 when the latter, now deeply in love with another frequent guest, opera singer Margo Stepun, sister of Fyodor Stepun, left Bunin, who felt disgraced and insulted. The writer's tempestuous private life in emigration became the subject of the internationally acclaimed Russian movie, His Wife's Diary (or The Diary of His Wife) (2000). which caused controversy and was described by some as masterful and thought-provoking, but by others as vulgar, inaccurate and in bad taste. Vera Muromtseva-Bunina later accepted both Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun as friends: "nashi" ("ours"), as she called them, lived with the Bunins for long periods during the Second World War. According to A.J. Heywood of Leeds University, in Germany and then New York, after the war, Kuznetsova and Stepun negotiated with publishers on Bunin's behalf and maintained a regular correspondence with Ivan and Vera up until their respective deaths.
Bibliography
Novel
The Life of Arseniev (Жизнь Арсеньева, 1927–1933, 1939)
Short novels
The Village (Деревня, 1910)
Dry Valley (Суходол, 1912)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, 1924)
Short story collections
To the Edge of the World and Other Stories (На край света и другие рассказы, 1897)
Antonovka Apples (Антоновские яблоки, 1900)
Flowers of the Field (Цветы полевые, 1901)
Bird's Shadow (Тень птицы, 1907–1911; Paris, 1931)
Ioann the Mourner (Иоанн Рыдалец, 1913)
Chalice of Life (Чаша жизни, Petersburg, 1915; Paris, 1922)
The Gentleman from San Francisco (Господин из Сан-Франциско, 1916)
Chang's Dreams (Сны Чанга, 1916, 1918)
Temple of the Sun (Храм Солнца, 1917)
Primal Love (Начальная любовь, Prague, 1921)
Scream (Крик, Paris, 1921)
Rose of Jerico (Роза Иерихона, Berlin, 1924)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, Paris, 1924; New York, 1953)
Sunstroke (Солнечный удар, Paris, 1927)
Sacred Tree (Божье древо, Paris, 1931)
Dark Avenues (Тёмные аллеи, New York, 1943; Paris, 1946)
Judea in Spring (Весной в Иудее, New York, 1953)
Loopy Ears and Other Stories (Петлистые уши и другие рассказы, 1954, New York, posthumous)
Poetry
Poems (1887–1891) (1891, originally as a literary supplement to Orlovsky vestnik newspaper)
Under the Open Skies (Под открытым небом, 1898)
Falling Leaves (Листопад, Moscow, 1901)
Poems (1903) (Стихотворения, 1903)
Poems (1903–1906) (Стихотворения, 1906)
Poems of 1907 (Saint Petersburg, 1908)
Selected Poems (Paris, 1929)
Translations
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Song of Hiawatha (1898)
Memoirs and diaries
Waters Aplenty (Воды многие, 1910, 1926)
Cursed Days (Окаянные дни, 1925–1926)[66]
Memoirs. Under the hammer and sickle. (Воспоминания. Под серпом и молотом. 1950)
Fueled in life by writers such as Nikos Kazantzakis’s Report to Greco, Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s books including, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, and Crime and Punishmnent. There were beat books by Jan Cramer who penned I Jan Cramer while gorging on life one continent removed from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. As well lighter fare such as Ken Kesey’s tome Sometimes A Great Notion, Tom Wolfe’s Electric Cool Aid Acid Test, the series by Carlos Castaneda beginning with The Teachings of Don Juan A Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Thomas Merton would steal the thunder like no other with one hundred word sentences in Zen and the Birds of Appetite, you had to be on your game to get it! Like others we discovered the magic in the collection of Herman Hesse novels from Siddartha to Magister Ludi, with a taste of Albert Camus for dessert. There was the well written Aldous Huxley books in particular The Doors of Perception. Dylan Thomas wrote endearing passages such as Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night, Salinger, Twain, Hemingway and Steinbeck did not go unnoticed. Besides literature there were also numerous outspoken lyrics to be found within the songs of the days musicians. Tunes like, I shall be Released written by Bob Dylan and played by the Band, Dear Mr. Fantasy by the British Group Traffic, an older folk song that criticized war, Where Have All the Flowers Gone by Pete Seeger, The Doors classic, This is the End, The Beatle’s Revolution, Number Nine, Number Nine. The list is far too long to continue with. It was difficult not to feel Empowered as well as Enlightened by this ever evolving collection of hip Literary Genius. Something that is sadly missing in the Ipad world.
Classes started the following Monday morning around 9AM, I’d hitch hike down University Avenue, always catching a ride, imagine a world where you don’t own a car, no gas bills, or insurance? How easily we embed this need in our list of necessities. The first week at campus was getting to know you stuff, reading assignments, grease the wheels, get comfortable with the itinerary, a lot of niceties.
The Campus Pub was open a few nights a week it was popular as it featured cut rate beer in a darkened atmosphere, tunes played on the speaker system, clientele was comprised almost entirely of students. I had bought some Chairman Mao paraphernalia at a downtown store, enamel Mao pins with the Chairman’s likeness, green hats, Gold Chinese Stars. To raise funds for drink sustenance I stood in the foyer of the pub selling the articles at slightly increased prices to a amused and captive audience. Besides the pins and hats I also had a briefcase full of little Red Books. People gobbled them up, I sold out quickly. I had fallen in favour of the Chinese form of Communisim as it was my belief that prior to Mao millions of Chinese were dying of starvation in the old China. I know he had to eliminate a lot of people in order for his system to work and that many feel even today that he continues to kill the unborn children by way of his one child policy, even so, China truly is a better place now than in its colonial days because of his harsh ideas. To my knowledge, everyone can eat if they contribute. Lets not be overly naïve there are many problems with the system but up to that time the wealth had been stolen by and accumulated by Imperialists, and Colonialists for private gain. As is the case in numerous societies today under the guise of democracy.
The University presented a forum for freedom of speech which suited my shoot from the hip style, I didn’t care who I annoyed. Like a drunken gypsy I lashed out at many ideas of society. Pete and I were invited to the local Liberal nomination party for Herb Grey when he was just getting started in Federal politics. We attended a gathering at a banquet room near the school and after enjoying some free wine and cheese we started to shout out “Long Live Trotsky” it wasn't long before we were escorted from the premises. A few weeks later Bill Davis who was running for the Premier of Ontario made an appearance at the Pub, there was a stir as he entered the building where I was selling my Mao pins, a friend gave me the heads up, knew I had the nerve and desire to disrupt things. I was taken to the front of the line where Davis was shaking all the right hands he stopped and said hello and asked me what I thought about his campaign, at the time he was the Minister of Education for the Conservative Party, I asked him why his party had taken funding away from the Catholic school board in Kirkland Lake, the question had been given to me by an anti Davis supporter, he looked at me and just ignored me, like I wasn’t there, like I was invisible, his handlers scooting him away, there’s a photo of this in the yearbook.
The time came for buckling down, to hit the books. Generally speaking the lessons were enjoyable, classes lasted about fourty five minutes, at the very most there would be three on any given day, when I dropped Geography I had Fridays off which was handy, though the geography professor had made an important comment on the possible need for our country to share its vast space with the crowded countries of India and China or witness mass deaths by starvation and worse than that war. In University the emphasis is on reading subject matter related to the courses, and of course writing essays. Writing the essays was very pleasant, the library was chock full of books on the subjects at hand, researching the subject required one to spend time at the library, to discipline oneself to incorporate this into ones life, and for the most part I easily learned the new routine and took pride in receiving some excellent marks.
There was a particularly good mark given one of the essays I wrote on Ancient India in a class taught by guru John Willard Spellman an American from Salem Massachusetts, a scholar. His course was an introductory semester dealing with life in Ancient India. Dr. Spellman was a dynamic speaker who was and is a thorn in the side of modern living. Whatever western ideas I had ingrained in my life were purged after a few lessons by this great man.
Spellman lit a spiritual fire under some of his students, the ones who wanted to be set on fire. He did it in a challenging fashion, he would cite examples of life as we ( inexperienced spoiled western society students ) knew it and challenge its necessity. He pointed out little things like traveling in cars alone, the usage of that gasoline, the eating of fast food, the need to continually be entertained, he pointed out that in reality North Americans were not happy unless they were consuming. Other Spellmanisims concentrated on the simplicity of Hinduisim he was always trumping the love of the Hindi Gods, the pantheon of religious deities, especially of Vishnu, Krishna and Lord Shiva as well as the idea of Dharma, the Truth. He said that it matters not what you do in life as long as you let the Truth permeate your actions, he presented a fantastic almost surrealistic view of all things India, seen through his personal beliefs and experiences in India. The immediate benefits of Spellmans award winning presentation lay in the fact that he forced you to examine the life you were leading at a critical time, at a time when it could have a great impact on you and possibly the people you were to touch in life. India became then and remains to self the Motherland, a place from where much of mankind began. He would bring the history of the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, the Kama Sutra and other great works into classroom discussion, just give you a taste, a nibble of what lie ahead, we or at least some of us gave him Cult status, we would work very hard to write the very best essays to please Dr Spellman. I have no recollection what I actually wrote the class high essay on, that received an A+, but my pride in receiving the mark as well as an in front of class acknowledgment remains one of the high points of my re-education.
As one who would admire a hockey coach or musician I placed my admiration at Spellmans feet. At times I found myself hanging around his office, keeping him informed on the scene, he was curious to know what people were up to as all his free time was spent on trips to India. When he heard I was heading to a concert in Detroit to see the British band Traffic at the big ice rink he gave me ten or twenty packs of NORML rolling papers to sell at .50 cents a pack for the cause as he was the local representative for the organization that featured some heavy hitters in the world of marijuana reform circles. In class one day Dr. Spellman was steaming, his un ironed shirt and school colours tie matched his wrinkled and stained blue blazer. The previous day, a Sunday he was doing his Yoga or Mantra whatever he was doing these fucking snowmobiles went by his property creating a real bad sound, broke his concentration, he raged and raved on about the noise pollution, the intrusion on his space, he chased them off, by the time he finished his lecture that day he was most exasperated.
I underestimated the work that went into becoming the head of a department, first off it must take an awfully dedicated person to endure the discipline required to learn Hindi and some Sanskrit, a gifted person. Much of the good Docs spare time was spent in India, doing research on various matters, archaeological, religious, cultural and so forth. Spellmans office could not have been improved on by a movie staging crew. On the walls there were ancient pictures of Indian deities, on the desk sat authentic thousands of years old stone carvings, on the floor antiquities peered from half opened wooden crates while shredded wood packing material lie at the base, there were numerous wooden statues of various deities whose names he knew as if speaking about his family, papers were stacked two feet high along with piles of thick resource books and stacks of pupils papers for marking. I had found my guru, all these years later I wonder what he would think of some of my new gurus, Paramahansa Yogananda and in particular Sathya Sai Baba. If I hadn’t had this wonderful opportunity to study under this Master the year in Windsor would have been a complete waste of time.
A few years back, perhaps in 2005 I began communicating with Dr. Spellman, he had long since retired from the Asian Studies department at Windsor, when we spoke he held a chair at The Harvard School of Law, he had done some important work in his life. At one time he was the head of a United Nations organization that saw to it that funds were used to bring water systems to remote parts of India. Another function saw him lead the group opposed to development of a marsh area near his home town of Amherstberg. They won the long court battle. One law related cause that Dr. Spellman took was as the chief witness to the history of the Sikh peoples use of the Kirpan sword/knife in their everyday lives, this made national news around the world. One comment attributed to him is, “the Kirpan is no more a danger than the Cross. He loves gardening and spends a good deal of time tending his gardens. I asked him about the guru Sathya Sai Baba who had entered our lives through the ancient art of Literary Channeling . The Doctor had visited the ashram in Puttaparthi in the 70s, at that time rumours were rife about the sexual habits of Sai Baba. Dr. Spellman said to me these words, “Charles, I can ensure you that Sathya Sai Baba does far more good on earth than evil”. With that my displeasure with Sai Babas proclivities vanished and I accepted him back into my life, as one of my gurus. At one time I felt I would write a long essay on the life of Dr. Spellman, he sent numerous works he had been involved in, newspaper articles that were collecting dust at his home, as well as a set of books from the Ashram in Puttaparthi pertaining to studies related to the godman Sai Baba.
I want to insert a paragraph or two taken from a meeting in Detroit in 1971 where we find Dr. Spellman speaking about his views on ancient society at the first Winter Soldier Investigation. The following is but a page from his talk to the committee…it was in this same tone that Dr. Spellman spoke to us students and set the mould for free thought.
*By our own proclamation, we are the most intelligent, the most powerful, the most creative, and the best of all life that this planet has seen. Indeed, the Book of Genesis tells us that after creating this world, with its apex as man, God gave man dominion over it. Now, we have been around for approximately two million years and our future is reasonably uncertain. Even the dinosaurs, whom we classify as rather dumb creatures, managed to survive for about 12 million years. There are many who question the likelihood of this species surviving for that long a period. The experiments of Darwin on the Galapagos Islands and the work of other scholars have shown that adaptation to environment is crucial to survival.
As I understand these lessons, they mean that each society has its own integrity, physical and cultural. As a consequence of its adaptation, according to its past experiences, its judgment and self-interest, values which may be desirable for one society, cause the gravest physical and mental harm when imposed on another. And it is in this light that I wish to view what we are doing to Vietnam. The bulk of Western values are based on the historical experiences of the Judaic-Christian and Greco-Roman cultures. Of prime importance in that value system has been the role assigned to the importance of belief, and this concept of belief occupies a cardinal role, particularly in Christianity.
Unless, we are told, you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, you shall not have eternal life. And in this sense I wish to contrast that statement with the statement of the Lord Krishna and the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu text: "Whatsoever divine form any devotee with faith seek to worship, that same is divine." But the beliefs of Christianity were understood as exclusive and excluding beliefs. And it was part of our heritage, and it is part of our heritage to this day, that what is good for us ought to be universal and it ought to be good for everyone.
Earlier in our history we found that those who held a different perspective than we did on religion, and we made our ultimatum very clear, after we had poured scorn and ridicule on these people, calling them heathens and pagans and superstitious polytheists, we then killed them in the name of our religion. And the Crusades and witchcraft and the religious persecutions followed. Later (and this continues today), we felt that we had the righteous responsibility to condemn those who believed in political systems (rather than religious systems) that were different from our own. Thus it became quite legitimate to kill Communists and others simply because they were Communists, and because they believed in a different form of government from ours. There are still those today who believe with all the fervor that righteousness often summons, that we ought to continue on this path of killing those who disagree with us. I believe that we are now on the threshold of a new killing crusade.
Having killed for religious beliefs and then political beliefs, I believe we are now on the threshold of killing for economic beliefs. It takes no prophet to predict that there will be destruction and riots and killings in the name of economic creeds in the future. And that these will seem just as valid as religion and politics have seemed to our predecessors historically. Such values as these are alien to Asian society. Neither Hinduism nor Buddhism, Confucianism nor Taoism have ever engaged in religious crusades because of their beliefs. Indeed, both Hinduism and Buddhism advocate non-injury as among the highest of values*.
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For other entertainment purposes I gave a few performances at a local pub as a “spoken word” artist, my rap was like a cross between Kerouac meets Ghandi as the material covered the ups and downs of the world as I was seeing it, one verse in particular, “one piece hockey stick” was spoken in a country drawl, with the opening line, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE ONE PIECE HOCKEY STICK THE ONE THAT NEVER BROKE, and so on, a real critique of the throwaway society I found myself in. Since I was given these new avenues of expression there was no stopping my ego which lavished in the small praise I received at performances or for other writing experiences as when I did some concert and film reviews for the school paper The Lance as a freelance writer. Now and then I would submit articles and prose/poetry the most infamous being the winding tale “The Evers of Never”. I made myself a celebrity, I had an audience and I was confident enough through the use of books, gange, alcohol and pills to have a new clearer picture of myself, surely the new environment must have aided this transformation, as well as the feeling of well being that one can associate with attaining spiritual and creative goals, of finding ones place in life after being lost and confined for so long. Happiness is a state of mind. Often a temporary elixir to be savored at the time and forever for it is often fleeting and quite difficult to recognize.
THE EVERS OF NEVER
MANY YEARS FROM NOW, IN A LAND THAT WILL BE KNOWN AS NEVER THERE WILL EXIST A SPECIES OF HUMANS THAT WILL BE KNOWN AS EVERS. YOU SEE, IF YOUR EYES ARE OPENED YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SEE. THE EVERS OF NEVER WERE SO DESIGNED, IN FACT THEY EVOLVED DESIGNEDLY THAT IT WAS NECESSARY FOR THEM NEVER TO SEE, NOT ONCE, NOT EVER. YOU SEE, BY FUNCTIONING THUSLY, THE EVERS OF NEVER WILL LIVE FOREVER.
NOW ACCORDING TO THE LAW OF OPPOSITES WHICH HOLDS THAT ALLL THINGS TO EXIST MUST HAVE OPPOSITES THERE WILL ARISE IN THE LAND OF NEVER A SPECIES OF HUMANS DIRECTLY OPPOSED IN ALL WAYS TO THE SPECIES OF EVERS OF NEVER. THIS NEW SPECIES WILL BE KNOWN AS NEVERS AND THEY WILL CALL THEIR LAND WHICH IS ALSO THE LAND OF THE EVERS OF NEVER EVER. WHICH COMPLIES TO THE LAW OF OPPOSITES. SO, IT IS SAFE TO ASSUME THAT THE NEVERS OF EVER WILL BE WIDE EYED AND ABLE TO SEE AND LIKE THE EVERS OF NEVER, THE NEVERS OF EVER WILL LIVE FOREVER.
AS IT WILL BE, THE EVERS OF NEVER NOT BEING ABLE TO SEE OF COURSE WILL NOT KNOW THAT THE NEVERS OF EVER ARE LIVING ON NEVER AND OF COURSE, THE EVERS OF NEVER WOULD NEVER KNOW THAT THE NEVERS OF EVER WERE ABLE TO SEE. THE NEVERS OF EVER OF COURSE COULD ONLY COMPLY TO THE LAWS OF OPPOSITES AND WILL KNOW THAT THE EVERS OF NEVER DO NOT KNOW THAT THEY THE NEVERS OF EVER ARE LIVING ON EVER AND SEEING THE EVERS OF NEVER.
IT WILL COME TO PASS IN THIS LAND KNOWN TO THE EVERS AS NEVER AND TO THE NEVERS OF EVER THAT THE KING OF THE EVERS HAS A DREAM OF TEMPTING DELIGHT WHENCE HIS EYES ARE OPENED NO LONGER CLOSED AS IN NIGHT AND THE THINGS THAT HE SAW WERE SUCH A SIGHT THAT IT TOOK ALL HIS MIGHT TO SURPASS THE INITIAL FRIGHT OF IT ALL SO THAT HE COULD REGAIN HIS SANITY. NOW AS IT WILL BE ON THE VERY NIGHT THAT THE KING OF THE EVERS OF NEVER IS HAVING HIS DREAM, THE QUEEN OF THE NEVERS OF EVER WILL ALSO EXPERIENCE AN EVENT IN HER SLEEP A DREAM SO DEEP, SO STEEP, SO FAR ABOVE HER IN FACT THAT SHE SAW SO VERY MANY THINGS THAT AFTER A WHILE NOTHING COULD BE SEEN, NOT EVEN A PEEP. TO THE QUEEN OF THE NEVERS OF EVER, THIS DREAM WHERE SHE DID NOT SEE NOT A SINGLE THING MEANT SIMPLY THAT ALL THINGS SEEN WERE ONLY A DREAM A SCHEME SHE PROCLAIMED WHICH WAS CONTROLLING THE PROCESS OF LIVING FOREVER. AS THE QUEEN OF THE NEVERS OF EVER WAS PROCLAIMING THUSLY, THE KING OF THE EVERS OF NEVER, AN HONEST MAN NO DOUBT GATHERED ALL THE PEOPLES THE WHOLE POPULATION OF THE EVERS OF NEVER AND PROCLAIMED TO THE MULTITUDES THAT THE SECRET OF LIVING FOREVER WAS SIMPLE AND HE THOUGHT HIMSELF CLEVER WHEN HE FURTHER EXPLAINED THAT WE THE EVERS OF NEVER ARE CAUGHT IN A DREAM, A SCHEME OF SOME NATURE SO INTELLIGENTLY WEAVED THAT IT HAS FOOLED US FOR YEARS AND IT’S PROPER TO ASSUME THAT WE WILL ALL BE DOOMED AND NEVER LIVE FOREVER IF WE DO NOT REALIZE THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH WE WERE GIVEN OUR EYES.
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE PROCLAMATIONS HAD BEEN DELIVERED, IN FACT BEFORE THE EVERS OF NEVER AND NEVERS OF EVER COULD REFLECT ON THIS KNOWLEDGE A MIST AROSE FROM THE LAND AND THE EVERS AND NEVERS OF NEVER AND EVER WERE JOINED TOGETHER AND WILL LIVE FOREVER IN A LAND THEY CALL NEVEREVER.
SELRAHC YROGERG
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Corner Stone Laid
Mystic Ceremonial By Theosophists on Point Loma
Corner Stone of the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity Laid by Mrs. Tingley, Successor to Madame Blavatsky and Wm. Q. Judge.
The laying of the corners stone of the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity, on Point Loma yesterday afternoon, was accompanied by the most impressive ceremonies, and the event will be long remembered by those who were fortunate enough to be present. The program was set to begin at 2 o'clock, but long before that hour there was a large crowd present. By the time exercises opened nearly a thousand people had gathered, about 250 whom were accommodated with seats, and others standing patiently all afternoon.
That this number of people took the trouble to drive six or seven miles into the country, most of them for the privilege of standing for three hours to witness the unique ceremonies, gave evidence of the deep interest San Diego citizens have in the institution and its proposed work. Every available livery rig seemed to be brought into requisition, besides bicycles and other conveyances, to get the people to the grounds.
Upon arriving there what first attracts the attention is the superb view, a portion of which is shown in the cut on this page. This is the view which Charles Dudley Warner designated as one of the three finest in all the world, and it is truly inspiring. The vision is unobstructed for at least fifty miles in all directions, and glistening waters of the Pacific on one side, the bay and the city of San Diego on the other. And while at this favored spot, the fragrance of the orange and lemon is in the air and the ground is covered with a carpet of the richest green, the snow-capped mountain range back of the city serves to remind one of less favored climes.
The cornerstone was in the center of a square enclosed by ropes of cypress, with a large arch made of evergreen at the front, around which were inscribed the words, "Truth, Light, Liberation for Discouraged Humanity," in large letters of purple on a gold background. From the derrick which was used to lower the corner stone to its place, two ropes were stretched, from which floated in the breeze the flags of all the many nations through which the crusaders have passed on their journey around the world.
These flags, which were presented to them by the people of the different countries, seemed to comprise all the colors of the rainbow, making a most pleasing effect with the many contrasts of colors and shapes outlined against the blue sky. There were also several unique banners from different branches of the society, one of an antique Egyptian design being especially noticeable. The Stars and Stripes covered the stand, which was used as a pulpit. Upon it were life-size pictures of Madame Blavatsky, William Q. Judge, Katherine A. Tingley, and E. T. Hargrove.
After a number of selections by the City Guard band, those who were to take part in the ceremonies entered the enclosure around the corner stone, and formed in two lines facing toward the center, while Mrs. Tingley stood at the end next to the cornerstone. Those within the enclosure were: Mrs. Katherine A. Tingley, leader of the Theosophical movement throughout the world; E. T. Hargrove, president of the Theosophical societies in America, Europe and Australasia; H. T. Patterson, F. M. Pierce, Mrs. Alice L. Cleather, Mrs. Claude Falls Wright, Rev. W. Williams, Dr. Lorin F. Wood, James M. Press, E. B. Rambo, Miss Anne Bryce, Col. E. T. Blacker, C. F. Willard, Allen Griffiths, Abbott B. Clark and a little boy and girl carrying emblems and utensils to be used in the ceremonies. The ladies wore purple gowns and both ladies and gentlemen were decorated with the emblems of the Esoteric council of the society.
The ceremonies were beautiful and impressive throughout. President Hargrove first made a brief address in which he said he wished to point out the solemnity of the occasion which had brought so many people together from all parts of the country to witness the laying of this cornerstone. It might seem strange to the people of San Diego that the founder directress, Mrs. Tingley, should have selected this spot, never having seen it before, and only coming here after all the preliminary arrangements had been made. It should be clearly understood, he said, that the school was under her supervision, and those who get to know her better will come to know why. The building will be one that will be worthy of the objects of the school.
The band then played the "Intermezzo Simfonico" by Mascagni, while the stone was raised over its place and the mortar applied by Mrs. Tingley, after she had deposited a box in the opening in the lower stone. The box was covered with purple and contained a history of the Theosophical movement, the best thoughts of the crusaders, a copy of the souvenir programme, and various parchments.
The stone was lowered into place when Mrs. Tingley said: "I dedicate this stone: a perfect square, a fitting emblem of the perfect work that will be done in the temple for the benefit of humanity and glory of the ancient sages."
Immediately the "sacred word" was sounded by all the Esotericists taking part in the ceremonies, as the stone was fitted into its permanent place, and as the sound ceased the impressive solemnity of the occasion was felt by all the people, the crowd being hushed into the utmost stillness.
Mrs. Tingley took a silver urn containing corn, which she scattered upon the stone, and a pitcher from which wine was spilled. From a brass salver bearing brass urns, were cast various elements. Mrs. Tingley saying as she threw them upon the stone: "Earth--emblem of man's body," "Air--emblem of man's breath," "Water-- emblem of man's inner-self," "Fire--emblem of man's spiritual power." Flowers and other articles were cast upon the stone, and President Hargrove, lighting a fire on the stone, said, "May these fires be lighted and may they burn forever more." Rev. W. Williams then read beatitudes from the New Testament and President Hargrove read the following selections from the "Bhagavad Gita:"
"Those who are wise in spiritual things grieve neither for the dead nor for the living. I myself never was not, nor though, nor all the princes of the earth; nor shall we ever hereafter cease to be. As the lord of this mortal frame experienceth therein infancy, youth and old age, so in future incarnations will it meet the same. One who is confirmed in this belief is not disturbed by anything that may come to pass. The senses, moving toward their appropriate objects, are producers of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go and are brief and changeable; these do thou endure. O son of Bharata! For the wise man, whom these disturb not, and to whom pain and pleasure are the same, is fitted for immortality. There is no existence for that which does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for what exists. By those who see the truth and look into the principles of things the ultimate characteristic of these both is seen. Learn that He by whom all things were formed is incorruptible, and that no one is able to effect the destruction of IT which is inexhaustible and everlasting."
Each of the Esotericists then quoted a selection from the sacred scriptures of the various nations, and the sages of all times -- from the Upanishads, the Bible, the Orphis Mysteries, Confucious, and Eleusinan Mysteries and various sources -- all being characterized by great beauty and wisdom. Mrs. Wright and Miss Bryce read two beautiful selections on "Harmony."
Mrs. Tingley's Address
The Successor of Madame Blavatsky Sets Forth the Objects of the School
There was complete silence as the last readers stepped back, and Mrs. Tingley unrolled a piece of parchment. She advanced to the stone, and read the following in a low but clear voice:
"You have witnessed the laying of the corners stone of the school for revival of lost mysteries. You have heard described the objects of the school. It remains for me to turn the thoughts of those present toward the future of the human race."
"Few can realize the vast significance of that has been done here today. In ancient times the founding of a temple was looked upon as of worldwide importance. Kings and princes from far distant countries attended the ceremonies of the foundation. Sages regathered from all parts of the world to lend their presence at such a time; for the building of a temple was rightly regarded as a benefit upon all humanity."
"The future of this school will be closely associated with the future of the great American republic. While the school will be international in character it will be American in center. This school will be a temple of living light, lighting up the dark places of the earth. And I appeal to all present to remember this day as one of great promise of this new age must bring blessing to all."
"Through this school and its branches the children of the race will be taught the laws of physical life and the laws of physical, moral, and mental health. They will learn to live in harmony with nature. They will become compassionate lovers of all that breathes. They will grow strong in an understanding of themselves and as they gain strength they will learn to use it for the good of the whole world. Rejoice with me then, and may you all share in the blessings of this hour and in the brightness of this future which contains so much of joy for man."
And then chanted in Sanskrit mantras, after which a tone was struck, answered by another, and immediately the starts and stripes were run up to the top of the flag staff while the band played "Red, Which and Blue," and "Hail Columbia."
Everything was in readiness to fire a salute at this juncture, but there were many horses near, and it was thought best to postpone this until later. A beautiful flag was run up, with he design of the great seal of the society in the upper left hand corner, done in gild on a purple background, while the remainder of the flag was purple and gold stripes, alternating like the American flag. This handsome flag was large enough to be seen flying in the breeze, all the way to the city, as the people returned after the ceremonies.
Upon the cornerstone is the following inscription: "Cornerstone S. R. L. M. A. Laid February 23rtd. 1897, by the Founders Katharine A. Tingley, assisted in ceremony by E. T. Hargrove Pres't. T. S. A."
History of the Movement
E. B. Rambo Reviews the Causes Leading to the Founding of the School
At the conclusion of the ceremonies at the cornerstone the City Guard band rendered a selection, and the addresses were commenced. Mr. Patterson presided, and introduced E. B. Rambo as the first speaker. Mr. Rambo is a the head of the San Francisco society. He said:
"I am requested, in a few minutes, to give a history of the movement of which the ceremony we have witnessed today is the latest act."
"While this school for the revival of the lost mysteries of antiquity is not founded by the Theosophical society as such, does not belong to it as property, those taking part in the ceremony today are connected with its membership, and it is a part of the movement for which the Theosophical society in America stands."
"Speaking to you now, as a member of that society, I believe this movement to be not only the greatest of this country, but that it has been in progress from time immemorial. Our historical records are of the rise and fall of nations, of their rulers, and those great wars which made and unmade nations; little of their religion, arts, and sciences."
"But in this little, in all ages, there appear points as it were indicating always a movement towards deeper knowledge, of those who would save the religious thought of the world, those who strove to bring back some standard, the forgotten truths of the past. Such were the Saviours and Christs of many nations, and many times. In science, as well, there are indications of those guarding well here secrets. In arts there were many revivals. Dark ages were followed by culture and a higher civilization."
"There was an ebb and flow. Humanity in the depths of darkness and degradation, followed by enlightenment and the highest culture."
"We read of the master of wisdom, of the hierophants of various schools, of great teachers and great disciples. All religions have come to us from the east, all advance in science, art, and letters from the same source and scholars proceeded from the west to the east to learn of the wise men. We read of the magicians, alchemists, and philosophers who in every age appear to have preserved the knowledge of the past in its purity, when religion became dogmatic when priestcraft ruled and ignorance prevailed."
"And there have been in every age the guardians of humanity and its salvation."
"There have been more than an ebb and flow, there has been a constant reoccurring wave of spiritual knowledge, so well marked that we may say no country, if we had complete historical records, has been without its revival, or at least the attempt and partial success towards the advancement of knowledge and an influx of spiritual light and truth. These times are well marked and may be placed in closing quarter of each past century."
"In the eighteenth century, with all the horrors of the revolution, and the false cries of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," we can see that order was avoided from chaos, that the greatest minds and humanitarians of the world worked in these years for the good of the ignorant and the advancement of law and order, by holding forth a truer and more spiritual life, the real life, and the religion within every man. "
"In the later part of our century, so great in material progress, so deeply immersed in material thought, with our millions of wretched humanity, not withstanding our boasted civilization with churches and religion by the hundreds, needing as we did, a revival of spirituality, came this same movement and for our salvation. In November, 1875, in New York City, was founded the Theosophical society, by Madame H. P. Blavatsky, and others, a this we hold was and is simply a revival of the work and efforts of the masters of wisdom, existing in the past and existing today."
"The avowed object of the society was the foundation of a nucleus of universal brotherhood, the study and investigation of all religions, and investigation of the latent powers in man, and unexplained laws of nature. In these objects are found the true aim and all the teachings of the great masters of all ages. In universal brotherhood is to be found the basis of all ethics, right living, right acting and justice toward ourselves, and all men, with charity for all. In the study of all religions is found a common basis, Theosophy, Divine Wisdom, for the spiritual nature of man. In the investigation of man's latent powers, and the phenomena about us is to be found the greater possibilities of man, the explanations of the so-called supernatural, and a return to the philosophy and knowledge of the wise in all past ages."
The President's Address
Mr. Hargrove Speaks on the Influence and Scope of the New School
Following Mr. Rambo, President Hargrove was introduced and spoke somewhat as follows:
"There have been various reports already circulated concerning the aims and objects of this school. We have been informed that its chief object would be to develop the psychic faculties and abnormal freaks in general. Most extraordinary statements have been made concerning the project of the astral body through walls and all sorts of incredible tales have been told. Now it is needless to say that all these speculations are wrong. Nor is the school to be conduced to make money. The tuition will be free, and it will be supported entirely by voluntary contributions. No trustee and no officer will receive any salary whatever, least of all its founders."
"What, then, is its object? For what are we assembled here today? The real object of it all is to bring about a true and harmonious development of the characters of its pupils -- to educate, in the highest sense -- to draw from them the best there is in their natures. We shall cultivate the powers of the mind, which are many, and for the most part, unknown. It has not occurred to most teachers that there are laws of the mental and moral nature of man which will bring about a great improvement of the entire human race. In this school will be taught and demonstrated that real inter nature of man. This was done in the "mysteries" of ancient Egypt and Greece, and used to be done here before the white race ever appeared on this continent. One of the objects of the school will be to do away with the mysteries, by making plain that which was 'mystery.'"
"The founding of this temple takes place under cyclic law. All evolution and all development of the human race, as well as everything else in nature, proceed under the law of cycles. If you will examine into the past history of mankind you will find the unquestionable evidence of this. All nations have grown, reached the apex of their power and glory, and then gradually disintegrated and disappeared. But as surely ancient glories reappear when the time is ripe. For hundreds of years nothing has bene known of the "Mysteries" in the west. Now they are to be re-established."
"All will remember the saying of Jesus, "Greater things than these shall ye do also. If ye have faith." But we must have faith in the divine "Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," as the apostle John says. To this school will come people from all over the earth. Already letters have been received from people in all parts of the world, applying for admission. It must, in the nature of things, bring prosperity to the town. Those who come will bring all that is best from their own country, and will in turn take back with them the best we have to give. Students will be taught the mysteries of life and also some of the mysteries of death. There will be degree after degree, and each will be taught according to his understanding."
"This study and work for humanity will bring to us the Golden Age, the seed of which is in truth hidden in the hearts of all humanity. This will bring man into possession of his everlasting birthright which as but to be evoked to illuminate his soul."
"That to which this all leads, is simply the universal brotherhood of all humanity. This it is that when made real and practical, instead of mere sentiment, will bring in the Golden Age."
Mrs. Cleather was called upon on very short notice to take the place of Claude Falls Wright, who was unavoidably absent, and took his subject, "H. P. Blavatsky." Mrs. Cleather paid fitting tribute to the memory of the great founder of the Theosophical movement, dwelling upon the great obstacles Madame Blavatsky had overcome, many of which arose from the treachery of those who professed to be her friends. It was this treachery that shortened the life of the great hearted "H. P. Blavatsky," who had a rough exterior enclosing a warm heart and noble soul.
William Q. Judge
The Great Theosophical Thinker Described by a Friend
The next speaker, Chairman Patterson, was allotted to give an address on William Q. Judge. He said:
"In affairs, actors and environment and premises. Vary either and concludes are altered. The same character manifests differently under diverse circumstances. In normal times the course of events runs smoothly on. There are, however, critical periods -- periods of supreme importance; periods which are pivotal; periods on which destiny turns. These periods are produced by precedent interplay of actors and environments; are precursors and predeterminers of what is to follow. As the actors, in these periods, are fit or unfit, the train of events ushered in is beneficent or disastrous."
"Old growths withering and decaying fertilize the earth from which they are sprung. Their seeds falling about their roots become the living germs. Civilizations pass away enriching the soil and depositing the seed for those which follow. Always this living seed carries the vitalized germ. The Roman power approached its final dissolution. The early Christian teachings fell into the ready ground. The glory of Italy, France, and Byzantine empire superseded the imperial splendor. The might of the Byzantine became a thing of the past. The recent waxed and its radiance filled the deserted spots. Gautama taught where corruption had set in. Lao Tse and Confucius gave a new impetus to Chinese thought."
"Now, again, an ace of the great wheel passes by. Forms, conceptions, theories grow brittle and crumble. With infidelity, Mahommedan, Buddhistic, Brahminical, Christian countries are hallowed like the comb of the honey collectors."
"In the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five Madame Blavatsky founded the "Theosophical society" in America. Do you know what that meant? It meant that the new seed was then planted. Not local, not national, but terrestrial conditions were being, already have been, transformed. She who sowed the seed protected it. For sixteen years of such labor that a Bismarck would have been daunted by them. Madame Blavatsky shielded with her life the growing plant. Then her task was ended."
"Who was to take her place? Who carry on her work? In William Q. Judge was found a worthy successor and of him I must speak. What he was, so far as the outer appearances are concerned, is of small moments. I knew him personally. I have seen him under the most trying circumstances. Never have I known a man more permeated with the spirit of universal brotherhood, more devoted to his fellow men, more imbued with everlasting love for humanity, more fully exemplifying the ideal of renunciation."
"Regardless of worldly interest, he was steadfast, faithful and worthy of unlimited trust, carless of self he was capable of an activity that was incredible, a fearlessness never surpassed, a sincerity unequalled. The enterprises the inception of which was due to him have already had a potent, far-reaching effect."
"Staunch in his friendship, he never avoided offenses at the expense of helpfulness. Often misunderstood, he continued on the path he trod unruffled, though, frequently, sorely hurt by the unkindness he was too generous to refer to. Broad and magnanimous, he never held resentment, but carried himself with regal nobility. Inspired with a Devine trust that if each one did his duty, nothing could withstand the onslaught, he was invincible. Those whom he assisted most became his most bitter enemies, yet, though quick to speak and act drastically when necessary for the general good. I never heard him utter one word of reproach or personal condemnation. It was his devotion and impersonality which cut so keenly and started a quenchless fire of animosity and ill will."
"The aperture in the camera is essential if the object without is to be pictured on the screen within. The broken link severs the chain. A cycle has passed and a new one has begun. Between Madame Blavatsky, the ingathered of the past, and Katherine A. Tingley, the promise of the future, stood William Q. Judge. He was the antaskarana; the bridge; the link; the tie. He, like Cucullain of old, held the ford. Without him the school, whose corner stone we now dedicate, could not have been. Let us not forget him today, tomorrow, or in the time to come.
Mrs. Cleather spoke on "Katharine A. Tingley," showing her remarkable powers from an early age, her great work among the poor, and her selection by Madame Blavatsky and afterwards by William Q. Judge to be the leader of the movement. She never sought the position, which is in truth an exceedingly hard one, but was entreated to take it.
Mrs. Cleather characterized the absurd story circulating by the enemies of the Theosophical movement about Mrs. Tingley claiming to be reincarnation of Madame Blavatsky as a spiteful slander absolutely without the slightest foundation. Mrs. Tingley had proved herself a wonderful leader.
Rev. W. Williams spoke very briefly on "Divine Teachers." The programme had become rather lengthened and all were reduce to three minutes time.
James M. Press spoke with equal brevity on the "Esoteric or Real Christianity," saying the esoteric or real christianity was simply another term for Theosophy.
Dr. Lorin F. Wood said a few words on the crusade and its effects, prefacing by remarking that he had two minutes to sum up the work of eight or nine months, hence it could not be very complete. But he gave a good idea of a part of the work nevertheless.
The Local Influence
Col. Blackmer Estimates the Good Effect of the School on San Diego
Col. E. T. Blackmer, president of the local society, was the last speaker. He said:
"In estimating the influence that will come to our city and its people from the establishment of a school such as this in our midst we must look for it along three lines -- the material, the intellectual, and the spiritual. And first, what influence will it have upon the advancement and prosperity of our city? We may reasonably expect that it will bring to us an increase of population that will be in every way desirable."
"These beautiful locations lying all about us, where nature has done so much to please the eye and where genial soil and balmy skies are so well adapted to supply our material wants, will in the not distant future be occupied as homes for a broad minded, intelligent and progressive class of citizens whose influence in the material prosperity of our city will be both active and beneficent. They will be interested in all that pertains to our growth and prosperity, and add materially to our advancement in innumerable ways."
"Furthermore, Point Loma and San Diego will be heralded from ocean to ocean by the cable under the sea with the messages as it flies to other shores, until in eery land and in every tongue the name and fame of our fair city shall be the shibboleth that will become a synonym of all that is beautiful, grand and ennobling."
"Secondly, what of its intellectual influence? The faculty of the school to be established in the building of which we have this day laid the first foundation stone, will be men and women of acknowledged intellectual ability and integrity and here will be gathered the working tools for mental cultivation -- books. Here will be stored the nucleus of a library that will in time grow to such proportions and along such lines the this will become the Mecca of students and thinkers from all the lands, who will journey hither to gather the wisdom of the ages; and our own people (and I feel warranted in saying that their number will not be few) will eagerly seek for and make their own, the accumulated knowledge of a past that has heretofore been to us almost a sealed record."
"And, lastly, the influence it will exert upon the spiritual atmosphere of our fair city by the sea. Here I hope, trust and believe we shall reach the highest level in our endeavor. It will be along this line that the most vital influence will come that shall be for the uplifting of the hopes and aspirations to us all. Human thought is the most potent factor in every undertaking. It transforms the wilderness into cultivated fields, builds towns and cities; spreads the white wings of commerce on the seas and puts a girdle round the earth so that thought responds to thought and takes no note of space or time."
"The thought of any people determines the line of their progress. If it is solely along material lines material progress results, if turned toward intellectual pursuits there is mental progress, and the mental development dominated the material. When the spiritual part of man's nature is stimulated into a healthy growth the intellectual and material activities are lifted above the grosser phases of manifestation and progress is made toward grander thoughts and nobler lives."
"Such will be the influence of this school upon our city and its people. Here shall the sign of universal brotherhood be elevated, and the torch of fanaticism and destruction, should it ever approach us and our homes, will be quenched never to be rekindled, in the atmosphere of brotherly love that will henceforth and forever flow from this center of spiritual life and force which we have this day consecrated."
With a few words from President Hargrove the audience was dismissed and most of those in attendance wrote their names in the visitors' register provided for the purpose.
Corner Stone Laid
Mystic Ceremonial By Theosophists on Point Loma
Corner Stone of the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity Laid by Mrs. Tingley, Successor to Madame Blavatsky and Wm. Q. Judge.
The laying of the corners stone of the School for the Revival of the Lost Mysteries of Antiquity, on Point Loma yesterday afternoon, was accompanied by the most impressive ceremonies, and the event will be long remembered by those who were fortunate enough to be present. The program was set to begin at 2 o'clock, but long before that hour there was a large crowd present. By the time exercises opened nearly a thousand people had gathered, about 250 whom were accommodated with seats, and others standing patiently all afternoon.
That this number of people took the trouble to drive six or seven miles into the country, most of them for the privilege of standing for three hours to witness the unique ceremonies, gave evidence of the deep interest San Diego citizens have in the institution and its proposed work. Every available livery rig seemed to be brought into requisition, besides bicycles and other conveyances, to get the people to the grounds.
Upon arriving there what first attracts the attention is the superb view, a portion of which is shown in the cut on this page. This is the view which Charles Dudley Warner designated as one of the three finest in all the world, and it is truly inspiring. The vision is unobstructed for at least fifty miles in all directions, and glistening waters of the Pacific on one side, the bay and the city of San Diego on the other. And while at this favored spot, the fragrance of the orange and lemon is in the air and the ground is covered with a carpet of the richest green, the snow-capped mountain range back of the city serves to remind one of less favored climes.
The cornerstone was in the center of a square enclosed by ropes of cypress, with a large arch made of evergreen at the front, around which were inscribed the words, "Truth, Light, Liberation for Discouraged Humanity," in large letters of purple on a gold background. From the derrick which was used to lower the corner stone to its place, two ropes were stretched, from which floated in the breeze the flags of all the many nations through which the crusaders have passed on their journey around the world.
These flags, which were presented to them by the people of the different countries, seemed to comprise all the colors of the rainbow, making a most pleasing effect with the many contrasts of colors and shapes outlined against the blue sky. There were also several unique banners from different branches of the society, one of an antique Egyptian design being especially noticeable. The Stars and Stripes covered the stand, which was used as a pulpit. Upon it were life-size pictures of Madame Blavatsky, William Q. Judge, Katherine A. Tingley, and E. T. Hargrove.
After a number of selections by the City Guard band, those who were to take part in the ceremonies entered the enclosure around the corner stone, and formed in two lines facing toward the center, while Mrs. Tingley stood at the end next to the cornerstone. Those within the enclosure were: Mrs. Katherine A. Tingley, leader of the Theosophical movement throughout the world; E. T. Hargrove, president of the Theosophical societies in America, Europe and Australasia; H. T. Patterson, F. M. Pierce, Mrs. Alice L. Cleather, Mrs. Claude Falls Wright, Rev. W. Williams, Dr. Lorin F. Wood, James M. Press, E. B. Rambo, Miss Anne Bryce, Col. E. T. Blacker, C. F. Willard, Allen Griffiths, Abbott B. Clark and a little boy and girl carrying emblems and utensils to be used in the ceremonies. The ladies wore purple gowns and both ladies and gentlemen were decorated with the emblems of the Esoteric council of the society.
The ceremonies were beautiful and impressive throughout. President Hargrove first made a brief address in which he said he wished to point out the solemnity of the occasion which had brought so many people together from all parts of the country to witness the laying of this cornerstone. It might seem strange to the people of San Diego that the founder directress, Mrs. Tingley, should have selected this spot, never having seen it before, and only coming here after all the preliminary arrangements had been made. It should be clearly understood, he said, that the school was under her supervision, and those who get to know her better will come to know why. The building will be one that will be worthy of the objects of the school.
The band then played the "Intermezzo Simfonico" by Mascagni, while the stone was raised over its place and the mortar applied by Mrs. Tingley, after she had deposited a box in the opening in the lower stone. The box was covered with purple and contained a history of the Theosophical movement, the best thoughts of the crusaders, a copy of the souvenir programme, and various parchments.
The stone was lowered into place when Mrs. Tingley said: "I dedicate this stone: a perfect square, a fitting emblem of the perfect work that will be done in the temple for the benefit of humanity and glory of the ancient sages."
Immediately the "sacred word" was sounded by all the Esotericists taking part in the ceremonies, as the stone was fitted into its permanent place, and as the sound ceased the impressive solemnity of the occasion was felt by all the people, the crowd being hushed into the utmost stillness.
Mrs. Tingley took a silver urn containing corn, which she scattered upon the stone, and a pitcher from which wine was spilled. From a brass salver bearing brass urns, were cast various elements. Mrs. Tingley saying as she threw them upon the stone: "Earth--emblem of man's body," "Air--emblem of man's breath," "Water-- emblem of man's inner-self," "Fire--emblem of man's spiritual power." Flowers and other articles were cast upon the stone, and President Hargrove, lighting a fire on the stone, said, "May these fires be lighted and may they burn forever more." Rev. W. Williams then read beatitudes from the New Testament and President Hargrove read the following selections from the "Bhagavad Gita:"
"Those who are wise in spiritual things grieve neither for the dead nor for the living. I myself never was not, nor though, nor all the princes of the earth; nor shall we ever hereafter cease to be. As the lord of this mortal frame experienceth therein infancy, youth and old age, so in future incarnations will it meet the same. One who is confirmed in this belief is not disturbed by anything that may come to pass. The senses, moving toward their appropriate objects, are producers of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go and are brief and changeable; these do thou endure. O son of Bharata! For the wise man, whom these disturb not, and to whom pain and pleasure are the same, is fitted for immortality. There is no existence for that which does not exist, nor is there any non-existence for what exists. By those who see the truth and look into the principles of things the ultimate characteristic of these both is seen. Learn that He by whom all things were formed is incorruptible, and that no one is able to effect the destruction of IT which is inexhaustible and everlasting."
Each of the Esotericists then quoted a selection from the sacred scriptures of the various nations, and the sages of all times -- from the Upanishads, the Bible, the Orphis Mysteries, Confucious, and Eleusinan Mysteries and various sources -- all being characterized by great beauty and wisdom. Mrs. Wright and Miss Bryce read two beautiful selections on "Harmony."
Mrs. Tingley's Address
The Successor of Madame Blavatsky Sets Forth the Objects of the School
There was complete silence as the last readers stepped back, and Mrs. Tingley unrolled a piece of parchment. She advanced to the stone, and read the following in a low but clear voice:
"You have witnessed the laying of the corners stone of the school for revival of lost mysteries. You have heard described the objects of the school. It remains for me to turn the thoughts of those present toward the future of the human race."
"Few can realize the vast significance of that has been done here today. In ancient times the founding of a temple was looked upon as of worldwide importance. Kings and princes from far distant countries attended the ceremonies of the foundation. Sages regathered from all parts of the world to lend their presence at such a time; for the building of a temple was rightly regarded as a benefit upon all humanity."
"The future of this school will be closely associated with the future of the great American republic. While the school will be international in character it will be American in center. This school will be a temple of living light, lighting up the dark places of the earth. And I appeal to all present to remember this day as one of great promise of this new age must bring blessing to all."
"Through this school and its branches the children of the race will be taught the laws of physical life and the laws of physical, moral, and mental health. They will learn to live in harmony with nature. They will become compassionate lovers of all that breathes. They will grow strong in an understanding of themselves and as they gain strength they will learn to use it for the good of the whole world. Rejoice with me then, and may you all share in the blessings of this hour and in the brightness of this future which contains so much of joy for man."
And then chanted in Sanskrit mantras, after which a tone was struck, answered by another, and immediately the starts and stripes were run up to the top of the flag staff while the band played "Red, Which and Blue," and "Hail Columbia."
Everything was in readiness to fire a salute at this juncture, but there were many horses near, and it was thought best to postpone this until later. A beautiful flag was run up, with he design of the great seal of the society in the upper left hand corner, done in gild on a purple background, while the remainder of the flag was purple and gold stripes, alternating like the American flag. This handsome flag was large enough to be seen flying in the breeze, all the way to the city, as the people returned after the ceremonies.
Upon the cornerstone is the following inscription: "Cornerstone S. R. L. M. A. Laid February 23rtd. 1897, by the Founders Katharine A. Tingley, assisted in ceremony by E. T. Hargrove Pres't. T. S. A."
History of the Movement
E. B. Rambo Reviews the Causes Leading to the Founding of the School
At the conclusion of the ceremonies at the cornerstone the City Guard band rendered a selection, and the addresses were commenced. Mr. Patterson presided, and introduced E. B. Rambo as the first speaker. Mr. Rambo is a the head of the San Francisco society. He said:
"I am requested, in a few minutes, to give a history of the movement of which the ceremony we have witnessed today is the latest act."
"While this school for the revival of the lost mysteries of antiquity is not founded by the Theosophical society as such, does not belong to it as property, those taking part in the ceremony today are connected with its membership, and it is a part of the movement for which the Theosophical society in America stands."
"Speaking to you now, as a member of that society, I believe this movement to be not only the greatest of this country, but that it has been in progress from time immemorial. Our historical records are of the rise and fall of nations, of their rulers, and those great wars which made and unmade nations; little of their religion, arts, and sciences."
"But in this little, in all ages, there appear points as it were indicating always a movement towards deeper knowledge, of those who would save the religious thought of the world, those who strove to bring back some standard, the forgotten truths of the past. Such were the Saviours and Christs of many nations, and many times. In science, as well, there are indications of those guarding well here secrets. In arts there were many revivals. Dark ages were followed by culture and a higher civilization."
"There was an ebb and flow. Humanity in the depths of darkness and degradation, followed by enlightenment and the highest culture."
"We read of the master of wisdom, of the hierophants of various schools, of great teachers and great disciples. All religions have come to us from the east, all advance in science, art, and letters from the same source and scholars proceeded from the west to the east to learn of the wise men. We read of the magicians, alchemists, and philosophers who in every age appear to have preserved the knowledge of the past in its purity, when religion became dogmatic when priestcraft ruled and ignorance prevailed."
"And there have been in every age the guardians of humanity and its salvation."
"There have been more than an ebb and flow, there has been a constant reoccurring wave of spiritual knowledge, so well marked that we may say no country, if we had complete historical records, has been without its revival, or at least the attempt and partial success towards the advancement of knowledge and an influx of spiritual light and truth. These times are well marked and may be placed in closing quarter of each past century."
"In the eighteenth century, with all the horrors of the revolution, and the false cries of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity," we can see that order was avoided from chaos, that the greatest minds and humanitarians of the world worked in these years for the good of the ignorant and the advancement of law and order, by holding forth a truer and more spiritual life, the real life, and the religion within every man. "
"In the later part of our century, so great in material progress, so deeply immersed in material thought, with our millions of wretched humanity, not withstanding our boasted civilization with churches and religion by the hundreds, needing as we did, a revival of spirituality, came this same movement and for our salvation. In November, 1875, in New York City, was founded the Theosophical society, by Madame H. P. Blavatsky, and others, a this we hold was and is simply a revival of the work and efforts of the masters of wisdom, existing in the past and existing today."
"The avowed object of the society was the foundation of a nucleus of universal brotherhood, the study and investigation of all religions, and investigation of the latent powers in man, and unexplained laws of nature. In these objects are found the true aim and all the teachings of the great masters of all ages. In universal brotherhood is to be found the basis of all ethics, right living, right acting and justice toward ourselves, and all men, with charity for all. In the study of all religions is found a common basis, Theosophy, Divine Wisdom, for the spiritual nature of man. In the investigation of man's latent powers, and the phenomena about us is to be found the greater possibilities of man, the explanations of the so-called supernatural, and a return to the philosophy and knowledge of the wise in all past ages."
The President's Address
Mr. Hargrove Speaks on the Influence and Scope of the New School
Following Mr. Rambo, President Hargrove was introduced and spoke somewhat as follows:
"There have been various reports already circulated concerning the aims and objects of this school. We have been informed that its chief object would be to develop the psychic faculties and abnormal freaks in general. Most extraordinary statements have been made concerning the project of the astral body through walls and all sorts of incredible tales have been told. Now it is needless to say that all these speculations are wrong. Nor is the school to be conduced to make money. The tuition will be free, and it will be supported entirely by voluntary contributions. No trustee and no officer will receive any salary whatever, least of all its founders."
"What, then, is its object? For what are we assembled here today? The real object of it all is to bring about a true and harmonious development of the characters of its pupils -- to educate, in the highest sense -- to draw from them the best there is in their natures. We shall cultivate the powers of the mind, which are many, and for the most part, unknown. It has not occurred to most teachers that there are laws of the mental and moral nature of man which will bring about a great improvement of the entire human race. In this school will be taught and demonstrated that real inter nature of man. This was done in the "mysteries" of ancient Egypt and Greece, and used to be done here before the white race ever appeared on this continent. One of the objects of the school will be to do away with the mysteries, by making plain that which was 'mystery.'"
"The founding of this temple takes place under cyclic law. All evolution and all development of the human race, as well as everything else in nature, proceed under the law of cycles. If you will examine into the past history of mankind you will find the unquestionable evidence of this. All nations have grown, reached the apex of their power and glory, and then gradually disintegrated and disappeared. But as surely ancient glories reappear when the time is ripe. For hundreds of years nothing has bene known of the "Mysteries" in the west. Now they are to be re-established."
"All will remember the saying of Jesus, "Greater things than these shall ye do also. If ye have faith." But we must have faith in the divine "Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," as the apostle John says. To this school will come people from all over the earth. Already letters have been received from people in all parts of the world, applying for admission. It must, in the nature of things, bring prosperity to the town. Those who come will bring all that is best from their own country, and will in turn take back with them the best we have to give. Students will be taught the mysteries of life and also some of the mysteries of death. There will be degree after degree, and each will be taught according to his understanding."
"This study and work for humanity will bring to us the Golden Age, the seed of which is in truth hidden in the hearts of all humanity. This will bring man into possession of his everlasting birthright which as but to be evoked to illuminate his soul."
"That to which this all leads, is simply the universal brotherhood of all humanity. This it is that when made real and practical, instead of mere sentiment, will bring in the Golden Age."
Mrs. Cleather was called upon on very short notice to take the place of Claude Falls Wright, who was unavoidably absent, and took his subject, "H. P. Blavatsky." Mrs. Cleather paid fitting tribute to the memory of the great founder of the Theosophical movement, dwelling upon the great obstacles Madame Blavatsky had overcome, many of which arose from the treachery of those who professed to be her friends. It was this treachery that shortened the life of the great hearted "H. P. Blavatsky," who had a rough exterior enclosing a warm heart and noble soul.
William Q. Judge
The Great Theosophical Thinker Described by a Friend
The next speaker, Chairman Patterson, was allotted to give an address on William Q. Judge. He said:
"In affairs, actors and environment and premises. Vary either and concludes are altered. The same character manifests differently under diverse circumstances. In normal times the course of events runs smoothly on. There are, however, critical periods -- periods of supreme importance; periods which are pivotal; periods on which destiny turns. These periods are produced by precedent interplay of actors and environments; are precursors and predeterminers of what is to follow. As the actors, in these periods, are fit or unfit, the train of events ushered in is beneficent or disastrous."
"Old growths withering and decaying fertilize the earth from which they are sprung. Their seeds falling about their roots become the living germs. Civilizations pass away enriching the soil and depositing the seed for those which follow. Always this living seed carries the vitalized germ. The Roman power approached its final dissolution. The early Christian teachings fell into the ready ground. The glory of Italy, France, and Byzantine empire superseded the imperial splendor. The might of the Byzantine became a thing of the past. The recent waxed and its radiance filled the deserted spots. Gautama taught where corruption had set in. Lao Tse and Confucius gave a new impetus to Chinese thought."
"Now, again, an ace of the great wheel passes by. Forms, conceptions, theories grow brittle and crumble. With infidelity, Mahommedan, Buddhistic, Brahminical, Christian countries are hallowed like the comb of the honey collectors."
"In the year eighteen hundred and seventy-five Madame Blavatsky founded the "Theosophical society" in America. Do you know what that meant? It meant that the new seed was then planted. Not local, not national, but terrestrial conditions were being, already have been, transformed. She who sowed the seed protected it. For sixteen years of such labor that a Bismarck would have been daunted by them. Madame Blavatsky shielded with her life the growing plant. Then her task was ended."
"Who was to take her place? Who carry on her work? In William Q. Judge was found a worthy successor and of him I must speak. What he was, so far as the outer appearances are concerned, is of small moments. I knew him personally. I have seen him under the most trying circumstances. Never have I known a man more permeated with the spirit of universal brotherhood, more devoted to his fellow men, more imbued with everlasting love for humanity, more fully exemplifying the ideal of renunciation."
"Regardless of worldly interest, he was steadfast, faithful and worthy of unlimited trust, carless of self he was capable of an activity that was incredible, a fearlessness never surpassed, a sincerity unequalled. The enterprises the inception of which was due to him have already had a potent, far-reaching effect."
"Staunch in his friendship, he never avoided offenses at the expense of helpfulness. Often misunderstood, he continued on the path he trod unruffled, though, frequently, sorely hurt by the unkindness he was too generous to refer to. Broad and magnanimous, he never held resentment, but carried himself with regal nobility. Inspired with a Devine trust that if each one did his duty, nothing could withstand the onslaught, he was invincible. Those whom he assisted most became his most bitter enemies, yet, though quick to speak and act drastically when necessary for the general good. I never heard him utter one word of reproach or personal condemnation. It was his devotion and impersonality which cut so keenly and started a quenchless fire of animosity and ill will."
"The aperture in the camera is essential if the object without is to be pictured on the screen within. The broken link severs the chain. A cycle has passed and a new one has begun. Between Madame Blavatsky, the ingathered of the past, and Katherine A. Tingley, the promise of the future, stood William Q. Judge. He was the antaskarana; the bridge; the link; the tie. He, like Cucullain of old, held the ford. Without him the school, whose corner stone we now dedicate, could not have been. Let us not forget him today, tomorrow, or in the time to come.
Mrs. Cleather spoke on "Katharine A. Tingley," showing her remarkable powers from an early age, her great work among the poor, and her selection by Madame Blavatsky and afterwards by William Q. Judge to be the leader of the movement. She never sought the position, which is in truth an exceedingly hard one, but was entreated to take it.
Mrs. Cleather characterized the absurd story circulating by the enemies of the Theosophical movement about Mrs. Tingley claiming to be reincarnation of Madame Blavatsky as a spiteful slander absolutely without the slightest foundation. Mrs. Tingley had proved herself a wonderful leader.
Rev. W. Williams spoke very briefly on "Divine Teachers." The programme had become rather lengthened and all were reduce to three minutes time.
James M. Press spoke with equal brevity on the "Esoteric or Real Christianity," saying the esoteric or real christianity was simply another term for Theosophy.
Dr. Lorin F. Wood said a few words on the crusade and its effects, prefacing by remarking that he had two minutes to sum up the work of eight or nine months, hence it could not be very complete. But he gave a good idea of a part of the work nevertheless.
The Local Influence
Col. Blackmer Estimates the Good Effect of the School on San Diego
Col. E. T. Blackmer, president of the local society, was the last speaker. He said:
"In estimating the influence that will come to our city and its people from the establishment of a school such as this in our midst we must look for it along three lines -- the material, the intellectual, and the spiritual. And first, what influence will it have upon the advancement and prosperity of our city? We may reasonably expect that it will bring to us an increase of population that will be in every way desirable."
"These beautiful locations lying all about us, where nature has done so much to please the eye and where genial soil and balmy skies are so well adapted to supply our material wants, will in the not distant future be occupied as homes for a broad minded, intelligent and progressive class of citizens whose influence in the material prosperity of our city will be both active and beneficent. They will be interested in all that pertains to our growth and prosperity, and add materially to our advancement in innumerable ways."
"Furthermore, Point Loma and San Diego will be heralded from ocean to ocean by the cable under the sea with the messages as it flies to other shores, until in eery land and in every tongue the name and fame of our fair city shall be the shibboleth that will become a synonym of all that is beautiful, grand and ennobling."
"Secondly, what of its intellectual influence? The faculty of the school to be established in the building of which we have this day laid the first foundation stone, will be men and women of acknowledged intellectual ability and integrity and here will be gathered the working tools for mental cultivation -- books. Here will be stored the nucleus of a library that will in time grow to such proportions and along such lines the this will become the Mecca of students and thinkers from all the lands, who will journey hither to gather the wisdom of the ages; and our own people (and I feel warranted in saying that their number will not be few) will eagerly seek for and make their own, the accumulated knowledge of a past that has heretofore been to us almost a sealed record."
"And, lastly, the influence it will exert upon the spiritual atmosphere of our fair city by the sea. Here I hope, trust and believe we shall reach the highest level in our endeavor. It will be along this line that the most vital influence will come that shall be for the uplifting of the hopes and aspirations to us all. Human thought is the most potent factor in every undertaking. It transforms the wilderness into cultivated fields, builds towns and cities; spreads the white wings of commerce on the seas and puts a girdle round the earth so that thought responds to thought and takes no note of space or time."
"The thought of any people determines the line of their progress. If it is solely along material lines material progress results, if turned toward intellectual pursuits there is mental progress, and the mental development dominated the material. When the spiritual part of man's nature is stimulated into a healthy growth the intellectual and material activities are lifted above the grosser phases of manifestation and progress is made toward grander thoughts and nobler lives."
"Such will be the influence of this school upon our city and its people. Here shall the sign of universal brotherhood be elevated, and the torch of fanaticism and destruction, should it ever approach us and our homes, will be quenched never to be rekindled, in the atmosphere of brotherly love that will henceforth and forever flow from this center of spiritual life and force which we have this day consecrated."
With a few words from President Hargrove the audience was dismissed and most of those in attendance wrote their names in the visitors' register provided for the purpose.
Introduction :
Since substituting for complex raw ceramic materials involves calculation that many potters are not familiar with and since we have found a way to substitute for most of these we offer to the community of ceramists the results of our research.
This research project originated very spontaneously while calculating to substitute for spodumene by lithium carbonate, kaolin and silica. Our approach is for those who are not familiar with glaze chemistry or for those who do not own a computer. This research project was conducted between 1993 and 1995, before the popularization of computer glaze softwares and home personal computers. Even at the present time only 20% of Quebec households own a computer and only 6% of them have a link to Internet (1997).
After succeeding our first substitution for spodumene the results were sent to W. Hunt, editor with Ceramics Monthly, who really appreciated our method. His letter of May 19, 1993 was a real boost for us: “I appreciated you sending us this fascinating discussion on substituting for spodumene. With your permission, I’d like to use parts of this in our Letters column”. Then we decided to apply our method to the substitution for feldspars, felspathoids and other raw materials, as you will see later. The results were sent to W. Hunt on a slow basis, in a “chapter by chapter” like manner, as new hypotheses came to our mind. Then on March 17, 1994 he send his final comments on what we had sent thus far. The chapter on lepidolite was done after receiving his last letter but the same methodology was applied.
We used general formulas rather than complex analysis and carried 3 decimal places, rounding the fourth on the third. We used the notional oxide KNAO. We also used a few other personal tricks. Our goal was to obtain substitutions in which new unity formulas were the closest possible to the original ones, which we achieved on each occasion.
Since the formulas of feldspars and feldspar-like materials are somewhat similar to those of glazes we used this last principle to find adequate substitutions. The idea was to consider the complex materials to be substituted for as glazebase unity formulas to be converted to batch recipes, then they were divided by 100 to be inserted easily in glaze recipes.
According to the method for glaze calculation: “Glaze calculation, theory and objectives”; “Glaze calculation using materials containing more than one oxide” and “Calculating glaze formulas from batches or recipes” (Daniel Rhodes, Clay and glazes for the potter, revised edition, 1973) we used different materials to achieve our goal which was to make a mixture having, once fired, the formula of feldspars and feldspar-like materials.
Naturally some minor adjustments had to be made, by the method of trials and errors (on a mathematical basis), to the results of the first try (first substitution) to obtain a satisfactory fit. Then when necessary and/or possible, the results of the second try (second substitution) were tested a few more times in different recipes to eliminate possible good results due solely to chance.
Finally we applied our method to materials far less complex than feldspars and feldspar-like materials.
Sincerely
Edouard Bastarache
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National Library of Canada 1998
Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec 1998
ISBN 2-9805901-1-8
Copyright
Canada
Registration: No. 462038
Date of Registration: May 26 1997
All rights reserved
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Ceramics Monthly
Post Office Box 12448
1609 Northwest Boulevard,Columbus, Ohio 43212
Telephone 614-488-8236
Fax 614-488-4561
May 19, 1993
Edouard Bastarache
2340 Des Erables
Sorel-Tracy, Quebec
CANADA J3R 2W3
Dear Mr. Bastarache :
I appreciated you sending us this fascinating discusion on
substituting for spodumene.
Sincerely,
Wiilam Hunt
Editor
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Ceramics Monthly
Post Office Box 12448
1609 Northwest Boulevard,Columbus, Ohio 43212
Telephone 614-488-8236
Fax 614-488-4561
March 17, 1994
Edouard Bastarache
2340, boul. Des Érables
Sorel-Tracy (Québec)
J3R 2W3
Canada
Dear Mr. Bastarache:
We are truly amazed at all these submissions that you have sent concerning ceramic materials substitutions. I can’t think of the last time someone sent us this much data – enough for a substantial book. These texts go beyond anything we could publish in Ceramics Monthly, so I’m wondering if you’d allow us to post these in our research library where the staff or other potters visiting the library would have access to your research. Of course, if you would rather us return this material to you we would, should you request it.
I thank you for thinking of us with all your detailed and thoughtful research; I look forward to hearing from you further as to its disposition.
Sincerely,
William Hunt
Editor
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CONTENTS
I- INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………………….........9
II- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR SPODUMENE …………………………………….15
III- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR PETALITE ………………………………………...31
IV- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR LEPIDOLITE ………………………….…………45
V- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR POTASSIUM SPARS
(Custer spar) ……………………………………………………………….......103
VI- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR CORNWALL STONE …………………………..119
VII- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR SODIUM/CALCIUM SPARS
(Kona F-4 spar) ………………………………………………………….........165
VIII- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR POTASSIUM/CALCIUM SPARS
(G-200 spar) ……………………………………………………………..........195
IX- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR PLASTIC VITROX ……………………………..239
X- SUBSTITUTION FOR VOLCANIC ASH …………………………………265
XI- SUBSTITUTIONS FOR MISCELLANEOUS MATERIALS …………….271
Substitution for Dolomite ……………………………………………...........273
Substitution for Wollastonite ………………………………………….........279
Substitutions for Pyrophyllite …………………………………….…...........285
Substitution for Talc …………………………………………………...........295
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Thank you so much for sending the books with Michel. They are
amazingly thorough and fill an important void in my library. As both
potter and educator very concerned with the use of materials it is
great to have them. I have known about them for some years, but, as I
will soon be slowing down on the teaching end of things, hadn't got
around to getting them. When Michel was coming for a visit and
sometimes works in your studio, it seemed like an ideal time to add
them to my library.
Much appreciated, thank you.
Robin Hopper
Potter,
BC, Canada
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Invaluable resource
I have to admit, when I bought this book, part of my reasons were to
support an online friend and fellow clayarter, by adding his book to my
collection. It was very pleasant to receive the book and realize what a
wonderful addition to my clay book library it is! I wanted to share my
reactions by sending my review.
Being a potter who mixes glazes from scratch, I sometimes will go to make
up a recipe and realize that I'm missing one of the ingredients or don't
have quite enough. This book is an invaluable resource for such a
situation where quick re-stocking of chemicals is not always an option.
The book is arranged by chemical being substituted for, with variations in
the ingredients used as replacement. Monsieur Bastarache has generously
shared many recipes, showing a sample substitution for each variation.
Potters are known for sharing glaze recipes and in this age of electronic
communication, many recipes are being shared online far and wide around the
world. Some of the glaze ingredients are not available in all parts of the
world, without exhaustive shipping costs.With this book as resource,
potters in areas where some chemicals aren't common can easily substitute
and get similar results on their clay pieces.
The book is spiral bound with a good quality cover for convenience and ease
of use in the studio. I would like to commend Edouard for creating this wonderful
reference.
Michelle Lowe, potter in the Phoenix desert
mishlowe@indirect.com
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Fine compilation of work
Hello Edouard!
So I finally had the chance to go through your work. This is truly quite a
fine compilation of work.
Jonathan
Jonathan Kaplan, president
Ceramic Design Group
PO Box 775112
Steamboat Springs CO 80477
jdkaplan@cmn.net
info@ceramicdesigngroup.net
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Incredible book
Dear Edouard,
I received the review copy and I, too am very impressed. I agree with all
the wonderful comments from people that are highly respected in our
industry
Thank you again for the opportunity to sell your incredible book
Anne
Bracker's Good Earth Clays, Inc.
1831 E 1450 Road
Lawrence, KS 66044
bracker@midusa.net
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A tribute by a friend
Dear Édouard,
Most sincere congratulations for the realization of your book. It is really the results of a maniac of research, a mad one about ceramics like there is no one else in Quebec. I have read with pleasure your new book and it was for me a return on my past as a technologist of ceramics. I am thus happy to share your joy of this publication, that will incite ceramists who prepare their glazes, to launch out towards creative adventures of new shades and colors. As for the cover of your book, accept my congratulations because it is a very beautiful.
HEARTY CONGRATULATIONS AND GREETINGS
Julien Cloutier, ceramicist, technologist and author
of « Matériaux du Céramiste Québecois » (Materials for the Quebec Ceramicist)
Cap-Rouge
Quebec
Canada
January 31,1998
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Works really well
Congratulations on your publication.
My copy works really well.
Rhonda Reed,
Potter
reed@gva.net
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Amount of research
"I found the book to be quite interesting and I admire the amout of research that must have gone into it"
Frank Tucker
Tucker's Pottery Supplies
Richmond Hill
Ontario
Canada
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Options. Isn't that what it's all about?
If you're a potter who mixes glazes from scratch, realizing that you're missing one of the ingredients or don't have quite enough can be an inconvenience. Substitutions for Raw Ceramic Materials is an invaluable resource for this situation when quick re-stocking of chemicals is not a timely choice.
The book is arranged by chemical, with variations of the ingredients used as a replacement. The author has generously shared many glaze recipes, showing a sample substitution for each variation.
As a rule, potters are known for sharing glaze recipes. With the use of the internet, many recipes are being shared online around the globe. As you can imagine, some of the glaze ingredients are not available in all parts of the world and without exhaustive shipping costs. With Edouard's book as resource, potters can easily substitute other chemicals and produce similar results.
The book is spiral bound with a good quality cover for convenience and ease of use in the studio.
Clayworld
claylady@apex.net
Hickory
Kentucky
USA
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Immensely thankful
I received your book and I am certain that I will use it very often.
I am immensely thankful for that, and also for the chance to have
participated a little in the making (translating) of your book ,
available here in Portuguese.
Cecília Alvim Dequech
São Paulo
Brazil
rdequech@uol.com.br
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Tour de force
Edouard Bastarache's book « Substitutions for Raw Ceramic Materials » is a 'tour de force' of substitutions of particular ceramic materials with others. The book is the result of a research project undertaken between 1993 and 1995 before computer glazing programs became widely available and is targeted to those ceramic artists and potters who don't have computer access to help them with otherwise complex calculations in materials substitutions.
This is a comprehensive publication on glaze materials substitutions and includes 10 chapters filled with glaze recipies using the sustitution method. Both the original and substituted recipies are provided. Materials substituted include Spodumene, Petalite, Lepidolite, Potash Feldspars, Cornish Stone, Sodium/Calcium Spars (Kona F-4), Potassium/CalciumSpars (G-200) , Plastic Vitrox, Volcanic Ash, Dolomite, Wollastonite, Pryophyllite and Talc. Three hundred pages contain several hundred glazes. In a typical glaze materials substitution, Custer Feldspar might be substituted by Nephelene Syenite and Silica, or Spodumene by Lithium Carbonate, Silica and Kaolin, etc.
Edouard Bastarache lives in Quebec, Canada, and has a colorful history. He studied surgery, internal medicine and neuroendecrine physiology and has been a consultant in occupational and environmental medicine for 25 years. At the same time as his medical studies, he studied ceramics under Julien Cloutier at La Boutique d'Argile (The Clay Shop) and later also taught at the same school. Bastarache now lives in the Sorel-Tracy region of Quebec, near the St. Lawrence river. He uses waste materials from steel plants located in the area to color many of his glazes and clays. He fires most of his work to cone 9 1/2 in reduction in a 60 cubic foot downdraft gas kiln.
His book Substitutions for Raw Ceramic Materials is the result of a total of 38 years dabbling in ceramics and a 3 year research project.
It is currently available directly from Edouard ,
Potters Shop (USA),
Bracker’s Good Earth Clays Inc (USA),
Laguna Clay (USA),.
Tuckers Canada,
Diaz de Santos (Spain)
Steven Goldate
CeramicsToday
Australia
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Hello Édouard,
The more I learn about the world of potters, the more I think that your idea to write a book on raw materials substitutions is brilliant. None or only a few potters calculate or convert mineral chemical formulas. It must annoy them to calculate, or then they do not know how.
Denis Caraty
Céramiste
smart2000@wanadoo.fr
perso.wanadoo.fr/smart2000/index.htm
Gien
France
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My gosh Edouard you have contributed such a vast amount of great information to the art and science of clay work that I truly respect and admire your dedication and love for the craft. Never mind trying to figure out just how the heck you find the time to do all that you do...."
Rod Wuetherick
rod@redironstudios.ca
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Edouard,
Your glazes are really out of this world.
Superb.
Rhonda Reed
Virginia
USA
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933. 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 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.
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. Having come from a long line of rural gentry, 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:
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.
"The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince 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 Kostromskaya, Moskovskaya, Orlovskya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas". "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.
Ivan Bunin's early childhood, spent in Butyrky Khutor and later in Ozerky (of Yelets county, Lipetskaya Oblast), 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. 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." It was Lyudmila Alexandrovna who introduced her son to the world of Russian folklore. 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."
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 Pleiades, heard a marmot's whistle a verst away, and could get drunk from the smells of landysh or an old book," he remembered later. Bunin's experiences of rural life had a profound impact on his writing. "There, amidst the deep silence of vast fields, among cornfields – or, in winter, huge snowdrifts which were stepping up to our very doorsteps – I spent my childhood which was full of melancholic poetry," Bunin later wrote of his Ozerky days.
Ivan Bunin's first home tutor was an ex-student named Romashkov, whom he later described as a "positively bizarre character," a wanderer full of fascinating stories, "always thought-provoking even if not altogether comprehensible." Later it was university-educated Yuly Bunin (deported home for being a 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. Until 1920 Yuly (who once described Ivan as "undeveloped yet gifted and capable of original independent thought") 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.
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.
Literary career
In May 1887 Bunin published his first 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. 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. 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.
Ivan Bunin's debut book of poetry Poems. 1887–1891 was published in 1891 in Oryol. Some of his articles, essays and short stories, published earlier in local papers, began to feature in the Saint Petersburg periodicals.
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.
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.
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 (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. Tellingly, it was Tolstoy himself who discouraged Bunin from slipping into what he called "total peasantification." Several years later, while still admiring Tolstoy's prose, Bunin changed his views regarding his philosophy which he now saw as utopian.
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, followed a year later by In the Open Air (Под открытым небом, 1898), his second book of verse. 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. In the winter of 1899–1900 he began attending the 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 Zaitsev later remembered. He met Anton Chekov in 1896, and a strong friendship ensued.
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." Even though the book testifies to his association with the Symbolists, primarily Valery Bryusov, 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. Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times." 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. Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.
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 Turgenev, who was a versemaker, first and foremost. Finding the true rhythm of the story was for him the main thing – 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."
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." 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.
In 1902 Znanie started publishing the Complete Bunin series; five volumes appeared by the year 1909. 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. Bunin's works featured regularly in Znanie's literary compilations; beginning with Book I, where "Black Earth" appeared along with several poems, all in all he contributed to 16 books of the series.
In the early 1900s Bunin travelled extensively. He was a close friend of Chekhov and his family and continued visiting them regularly until 1904. The October 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
In October 1909 Bunin received his second Pushkin Prize for Poems 1903–1906 and translations of (Lord Byron's Cain, and parts of Longfellow's The Golden Legend). He was elected a member of the Russian Academy the same year. 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. It was much later that Bunin was proclaimed one of the most innovative Russian writers of the century.
1910–1920
In 1910 Bunin published 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."
"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. 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."
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. In 1912 the 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.
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 to wide acclaim (including high praise from the French poet Rene Ghil). 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, 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 Byron, Tennyson, 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. 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.
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. 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
Bunin and Muromtseva arrived in Paris, 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'", he once said, allegedly, to Merezhkovsky who still cherished hopes for Pilsudsky's military success against the Bolshevik regime.
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.
In France Bunin published many of his pre-revolutionary works and collections of original novellas, regularly contributing to the Russian emigre press. 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 Goncharov and 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) were praised by critics as bringing Russian literature to new heights. 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."
In 1924, he published the "Manifesto of the Russian Emigration", in which he i.a. declared:
There was Russia, 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?
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). 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.
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. 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. In his speech, addressing the Academy, he said:
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.
In France, Bunin found himself, for the first time, at the center of public attention. On 10 November 1933, the Paris newspapers came out with huge headlines: "Bunin — the Nobel Prize laureate" giving the whole of the Russian community in France cause for celebration. "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. Back in the USSR the reaction was negative: Bunin's triumph was explained there as "an imperialist intrigue."
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). 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.
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. 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. In 1937 Bunin finished his book The Liberation of Tolstoy (Освобождение Толстого), held in the highest regard by Leo Tolstoy scholars.
In 1938 Bunin began working on what would later become a celebrated cycle of nostalgic stories with a strong erotic undercurrent and a 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. 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."
The war years
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 passports enabling them to make the trip. But the couple chose to remain in Grasse. 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), 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.
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". A journalist who visited the Villa in 1942 described Bunin as a "skinny and emaciated man, looking like an ancient patrician". 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. 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."
Ivan Bunin was a staunch anti-Nazi, referring to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as "rabid monkeys". He risked his life, sheltering fugitives (including Jews such as the pianist A. Liebermann and his wife) in his house in Grasse after 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 300 metres (980 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".
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." 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." "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.
Last years
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.[3] 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".
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. 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 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. "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." 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.
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". Reportedly, the infamous Zhdanov decree was one of the reasons for Bunin's change of mind. 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 Fadeev might have given me instead of feasts, riches and laurels..."
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. In English translation it was entitled About Chekhov: The Unfinished Symphony. 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. 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 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.
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 – 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 were cited as the causes of death. A lavish burial service took place at the Russian Church on Rue Daru. All the major newspapers, both Russian and French, published large obituaries. For quite a while the coffin was held in a vault. On 30 January 1954, Bunin was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.
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.
Legacy
Ivan Bunin made history as the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The immediate basis for the award was the autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev, but Bunin's legacy is much wider in scope. He is regarded as a master of the short story, described by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov as an "archaist innovator" who, while remaining true to the literary tradition of the 19th century, made huge leaps in terms of artistic expression and purity of style. "[Bunin's] style heralds an historical precedent... technical precision as an instrument of bringing out beauty is sharpened to the extreme. There's hardly another poet who on dozens of pages would fail to produce a single epithet, analogy or metaphor... the ability to perform such a simplification of poetic language without doing any harm to it is the sign of a true artist. When it comes to artistic precision Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets," wrote Vestnik Evropy.
Bunin's early stories were of uneven quality. They were united in their "earthiness", lack of plot and signs of a curious longing for "life's farthest horizons"; young Bunin started his career by trying to approach the ancient dilemmas of the human being, and his first characters were typically old men. His early prose works had one common leitmotif: that of nature's beauty and wisdom bitterly contrasting with humanity's ugly shallowness. As he progressed, Bunin started to receive encouraging reviews: Anton Chekhov warmly greeted his first stories, even if he found too much "density" in them. But it was Gorky who gave Bunin's prose its highest praise. Till the end of his life Gorky (long after the relationship between former friends had soured) rated Bunin among Russian literature's greatest writers and recommended his prose for younger generations of writers as an example of true and unwithering classicism.
As a poet, Bunin started out as a follower of Ivan Nikitin and Aleksey Koltsov, then gravitated towards the Yakov Polonsky and Afanasy Fet school, the latter's impressionism becoming a marked influence. The theme of Bunin's early works seemed to be the demise of the traditional Russian nobleman of the past – something which as an artist he simultaneously gravitated toward and felt averted from. In the 1900s this gave way to a more introspective, philosophical style, akin to Fyodor Tyutchev and his "poetic cosmology". All the while Bunin remained hostile to modernism (and the darker side of it, "decadence"); Mikhaylov saw him as the torch-bearer of Aleksander Pushkin's tradition of "praising the naked simplicity's charms."
The symbolist's flights of imagination and grotesque passions foreign to him, Bunin made nature his field of artistic research and here carved his art to perfection. "Few people are capable of loving nature as Bunin does. And it's this love that makes his scope wide, his vision deep, his colour and aural impressions so rich," wrote Aleksander Blok, a poet from a literary camp Bunin treated as hostile. It was for his books of poetry (the most notable of which is Falling Leaves, 1901) and his poetic translations that Bunin became a three time Pushkin Prize laureate. His verse was praised by Aleksander Kuprin while Blok regarded Bunin as among the first in the hierarchy of Russian poets. One great admirer of Bunin's verse was Vladimir Nabokov, who (even if making scornful remarks about Bunin's prose) compared him to Blok. Some see Bunin as a direct follower of Gogol, who was the first in Russian literature to discover the art of fusing poetry and prose together.
The wholesomeness of Bunin's character allowed him to avoid crises to become virtually the only author of the first decades of the 20th century to develop gradually and logically. "Bunin is the only one who remains true to himself", Gorky wrote in a letter to Chirikov in 1907. Yet, an outsider to all the contemporary trends and literary movements, Bunin was never truly famous in Russia. Becoming an Academician in 1909 alienated him even more from the critics, the majority of whom saw the Academy's decision to expel Gorky several years earlier as a disgrace. The closest Bunin came to fame was in 1911–1912 when The Village and Dry Valley came out. The former, according to the author, "sketched with sharp cruelty the most striking lines of the Russian soul, its light and dark sides, and its often tragic foundations"; it caused passionate, and occasionally very hostile reactions. "Nobody has ever drawn the [Russian] village in such a deep historical context before," Maxim Gorky wrote. After this uncompromising book it became impossible to continue to paint the Russian peasantry life in the idealised, narodnik-style way, Bunin single-handedly closed this long chapter in Russian literature. He maintained the truly classic traditions of realism in Russian literature at the very time when they were in the gravest danger, under attack by modernists and decadents. Yet he was far from "traditional" in many ways, introducing to Russian literature a completely new set of characters and a quite novel, laconic way of saying things. Dry Valley was regarded as another huge step forward for Bunin. While The Village dealt metaphorically with Russia as a whole in a historical context, here, according to the author, the "Russian soul [was brought into the focus] in the attempt to highlight the Slavic psyche's most prominent features." "It's one of the greatest books of Russian horror, and there's an element of liturgy in it... Like a young priest with his faith destroyed, Bunin buried the whole of his class," wrote Gorky.
Bunin's travel sketches were lauded as innovative, notably Bird's Shadow (1907–1911). "He's enchanted with the East, with the 'light-bearing' lands he now describes in such beautiful fashion... For [depicting] the East, both Biblical and modern, Bunin chooses the appropriate style, solemn and incandescent, full of imagery, bathing in waves of sultry sunlight and adorned with arabesques and precious stones, so that, when he tells of these grey-haired ancient times, disappearing in the distant haze of religion and myth, the impression he achieves is that of watching a great chariot of human history moving before our eyes," wrote Yuri Aykhenvald. Critics noted Bunin's uncanny knack of immersing himself into alien cultures, both old and new, best demonstrated in his Eastern cycle of short stories as well as his superb translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha (1898).
Bunin was greatly interested in international myths and folklore, as well as the Russian folkloric tradition. But, (according to Georgy Adamovich) "he was absolutely intolerant towards those of his colleagues who employed stylizations, the "style Russe" manufacturers. His cruel – and rightly so – review of Sergey Gorodetsky's poetry was one example. Even Blok's Kulikovo Field (for me, an outstanding piece) irritated him as too lavishly adorned... "That's Vasnetsov," he commented, meaning 'masquerade and opera'. But he treated things that he felt were not masqueradery differently. Of the Slovo o Polku Igoreve... he said something to the effect that all the poets of the whole world lumped together couldn't have created such wonder, in fact something close to Pushkin's words. Yet translations of the legend... outraged him, particularly that of Balmont. He despised Shmelyov for his pseudo-Russian pretenses, though admitting his literary gift. Bunin had an extraordinarily sharp ear for falseness: he instantly recognized this jarring note and was infuriated. That was why he loved Tolstoy so much. Once, I remember, he spoke of Tolstoy as the one 'who's never said a single word that would be an exaggeration'."
Bunin has often been spoken of as a "cold" writer. Some of his conceptual poems of the 1910s refuted this stereotype, tackling philosophical issues like the mission of an artist ("Insensory", 1916) where he showed fiery passion. According to Oleg Mikhaylov, "Bunin wanted to maintain distance between himself and his reader, being frightened by any closeness... But his pride never excluded passions, just served as a panzer — it was like a flaming torch in an icy shell." On a more personal level, Vera Muromtseva confirmed: "Sure, he wanted to come across as [cold and aloof] and he succeeded by being a first-class actor... people who didn't know him well enough couldn't begin to imagine what depths of soft tenderness his soul was capable of reaching," she wrote in her memoirs.
The best of Bunin's prose ("The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Loopy Ears" and notably, "Brothers", based on Ceylon's religious myth) had a strong philosophical streak to it. In terms of ethics Bunin was under the strong influence of Socrates (as related by Xenophon and Plato), he argued that it was the Greek classic who first expounded many things that were later found in Hindu and Jewish sacred books. Bunin was particularly impressed with Socrates's ideas on the intrinsic value of human individuality, it being a "kind of focus for higher forces" (quoted from Bunin's short story "Back to Rome"). As a purveyor of Socratic ideals, Bunin followed Leo Tolstoy; the latter's observation about beauty being "the crown of virtue" was Bunin's idea too. Critics found deep philosophical motives, and deep undercurrents in Mitya's Love and The Life of Arseniev, two pieces in which "Bunin came closest to a deep metaphysical understanding of the human being's tragic essence." Konstantin Paustovsky called The Life of Arseniev "one of the most outstanding phenomena of world literature."
In his view on Russia and its history Bunin for a while had much in common with A. K. Tolstoy (of whom he spoke with great respect); both tended to idealise the pre-Tatar Rus. Years later he greatly modified his view of Russian history, forming a more negative outlook. "There are two streaks in our people: one dominated by Rus, another by Chudh and Merya. Both have in them a frightening instability, sway... As Russian people say of themselves: we are like wood — both club and icon may come of it, depending on who is working on this wood," Bunin wrote years later.
In emigration Bunin continued his experiments with extremely concise, ultra-ionized prose, taking Chekhov and Tolstoy's ideas on expressive economy to the last extreme. The result of this was God's Tree, a collection of stories so short, some of them were half a page long. Professor Pyotr Bitsilly thought God's Tree to be "the most perfect of Bunin's works and the most exemplary. Nowhere else can such eloquent laconism can be found, such definitive and exquisite writing, such freedom of expression and really magnificent demonstration of [mind] over matter. No other book of his has in it such a wealth of material for understanding of Bunin's basic method – a method in which, in fact, there was nothing but basics. This simple but precious quality – honesty bordering on hatred of any pretense – is what makes Bunin so closely related to... Pushkin, Tolstoy and Chekhov," Bitsilli wrote.
Influential, even if controversial, was his Cursed Days 1918–1920 diary, of which scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo wrote:
The work is important for several reasons. Cursed Days is one of the very few anti-Bolshevik diaries to be preserved from the time of the Russian Revolution and civil war. It recreates events with graphic and gripping immediacy. Unlike the works of early Soviets and emigres and their self-censoring backdrop of memory, myth, and political expediency, Bunin's truth reads almost like an aberration. Cursed Days also links Russian anti-utopian writing of the nineteenth century to its counterpart in the twentieth. Reminiscent of the fiction of Dostoevsky, it features an 'underground man' who does not wish to be an 'organ stop' or to affirm 'crystal palaces'. Bunin's diary foreshadowed such 'libelous' memoirs as Yevgenia Ginzburg's Journey into the Whirlwind (1967) and Within the Whirlwind, and Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope (1970) and Hope Abandoned (1974), the accounts of two courageous women caught up in the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Cursed Days also preceded the "rebellious" anti-Soviet tradition that began with Evgeny Zamyatin and Yury Olesha, moved on to Mikhail Bulgakov, and reached a climax with Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One can argue that, in its painful exposing of political and social utopias, Cursed Days 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."
Despite his works being virtually banned in the Soviet Union up until the mid-1950s, Bunin exerted a strong influence over several generations of Soviet writers. Among those who owed a lot to Bunin, critics mentioned Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Fedin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov, and later Yuri Kazakov, Vasily Belov and Viktor Likhonosov.
Ivan Bunin's books have been translated into many languages, and the world's leading writers praised his gift. Romain Rolland called Bunin an "artistic genius"; he was spoken and written of in much the same vein by writers like Henri de Régnier, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jerome K. Jerome, and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. In 1950, on the eve of his 80th birthday, François Mauriac expressed in a letter his delight and admiration, but also his deep sympathy to Bunin's personal qualities and the dignified way he'd got through all the tremendous difficulties life had thrown at him. In a letter published by Figaro, André Gide greeted Bunin "on behalf of all France", calling him "the great artist" and adding: "I don't know of any other writer... who's so to the point in expressing human feelings, simple and yet always so fresh and new". European critics often compared Bunin to both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, crediting him with having renovated the Russian realist tradition both in essence and in form.
On 22 October 2020 Google celebrated his 150th birthday with a Google Doodle.
Private life
Bunin's first love was Varvara Pashchenko, his classmate in Yelets [not plausible as Ivan was at a male gymnasium and Varvara at an all female gymnasium], daughter of a doctor and an actress, whom he fell for in 1889 and then went on to work with in Oryol in 1892. Their relationship was difficult in many ways: the girl's father detested the union because of Bunin's impecunious circumstances, Varvara herself was not sure if she wanted to marry and Bunin too was uncertain whether marriage was really appropriate for him. The couple moved to Poltava and settled in Yuly Bunin's home, but by 1892 their relations deteriorated, Pashchenko complaining in a letter to Yuly Bunin that serious quarrels were frequent, and begging for assistance in bringing their union to an end. The affair eventually ended in 1894 with her marrying actor and writer A. N. Bibikov, Ivan Bunin's close friend. Bunin felt betrayed, and for a time his family feared the possibility of him committing suicide. According to some sources it was Varvara Pashchenko who many years later would appear under the name of Lika in The Life of Arseniev (chapter V of the book, entitled Lika, was also published as a short story). Scholar Tatyana Alexandrova, though, questioned this identification (suggesting Mirra Lokhvitskaya might have been the major prototype), while Vera Muromtseva thought of Lika as a 'collective' character aggregating the writer's reminiscences of several women he knew in his youth.
In the summer of 1898 while staying with writer A. M. Fedorov, Bunin became acquainted with N. P. Tsakni, a Greek social-democrat activist, the publisher and editor of the Odessa newspaper Yuzhnoe Obozrenie (Southern Review). Invited to contribute to the paper, Bunin became virtually a daily visitor to the Tsakni family dacha and fell in love with the latter's 18-year-old daughter, Anna (1879–1963). On 23 September 1898, the two married, but by 1899 signs of alienation between them were obvious. At the time of their acrimonious separation in March 1900 Anna was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Nikolai, in Odessa on 30 August of the same year. The boy, of whom his father saw very little, died on 16 January 1905, from a combination of scarlet fever, measles and heart complications.
Ivan Bunin's second wife was Vera Muromtseva (1881–1961), niece of the high-ranking politician Sergey Muromtsev. The two had initially been introduced to each other by writer Ekaterina Lopatina some years earlier, but it was their encounter at the house of the writer Boris Zaitsev in November 1906 which led to an intense relationship which resulted in the couple becoming inseparable until Bunin's death. Bunin and Muromtseva married officially only in 1922, after he managed at last to divorce Tsakni legally. Decades later Vera Muromtseva-Bunina became famous in her own right with her book Life of Bunin.
In 1927, while in Grasse, Bunin fell for the Russian poet Galina Kuznetsova, on vacation there with her husband. The latter, outraged by the well-publicized affair, stormed off, while Bunin not only managed to somehow convince Vera Muromtseva that his love for Galina was purely platonic, but also invite the latter to stay in the house as a secretary and 'a family member'. The situation was complicated by the fact that Leonid Zurov, who stayed with the Bunins as a guest for many years, was secretly in love with Vera (of which her husband was aware); this made it more of a "love quadrilateral" than a mere triangle. Bunin and Kuznetsova's affair ended dramatically in 1942 when the latter, now deeply in love with another frequent guest, opera singer Margo Stepun, sister of Fyodor Stepun, left Bunin, who felt disgraced and insulted. The writer's tempestuous private life in emigration became the subject of the internationally acclaimed Russian movie, His Wife's Diary (or The Diary of His Wife) (2000). which caused controversy and was described by some as masterful and thought-provoking, but by others as vulgar, inaccurate and in bad taste. Vera Muromtseva-Bunina later accepted both Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun as friends: "nashi" ("ours"), as she called them, lived with the Bunins for long periods during the Second World War. According to A.J. Heywood of Leeds University, in Germany and then New York, after the war, Kuznetsova and Stepun negotiated with publishers on Bunin's behalf and maintained a regular correspondence with Ivan and Vera up until their respective deaths.
Bibliography
Novel
The Life of Arseniev (Жизнь Арсеньева, 1927–1933, 1939)
Short novels
The Village (Деревня, 1910)
Dry Valley (Суходол, 1912)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, 1924)
Short story collections
To the Edge of the World and Other Stories (На край света и другие рассказы, 1897)
Antonovka Apples (Антоновские яблоки, 1900)
Flowers of the Field (Цветы полевые, 1901)
Bird's Shadow (Тень птицы, 1907–1911; Paris, 1931)
Ioann the Mourner (Иоанн Рыдалец, 1913)
Chalice of Life (Чаша жизни, Petersburg, 1915; Paris, 1922)
The Gentleman from San Francisco (Господин из Сан-Франциско, 1916)
Chang's Dreams (Сны Чанга, 1916, 1918)
Temple of the Sun (Храм Солнца, 1917)
Primal Love (Начальная любовь, Prague, 1921)
Scream (Крик, Paris, 1921)
Rose of Jerico (Роза Иерихона, Berlin, 1924)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, Paris, 1924; New York, 1953)
Sunstroke (Солнечный удар, Paris, 1927)
Sacred Tree (Божье древо, Paris, 1931)
Dark Avenues (Тёмные аллеи, New York, 1943; Paris, 1946)
Judea in Spring (Весной в Иудее, New York, 1953)
Loopy Ears and Other Stories (Петлистые уши и другие рассказы, 1954, New York, posthumous)
Poetry
Poems (1887–1891) (1891, originally as a literary supplement to Orlovsky vestnik newspaper)
Under the Open Skies (Под открытым небом, 1898)
Falling Leaves (Листопад, Moscow, 1901)
Poems (1903) (Стихотворения, 1903)
Poems (1903–1906) (Стихотворения, 1906)
Poems of 1907 (Saint Petersburg, 1908)
Selected Poems (Paris, 1929)
Translations
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Song of Hiawatha (1898)
Memoirs and diaries
Waters Aplenty (Воды многие, 1910, 1926)
Cursed Days (Окаянные дни, 1925–1926)[66]
Memoirs. Under the hammer and sickle. (Воспоминания. Под серпом и молотом. 1950)
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by the Tate, on the back of which is printed:
'Wassily Kandinsky
Improvisation Gorge 1914.
Oil and gouache on canvas
110 x 110.3 cm.
Städtische Galerie im
Lenbachhaus, Munich.
ADAGP, Paris and Dacs,
London 2006.'
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky, who was born on the 16th. December 1866, was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art.
Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated from Odessa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat.
Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914 after the outbreak of the Great War.
Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting.
However, by then, his spiritual outlook was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society, and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
Wassily then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.
He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944, three days before his 78th. birthday.
-- Wassily Kandinsky - The Early Years
Kandinsky was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant. One of his great-grandmothers was Princess Gantimurova.
Kandinsky learned from a variety of sources while in Moscow. He studied many fields while in school, including law and economics. Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and stimulated by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and psychology continued as he grew.
In 1889, at the age of 23, he was part of an ethnographic research group that travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past, he relates that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering colours that upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting.
This experience, as well as his study of the region's folk art (particularly the use of bright colours on a dark background), were reflected in much of his early work.
A few years later, he first likened painting to composing music in the manner for which he would become noted, writing:
"Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony,
the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is
the hand which plays, touching one key or another,
to cause vibrations in the soul."
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Artistic Periods
Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed a long period of development and maturation of intense thought based on his artistic experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty, fervor of spirit and spiritual desire "inner necessity"; it was a central aspect of his art.
Some art historians suggest that Kandinsky's passion for abstract art began when one day, coming back home, he found one of his own paintings hanging upside down in his studio and he stared at it for a while before realizing it was his own work, suggesting to him the potential power of abstraction.
In 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a promising career teaching law and economics in order to enroll in the Munich Academy. He was not immediately granted admission, and began learning art on his own.
That same year, before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. He was particularly taken with the impressionistic style of Haystacks; this, to him, had a powerful sense of colour almost independent of the objects themselves. Later, he would write about this experience:
"That it was a haystack the catalogue informed me.
I could not recognise it. This non-recognition was
painful to me. I considered that the painter had no
right to paint indistinctly. I duly felt that the object
of the painting was missing. And I noticed with
surprise and confusion that the picture not only
gripped me, but impressed itself ineradicably on
my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale power
and splendour."
Kandinsky was similarly influenced during this period by Richard Wagner's Lohengrin which, he felt, pushed the limits of music and melody beyond standard lyricism.
He was also spiritually influenced by Madame Blavatsky (1831–1891), the best-known exponent of theosophy. Theosophical theory postulates that creation is a geometrical progression, beginning with a single point. The creative aspect of the form is expressed by a descending series of circles, triangles, and squares.
Kandinsky's book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910) and Point and Line to Plane (1926) echoed this theosophical tenet.
In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited Gabriele Münter to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in the Alps. She accepted the offer, and their relationship became more personal than professional.
Art school, usually considered difficult, was easy for Kandinsky. It was during this time that he began to emerge as an art theorist as well as a painter. The number of his existing paintings increased at the beginning of the 20th century; much remains of the landscapes and towns he painted, using broad swaths of colour and recognisable forms.
For the most part, however, Kandinsky's paintings did not feature any human figures; an exception is Sunday, Old Russia (1904), in which Kandinsky recreates a highly colourful (and fanciful) view of peasants and nobles in front of the walls of a town.
Couple on Horseback (1907) depicts a man on horseback, holding a woman as they ride past a Russian town with luminous walls across a blue river. The horse is muted while the leaves in the trees, the town, and the reflections in the river glisten with spots of colour and brightness.
This work demonstrates the influence of pointillism in the way that the depth of field is collapsed into a flat, luminescent surface. Fauvism is also apparent in these early works.
Colours are used to express Kandinsky's experience of subject matter, not to describe objective nature.
The most important of his paintings from the first decade of the 1900's was The Blue Rider (1903), which shows a small cloaked figure on a speeding horse rushing through a rocky meadow. The rider's cloak is medium blue, which casts a darker-blue shadow. In the foreground are more amorphous blue shadows, the counterparts of the fall trees in the background.
The blue rider in the painting is prominent (but not clearly defined), and the horse has an unnatural gait (which Kandinsky must have known). This intentional disjunction, allowing viewers to participate in the creation of the artwork, became an increasingly conscious technique used by Kandinsky in subsequent years; it culminated in the abstract works of the 1911–1914 period.
In The Blue Rider, Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colours than in specific detail. This painting is not exceptional in that regard when compared with contemporary painters, but it shows the direction Kandinsky would take only a few years later.
From 1906 to 1908, Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe (he was an associate of the Blue Rose symbolist group of Moscow) until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau.
In 1908, Wassily bought a copy of Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater. In 1909, he joined the Theosophical Society.
The Blue Mountain (1908–1909) was painted at this time, demonstrating his trend toward abstraction. A mountain of blue is flanked by two broad trees, one yellow and one red. A procession, with three riders and several others, crosses at the bottom. The faces, clothing, and saddles of the riders are each a single color, and neither they nor the walking figures display any real detail.
The flat planes and the contours also are indicative of Fauvist influence. The broad use of color in The Blue Mountain illustrates Kandinsky's inclination toward an art in which colour is presented independently of form, and in which each color is given equal attention. The composition is more planar; the painting is divided into four sections: the sky, the red tree, the yellow tree, and the blue mountain with the three riders.
Kandinsky's paintings from this period are large, expressive coloured masses evaluated independently from forms and lines; these serve no longer to delimit them, but overlap freely to form paintings of extraordinary force.
Music was important to the birth of abstract art since it is abstract by nature; it does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses the inner feelings of the soul in an immediate way.
Kandinsky sometimes used musical terms to identify his works; he called his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations" and described more elaborate works as "compositions."
-- Kandinsky as an Art Theorist
In addition to painting, Kandinsky was an art theorist; his influence on the history of Western art stems perhaps more from his theoretical works than from his paintings.
He helped found the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich New Artists' Association), becoming its president in 1909. However, the group could not integrate the radical approach of Kandinsky (and others) with conventional artistic concepts, and the group dissolved in late 1911.
Kandinsky then formed a new group, The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) with like-minded artists such as August Macke, Franz Marc, Albert Bloch, and Gabriele Münter. The group released an almanac (The Blue Rider Almanac) and held two exhibitions.
More of each were planned, but the outbreak of the Great War ended these plans, and sent Kandinsky back to Russia via Switzerland and Sweden.
Wassily's writing in The Blue Rider Almanac and the treatise "On the Spiritual in Art" (which was released in 1910) were both a defence and promotion of abstract art and an affirmation that all forms of art were equally capable of reaching a level of spirituality.
He believed that colour could be used in a painting as something autonomous, apart from the visual description of an object or other form.
These ideas had an almost-immediate international impact, particularly in the English-speaking world. As early as 1912, On the Spiritual in Art was reviewed by Michael Sadleir in the London-based Art News. Interest in Kandinsky grew quickly when Sadleir published an English translation of On the Spiritual in Art in 1914.
Extracts from the book were published that year in Percy Wyndham Lewis's periodical Blast, and Alfred Orage's weekly cultural newspaper The New Age. Kandinsky had received some notice earlier in Britain, however; in 1910, he participated in the Allied Artists' Exhibition (organised by Frank Rutter) at London's Royal Albert Hall.
This resulted in his work being singled out for praise in a review of that show by the artist Spencer Frederick Gore in The Art News.
Sadleir's interest in Kandinsky also led to Kandinsky's first works entering a British art collection; Sadleir's father, Michael Sadler, acquired several wood-prints and the abstract painting Fragment for Composition VII in 1913 following a visit by father and son to meet Kandinsky in Munich that year.
From 1918 to 1921, Kandinsky was involved in the cultural politics of Russia, and collaborated in art education and museum reform. He painted little during this period, but devoted his time to artistic teaching with a program based on form and colour analysis; he also helped organize the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow (of which he was its first director).
However Wassily's spiritual, expressionistic view of art was ultimately rejected by the radical members of the institute as too individualistic and bourgeois. In 1921, Kandinsky was invited to go to Germany to attend the Bauhaus of Weimar by its founder, architect Walter Gropius.
-- Back in Germany and the Bauhaus (1922–1933)
In May 1922, Wassily attended the International Congress of Progressive Artists and signed the "Founding Proclamation of the Union of Progressive International Artists".
Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners and the course on advanced theory at the Bauhaus; he also conducted painting classes and a workshop in which he augmented his colour theory with new elements of form psychology.
The development of his works on forms study, particularly on points and line forms, led to the publication of his second theoretical book (Point and Line to Plane) in 1926.
His examinations of the effects of forces on straight lines, leading to the contrasting tones of curved and angled lines, coincided with the research of Gestalt psychologists, whose work was also discussed at the Bauhaus. Geometrical elements took on increasing importance in both his teaching and painting—particularly the circle, half-circle, the angle, straight lines and curves.
This period was intensely free and productive. This freedom is characterised in his works by the treatment of planes rich in colours and gradations—as in Yellow – red – blue (1925), where Kandinsky illustrates his distance from the constructivism and suprematism movements influential at the time.
The two-metre-wide (6 ft 7 in) Yellow – red – blue (1925) of several main forms: a vertical yellow rectangle, an inclined red cross and a large dark blue circle; a multitude of straight (or sinuous) black lines, circular arcs, monochromatic circles and scattered, coloured checker-boards contribute to its delicate complexity.
This simple visual identification of forms and the main coloured masses present on the canvas is only a first approach to the inner reality of the work, whose appreciation necessitates deeper observation—not only of forms and colours involved in the painting but their relationship, their absolute and relative positions on the canvas and their harmony.
Kandinsky was one of Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four), which was a group that was formed in 1923 with Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky at the instigation of Galka Scheyer, who promoted their work in the United States from 1924 onward.
Due to right-wing hostility, the Bauhaus left Weimar for Dessau in 1925. Following a Nazi smear campaign, the Bauhaus then left Dessau in 1932 for Berlin, where it remained until its dissolution in July 1933. Kandinsky then left Germany, settling in Paris.
-- Wassily Kandinsky in Paris
Living in an apartment in Paris, Kandinsky created his work in a living-room studio. Biomorphic forms with supple, non-geometric outlines appear in his paintings—forms which suggest microscopic organisms, but which express the artist's inner life.
Kandinsky used original colour compositions, evoking Slavic popular art. He also occasionally mixed sand with paint to give a granular, rustic texture to his paintings.
This period corresponds to a synthesis of Kandinsky's previous work in which he used all elements, enriching them. In 1936 and 1939, he painted his final two major compositions, the type of elaborate canvases that he had not produced for many years.
Composition IX has highly contrasted, powerful diagonals whose central form gives the impression of an embryo in the womb. Small squares of colours and coloured bands stand out against the black background of Composition X as star fragments (or filaments), while enigmatic hieroglyphs with pastel tones cover a large maroon mass which seems to float in the upper-left corner of the canvas.
In Kandinsky's work, some characteristics are obvious, while certain touches are more discreet and veiled; they reveal themselves only progressively to those who deepen their connection with his work.
Wassily intended his forms (which he subtly harmonised and placed) to resonate with the observer's soul.
-- Kandinsky's Conception of Art
Writing that "music is the ultimate teacher", Kandinsky embarked upon the first seven of his ten Compositions. The first three survive only in black-and-white photographs taken by fellow artist and friend Gabriele Münter.
Composition I (1910) was destroyed by a British air raid on the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony on the night of the 14th. October 1944.
While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist (particularly of Composition II), a Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930's resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three Compositions.
They were displayed in the state-sponsored Degenerate Art exhibition, and were then destroyed (along with works by Paul Klee, Franz Marc and other modern artists).
Wassily was fascinated by Christian eschatology and the perception of a coming New Age. Eschatology is the part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.
The Apocalypse (the end of the world as we know it) was a common theme among Kandinsky's first seven Compositions.
Writing of the "artist as prophet" in his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky created paintings in the years immediately preceding the Great War showing a coming cataclysm which would alter individual and social reality.
Having a devout belief in Orthodox Christianity, Kandinsky drew upon the biblical stories of Noah's Ark, Jonah and the whale, Christ's resurrection, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the book of Revelation, Russian folktales and in the common mythological concepts of death and rebirth.
Never attempting to picture any one of these stories as a narrative, he used their veiled imagery as symbols of the archetypes of death–rebirth and destruction–creation he felt were imminent in the years leading up to the Great War.
As he stated in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky felt that an authentic artist creating art from "an internal necessity" inhabits the tip of an upward-moving pyramid. This progressing pyramid is penetrating and proceeding into the future.
What was odd or inconceivable yesterday is commonplace today; what is avant garde today (and understood only by the few) is common knowledge tomorrow. The modern artist–prophet stands alone at the apex of the pyramid, making new discoveries and ushering in tomorrow's reality.
Kandinsky was aware of recent scientific developments and the advances of modern artists who had contributed to radically new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.
Composition IV and later paintings are primarily concerned with evoking a spiritual resonance between the viewer and artist. As in his painting of the apocalypse by water (Composition VI), Kandinsky puts the viewer in the situation of experiencing these epic myths by translating them into contemporary terms (with a sense of desperation, flurry, urgency, and confusion).
This spiritual communion of viewer-painting-artist/prophet may be described within the limits of words and images.
-- Wassily Kandinsky as an Artistic and Spiritual Theorist
As the Der Blaue Reiter Almanac essays and theorising with composer Arnold Schoenberg indicate, Kandinsky also expressed the communion between artist and viewer as being available to both the senses and the mind (synesthesia).
In 1871 the young Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello. Hearing tones and chords as he painted, Kandinsky theorised that (for example), yellow is the colour of middle C on a brassy trumpet; black is the colour of closure, and the end of things; and that combinations of colours produce vibrational frequencies, akin to chords played on a piano.
Kandinsky also developed a theory of geometric figures and their relationships, claiming (for example) that the circle is the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul. These theories are explained in Point and Line to Plane.
Kandinsky's legendary stage design for a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition illustrates his synesthetic concept of a universal correspondence of forms, colors and musical sounds. In 1928, the stage production premiered at a theater in Dessau.
In 2015, the original designs of the stage elements were animated with modern video technology and synchronized with the music according to the preparatory notes of Kandinsky and the director's script of Felix Klee.
In another episode with Münter during the Bavarian abstract expressionist years, Kandinsky was working on Composition VI. From nearly six months of study and preparation, he had intended the work to evoke a flood, baptism, destruction, and rebirth simultaneously.
However after outlining the work on a mural-sized wood panel, he became blocked and could not go on. Münter told him that he was trapped in his intellect and not reaching the true subject of the picture.
She suggested he simply repeat the word uberflut ("deluge" or "flood") and focus on its sound rather than its meaning. Repeating this word like a mantra, Kandinsky painted and completed the monumental work in a three-day span.
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Signature Style
Wassily Kandinsky's art has a confluence of music and spirituality. With his appreciation for music of his times and kinesthetic disposition, Kandinsky's artworks have a marked style of expressionism in his early years.
However he embraced all types of artistic styles of his times and his predecessors i.e. Art Nouveau (sinuous organic forms), Fauvism and Blaue Reiter (shocking colours), Surrealism (mystery) and Bauhaus (constructivism) only to move towards abstractionism as he explored spirituality in art.
His object-free paintings display spiritual abstraction suggested by sounds and emotions through a unity of sensation. Driven by the Christian faith and the inner necessity of an artist, his paintings have the ambiguity of the form rendered in a variety of colours as well as resistance against conventional aesthetic values of the art world.
As Kandinsky started moving away from his early inspiration from Impressionism, his paintings became more vibrant, pictographic and expressive with more sharp shapes and clear linear qualities.
But eventually Kandinsky went further, rejecting pictorial representation with more synesthetic swirling hurricanes of colours and shapes, eliminating traditional references to depth and laying out bare and abstracted glyphs; however, what remained consistent was his spiritual pursuit of expressive forms.
Emotional harmony is another salient feature in the later works of Kandinsky. With diverse dimensions and bright hues balanced through a careful juxtaposition of proportion and colours, he substantiated the universality of shapes in his artworks, thus paving the way for further abstraction.
Kandinsky often used black in his paintings to heighten the impact of brightly coloured forms while his forms were often biomorphic approaches to bring surrealism in his art.
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Theoretical Writings on Art
Kandinsky's analyses on forms and colours result not from simple, arbitrary idea-associations but from the painter's inner experience.
He spent years creating abstract/sensorially rich paintings, working with form and colour, tirelessly observing his own paintings (along with those of other artists) and noting their effects on his sense of colour.
This subjective experience is something that anyone can do—not scientific/objective observations, but inner/subjective ones, referred to by French philosopher Michel Henry as "absolute subjectivity" or the "absolute phenomenological life".
Published in Munich in 1911, Kandinsky's text Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) defines three types of painting: impressions, improvisations and compositions.
While impressions are based on an external reality that serves as a starting point, improvisations and compositions depict images emergent from the unconscious, though composition is developed from a more formal point of view.
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Personal Life
After graduating in 1892, Kandinsky married his cousin, Anja Chimiakina, and became a lecturer in Jurisprudence at the University of Moscow.
In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited Gabriele Münter to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in the Alps. She accepted the offer and their relationship became more personal than professional.
Kandinsky and Münter became engaged in the summer of 1903 while he was still married to Anja and travelled extensively through Europe, Russia and North Africa until 1908. He separated from Anja in 1911.
In 1909, Münter bought a summerhouse in the small Bavarian town of Murnau and the couple happily entertained colleagues there. The property is still known as Russenhaus, and she would later use the basement to hide many works (by Kandinsky and others) from the Nazis.
Upon returning to Munich, Kandinsky founded the Neue Kunstler Vereinigung (New Artists' Association) in 1909.
He returned to Moscow in 1914 when the first World War broke out. The relationship between Kandinsky and Münter worsened due to mutual tensions and disappointments over his lack of commitment to marriage. Their relationship formally ended in 1916 in Stockholm.
In 1916, he met Nina Nikolaevna Andreevskaya (1899–1980), whom he married on the 11th. February 1917 when she was 17 and he was 50 years old. At the end of 1917, they had a son, Wsevolod, or Lodya as he was called in the family. Lodya died in June 1920, and there were no more children.
After the Russian Revolution, Wassily had opportunities in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
He then moved to France with his wife, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.
He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 13 December 1944, three days prior to his 78th birthday.
-- Wassily Kandinsky and the Art Market
In 2012, Christie's auctioned Kandinsky's Studie für Improvisation 8 (Study for Improvisation 8), a 1909 view of a man wielding a broadsword in a rainbow-hued village, for $23 million.
Before this sale, the artist's last record was set in 1990 when Sotheby's sold his Fugue (1914) for $20.9 million.
On the 16th. November 2016, Christie's auctioned Kandinsky's Rigide et Courbé (Rigid and Bent), a large 1935 abstract painting, for $23.3 million, a new record for Kandinsky.
-- Nazi-Looted Art
In July 2001, Jen Lissitzky, the son of artist El Lissitzky, filed a restitution claim against the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland for Kandinsky's Improvisation No. 10. A settlement was reached in 2002.
In 2013, the Lewenstein family filed a claim for the restitution of Kandinsky's Painting with Houses held by the Stedelijk Museum.
In 2020, a committee established by the Dutch minister of culture found fault with the behaviour of the Restitution Committee, causing a scandal where two of its members, including its chairman, resigned.
Later that year, a court in Amsterdam ruled that the Stedelijk Museum could retain the painting from the Jewish Lewenstein collection despite the Nazi theft.
However, in August 2021, the Amsterdam City Council decided to return the painting to the Lewenstein family.
In 2017, Robert Colin Lewenstein, Francesca Manuela Davis and Elsa Hannchen Guidotti filed suit against Bayerische Landesbank (BLB) for the restitution of Kandinsky's Das Bunte Leben.
-- Final Thoughts From Wassily Kandinsky
“Colour is a power which directly
influences the soul.”
"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers,
the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is
the hand that plays, touching one key or another
purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
“The artist must train not only his
eye, but also his soul.”
“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to
painting, and … stop thinking! Just ask yourself
whether the work has enabled you to “walk
about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the
answer is yes, what more do you want?”
“That is beautiful which is produced by the
inner need, which springs from the soul.”
“Everything that is dead quivers. Not only the
things of poetry, stars, moon, wood, flowers,
but even a white trouser button glittering out
of a puddle in the street... Everything has a
secret soul, which is silent more often than
it speaks.”
“With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators
regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as
one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality
of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty).
But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd
stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures
"nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said
nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.”
“The artist must have something to say, for mastery
over form is not his goal, but rather the adapting of
form to its inner meaning.”
“Those things that we encounter for the first time
immediately have a spiritual effect upon us. A child,
for whom every object is new, experiences the world
in this way: it sees light, is attracted by it, wants to
grasp it, burns its finger in the process, and thus
learns fear and respect for the flame.”
“The true work of art is born from the 'artist':
a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation.
It detaches itself from him, it acquires an
autonomous life, becomes a personality, an
independent subject, animated with a spiritual
breath, the living subject of a real existence
of being.”
“Empty canvas. In appearance - really empty, silent,
indifferent. Stunned, almost. In effect - full of tensions,
with thousand subdued voices, heavy with expectations.
A little frightened because it may be violated.”
“The artist must be blind to distinction between
'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form,
deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his
particular age.”
“Art becomes so specialized as to be comprehensible
only to artists, and they complain bitterly of public
indifference to their work."
"Competition arises. The wild battle for success
becomes more and more material. Small groups
who have fought their way to the top of the chaotic
world of art and picture-making entrench themselves
in the territory they have won. The public, left far
behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and
turns away.”
“Blue is the typical heavenly colour. The ultimate
feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks to
almost black, it echos grief that is hardly human.”
“There is only one road to follow, that of analysis
of the basic elements in order to arrive ultimately
at an adequate graphic expression.”
“The artist is not born to a life of pleasure. He must
not live idle; he has a hard work to perform, and one
which often proves a cross to be borne.”
“Form itself, even if completely abstract ...
has its own inner sound.”
“A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere
representation, however artistic, in his longing
to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease
with which music, the most non-material of the arts
today, achieves this end.
He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music
to his own art. And from this results that modern
desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical,
abstract construction, for repeated notes of
colour, for setting colour in motion.”
“The impact of the acute angle of a triangle on
a circle is actually as overwhelming in effect as
the finger of God touching the finger of Adam in
Michelangelo.”
“To those that are not accustomed to it, the inner
beauty appears as ugliness, because humanity in
general inclines to the outer, and knows nothing
of the inner.”
“The artist must be blind to "recognized" and
"unrecognized" form, deaf to the teachings and
desires of his time. His open eyes must be directed
to his inner life, and his ears must be constantly
attuned to the voice of inner necessity.”
“Every work of art is the child of its age and, in
many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows
that each period of culture produces an art of its
own which can never be repeated.
Efforts to revive the art-principles of the past will
at best produce an art that is still-born. It is
impossible for us to live and feel, as did the
ancient Greeks.”
This is a female broadnose sevengill shark (Notorynchus cepedianus). According to Mark Ball, Head Aquarist at Birch Aquarium, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA, she was around the maximum size of 9 ft long (we didn't stop to measure her). They are named for their unique number of gills, as most sharks only have 5 gills. They are found along the west coast, with a higher concentration in Northern California, where San Francisco Bay acts as a shelter for young.
Barbara Lloyd (http://vimeo.com/stellalunaprod) and I encountered this shark while diving as a team in the kelp forests off Pt. Loma, CA. We did one dive shooting macro subjects and then switched to wide angle for the second dive. About 30 minutes into the second dive, after photographing Barbara shooting video and the kelp forest, the large shark appeared out of nowhere. I got off a few quick shots, but was not prepared for it. Barbara and I were both extremely excited to have seen it and very apprehensive at the same time. My pulse sped up and I became much more alert to my surroundings. We both kept looking behind us just in case the shark was going to sneak up on us. Apparently, Barbara's frantic motioning meant she wanted us to watch each other's backs.
Approximately 3 minutes later, the shark came by for another pass. Barbara and I were both ready for it this time. The shark was level with us in the water, providing a nicer background of the kelp forest instead of shooting down towards the sea bottom. However, realizing that the shark was interested in us and wasn't put off by our noisy bubbles and bright flashing lights was not a comforting thought.
The final pass by the 9 foot sevengill was approximately 7 minutes later. At this point, I was getting nervous and concerned that the shark was a little too interested. Not knowing the exact species at the time and how dangerous they were (or weren't, in this case), we decided it was time to start heading for the surface. The entire time we were returning to the surface, I kept thinking "...sharks like to attack from below". There was a thick layer of green gloom near the surface, which made it even more difficult to see anything below us. We did our safety stop and got back onto the boat without any problems, except for our jealous friends who hadn't seen the shark on their dive. Much later, while reviewing my photos from earlier in the dive, I noticed a dark shadow of a shark tail in the corner of one of them. Apparently, the shark had been with us a lot longer than we knew about.
I'll never forget that dive and what could have been a once in a lifetime encounter with a large apex predator. After reading more about the behavior of sevengill sharks, I wouldn't mind seeing one in the wild again.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by the Tate, on the back of which is printed:
'Wassily Kandinsky
Improvisation 35 1914.
Oil on canvas
110 x 120 cm.
Kunstmuseum Basel.
Gift Hans Arp 1966.
ADAGP, Paris and Dacs,
London 2006.'
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky, who was born on the 16th. December 1866, was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in western art.
Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in Odessa, where he graduated from Odessa Art School. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat.
Kandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896, Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914 after the outbreak of the Great War.
Following the Russian Revolution, Kandinsky became an insider in the cultural administration of Anatoly Lunacharsky and helped establish the Museum of the Culture of Painting.
However, by then, his spiritual outlook was foreign to the argumentative materialism of Soviet society, and opportunities beckoned in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
Wassily then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.
He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944, three days before his 78th. birthday.
-- Wassily Kandinsky - The Early Years
Kandinsky was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant. One of his great-grandmothers was Princess Gantimurova.
Kandinsky learned from a variety of sources while in Moscow. He studied many fields while in school, including law and economics. Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and stimulated by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and psychology continued as he grew.
In 1889, at the age of 23, he was part of an ethnographic research group that travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past, he relates that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering colours that upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting.
This experience, as well as his study of the region's folk art (particularly the use of bright colours on a dark background), were reflected in much of his early work.
A few years later, he first likened painting to composing music in the manner for which he would become noted, writing:
"Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmony,
the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is
the hand which plays, touching one key or another,
to cause vibrations in the soul."
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Artistic Periods
Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed a long period of development and maturation of intense thought based on his artistic experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty, fervor of spirit and spiritual desire "inner necessity"; it was a central aspect of his art.
Some art historians suggest that Kandinsky's passion for abstract art began when one day, coming back home, he found one of his own paintings hanging upside down in his studio and he stared at it for a while before realizing it was his own work, suggesting to him the potential power of abstraction.
In 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a promising career teaching law and economics in order to enroll in the Munich Academy. He was not immediately granted admission, and began learning art on his own.
That same year, before leaving Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. He was particularly taken with the impressionistic style of Haystacks; this, to him, had a powerful sense of colour almost independent of the objects themselves. Later, he would write about this experience:
"That it was a haystack the catalogue informed me.
I could not recognise it. This non-recognition was
painful to me. I considered that the painter had no
right to paint indistinctly. I duly felt that the object
of the painting was missing. And I noticed with
surprise and confusion that the picture not only
gripped me, but impressed itself ineradicably on
my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale power
and splendour."
Kandinsky was similarly influenced during this period by Richard Wagner's Lohengrin which, he felt, pushed the limits of music and melody beyond standard lyricism.
He was also spiritually influenced by Madame Blavatsky (1831–1891), the best-known exponent of theosophy. Theosophical theory postulates that creation is a geometrical progression, beginning with a single point. The creative aspect of the form is expressed by a descending series of circles, triangles, and squares.
Kandinsky's book Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910) and Point and Line to Plane (1926) echoed this theosophical tenet.
In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited Gabriele Münter to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in the Alps. She accepted the offer, and their relationship became more personal than professional.
Art school, usually considered difficult, was easy for Kandinsky. It was during this time that he began to emerge as an art theorist as well as a painter. The number of his existing paintings increased at the beginning of the 20th century; much remains of the landscapes and towns he painted, using broad swaths of colour and recognisable forms.
For the most part, however, Kandinsky's paintings did not feature any human figures; an exception is Sunday, Old Russia (1904), in which Kandinsky recreates a highly colourful (and fanciful) view of peasants and nobles in front of the walls of a town.
Couple on Horseback (1907) depicts a man on horseback, holding a woman as they ride past a Russian town with luminous walls across a blue river. The horse is muted while the leaves in the trees, the town, and the reflections in the river glisten with spots of colour and brightness.
This work demonstrates the influence of pointillism in the way that the depth of field is collapsed into a flat, luminescent surface. Fauvism is also apparent in these early works.
Colours are used to express Kandinsky's experience of subject matter, not to describe objective nature.
The most important of his paintings from the first decade of the 1900's was The Blue Rider (1903), which shows a small cloaked figure on a speeding horse rushing through a rocky meadow. The rider's cloak is medium blue, which casts a darker-blue shadow. In the foreground are more amorphous blue shadows, the counterparts of the fall trees in the background.
The blue rider in the painting is prominent (but not clearly defined), and the horse has an unnatural gait (which Kandinsky must have known). This intentional disjunction, allowing viewers to participate in the creation of the artwork, became an increasingly conscious technique used by Kandinsky in subsequent years; it culminated in the abstract works of the 1911–1914 period.
In The Blue Rider, Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colours than in specific detail. This painting is not exceptional in that regard when compared with contemporary painters, but it shows the direction Kandinsky would take only a few years later.
From 1906 to 1908, Kandinsky spent a great deal of time travelling across Europe (he was an associate of the Blue Rose symbolist group of Moscow) until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau.
In 1908, Wassily bought a copy of Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater. In 1909, he joined the Theosophical Society.
The Blue Mountain (1908–1909) was painted at this time, demonstrating his trend toward abstraction. A mountain of blue is flanked by two broad trees, one yellow and one red. A procession, with three riders and several others, crosses at the bottom. The faces, clothing, and saddles of the riders are each a single color, and neither they nor the walking figures display any real detail.
The flat planes and the contours also are indicative of Fauvist influence. The broad use of color in The Blue Mountain illustrates Kandinsky's inclination toward an art in which colour is presented independently of form, and in which each color is given equal attention. The composition is more planar; the painting is divided into four sections: the sky, the red tree, the yellow tree, and the blue mountain with the three riders.
Kandinsky's paintings from this period are large, expressive coloured masses evaluated independently from forms and lines; these serve no longer to delimit them, but overlap freely to form paintings of extraordinary force.
Music was important to the birth of abstract art since it is abstract by nature; it does not try to represent the exterior world, but expresses the inner feelings of the soul in an immediate way.
Kandinsky sometimes used musical terms to identify his works; he called his most spontaneous paintings "improvisations" and described more elaborate works as "compositions."
-- Kandinsky as an Art Theorist
In addition to painting, Kandinsky was an art theorist; his influence on the history of Western art stems perhaps more from his theoretical works than from his paintings.
He helped found the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich New Artists' Association), becoming its president in 1909. However, the group could not integrate the radical approach of Kandinsky (and others) with conventional artistic concepts, and the group dissolved in late 1911.
Kandinsky then formed a new group, The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter) with like-minded artists such as August Macke, Franz Marc, Albert Bloch, and Gabriele Münter. The group released an almanac (The Blue Rider Almanac) and held two exhibitions.
More of each were planned, but the outbreak of the Great War ended these plans, and sent Kandinsky back to Russia via Switzerland and Sweden.
Wassily's writing in The Blue Rider Almanac and the treatise "On the Spiritual in Art" (which was released in 1910) were both a defence and promotion of abstract art and an affirmation that all forms of art were equally capable of reaching a level of spirituality.
He believed that colour could be used in a painting as something autonomous, apart from the visual description of an object or other form.
These ideas had an almost-immediate international impact, particularly in the English-speaking world. As early as 1912, On the Spiritual in Art was reviewed by Michael Sadleir in the London-based Art News. Interest in Kandinsky grew quickly when Sadleir published an English translation of On the Spiritual in Art in 1914.
Extracts from the book were published that year in Percy Wyndham Lewis's periodical Blast, and Alfred Orage's weekly cultural newspaper The New Age. Kandinsky had received some notice earlier in Britain, however; in 1910, he participated in the Allied Artists' Exhibition (organised by Frank Rutter) at London's Royal Albert Hall.
This resulted in his work being singled out for praise in a review of that show by the artist Spencer Frederick Gore in The Art News.
Sadleir's interest in Kandinsky also led to Kandinsky's first works entering a British art collection; Sadleir's father, Michael Sadler, acquired several wood-prints and the abstract painting Fragment for Composition VII in 1913 following a visit by father and son to meet Kandinsky in Munich that year.
From 1918 to 1921, Kandinsky was involved in the cultural politics of Russia, and collaborated in art education and museum reform. He painted little during this period, but devoted his time to artistic teaching with a program based on form and colour analysis; he also helped organize the Institute of Artistic Culture in Moscow (of which he was its first director).
However Wassily's spiritual, expressionistic view of art was ultimately rejected by the radical members of the institute as too individualistic and bourgeois. In 1921, Kandinsky was invited to go to Germany to attend the Bauhaus of Weimar by its founder, architect Walter Gropius.
-- Back in Germany and the Bauhaus (1922–1933)
In May 1922, Wassily attended the International Congress of Progressive Artists and signed the "Founding Proclamation of the Union of Progressive International Artists".
Kandinsky taught the basic design class for beginners and the course on advanced theory at the Bauhaus; he also conducted painting classes and a workshop in which he augmented his colour theory with new elements of form psychology.
The development of his works on forms study, particularly on points and line forms, led to the publication of his second theoretical book (Point and Line to Plane) in 1926.
His examinations of the effects of forces on straight lines, leading to the contrasting tones of curved and angled lines, coincided with the research of Gestalt psychologists, whose work was also discussed at the Bauhaus. Geometrical elements took on increasing importance in both his teaching and painting—particularly the circle, half-circle, the angle, straight lines and curves.
This period was intensely free and productive. This freedom is characterised in his works by the treatment of planes rich in colours and gradations—as in Yellow – red – blue (1925), where Kandinsky illustrates his distance from the constructivism and suprematism movements influential at the time.
The two-metre-wide (6 ft 7 in) Yellow – red – blue (1925) of several main forms: a vertical yellow rectangle, an inclined red cross and a large dark blue circle; a multitude of straight (or sinuous) black lines, circular arcs, monochromatic circles and scattered, coloured checker-boards contribute to its delicate complexity.
This simple visual identification of forms and the main coloured masses present on the canvas is only a first approach to the inner reality of the work, whose appreciation necessitates deeper observation—not only of forms and colours involved in the painting but their relationship, their absolute and relative positions on the canvas and their harmony.
Kandinsky was one of Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four), which was a group that was formed in 1923 with Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky at the instigation of Galka Scheyer, who promoted their work in the United States from 1924 onward.
Due to right-wing hostility, the Bauhaus left Weimar for Dessau in 1925. Following a Nazi smear campaign, the Bauhaus then left Dessau in 1932 for Berlin, where it remained until its dissolution in July 1933. Kandinsky then left Germany, settling in Paris.
-- Wassily Kandinsky in Paris
Living in an apartment in Paris, Kandinsky created his work in a living-room studio. Biomorphic forms with supple, non-geometric outlines appear in his paintings—forms which suggest microscopic organisms, but which express the artist's inner life.
Kandinsky used original colour compositions, evoking Slavic popular art. He also occasionally mixed sand with paint to give a granular, rustic texture to his paintings.
This period corresponds to a synthesis of Kandinsky's previous work in which he used all elements, enriching them. In 1936 and 1939, he painted his final two major compositions, the type of elaborate canvases that he had not produced for many years.
Composition IX has highly contrasted, powerful diagonals whose central form gives the impression of an embryo in the womb. Small squares of colours and coloured bands stand out against the black background of Composition X as star fragments (or filaments), while enigmatic hieroglyphs with pastel tones cover a large maroon mass which seems to float in the upper-left corner of the canvas.
In Kandinsky's work, some characteristics are obvious, while certain touches are more discreet and veiled; they reveal themselves only progressively to those who deepen their connection with his work.
Wassily intended his forms (which he subtly harmonised and placed) to resonate with the observer's soul.
-- Kandinsky's Conception of Art
Writing that "music is the ultimate teacher", Kandinsky embarked upon the first seven of his ten Compositions. The first three survive only in black-and-white photographs taken by fellow artist and friend Gabriele Münter.
Composition I (1910) was destroyed by a British air raid on the city of Braunschweig in Lower Saxony on the night of the 14th. October 1944.
While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist (particularly of Composition II), a Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930's resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three Compositions.
They were displayed in the state-sponsored Degenerate Art exhibition, and were then destroyed (along with works by Paul Klee, Franz Marc and other modern artists).
Wassily was fascinated by Christian eschatology and the perception of a coming New Age. Eschatology is the part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind.
The Apocalypse (the end of the world as we know it) was a common theme among Kandinsky's first seven Compositions.
Writing of the "artist as prophet" in his book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky created paintings in the years immediately preceding the Great War showing a coming cataclysm which would alter individual and social reality.
Having a devout belief in Orthodox Christianity, Kandinsky drew upon the biblical stories of Noah's Ark, Jonah and the whale, Christ's resurrection, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the book of Revelation, Russian folktales and in the common mythological concepts of death and rebirth.
Never attempting to picture any one of these stories as a narrative, he used their veiled imagery as symbols of the archetypes of death–rebirth and destruction–creation he felt were imminent in the years leading up to the Great War.
As he stated in Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Kandinsky felt that an authentic artist creating art from "an internal necessity" inhabits the tip of an upward-moving pyramid. This progressing pyramid is penetrating and proceeding into the future.
What was odd or inconceivable yesterday is commonplace today; what is avant garde today (and understood only by the few) is common knowledge tomorrow. The modern artist–prophet stands alone at the apex of the pyramid, making new discoveries and ushering in tomorrow's reality.
Kandinsky was aware of recent scientific developments and the advances of modern artists who had contributed to radically new ways of seeing and experiencing the world.
Composition IV and later paintings are primarily concerned with evoking a spiritual resonance between the viewer and artist. As in his painting of the apocalypse by water (Composition VI), Kandinsky puts the viewer in the situation of experiencing these epic myths by translating them into contemporary terms (with a sense of desperation, flurry, urgency, and confusion).
This spiritual communion of viewer-painting-artist/prophet may be described within the limits of words and images.
-- Wassily Kandinsky as an Artistic and Spiritual Theorist
As the Der Blaue Reiter Almanac essays and theorising with composer Arnold Schoenberg indicate, Kandinsky also expressed the communion between artist and viewer as being available to both the senses and the mind (synesthesia).
In 1871 the young Kandinsky learned to play the piano and cello. Hearing tones and chords as he painted, Kandinsky theorised that (for example), yellow is the colour of middle C on a brassy trumpet; black is the colour of closure, and the end of things; and that combinations of colours produce vibrational frequencies, akin to chords played on a piano.
Kandinsky also developed a theory of geometric figures and their relationships, claiming (for example) that the circle is the most peaceful shape and represents the human soul. These theories are explained in Point and Line to Plane.
Kandinsky's legendary stage design for a performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition illustrates his synesthetic concept of a universal correspondence of forms, colors and musical sounds. In 1928, the stage production premiered at a theater in Dessau.
In 2015, the original designs of the stage elements were animated with modern video technology and synchronized with the music according to the preparatory notes of Kandinsky and the director's script of Felix Klee.
In another episode with Münter during the Bavarian abstract expressionist years, Kandinsky was working on Composition VI. From nearly six months of study and preparation, he had intended the work to evoke a flood, baptism, destruction, and rebirth simultaneously.
However after outlining the work on a mural-sized wood panel, he became blocked and could not go on. Münter told him that he was trapped in his intellect and not reaching the true subject of the picture.
She suggested he simply repeat the word uberflut ("deluge" or "flood") and focus on its sound rather than its meaning. Repeating this word like a mantra, Kandinsky painted and completed the monumental work in a three-day span.
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Signature Style
Wassily Kandinsky's art has a confluence of music and spirituality. With his appreciation for music of his times and kinesthetic disposition, Kandinsky's artworks have a marked style of expressionism in his early years.
However he embraced all types of artistic styles of his times and his predecessors i.e. Art Nouveau (sinuous organic forms), Fauvism and Blaue Reiter (shocking colours), Surrealism (mystery) and Bauhaus (constructivism) only to move towards abstractionism as he explored spirituality in art.
His object-free paintings display spiritual abstraction suggested by sounds and emotions through a unity of sensation. Driven by the Christian faith and the inner necessity of an artist, his paintings have the ambiguity of the form rendered in a variety of colours as well as resistance against conventional aesthetic values of the art world.
As Kandinsky started moving away from his early inspiration from Impressionism, his paintings became more vibrant, pictographic and expressive with more sharp shapes and clear linear qualities.
But eventually Kandinsky went further, rejecting pictorial representation with more synesthetic swirling hurricanes of colours and shapes, eliminating traditional references to depth and laying out bare and abstracted glyphs; however, what remained consistent was his spiritual pursuit of expressive forms.
Emotional harmony is another salient feature in the later works of Kandinsky. With diverse dimensions and bright hues balanced through a careful juxtaposition of proportion and colours, he substantiated the universality of shapes in his artworks, thus paving the way for further abstraction.
Kandinsky often used black in his paintings to heighten the impact of brightly coloured forms while his forms were often biomorphic approaches to bring surrealism in his art.
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Theoretical Writings on Art
Kandinsky's analyses on forms and colours result not from simple, arbitrary idea-associations but from the painter's inner experience.
He spent years creating abstract/sensorially rich paintings, working with form and colour, tirelessly observing his own paintings (along with those of other artists) and noting their effects on his sense of colour.
This subjective experience is something that anyone can do—not scientific/objective observations, but inner/subjective ones, referred to by French philosopher Michel Henry as "absolute subjectivity" or the "absolute phenomenological life".
Published in Munich in 1911, Kandinsky's text Über das Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) defines three types of painting: impressions, improvisations and compositions.
While impressions are based on an external reality that serves as a starting point, improvisations and compositions depict images emergent from the unconscious, though composition is developed from a more formal point of view.
-- Wassily Kandinsky's Personal Life
After graduating in 1892, Kandinsky married his cousin, Anja Chimiakina, and became a lecturer in Jurisprudence at the University of Moscow.
In the summer of 1902, Kandinsky invited Gabriele Münter to join him at his summer painting classes just south of Munich in the Alps. She accepted the offer and their relationship became more personal than professional.
Kandinsky and Münter became engaged in the summer of 1903 while he was still married to Anja and travelled extensively through Europe, Russia and North Africa until 1908. He separated from Anja in 1911.
In 1909, Münter bought a summerhouse in the small Bavarian town of Murnau and the couple happily entertained colleagues there. The property is still known as Russenhaus, and she would later use the basement to hide many works (by Kandinsky and others) from the Nazis.
Upon returning to Munich, Kandinsky founded the Neue Kunstler Vereinigung (New Artists' Association) in 1909.
He returned to Moscow in 1914 when the first World War broke out. The relationship between Kandinsky and Münter worsened due to mutual tensions and disappointments over his lack of commitment to marriage. Their relationship formally ended in 1916 in Stockholm.
In 1916, he met Nina Nikolaevna Andreevskaya (1899–1980), whom he married on the 11th. February 1917 when she was 17 and he was 50 years old. At the end of 1917, they had a son, Wsevolod, or Lodya as he was called in the family. Lodya died in June 1920, and there were no more children.
After the Russian Revolution, Wassily had opportunities in Germany, to which he returned in 1920. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933.
He then moved to France with his wife, where he lived for the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most prominent art.
He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 13 December 1944, three days prior to his 78th birthday.
-- Wassily Kandinsky and the Art Market
In 2012, Christie's auctioned Kandinsky's Studie für Improvisation 8 (Study for Improvisation 8), a 1909 view of a man wielding a broadsword in a rainbow-hued village, for $23 million.
Before this sale, the artist's last record was set in 1990 when Sotheby's sold his Fugue (1914) for $20.9 million.
On the 16th. November 2016, Christie's auctioned Kandinsky's Rigide et Courbé (Rigid and Bent), a large 1935 abstract painting, for $23.3 million, a new record for Kandinsky.
-- Nazi-Looted Art
In July 2001, Jen Lissitzky, the son of artist El Lissitzky, filed a restitution claim against the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland for Kandinsky's Improvisation No. 10. A settlement was reached in 2002.
In 2013, the Lewenstein family filed a claim for the restitution of Kandinsky's Painting with Houses held by the Stedelijk Museum.
In 2020, a committee established by the Dutch minister of culture found fault with the behaviour of the Restitution Committee, causing a scandal where two of its members, including its chairman, resigned.
Later that year, a court in Amsterdam ruled that the Stedelijk Museum could retain the painting from the Jewish Lewenstein collection despite the Nazi theft.
However, in August 2021, the Amsterdam City Council decided to return the painting to the Lewenstein family.
In 2017, Robert Colin Lewenstein, Francesca Manuela Davis and Elsa Hannchen Guidotti filed suit against Bayerische Landesbank (BLB) for the restitution of Kandinsky's Das Bunte Leben.
-- Final Thoughts From Wassily Kandinsky
“Colour is a power which directly
influences the soul.”
"Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers,
the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is
the hand that plays, touching one key or another
purposively, to cause vibrations in the soul.”
“The artist must train not only his
eye, but also his soul.”
“Lend your ears to music, open your eyes to
painting, and … stop thinking! Just ask yourself
whether the work has enabled you to “walk
about” into a hitherto unknown world. If the
answer is yes, what more do you want?”
“That is beautiful which is produced by the
inner need, which springs from the soul.”
“Everything that is dead quivers. Not only the
things of poetry, stars, moon, wood, flowers,
but even a white trouser button glittering out
of a puddle in the street... Everything has a
secret soul, which is silent more often than
it speaks.”
“With cold eyes and indifferent mind the spectators
regard the work. Connoissers admire the "skill" (as
one admires a tightrope walker), enjoy the "quality
of painting" (as one enjoys a pasty).
But hungry souls go hungry away. The vulgar herd
stroll through the rooms and pronounce the pictures
"nice" or "splendid." Those who could speak have said
nothing, those who could hear have heard nothing.”
“The artist must have something to say, for mastery
over form is not his goal, but rather the adapting of
form to its inner meaning.”
“Those things that we encounter for the first time
immediately have a spiritual effect upon us. A child,
for whom every object is new, experiences the world
in this way: it sees light, is attracted by it, wants to
grasp it, burns its finger in the process, and thus
learns fear and respect for the flame.”
“The true work of art is born from the 'artist':
a mysterious, enigmatic, and mystical creation.
It detaches itself from him, it acquires an
autonomous life, becomes a personality, an
independent subject, animated with a spiritual
breath, the living subject of a real existence
of being.”
“Empty canvas. In appearance - really empty, silent,
indifferent. Stunned, almost. In effect - full of tensions,
with thousand subdued voices, heavy with expectations.
A little frightened because it may be violated.”
“The artist must be blind to distinction between
'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form,
deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his
particular age.”
“Art becomes so specialized as to be comprehensible
only to artists, and they complain bitterly of public
indifference to their work."
"Competition arises. The wild battle for success
becomes more and more material. Small groups
who have fought their way to the top of the chaotic
world of art and picture-making entrench themselves
in the territory they have won. The public, left far
behind, looks on bewildered, loses interest and
turns away.”
“Blue is the typical heavenly colour. The ultimate
feeling it creates is one of rest. When it sinks to
almost black, it echos grief that is hardly human.”
“There is only one road to follow, that of analysis
of the basic elements in order to arrive ultimately
at an adequate graphic expression.”
“The artist is not born to a life of pleasure. He must
not live idle; he has a hard work to perform, and one
which often proves a cross to be borne.”
“Form itself, even if completely abstract ...
has its own inner sound.”
“A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere
representation, however artistic, in his longing
to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease
with which music, the most non-material of the arts
today, achieves this end.
He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music
to his own art. And from this results that modern
desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical,
abstract construction, for repeated notes of
colour, for setting colour in motion.”
“The impact of the acute angle of a triangle on
a circle is actually as overwhelming in effect as
the finger of God touching the finger of Adam in
Michelangelo.”
“To those that are not accustomed to it, the inner
beauty appears as ugliness, because humanity in
general inclines to the outer, and knows nothing
of the inner.”
“The artist must be blind to "recognized" and
"unrecognized" form, deaf to the teachings and
desires of his time. His open eyes must be directed
to his inner life, and his ears must be constantly
attuned to the voice of inner necessity.”
“Every work of art is the child of its age and, in
many cases, the mother of our emotions. It follows
that each period of culture produces an art of its
own which can never be repeated.
Efforts to revive the art-principles of the past will
at best produce an art that is still-born. It is
impossible for us to live and feel, as did the
ancient Greeks.”
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933. 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 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.
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. Having come from a long line of rural gentry, 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:
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.
"The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince 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 Kostromskaya, Moskovskaya, Orlovskya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas". "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.
Ivan Bunin's early childhood, spent in Butyrky Khutor and later in Ozerky (of Yelets county, Lipetskaya Oblast), 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. 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." It was Lyudmila Alexandrovna who introduced her son to the world of Russian folklore. 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."
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 Pleiades, heard a marmot's whistle a verst away, and could get drunk from the smells of landysh or an old book," he remembered later. Bunin's experiences of rural life had a profound impact on his writing. "There, amidst the deep silence of vast fields, among cornfields – or, in winter, huge snowdrifts which were stepping up to our very doorsteps – I spent my childhood which was full of melancholic poetry," Bunin later wrote of his Ozerky days.
Ivan Bunin's first home tutor was an ex-student named Romashkov, whom he later described as a "positively bizarre character," a wanderer full of fascinating stories, "always thought-provoking even if not altogether comprehensible." Later it was university-educated Yuly Bunin (deported home for being a 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. Until 1920 Yuly (who once described Ivan as "undeveloped yet gifted and capable of original independent thought") 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.
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.
Literary career
In May 1887 Bunin published his first 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. 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. 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.
Ivan Bunin's debut book of poetry Poems. 1887–1891 was published in 1891 in Oryol. Some of his articles, essays and short stories, published earlier in local papers, began to feature in the Saint Petersburg periodicals.
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.
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.
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 (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. Tellingly, it was Tolstoy himself who discouraged Bunin from slipping into what he called "total peasantification." Several years later, while still admiring Tolstoy's prose, Bunin changed his views regarding his philosophy which he now saw as utopian.
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, followed a year later by In the Open Air (Под открытым небом, 1898), his second book of verse. 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. In the winter of 1899–1900 he began attending the 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 Zaitsev later remembered. He met Anton Chekov in 1896, and a strong friendship ensued.
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." Even though the book testifies to his association with the Symbolists, primarily Valery Bryusov, 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. Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times." 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. Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.
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 Turgenev, who was a versemaker, first and foremost. Finding the true rhythm of the story was for him the main thing – 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."
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." 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.
In 1902 Znanie started publishing the Complete Bunin series; five volumes appeared by the year 1909. 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. Bunin's works featured regularly in Znanie's literary compilations; beginning with Book I, where "Black Earth" appeared along with several poems, all in all he contributed to 16 books of the series.
In the early 1900s Bunin travelled extensively. He was a close friend of Chekhov and his family and continued visiting them regularly until 1904. The October 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
In October 1909 Bunin received his second Pushkin Prize for Poems 1903–1906 and translations of (Lord Byron's Cain, and parts of Longfellow's The Golden Legend). He was elected a member of the Russian Academy the same year. 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. It was much later that Bunin was proclaimed one of the most innovative Russian writers of the century.
1910–1920
In 1910 Bunin published 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."
"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. 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."
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. In 1912 the 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.
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 to wide acclaim (including high praise from the French poet Rene Ghil). 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, 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 Byron, Tennyson, 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. 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.
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. 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
Bunin and Muromtseva arrived in Paris, 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'", he once said, allegedly, to Merezhkovsky who still cherished hopes for Pilsudsky's military success against the Bolshevik regime.
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.
In France Bunin published many of his pre-revolutionary works and collections of original novellas, regularly contributing to the Russian emigre press. 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 Goncharov and 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) were praised by critics as bringing Russian literature to new heights. 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."
In 1924, he published the "Manifesto of the Russian Emigration", in which he i.a. declared:
There was Russia, 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?
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). 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.
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. 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. In his speech, addressing the Academy, he said:
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.
In France, Bunin found himself, for the first time, at the center of public attention. On 10 November 1933, the Paris newspapers came out with huge headlines: "Bunin — the Nobel Prize laureate" giving the whole of the Russian community in France cause for celebration. "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. Back in the USSR the reaction was negative: Bunin's triumph was explained there as "an imperialist intrigue."
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). 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.
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. 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. In 1937 Bunin finished his book The Liberation of Tolstoy (Освобождение Толстого), held in the highest regard by Leo Tolstoy scholars.
In 1938 Bunin began working on what would later become a celebrated cycle of nostalgic stories with a strong erotic undercurrent and a 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. 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."
The war years
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 passports enabling them to make the trip. But the couple chose to remain in Grasse. 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), 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.
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". A journalist who visited the Villa in 1942 described Bunin as a "skinny and emaciated man, looking like an ancient patrician". 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. 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."
Ivan Bunin was a staunch anti-Nazi, referring to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as "rabid monkeys". He risked his life, sheltering fugitives (including Jews such as the pianist A. Liebermann and his wife) in his house in Grasse after 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 300 metres (980 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".
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." 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." "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.
Last years
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.[3] 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".
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. 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 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. "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." 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.
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". Reportedly, the infamous Zhdanov decree was one of the reasons for Bunin's change of mind. 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 Fadeev might have given me instead of feasts, riches and laurels..."
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. In English translation it was entitled About Chekhov: The Unfinished Symphony. 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. 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 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.
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 – 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 were cited as the causes of death. A lavish burial service took place at the Russian Church on Rue Daru. All the major newspapers, both Russian and French, published large obituaries. For quite a while the coffin was held in a vault. On 30 January 1954, Bunin was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.
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.
Legacy
Ivan Bunin made history as the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The immediate basis for the award was the autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev, but Bunin's legacy is much wider in scope. He is regarded as a master of the short story, described by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov as an "archaist innovator" who, while remaining true to the literary tradition of the 19th century, made huge leaps in terms of artistic expression and purity of style. "[Bunin's] style heralds an historical precedent... technical precision as an instrument of bringing out beauty is sharpened to the extreme. There's hardly another poet who on dozens of pages would fail to produce a single epithet, analogy or metaphor... the ability to perform such a simplification of poetic language without doing any harm to it is the sign of a true artist. When it comes to artistic precision Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets," wrote Vestnik Evropy.
Bunin's early stories were of uneven quality. They were united in their "earthiness", lack of plot and signs of a curious longing for "life's farthest horizons"; young Bunin started his career by trying to approach the ancient dilemmas of the human being, and his first characters were typically old men. His early prose works had one common leitmotif: that of nature's beauty and wisdom bitterly contrasting with humanity's ugly shallowness. As he progressed, Bunin started to receive encouraging reviews: Anton Chekhov warmly greeted his first stories, even if he found too much "density" in them. But it was Gorky who gave Bunin's prose its highest praise. Till the end of his life Gorky (long after the relationship between former friends had soured) rated Bunin among Russian literature's greatest writers and recommended his prose for younger generations of writers as an example of true and unwithering classicism.
As a poet, Bunin started out as a follower of Ivan Nikitin and Aleksey Koltsov, then gravitated towards the Yakov Polonsky and Afanasy Fet school, the latter's impressionism becoming a marked influence. The theme of Bunin's early works seemed to be the demise of the traditional Russian nobleman of the past – something which as an artist he simultaneously gravitated toward and felt averted from. In the 1900s this gave way to a more introspective, philosophical style, akin to Fyodor Tyutchev and his "poetic cosmology". All the while Bunin remained hostile to modernism (and the darker side of it, "decadence"); Mikhaylov saw him as the torch-bearer of Aleksander Pushkin's tradition of "praising the naked simplicity's charms."
The symbolist's flights of imagination and grotesque passions foreign to him, Bunin made nature his field of artistic research and here carved his art to perfection. "Few people are capable of loving nature as Bunin does. And it's this love that makes his scope wide, his vision deep, his colour and aural impressions so rich," wrote Aleksander Blok, a poet from a literary camp Bunin treated as hostile. It was for his books of poetry (the most notable of which is Falling Leaves, 1901) and his poetic translations that Bunin became a three time Pushkin Prize laureate. His verse was praised by Aleksander Kuprin while Blok regarded Bunin as among the first in the hierarchy of Russian poets. One great admirer of Bunin's verse was Vladimir Nabokov, who (even if making scornful remarks about Bunin's prose) compared him to Blok. Some see Bunin as a direct follower of Gogol, who was the first in Russian literature to discover the art of fusing poetry and prose together.
The wholesomeness of Bunin's character allowed him to avoid crises to become virtually the only author of the first decades of the 20th century to develop gradually and logically. "Bunin is the only one who remains true to himself", Gorky wrote in a letter to Chirikov in 1907. Yet, an outsider to all the contemporary trends and literary movements, Bunin was never truly famous in Russia. Becoming an Academician in 1909 alienated him even more from the critics, the majority of whom saw the Academy's decision to expel Gorky several years earlier as a disgrace. The closest Bunin came to fame was in 1911–1912 when The Village and Dry Valley came out. The former, according to the author, "sketched with sharp cruelty the most striking lines of the Russian soul, its light and dark sides, and its often tragic foundations"; it caused passionate, and occasionally very hostile reactions. "Nobody has ever drawn the [Russian] village in such a deep historical context before," Maxim Gorky wrote. After this uncompromising book it became impossible to continue to paint the Russian peasantry life in the idealised, narodnik-style way, Bunin single-handedly closed this long chapter in Russian literature. He maintained the truly classic traditions of realism in Russian literature at the very time when they were in the gravest danger, under attack by modernists and decadents. Yet he was far from "traditional" in many ways, introducing to Russian literature a completely new set of characters and a quite novel, laconic way of saying things. Dry Valley was regarded as another huge step forward for Bunin. While The Village dealt metaphorically with Russia as a whole in a historical context, here, according to the author, the "Russian soul [was brought into the focus] in the attempt to highlight the Slavic psyche's most prominent features." "It's one of the greatest books of Russian horror, and there's an element of liturgy in it... Like a young priest with his faith destroyed, Bunin buried the whole of his class," wrote Gorky.
Bunin's travel sketches were lauded as innovative, notably Bird's Shadow (1907–1911). "He's enchanted with the East, with the 'light-bearing' lands he now describes in such beautiful fashion... For [depicting] the East, both Biblical and modern, Bunin chooses the appropriate style, solemn and incandescent, full of imagery, bathing in waves of sultry sunlight and adorned with arabesques and precious stones, so that, when he tells of these grey-haired ancient times, disappearing in the distant haze of religion and myth, the impression he achieves is that of watching a great chariot of human history moving before our eyes," wrote Yuri Aykhenvald. Critics noted Bunin's uncanny knack of immersing himself into alien cultures, both old and new, best demonstrated in his Eastern cycle of short stories as well as his superb translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha (1898).
Bunin was greatly interested in international myths and folklore, as well as the Russian folkloric tradition. But, (according to Georgy Adamovich) "he was absolutely intolerant towards those of his colleagues who employed stylizations, the "style Russe" manufacturers. His cruel – and rightly so – review of Sergey Gorodetsky's poetry was one example. Even Blok's Kulikovo Field (for me, an outstanding piece) irritated him as too lavishly adorned... "That's Vasnetsov," he commented, meaning 'masquerade and opera'. But he treated things that he felt were not masqueradery differently. Of the Slovo o Polku Igoreve... he said something to the effect that all the poets of the whole world lumped together couldn't have created such wonder, in fact something close to Pushkin's words. Yet translations of the legend... outraged him, particularly that of Balmont. He despised Shmelyov for his pseudo-Russian pretenses, though admitting his literary gift. Bunin had an extraordinarily sharp ear for falseness: he instantly recognized this jarring note and was infuriated. That was why he loved Tolstoy so much. Once, I remember, he spoke of Tolstoy as the one 'who's never said a single word that would be an exaggeration'."
Bunin has often been spoken of as a "cold" writer. Some of his conceptual poems of the 1910s refuted this stereotype, tackling philosophical issues like the mission of an artist ("Insensory", 1916) where he showed fiery passion. According to Oleg Mikhaylov, "Bunin wanted to maintain distance between himself and his reader, being frightened by any closeness... But his pride never excluded passions, just served as a panzer — it was like a flaming torch in an icy shell." On a more personal level, Vera Muromtseva confirmed: "Sure, he wanted to come across as [cold and aloof] and he succeeded by being a first-class actor... people who didn't know him well enough couldn't begin to imagine what depths of soft tenderness his soul was capable of reaching," she wrote in her memoirs.
The best of Bunin's prose ("The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Loopy Ears" and notably, "Brothers", based on Ceylon's religious myth) had a strong philosophical streak to it. In terms of ethics Bunin was under the strong influence of Socrates (as related by Xenophon and Plato), he argued that it was the Greek classic who first expounded many things that were later found in Hindu and Jewish sacred books. Bunin was particularly impressed with Socrates's ideas on the intrinsic value of human individuality, it being a "kind of focus for higher forces" (quoted from Bunin's short story "Back to Rome"). As a purveyor of Socratic ideals, Bunin followed Leo Tolstoy; the latter's observation about beauty being "the crown of virtue" was Bunin's idea too. Critics found deep philosophical motives, and deep undercurrents in Mitya's Love and The Life of Arseniev, two pieces in which "Bunin came closest to a deep metaphysical understanding of the human being's tragic essence." Konstantin Paustovsky called The Life of Arseniev "one of the most outstanding phenomena of world literature."
In his view on Russia and its history Bunin for a while had much in common with A. K. Tolstoy (of whom he spoke with great respect); both tended to idealise the pre-Tatar Rus. Years later he greatly modified his view of Russian history, forming a more negative outlook. "There are two streaks in our people: one dominated by Rus, another by Chudh and Merya. Both have in them a frightening instability, sway... As Russian people say of themselves: we are like wood — both club and icon may come of it, depending on who is working on this wood," Bunin wrote years later.
In emigration Bunin continued his experiments with extremely concise, ultra-ionized prose, taking Chekhov and Tolstoy's ideas on expressive economy to the last extreme. The result of this was God's Tree, a collection of stories so short, some of them were half a page long. Professor Pyotr Bitsilly thought God's Tree to be "the most perfect of Bunin's works and the most exemplary. Nowhere else can such eloquent laconism can be found, such definitive and exquisite writing, such freedom of expression and really magnificent demonstration of [mind] over matter. No other book of his has in it such a wealth of material for understanding of Bunin's basic method – a method in which, in fact, there was nothing but basics. This simple but precious quality – honesty bordering on hatred of any pretense – is what makes Bunin so closely related to... Pushkin, Tolstoy and Chekhov," Bitsilli wrote.
Influential, even if controversial, was his Cursed Days 1918–1920 diary, of which scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo wrote:
The work is important for several reasons. Cursed Days is one of the very few anti-Bolshevik diaries to be preserved from the time of the Russian Revolution and civil war. It recreates events with graphic and gripping immediacy. Unlike the works of early Soviets and emigres and their self-censoring backdrop of memory, myth, and political expediency, Bunin's truth reads almost like an aberration. Cursed Days also links Russian anti-utopian writing of the nineteenth century to its counterpart in the twentieth. Reminiscent of the fiction of Dostoevsky, it features an 'underground man' who does not wish to be an 'organ stop' or to affirm 'crystal palaces'. Bunin's diary foreshadowed such 'libelous' memoirs as Yevgenia Ginzburg's Journey into the Whirlwind (1967) and Within the Whirlwind, and Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope (1970) and Hope Abandoned (1974), the accounts of two courageous women caught up in the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Cursed Days also preceded the "rebellious" anti-Soviet tradition that began with Evgeny Zamyatin and Yury Olesha, moved on to Mikhail Bulgakov, and reached a climax with Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One can argue that, in its painful exposing of political and social utopias, Cursed Days 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."
Despite his works being virtually banned in the Soviet Union up until the mid-1950s, Bunin exerted a strong influence over several generations of Soviet writers. Among those who owed a lot to Bunin, critics mentioned Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Fedin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov, and later Yuri Kazakov, Vasily Belov and Viktor Likhonosov.
Ivan Bunin's books have been translated into many languages, and the world's leading writers praised his gift. Romain Rolland called Bunin an "artistic genius"; he was spoken and written of in much the same vein by writers like Henri de Régnier, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jerome K. Jerome, and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. In 1950, on the eve of his 80th birthday, François Mauriac expressed in a letter his delight and admiration, but also his deep sympathy to Bunin's personal qualities and the dignified way he'd got through all the tremendous difficulties life had thrown at him. In a letter published by Figaro, André Gide greeted Bunin "on behalf of all France", calling him "the great artist" and adding: "I don't know of any other writer... who's so to the point in expressing human feelings, simple and yet always so fresh and new". European critics often compared Bunin to both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, crediting him with having renovated the Russian realist tradition both in essence and in form.
On 22 October 2020 Google celebrated his 150th birthday with a Google Doodle.
Private life
Bunin's first love was Varvara Pashchenko, his classmate in Yelets [not plausible as Ivan was at a male gymnasium and Varvara at an all female gymnasium], daughter of a doctor and an actress, whom he fell for in 1889 and then went on to work with in Oryol in 1892. Their relationship was difficult in many ways: the girl's father detested the union because of Bunin's impecunious circumstances, Varvara herself was not sure if she wanted to marry and Bunin too was uncertain whether marriage was really appropriate for him. The couple moved to Poltava and settled in Yuly Bunin's home, but by 1892 their relations deteriorated, Pashchenko complaining in a letter to Yuly Bunin that serious quarrels were frequent, and begging for assistance in bringing their union to an end. The affair eventually ended in 1894 with her marrying actor and writer A. N. Bibikov, Ivan Bunin's close friend. Bunin felt betrayed, and for a time his family feared the possibility of him committing suicide. According to some sources it was Varvara Pashchenko who many years later would appear under the name of Lika in The Life of Arseniev (chapter V of the book, entitled Lika, was also published as a short story). Scholar Tatyana Alexandrova, though, questioned this identification (suggesting Mirra Lokhvitskaya might have been the major prototype), while Vera Muromtseva thought of Lika as a 'collective' character aggregating the writer's reminiscences of several women he knew in his youth.
In the summer of 1898 while staying with writer A. M. Fedorov, Bunin became acquainted with N. P. Tsakni, a Greek social-democrat activist, the publisher and editor of the Odessa newspaper Yuzhnoe Obozrenie (Southern Review). Invited to contribute to the paper, Bunin became virtually a daily visitor to the Tsakni family dacha and fell in love with the latter's 18-year-old daughter, Anna (1879–1963). On 23 September 1898, the two married, but by 1899 signs of alienation between them were obvious. At the time of their acrimonious separation in March 1900 Anna was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Nikolai, in Odessa on 30 August of the same year. The boy, of whom his father saw very little, died on 16 January 1905, from a combination of scarlet fever, measles and heart complications.
Ivan Bunin's second wife was Vera Muromtseva (1881–1961), niece of the high-ranking politician Sergey Muromtsev. The two had initially been introduced to each other by writer Ekaterina Lopatina some years earlier, but it was their encounter at the house of the writer Boris Zaitsev in November 1906 which led to an intense relationship which resulted in the couple becoming inseparable until Bunin's death. Bunin and Muromtseva married officially only in 1922, after he managed at last to divorce Tsakni legally. Decades later Vera Muromtseva-Bunina became famous in her own right with her book Life of Bunin.
In 1927, while in Grasse, Bunin fell for the Russian poet Galina Kuznetsova, on vacation there with her husband. The latter, outraged by the well-publicized affair, stormed off, while Bunin not only managed to somehow convince Vera Muromtseva that his love for Galina was purely platonic, but also invite the latter to stay in the house as a secretary and 'a family member'. The situation was complicated by the fact that Leonid Zurov, who stayed with the Bunins as a guest for many years, was secretly in love with Vera (of which her husband was aware); this made it more of a "love quadrilateral" than a mere triangle. Bunin and Kuznetsova's affair ended dramatically in 1942 when the latter, now deeply in love with another frequent guest, opera singer Margo Stepun, sister of Fyodor Stepun, left Bunin, who felt disgraced and insulted. The writer's tempestuous private life in emigration became the subject of the internationally acclaimed Russian movie, His Wife's Diary (or The Diary of His Wife) (2000). which caused controversy and was described by some as masterful and thought-provoking, but by others as vulgar, inaccurate and in bad taste. Vera Muromtseva-Bunina later accepted both Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun as friends: "nashi" ("ours"), as she called them, lived with the Bunins for long periods during the Second World War. According to A.J. Heywood of Leeds University, in Germany and then New York, after the war, Kuznetsova and Stepun negotiated with publishers on Bunin's behalf and maintained a regular correspondence with Ivan and Vera up until their respective deaths.
Bibliography
Novel
The Life of Arseniev (Жизнь Арсеньева, 1927–1933, 1939)
Short novels
The Village (Деревня, 1910)
Dry Valley (Суходол, 1912)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, 1924)
Short story collections
To the Edge of the World and Other Stories (На край света и другие рассказы, 1897)
Antonovka Apples (Антоновские яблоки, 1900)
Flowers of the Field (Цветы полевые, 1901)
Bird's Shadow (Тень птицы, 1907–1911; Paris, 1931)
Ioann the Mourner (Иоанн Рыдалец, 1913)
Chalice of Life (Чаша жизни, Petersburg, 1915; Paris, 1922)
The Gentleman from San Francisco (Господин из Сан-Франциско, 1916)
Chang's Dreams (Сны Чанга, 1916, 1918)
Temple of the Sun (Храм Солнца, 1917)
Primal Love (Начальная любовь, Prague, 1921)
Scream (Крик, Paris, 1921)
Rose of Jerico (Роза Иерихона, Berlin, 1924)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, Paris, 1924; New York, 1953)
Sunstroke (Солнечный удар, Paris, 1927)
Sacred Tree (Божье древо, Paris, 1931)
Dark Avenues (Тёмные аллеи, New York, 1943; Paris, 1946)
Judea in Spring (Весной в Иудее, New York, 1953)
Loopy Ears and Other Stories (Петлистые уши и другие рассказы, 1954, New York, posthumous)
Poetry
Poems (1887–1891) (1891, originally as a literary supplement to Orlovsky vestnik newspaper)
Under the Open Skies (Под открытым небом, 1898)
Falling Leaves (Листопад, Moscow, 1901)
Poems (1903) (Стихотворения, 1903)
Poems (1903–1906) (Стихотворения, 1906)
Poems of 1907 (Saint Petersburg, 1908)
Selected Poems (Paris, 1929)
Translations
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Song of Hiawatha (1898)
Memoirs and diaries
Waters Aplenty (Воды многие, 1910, 1926)
Cursed Days (Окаянные дни, 1925–1926)[66]
Memoirs. Under the hammer and sickle. (Воспоминания. Под серпом и молотом. 1950)
Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin was the first Russian writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933. 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 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.
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. Having come from a long line of rural gentry, 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:
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.
"The Bunins are direct ancestors of Simeon Bunkovsky, a nobleman who came from Poland to the court of the Great Prince 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 Kostromskaya, Moskovskaya, Orlovskya and Tambovskaya Guberniyas". "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.
Ivan Bunin's early childhood, spent in Butyrky Khutor and later in Ozerky (of Yelets county, Lipetskaya Oblast), 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. 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." It was Lyudmila Alexandrovna who introduced her son to the world of Russian folklore. 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."
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 Pleiades, heard a marmot's whistle a verst away, and could get drunk from the smells of landysh or an old book," he remembered later. Bunin's experiences of rural life had a profound impact on his writing. "There, amidst the deep silence of vast fields, among cornfields – or, in winter, huge snowdrifts which were stepping up to our very doorsteps – I spent my childhood which was full of melancholic poetry," Bunin later wrote of his Ozerky days.
Ivan Bunin's first home tutor was an ex-student named Romashkov, whom he later described as a "positively bizarre character," a wanderer full of fascinating stories, "always thought-provoking even if not altogether comprehensible." Later it was university-educated Yuly Bunin (deported home for being a 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. Until 1920 Yuly (who once described Ivan as "undeveloped yet gifted and capable of original independent thought") 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.
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.
Literary career
In May 1887 Bunin published his first 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. 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. 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.
Ivan Bunin's debut book of poetry Poems. 1887–1891 was published in 1891 in Oryol. Some of his articles, essays and short stories, published earlier in local papers, began to feature in the Saint Petersburg periodicals.
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.
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.
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 (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. Tellingly, it was Tolstoy himself who discouraged Bunin from slipping into what he called "total peasantification." Several years later, while still admiring Tolstoy's prose, Bunin changed his views regarding his philosophy which he now saw as utopian.
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, followed a year later by In the Open Air (Под открытым небом, 1898), his second book of verse. 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. In the winter of 1899–1900 he began attending the 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 Zaitsev later remembered. He met Anton Chekov in 1896, and a strong friendship ensued.
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." Even though the book testifies to his association with the Symbolists, primarily Valery Bryusov, 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. Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times." 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. Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.
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 Turgenev, who was a versemaker, first and foremost. Finding the true rhythm of the story was for him the main thing – 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."
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." 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.
In 1902 Znanie started publishing the Complete Bunin series; five volumes appeared by the year 1909. 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. Bunin's works featured regularly in Znanie's literary compilations; beginning with Book I, where "Black Earth" appeared along with several poems, all in all he contributed to 16 books of the series.
In the early 1900s Bunin travelled extensively. He was a close friend of Chekhov and his family and continued visiting them regularly until 1904. The October 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
In October 1909 Bunin received his second Pushkin Prize for Poems 1903–1906 and translations of (Lord Byron's Cain, and parts of Longfellow's The Golden Legend). He was elected a member of the Russian Academy the same year. 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. It was much later that Bunin was proclaimed one of the most innovative Russian writers of the century.
1910–1920
In 1910 Bunin published 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."
"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. 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."
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. In 1912 the 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.
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 to wide acclaim (including high praise from the French poet Rene Ghil). 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, 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 Byron, Tennyson, 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. 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.
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. 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
Bunin and Muromtseva arrived in Paris, 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'", he once said, allegedly, to Merezhkovsky who still cherished hopes for Pilsudsky's military success against the Bolshevik regime.
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.
In France Bunin published many of his pre-revolutionary works and collections of original novellas, regularly contributing to the Russian emigre press. 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 Goncharov and 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) were praised by critics as bringing Russian literature to new heights. 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."
In 1924, he published the "Manifesto of the Russian Emigration", in which he i.a. declared:
There was Russia, 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?
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). 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.
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. 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. In his speech, addressing the Academy, he said:
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.
In France, Bunin found himself, for the first time, at the center of public attention. On 10 November 1933, the Paris newspapers came out with huge headlines: "Bunin — the Nobel Prize laureate" giving the whole of the Russian community in France cause for celebration. "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. Back in the USSR the reaction was negative: Bunin's triumph was explained there as "an imperialist intrigue."
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). 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.
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. 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. In 1937 Bunin finished his book The Liberation of Tolstoy (Освобождение Толстого), held in the highest regard by Leo Tolstoy scholars.
In 1938 Bunin began working on what would later become a celebrated cycle of nostalgic stories with a strong erotic undercurrent and a 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. 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."
The war years
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 passports enabling them to make the trip. But the couple chose to remain in Grasse. 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), 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.
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". A journalist who visited the Villa in 1942 described Bunin as a "skinny and emaciated man, looking like an ancient patrician". 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. 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."
Ivan Bunin was a staunch anti-Nazi, referring to Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini as "rabid monkeys". He risked his life, sheltering fugitives (including Jews such as the pianist A. Liebermann and his wife) in his house in Grasse after 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 300 metres (980 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".
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." 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." "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.
Last years
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.[3] 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".
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. 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 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. "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." 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.
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". Reportedly, the infamous Zhdanov decree was one of the reasons for Bunin's change of mind. 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 Fadeev might have given me instead of feasts, riches and laurels..."
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. In English translation it was entitled About Chekhov: The Unfinished Symphony. 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. 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 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.
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 – 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 were cited as the causes of death. A lavish burial service took place at the Russian Church on Rue Daru. All the major newspapers, both Russian and French, published large obituaries. For quite a while the coffin was held in a vault. On 30 January 1954, Bunin was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery.
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.
Legacy
Ivan Bunin made history as the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. The immediate basis for the award was the autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev, but Bunin's legacy is much wider in scope. He is regarded as a master of the short story, described by scholar Oleg Mikhaylov as an "archaist innovator" who, while remaining true to the literary tradition of the 19th century, made huge leaps in terms of artistic expression and purity of style. "[Bunin's] style heralds an historical precedent... technical precision as an instrument of bringing out beauty is sharpened to the extreme. There's hardly another poet who on dozens of pages would fail to produce a single epithet, analogy or metaphor... the ability to perform such a simplification of poetic language without doing any harm to it is the sign of a true artist. When it comes to artistic precision Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets," wrote Vestnik Evropy.
Bunin's early stories were of uneven quality. They were united in their "earthiness", lack of plot and signs of a curious longing for "life's farthest horizons"; young Bunin started his career by trying to approach the ancient dilemmas of the human being, and his first characters were typically old men. His early prose works had one common leitmotif: that of nature's beauty and wisdom bitterly contrasting with humanity's ugly shallowness. As he progressed, Bunin started to receive encouraging reviews: Anton Chekhov warmly greeted his first stories, even if he found too much "density" in them. But it was Gorky who gave Bunin's prose its highest praise. Till the end of his life Gorky (long after the relationship between former friends had soured) rated Bunin among Russian literature's greatest writers and recommended his prose for younger generations of writers as an example of true and unwithering classicism.
As a poet, Bunin started out as a follower of Ivan Nikitin and Aleksey Koltsov, then gravitated towards the Yakov Polonsky and Afanasy Fet school, the latter's impressionism becoming a marked influence. The theme of Bunin's early works seemed to be the demise of the traditional Russian nobleman of the past – something which as an artist he simultaneously gravitated toward and felt averted from. In the 1900s this gave way to a more introspective, philosophical style, akin to Fyodor Tyutchev and his "poetic cosmology". All the while Bunin remained hostile to modernism (and the darker side of it, "decadence"); Mikhaylov saw him as the torch-bearer of Aleksander Pushkin's tradition of "praising the naked simplicity's charms."
The symbolist's flights of imagination and grotesque passions foreign to him, Bunin made nature his field of artistic research and here carved his art to perfection. "Few people are capable of loving nature as Bunin does. And it's this love that makes his scope wide, his vision deep, his colour and aural impressions so rich," wrote Aleksander Blok, a poet from a literary camp Bunin treated as hostile. It was for his books of poetry (the most notable of which is Falling Leaves, 1901) and his poetic translations that Bunin became a three time Pushkin Prize laureate. His verse was praised by Aleksander Kuprin while Blok regarded Bunin as among the first in the hierarchy of Russian poets. One great admirer of Bunin's verse was Vladimir Nabokov, who (even if making scornful remarks about Bunin's prose) compared him to Blok. Some see Bunin as a direct follower of Gogol, who was the first in Russian literature to discover the art of fusing poetry and prose together.
The wholesomeness of Bunin's character allowed him to avoid crises to become virtually the only author of the first decades of the 20th century to develop gradually and logically. "Bunin is the only one who remains true to himself", Gorky wrote in a letter to Chirikov in 1907. Yet, an outsider to all the contemporary trends and literary movements, Bunin was never truly famous in Russia. Becoming an Academician in 1909 alienated him even more from the critics, the majority of whom saw the Academy's decision to expel Gorky several years earlier as a disgrace. The closest Bunin came to fame was in 1911–1912 when The Village and Dry Valley came out. The former, according to the author, "sketched with sharp cruelty the most striking lines of the Russian soul, its light and dark sides, and its often tragic foundations"; it caused passionate, and occasionally very hostile reactions. "Nobody has ever drawn the [Russian] village in such a deep historical context before," Maxim Gorky wrote. After this uncompromising book it became impossible to continue to paint the Russian peasantry life in the idealised, narodnik-style way, Bunin single-handedly closed this long chapter in Russian literature. He maintained the truly classic traditions of realism in Russian literature at the very time when they were in the gravest danger, under attack by modernists and decadents. Yet he was far from "traditional" in many ways, introducing to Russian literature a completely new set of characters and a quite novel, laconic way of saying things. Dry Valley was regarded as another huge step forward for Bunin. While The Village dealt metaphorically with Russia as a whole in a historical context, here, according to the author, the "Russian soul [was brought into the focus] in the attempt to highlight the Slavic psyche's most prominent features." "It's one of the greatest books of Russian horror, and there's an element of liturgy in it... Like a young priest with his faith destroyed, Bunin buried the whole of his class," wrote Gorky.
Bunin's travel sketches were lauded as innovative, notably Bird's Shadow (1907–1911). "He's enchanted with the East, with the 'light-bearing' lands he now describes in such beautiful fashion... For [depicting] the East, both Biblical and modern, Bunin chooses the appropriate style, solemn and incandescent, full of imagery, bathing in waves of sultry sunlight and adorned with arabesques and precious stones, so that, when he tells of these grey-haired ancient times, disappearing in the distant haze of religion and myth, the impression he achieves is that of watching a great chariot of human history moving before our eyes," wrote Yuri Aykhenvald. Critics noted Bunin's uncanny knack of immersing himself into alien cultures, both old and new, best demonstrated in his Eastern cycle of short stories as well as his superb translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha (1898).
Bunin was greatly interested in international myths and folklore, as well as the Russian folkloric tradition. But, (according to Georgy Adamovich) "he was absolutely intolerant towards those of his colleagues who employed stylizations, the "style Russe" manufacturers. His cruel – and rightly so – review of Sergey Gorodetsky's poetry was one example. Even Blok's Kulikovo Field (for me, an outstanding piece) irritated him as too lavishly adorned... "That's Vasnetsov," he commented, meaning 'masquerade and opera'. But he treated things that he felt were not masqueradery differently. Of the Slovo o Polku Igoreve... he said something to the effect that all the poets of the whole world lumped together couldn't have created such wonder, in fact something close to Pushkin's words. Yet translations of the legend... outraged him, particularly that of Balmont. He despised Shmelyov for his pseudo-Russian pretenses, though admitting his literary gift. Bunin had an extraordinarily sharp ear for falseness: he instantly recognized this jarring note and was infuriated. That was why he loved Tolstoy so much. Once, I remember, he spoke of Tolstoy as the one 'who's never said a single word that would be an exaggeration'."
Bunin has often been spoken of as a "cold" writer. Some of his conceptual poems of the 1910s refuted this stereotype, tackling philosophical issues like the mission of an artist ("Insensory", 1916) where he showed fiery passion. According to Oleg Mikhaylov, "Bunin wanted to maintain distance between himself and his reader, being frightened by any closeness... But his pride never excluded passions, just served as a panzer — it was like a flaming torch in an icy shell." On a more personal level, Vera Muromtseva confirmed: "Sure, he wanted to come across as [cold and aloof] and he succeeded by being a first-class actor... people who didn't know him well enough couldn't begin to imagine what depths of soft tenderness his soul was capable of reaching," she wrote in her memoirs.
The best of Bunin's prose ("The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Loopy Ears" and notably, "Brothers", based on Ceylon's religious myth) had a strong philosophical streak to it. In terms of ethics Bunin was under the strong influence of Socrates (as related by Xenophon and Plato), he argued that it was the Greek classic who first expounded many things that were later found in Hindu and Jewish sacred books. Bunin was particularly impressed with Socrates's ideas on the intrinsic value of human individuality, it being a "kind of focus for higher forces" (quoted from Bunin's short story "Back to Rome"). As a purveyor of Socratic ideals, Bunin followed Leo Tolstoy; the latter's observation about beauty being "the crown of virtue" was Bunin's idea too. Critics found deep philosophical motives, and deep undercurrents in Mitya's Love and The Life of Arseniev, two pieces in which "Bunin came closest to a deep metaphysical understanding of the human being's tragic essence." Konstantin Paustovsky called The Life of Arseniev "one of the most outstanding phenomena of world literature."
In his view on Russia and its history Bunin for a while had much in common with A. K. Tolstoy (of whom he spoke with great respect); both tended to idealise the pre-Tatar Rus. Years later he greatly modified his view of Russian history, forming a more negative outlook. "There are two streaks in our people: one dominated by Rus, another by Chudh and Merya. Both have in them a frightening instability, sway... As Russian people say of themselves: we are like wood — both club and icon may come of it, depending on who is working on this wood," Bunin wrote years later.
In emigration Bunin continued his experiments with extremely concise, ultra-ionized prose, taking Chekhov and Tolstoy's ideas on expressive economy to the last extreme. The result of this was God's Tree, a collection of stories so short, some of them were half a page long. Professor Pyotr Bitsilly thought God's Tree to be "the most perfect of Bunin's works and the most exemplary. Nowhere else can such eloquent laconism can be found, such definitive and exquisite writing, such freedom of expression and really magnificent demonstration of [mind] over matter. No other book of his has in it such a wealth of material for understanding of Bunin's basic method – a method in which, in fact, there was nothing but basics. This simple but precious quality – honesty bordering on hatred of any pretense – is what makes Bunin so closely related to... Pushkin, Tolstoy and Chekhov," Bitsilli wrote.
Influential, even if controversial, was his Cursed Days 1918–1920 diary, of which scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo wrote:
The work is important for several reasons. Cursed Days is one of the very few anti-Bolshevik diaries to be preserved from the time of the Russian Revolution and civil war. It recreates events with graphic and gripping immediacy. Unlike the works of early Soviets and emigres and their self-censoring backdrop of memory, myth, and political expediency, Bunin's truth reads almost like an aberration. Cursed Days also links Russian anti-utopian writing of the nineteenth century to its counterpart in the twentieth. Reminiscent of the fiction of Dostoevsky, it features an 'underground man' who does not wish to be an 'organ stop' or to affirm 'crystal palaces'. Bunin's diary foreshadowed such 'libelous' memoirs as Yevgenia Ginzburg's Journey into the Whirlwind (1967) and Within the Whirlwind, and Nadezhda Mandelstam's Hope Against Hope (1970) and Hope Abandoned (1974), the accounts of two courageous women caught up in the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. Cursed Days also preceded the "rebellious" anti-Soviet tradition that began with Evgeny Zamyatin and Yury Olesha, moved on to Mikhail Bulgakov, and reached a climax with Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. One can argue that, in its painful exposing of political and social utopias, Cursed Days 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."
Despite his works being virtually banned in the Soviet Union up until the mid-1950s, Bunin exerted a strong influence over several generations of Soviet writers. Among those who owed a lot to Bunin, critics mentioned Mikhail Sholokhov, Konstantin Fedin, Konstantin Paustovsky, Ivan Sokolov-Mikitov, and later Yuri Kazakov, Vasily Belov and Viktor Likhonosov.
Ivan Bunin's books have been translated into many languages, and the world's leading writers praised his gift. Romain Rolland called Bunin an "artistic genius"; he was spoken and written of in much the same vein by writers like Henri de Régnier, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jerome K. Jerome, and Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz. In 1950, on the eve of his 80th birthday, François Mauriac expressed in a letter his delight and admiration, but also his deep sympathy to Bunin's personal qualities and the dignified way he'd got through all the tremendous difficulties life had thrown at him. In a letter published by Figaro, André Gide greeted Bunin "on behalf of all France", calling him "the great artist" and adding: "I don't know of any other writer... who's so to the point in expressing human feelings, simple and yet always so fresh and new". European critics often compared Bunin to both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, crediting him with having renovated the Russian realist tradition both in essence and in form.
On 22 October 2020 Google celebrated his 150th birthday with a Google Doodle.
Private life
Bunin's first love was Varvara Pashchenko, his classmate in Yelets [not plausible as Ivan was at a male gymnasium and Varvara at an all female gymnasium], daughter of a doctor and an actress, whom he fell for in 1889 and then went on to work with in Oryol in 1892. Their relationship was difficult in many ways: the girl's father detested the union because of Bunin's impecunious circumstances, Varvara herself was not sure if she wanted to marry and Bunin too was uncertain whether marriage was really appropriate for him. The couple moved to Poltava and settled in Yuly Bunin's home, but by 1892 their relations deteriorated, Pashchenko complaining in a letter to Yuly Bunin that serious quarrels were frequent, and begging for assistance in bringing their union to an end. The affair eventually ended in 1894 with her marrying actor and writer A. N. Bibikov, Ivan Bunin's close friend. Bunin felt betrayed, and for a time his family feared the possibility of him committing suicide. According to some sources it was Varvara Pashchenko who many years later would appear under the name of Lika in The Life of Arseniev (chapter V of the book, entitled Lika, was also published as a short story). Scholar Tatyana Alexandrova, though, questioned this identification (suggesting Mirra Lokhvitskaya might have been the major prototype), while Vera Muromtseva thought of Lika as a 'collective' character aggregating the writer's reminiscences of several women he knew in his youth.
In the summer of 1898 while staying with writer A. M. Fedorov, Bunin became acquainted with N. P. Tsakni, a Greek social-democrat activist, the publisher and editor of the Odessa newspaper Yuzhnoe Obozrenie (Southern Review). Invited to contribute to the paper, Bunin became virtually a daily visitor to the Tsakni family dacha and fell in love with the latter's 18-year-old daughter, Anna (1879–1963). On 23 September 1898, the two married, but by 1899 signs of alienation between them were obvious. At the time of their acrimonious separation in March 1900 Anna was pregnant. She gave birth to a son, Nikolai, in Odessa on 30 August of the same year. The boy, of whom his father saw very little, died on 16 January 1905, from a combination of scarlet fever, measles and heart complications.
Ivan Bunin's second wife was Vera Muromtseva (1881–1961), niece of the high-ranking politician Sergey Muromtsev. The two had initially been introduced to each other by writer Ekaterina Lopatina some years earlier, but it was their encounter at the house of the writer Boris Zaitsev in November 1906 which led to an intense relationship which resulted in the couple becoming inseparable until Bunin's death. Bunin and Muromtseva married officially only in 1922, after he managed at last to divorce Tsakni legally. Decades later Vera Muromtseva-Bunina became famous in her own right with her book Life of Bunin.
In 1927, while in Grasse, Bunin fell for the Russian poet Galina Kuznetsova, on vacation there with her husband. The latter, outraged by the well-publicized affair, stormed off, while Bunin not only managed to somehow convince Vera Muromtseva that his love for Galina was purely platonic, but also invite the latter to stay in the house as a secretary and 'a family member'. The situation was complicated by the fact that Leonid Zurov, who stayed with the Bunins as a guest for many years, was secretly in love with Vera (of which her husband was aware); this made it more of a "love quadrilateral" than a mere triangle. Bunin and Kuznetsova's affair ended dramatically in 1942 when the latter, now deeply in love with another frequent guest, opera singer Margo Stepun, sister of Fyodor Stepun, left Bunin, who felt disgraced and insulted. The writer's tempestuous private life in emigration became the subject of the internationally acclaimed Russian movie, His Wife's Diary (or The Diary of His Wife) (2000). which caused controversy and was described by some as masterful and thought-provoking, but by others as vulgar, inaccurate and in bad taste. Vera Muromtseva-Bunina later accepted both Kuznetsova and Margarita Stepun as friends: "nashi" ("ours"), as she called them, lived with the Bunins for long periods during the Second World War. According to A.J. Heywood of Leeds University, in Germany and then New York, after the war, Kuznetsova and Stepun negotiated with publishers on Bunin's behalf and maintained a regular correspondence with Ivan and Vera up until their respective deaths.
Bibliography
Novel
The Life of Arseniev (Жизнь Арсеньева, 1927–1933, 1939)
Short novels
The Village (Деревня, 1910)
Dry Valley (Суходол, 1912)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, 1924)
Short story collections
To the Edge of the World and Other Stories (На край света и другие рассказы, 1897)
Antonovka Apples (Антоновские яблоки, 1900)
Flowers of the Field (Цветы полевые, 1901)
Bird's Shadow (Тень птицы, 1907–1911; Paris, 1931)
Ioann the Mourner (Иоанн Рыдалец, 1913)
Chalice of Life (Чаша жизни, Petersburg, 1915; Paris, 1922)
The Gentleman from San Francisco (Господин из Сан-Франциско, 1916)
Chang's Dreams (Сны Чанга, 1916, 1918)
Temple of the Sun (Храм Солнца, 1917)
Primal Love (Начальная любовь, Prague, 1921)
Scream (Крик, Paris, 1921)
Rose of Jerico (Роза Иерихона, Berlin, 1924)
Mitya's Love (Митина любовь, Paris, 1924; New York, 1953)
Sunstroke (Солнечный удар, Paris, 1927)
Sacred Tree (Божье древо, Paris, 1931)
Dark Avenues (Тёмные аллеи, New York, 1943; Paris, 1946)
Judea in Spring (Весной в Иудее, New York, 1953)
Loopy Ears and Other Stories (Петлистые уши и другие рассказы, 1954, New York, posthumous)
Poetry
Poems (1887–1891) (1891, originally as a literary supplement to Orlovsky vestnik newspaper)
Under the Open Skies (Под открытым небом, 1898)
Falling Leaves (Листопад, Moscow, 1901)
Poems (1903) (Стихотворения, 1903)
Poems (1903–1906) (Стихотворения, 1906)
Poems of 1907 (Saint Petersburg, 1908)
Selected Poems (Paris, 1929)
Translations
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Song of Hiawatha (1898)
Memoirs and diaries
Waters Aplenty (Воды многие, 1910, 1926)
Cursed Days (Окаянные дни, 1925–1926)[66]
Memoirs. Under the hammer and sickle. (Воспоминания. Под серпом и молотом. 1950)
“Ain’t No Grave” – new novel set in Deep South in early 20th century combines interracial love story with searing description of the Leo Frank trial and lynching
Book cover/author Mary Glickman
Reviewed by BERNIE BELLAN In 1975, American novelist E. L. Doctorow made waves with “Ragtime,” a novel that interspersed true historical American figures from the first part of the 20th century with fictitious characters. The novel explored the overt racism faced by Blacks in America at that time, along with the antisemitism that was also prevalent.
Now, with a new novel by Mary Glickman, who has specialized in writing historical fiction centering around Jewish characters in the Deep South of the U.S., the themes of anti-Black and antisemitic prejudice in the South reach a traumatic apex, culminating with the lynching of New York-born Leo Frank in Georgia, in 1915.
But – since I don’t like to read too much about what a novel is about before I delve into it, I really didn’t know to what extent the Leo Frank case was going to play a role in this particular book. I prefer to be surprised. Unfortunately, if you’re also of a similar mind, I’m afraid I’ve already let the cat out of the bag.
The story opens, however, not in Atlanta, which is where Leo Frank was framed for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, but in a part of backwoods Georgia known as Heard County, where we meet the two central characters of the book: Young Max Sassaport, the son of the only Jewish couple in his small rural village, and Max’s best friend, an equally young Ruby Johnson, the Black daughter of a sharecropper.
The two children – though from totally dissimilar backgrounds, share a deep bond – which they keep hidden from all around them. Glickman’s lilting prose and her depiction of rural Georgia life reminded me of another wonderful novel, also set in the Deep South: “Where the Crawdads Sing.”
Of course, a relationship between a Black girl and a White boy (and a Jew no less) is bound to come asunder – and even as youngsters, Ruby and Max are aware that they are fated to be split apart. Yet, with the introduction of a fascinating character known as Mayhayley Lancaster, who is described as a “witch,” but who later turns out to be a real person who actually played somewhat of a role in the Leo Frank trial, the children’s fate is foretold. (Again, I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but Mayhayley Lancaster’s transformation later in the novel turned out to be one of the biggest surprises of the book.)
As the first part of the story develops – and it becomes apparent that Ruby and Max are destined to take different roads in their lives, one of the interesting aspects of the story for Jewish readers will be what life would have been like for the only Jewish family in a small Southern town. The Sassaports operate a general dry goods store – as did many Jews in rural locations throughout the U.S. and Canada, but their connection to Judaism is tenuous at best.
In time, both Max and Ruby make their way to Atlanta, but with Ruby leaving when she is only 12 years old and Max waiting another six years before he ends up in Atlanta, neither one of them holds much hope that they will ever see each other again.
Max, however, meets up with a reporter for the Atlanta Journal known as Harold Ross (who would later go on, in real life, to found The New Yorker). Ross takes Max under his wing as a cub reporter and it’s in Max’s capacity as a reporter that he finds himself enmeshed in the Leo Frank trial.
As a press release for the novel explains: “1913. The year heart-sick Max travels to Atlanta to find Ruby, his lost love and childhood friend. And the year New York Jew, Leo Frank, is charged with the murder of a child laborer at the National Pencil Factory. Max is Jewish and Ruby’s Black. Their reunion takes place just as Frank is arrested, a racially charged event that sparks an explosion of antisemitism across the city of Atlanta.”
Although I had somewhat of a recollection of reading about the Leo Frank trial, reading about the events surrounding that trial and its aftermath comes as somewhat of a shock. Leo Frank was framed for the murder of a 13-year-old White girl but the degree to which the police and the prosecutor were determined to pursue a totally made-up case against an innocent Jewish businessman is still jarring to read. As well, when one contemplates how comfortable Donald Trump is with telling one lie after another to suit his agenda, it becomes much easier to understand how so many White authority figures in “Ain’t No Grave” were willing to engage in a total frame-up so as to enrage their White base. The role that many newspapers at the time played in stoking antisemitism also provides a salutary experience in how easy it has always been to dupe a huge proportion of the American public though fictitious media reporting. In 1915 it was through newspapers; today, it’s through the internet.
As the book’s press release notes the parallels between what was happening in the early years of the 20th century and what we are seeing playing out around the world today, “With global antisemitism on the rise, “Ain’t No Grave” draws attention to the fact that garden variety antisemitism can be stoked by bad actors and quickly explode into violence. Sometimes, the media play a role.”
The Jewish community of Atlanta in 1915 was so terrified by what was happening to Leo Frank that events at the time led to the creation of B’nai Brith’s Anti-Defamation League.
The juxtaposition of vicious antisemitism and anti-Black hatred in the Deep South with a love story between a White Jew and a Black woman makes for a compelling read. As a member of the Southeast ADL by the name of Sandra Brett noted after reading “Ain’t No Grave,” “Mary Glickman vividly captures milestones in the Leo Frank saga through sympathetic characters as real as the events surrounding them. She deftly intertwines Leo Frank’s trial and lynching with the founding of the ADL, the rebirth of a moribund KKK, and an interracial love story. Meticulously researched, fast-paced, and thoroughly original, Ain’t No Grave is a moving, satisfying read.”
And, as Pat Conroy, author of another best selling novel set in the Deep South – “Prince of Tides”, wrote about Mary Glickman: “Mary Glickman is a wonder.”
Buy this book on Amazon www.Amazon.com
“Ain’t No Grave“
By Mary Glickman
280 Pages,
Publication Date: July 2024
Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Source:
Jewish Post and News Canada: Ain't No Grave, New Novel Set in the Deep South in the Early 20th Century Combines an Interracial Love Story with Searing Description of the Leo Frank Trial and Lynching
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Logitech G PRO X TKL Review – A Tournament-Grade Gaming Keyboard
Unboxing the Logitech G PRO X TKL
Key Features of the Logitech G PRO X TKL
My Experience Using the Logitech G PRO X TKL
Build Quality & Design
Typing & Gaming Performance
RGB Lighting & Customization
Comfort & Ergonomics
How Does the Logitech G PRO X TKL Compare to Other Keyboards?1. Razer Huntsman V2 TKL
2. SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL
3. Corsair K70 RGB TKL
Buyer’s Guide: What to Consider When Choosing a Gaming Keyboard1. Switch Type
2. Wired vs. Wireless
3. Size & Layout
4. Customization & Software
FAQs1. Can I swap the switches on the Logitech G PRO X TKL?
2. Is the keyboard good for typing?
3. Does it support wireless connectivity?
4. How do I customize RGB lighting?
5. Does it have onboard memory?
Final Verdict – Is the Logitech G PRO X TKL Worth It?
Logitech G PRO X TKL Review – A Tournament-Grade Gaming Keyboard
If you're searching for a high-performance gaming keyboard, the Logitech G PRO X TKL is designed with competitive gamers in mind. This tenkeyless (TKL) mechanical keyboard offers speed, precision, and portability. After using it extensively, I’ll share my hands-on experience, key features, pros and cons, a buyer’s guide, and even compare it to other top gaming keyboards to see how it stacks up.
Unboxing the Logitech G PRO X TKL
Logitech’s packaging is sleek and professional.