И.А. Бунин и В.Н. Муромцева-Бунина на страницах «Нового журнала»

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the publications of I.A. Bunin and V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina on the pages of the “Novyi zhurnal” (“The New Review”) for its entire history. It turns out that there were significantly more posthumous Bunin’s publications in this edition than lifetime ones. The author sees in this fact the project of V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina, dedicated to the memory of the “eternally living husband”: Bunin remained the main author of the journal for several decades after his death. While sorting through her husband’s archive, the widow began regularly publishing previously unknown prose in the “Novyi Zhurnal,” as well as poems (both never published and thoroughly forgotten). The project was continued by the inheritors of Bunin’s widow, namely L.F. Zurov and M.E. Green. Semantically close to Bunin’s series was the publication of autobiographical essays by V.N. Muromtseva- Bunina “Conversations with Memory,” dedicated to her life together with Bunin. This broadest Bunin context, deployed on the pages of the main journal of the post-war Russian emigration, could be explained with the special situation that had developed in emigrant journalism. Muromtseva-Bunina was interested in constantly receiving author’s fee and tried not to miss a single volume, and the journal wanted to continue printing in the first place the well-known classic of Russia abroad. “Novyi Zhurnal” remained a “Bunin’s journal” until the mid-1970s (or if we talk about the regular publication of Bunin’s literary texts until 1969) and extended Bunin’s writing life for almost 20 years.