Встречный взгляд: переписка Р. Роллана и И.С. Шмелева. К 150-летию И.С. Шмелева

Abstract

The paper studies literary contacts of Ivan Shmelev (1873–1950) with the French writer, 1915 Nobel Prize winner Romain Rolland (1866–1944) in the 1920s. The author analyzes unpublished correspondence of the writers, including 3 letters from Shmelev and 2 response letters from Rolland. The content of the correspondence is connected with Shmelev’s desire to find in Rolland, who personified the “conscience of the world” for the writers of the Russian emigration, a like-minded person in understanding the tragedy that befell Russia in the wake of the October Revolution, which led to mass death, devastation and famine. Shmelev sent Rolland the German editions of his books “The Sun of the Dead” and “The Inexhaustible Chalice”. Rolland’s answers contain high praise of Shmelev’s work and sympathy for the emigrant writer who lost his homeland. However, complete understanding was not to be achieved: a representative of the left intelligentsia, Rolland reacted with no lesser sympathy to the experience taking place in the USSR in the “social and moral restructuring of humanity.” From criticism of the results of the October Revolution in 1921-22 Rolland, by the end of the 1920s proceeds to glorifying the social experiment of building a “new society” in the USSR, publishing congratulations to the Soviet people on the 10th anniversary of October in the Soviet press. This step of the writer was met with hostility by Shmelev and put an end to their correspondence. There was a final demarcation between Rolland and the writers of the Russian emigration, with whom he maintained literary contacts. Among them are not only Shmelev, but also I.A. Bunin and K.D. Balmont, who published open letters to a writer who took a pro-Bolshevik position, despite his earlier expressions of sympathy towards Russian emigrant writers.