«Рассказать по-своему известную историю»

Abstract

In 1922, the Parisian publishing house “Bossard” issued in French translation the first book by Russian émigré author Ivan Bunin. French critics, like Russians a few years earlier, drew attention to the short story Son, which is set in Algeria at the end of the 19th century. The notorious “Chambige Affair” or the macabre romance that took place in Constantine is the source of the story. The author of the article returns to the real criminal trial that nourished French journalism and literature for several decades at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and the vicissitudes of which the Russian writer took advantage. However, the consideration of the poetics turned out to be the Bunin’s very special interpretation of the well-known plot. The article indicates the source of the short story, puts for the first time forward a detailed commentary on it, and offers an interpretation of its poetics based on literary comparative studies.