A literary ‘conspiracy’: Bunin and Nabokov against Chernyshevsky

Abstract

The article explores the literary relationship between I. Bunin and V. Nabokov, who, according to the author, could not be more different and yet shared a certain common view of art. The author raises and solves the problem of the informal aesthetic alliance between Bunin and Nabokov actualised in their intertextual dialogue aimed against N. Chernyshevsky’s materialistic understanding of art. Basing his findings on the material of the novels The Life of Arseniev: Youth [Zhizn Arsenieva. Yunost] and The Gift [Dai], the author proves that these books are engaged in a conversation with each other and analyses Nabokov’s literary game with Bunin: upon examination of the short remark made by Godunov-Cherdyntsev, who is delighted to have received Bunin’s compliments for his novel The Gift, the author finds that there are parallels between The Gift and The Life of Arseniev, and in such a context the remark about Bunin’s compliment seems to gain a very specific meaning. In reconstructing Bunin’s inner polemic with Chernyshevsky in The Life of Arseniev, we discover that it finds its way into a new dialogue with Nabokov in The Gift a few years later.