«Climbing The Alps»: Symbolic Toponymy
 as aFactor of the Cycles Formationin I.A. Bunin’s Oeuvre

Abstract

The article analyzes the unassembled cycle of I.A. Bunin’sthree texts with the same title «In the Alps». The poem and the chronologically first short story with the same title were written at the beginning of the writer’s literary career. At that time Bunin learned from outstanding predecessors in order to find his own poetic voice and place in the field of literature. The result of the searches showed the invention of a unique genre – the genre of prosaic miniature. Then, half a century after publication of the first texts «In the Alps»,the third short story with the same titleappeared. The meaning of the toponym «The Alps» in the title of the short stories is
 explained by appealing to Bunin’s memoirs and self-describing notes. The concept «The Alps» in his literary works is initiated, on the one hand, by the writer’s first trip to Switzerland, and, on the other hand, by the parallel reception of the so-called
 «Swiss myth» in the works of European and Russian romantic poets and writers: G. G. Byron and V.A. Zhukovsky. While the motifs and imagery system of Bunin’s «alpine » cycle is inherited from his predecessors, the innovations of his literary method
 are demonstrated in the narrative organization of the texts.