Ivan Bunin’s Early Lyrical Poetry: Sources and Influences

Abstract

This article traces the connection between Ivan Bunin’s early poetry and the Russian poetic tradition of the 19th century. Considering this topic has become particularly relevant at a time when the first critical edition of Bunin’s complete works and letters is under preparation at the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The purpose of the present article is to trace the general direction and pattern of influence on the young poet of the Russian classical tradition (Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, Tiutchev, Koltsov, Nadson, Pleshcheev, Yakov Polonsky, Apollon Maikov, Apollon Grigorjev, Baratynsky, Nekrasov, K.R. and others) and to relate them to Bunin’s views on poetry as they formed in the 1880s–1890s. The goal of future investigations will be to annotate the critical edition with concrete examples of this influence, not only by the widely-recognized and retrospectively canonized classics, but also by the popular poetry in magazines of the mid-late 19th century, which formed an organic part of the young Bunin’s reading and literary education.