Ivan Bunin’s Early Prose: Source Studies, Textology, Attribution, Dating

Abstract

The present paper represents a first attempt at the general idea of textology of Ivan Bunin’s early prose. The problematic issues of source studies, textual studies, dating, and attribution are considered. Also, the paper aims at giving a brief overview of the archive collections of Ivan Bunin’s materials as well as studying the problems of the choice of the main text of early prose works, and revealing the main difficulties in dating the writer’s early prose. The author presents a newly developed general methodology for attribution of anonymous or pseudonymously signed publications of conditionally non-fictional prose by Ivan Bunin (articles, correspondence) in the provincial newspapers of Orel, Kiev and Odessa. The main issues of source studies, textual studies, attribution and dating of the writer’s early prose studied in the paper are to reveal more specific problems and issues that will be solved during the preparation of the first academic Complete works and letters of Ivan Bunin.