The Spiritual Transformation of the Modernist Era in Bunin’s Prose between the 1910s and 1940s: Signs of a Disaster and Ways of Overcoming It

Abstract

This article examines the way Bunin creates a voluminous picture of the spiritual condition of Russian man and Russian life on the eve of the Revolution of 1917. Referring to four pieces of literature written from 1916 to 1944, the author demonstrates that while thinking of reasons for the national disaster, the writer gradually and from many perspectives unveils the peculiarities of the modernist era and its main value crisis, which was connected with the lack of faith and apostasy. The Old Woman contains a visual image of the “overflowing sea of mirth” contrasting with the ordeals suffered during World War I. In Mad Artist, Bunin shows a character not only alienated from the traditional Orthodox life but also doing evil. Cornet Yelagin’s Case focuses on the aestheticisation of death typical of modernism. In Pure Monday, closing the cycle, the heroine’s choice is interpreted as the possibility of overcoming spiritual disaster in the context of national destiny.