Two “Liberations of Tolstoy”: I. A. Bunin and A. L. Ivanchenko on Death and Creativity

Abstract

The article correlates the book, or essay by I. Bunin “The Liberation of Tolstoy” (1937) with the essay by A. Ivanchenko “The Liberation of Tolstoy” (2005). The author’s literary and religious intentions (of all three writers), the features of the created image of Leo Tolstoy in both essays, the themes and problems of Tolstoy’s creative work and his religious and philosophical journalism, perceived in a certain way by Bunin and Ivanchenko, the specifics of the narrative are in the center of consideration. The key problem that both authors are concerned with is the liberation of Tolstoy. Bunin sees it as liberation from death, Ivanchenko – as liberation from the personality immersed in samsara. In both “Tolstoy’s Liberations”, the authors, speaking of the great writer, express their own ideas about the meaning of life and about the nature and purpose of the writer’s craft. Bunin stands on a specific “Christian-Buddhist” position, approaching Tolstoy in his desire for “Buddhist dissolution” and at the same time fearing him, striving for the fullness of sensual existence. Ivanchenko as a Buddhist sees in Tolstoy someone who intuitively approached Buddhist teaching and his practice of final self-liberation. Bunin’s polyphonic text about Tolstoy, which forms the space and the process of reflection, turns out to be Ivanchenko’s monologue of the author, logically building a thought from beginning to end and eliminating the bustle and vanity of worldly life with ironic headings. The article also draws on other texts by A. Ivanchenko, in which he refers to the image of L. Tolstoy. In the cycle of literary and philosophical essays “Homo Mysticus. The Sunstroke Sutras” and in LiveJournal, in the records of the “Verbarium” account, he understands Tolstoy as a model of a writer who goes from words to silence, from external creativity to existential creativity.