Ivan Bunin - the first of the Russian writers, who was awarded the high title of Nobel laureate. This award was given not just to a great master of the word, a subtle connoisseur of language, a piercing lyricist, but to all Russian art in his person, that beautiful literature of the 19th and early 20th century that he represented. The writer had a difficult fate. Not recognizing the revolution of 17-th year, the bloody terror of civil war, Bunin left Russia, not knowing that separation from it would poison his continued existence for many years. But even there, in a foreign land, Ivan Alekseevich remains true to himself, completely Russian in spirit, in fact a man, and every line of it, written after departure, about Russia.
general characteristics
The collection "Dark alleys" critics call "the swan song" of the author. Indeed, never before has he written with such a piercing lyricism, so subtle and chaste, with such boundless anguish and sadness about the most mysterious, light and bitter feeling - the feeling of love. Yes, love is irrational, it does not lend itself to logical calculations and does not squeeze into the Procrustean bed of mercantile meditations on marriage, material interests, some obligations. It looks like the flight of a butterfly, the spinning of snowflakes or apple-like petals under the gust of wind, it is like a sunstroke, striking suddenly, nowhere - and on the spot, Ivan Bunin thought. "Dark alleys," a collection of short stories, so named for one of them, describes the different facets of this feeling. But they are all united by one common thought: love is equal to tragedy, people's happiness is impossible in this world, it is too fragile and broken under the impact of circumstances as a magical, alluring and sparkling, but such a fragile crystal ball.
"There were dark linden alleys ..."
But back to the cycle. In a very difficult period for himself, Bunin wrote "Dark alleys." Their brief content can be defined as an encyclopedia of different love dramas. The work was created during the Second World War, when France suffered from fascist occupation, and the writer's heart shrank from anxiety for the fate of the Motherland. Ivan himself is experiencing hopeless poverty, he is completely alone, very often hungry, exhausted physically and morally. There is nowhere to wait for help, and only your favorite work helps you not to despair. The cry of the soul, the desperate thirst for understanding, compassion, human warmth, real feelings - that's what Bunin filled with "Dark alleys." The summary of each novel is reduced to this.
Here is the first story of the collection, which gave the name of the cycle. His hero, once a brave officer, and now an old man, tired of life, still dutiful and attractive, finds out in the hostess of the inn his first love, the maid's mother, Hope. Once she was thin, extraordinarily beautiful, and young Nikolai went crazy about her. But, as usual, both feelings and poems about "dark avenues" have sunk into oblivion. Heroes married a woman of her own circle, but unsuccessfully. The son grew scoundrel and wast, wife threw, and he himself is deeply lonely and unhappy. Such is the payment for betraying love, for betraying the saint himself - himself, his "I".
The same story corresponds to the story "Rusya" - a subtle psychological drama, which Bunin told us. "Dark alleys" (a brief summary of "Rus" we now consider), you can call the name-metaphor. This is not only a poetic line - it is alleys of souls, heroes, the most remote corners, secret dreams, sufferings, memories. Because often the story is given in retrospect, as a narrative of past events, no, no, and the regret that emerged in the heroes' minds that could come true, but did not come true. A note of nostalgia, longing for the past and an awareness of the impossibility of happiness in the future - this is the whole Bunin, "Dark alleys." The summary of "Rus" allows you to catch this yearning from the very first lines: a steamer, wonderful Russian river landscapes, a married couple, not so long ago married. And the hero's memory of a passionate love for a girl who once lived here - in places he swims. Carefree student years, drunken from the kisses of the night, hot maiden body, the first experience of bodily affinity, insane delight and the same acute pain from the fact that extraneous evil forces tear off lovers from each other. "And happiness was so possible ... So close ..." But it did not happen.
And yet, despite the common tragic tonality, "Dark alleys" leave a special, enlightened feeling. No wonder the writer himself called them his best book. The collection really tells us about the tender and beautiful, which sometimes delivers an unbearable grief, but it is the greatest happiness - about Love. Love for the woman and the motherland.