“The Mission of Russian Emigration” by Ivan Bunin: prerequisites, essence and reaction
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100 years ago, in February 1924, one of the most notable events in the social and cultural life of the Russian diaspora took place in Paris. Writer and future Nobel Prize laureate in literature Ivan Bunin, who had lived and worked in France for several years, gave a speech on “The Mission of Russian Emigration.”
Literary Center of Russian Abroad
The two Russian revolutions of 1917, the civil war, the Red Terror and the subsequent Bolshevik struggle against dissent led to an unprecedented wave of emigration. fled the country or were expelled more than 2 million people, including a significant part of the intelligentsia: philosophers, artists, writers – all those who did not accept Soviet power and its ideology.
Zinaida Gippius in the magazine “Modern Notes” (Paris), January 1924:
“At first they slammed a dark, heavy lid on us all. But the cup of Russian literature was too great; interfered there and under the lid… Destroy? tried it – it’s a very long story. And the cup of Russian literature was thrown out of Russia. She overturned, and everything that was in her splashed across Europe.”
Paris became the main literary center of the Russian diaspora. French culture was most familiar and close to emigrants – many knew the language, often visited France, and some had apartments and villas there. According to various estimates, by the mid-1920s, Russian communities in France included from 70 thousand to 400 thousand people.
Le Figaro (Paris), January 8, 1924:
“Russia, locked in its vile isolation and fanatical intransigence, lost most of its artists and writers, who had to seek refuge away from danger. We owe to these tragic circumstances the presence of Merezhkovsky, Kuprin, Balmont, Bunin and other greatest talented Russian authors in France.”
Many Russian-language publications appeared in Paris, literary associations and circles of various political orientations worked. Literature itself became not only a means of communication, but also a kind of banner around which intellectuals of different generations rallied. The older generation (Ivan Bunin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Zinaida Gippius, Konstantin Balmont, etc.) began their activities and achieved success in pre-revolutionary Russia.
Soviet reality and its culture evoked disgust and rejection in most of them. Even the spelling reform, developed long before the revolution, but already adopted in Soviet Russia, was criticized. For the most part, the emigrant press was printed in pre-revolutionary spelling.
“By order of Archangel Michael himself, I will never accept Bolshevik spelling. If only for one reason: the human hand has never written anything similar to what is now written according to this spelling.” (Ivan Bunin, “Cursed Days”, 1918–1920).
Without “Ъ” the whole word is a cut off “quack!”
A tailless horse and a dog without a tail.
Without “Kommersant” only a crazy communist
All the letters are in a general mess.
(Konstantin Balmont, 1919)
The Soviet side reciprocated. The 1st Moscow Conference of Proletarian Writers in March 1923 declared that emigrant literature “organizes the reader’s psyche towards a priestly-feudal-bourgeois restoration” and “its activities in Soviet Russia cannot be justified in any way.” Literary critical magazine “At the post” in the same year, he described Bunin as “a pogrom writer living out his days,” and Gippius as a writer “with the hoarse anger of a kitchen woman who has lost the necessary frying pan.”
“Let’s wait to agree to an obscene peace”
Against the backdrop of the beginning of the official recognition of Soviet Russia by the West, the calls of some emigrants to return to their homeland and the death of Lenin, after which the “Bulletin of Art Workers” proclaimed this very art “part of the common proletarian cause,” on February 16, 1924, the evening of the “Mission of Russian Emigration” took place in Paris.
Ivan Bunin, whose popularity in Europe was growing every month, together with like-minded people, gave a speech in the Parisian hall of the Geographical Society. Gathering a wide audience from various emigrant circles, he outlined his attitude to modernity, the Soviets and the role of emigration, wanting to rally it around a common goal:
“Look, O world, at this great outcome and comprehend its significance. Here in front of you is a million of the best Russian souls…
There was Russia, there was a great house, bursting with all sorts of belongings… What did they do with it? They paid for the overthrow of the housekeeper with the complete destruction of literally the entire house and unheard of fratricide, all that nightmarish bloody farce, the monstrous consequences of which are incalculable and, perhaps, forever irreparable…
…And this nightmare is all the more terrible because it is even glorified in every possible way and continues for years with the complete connivance of the whole world. Who long ago should have gone on a crusade to Moscow…
…The mission of the Russian emigration, which has proven by its exodus from Russia and its struggle that it does not accept Lenin’s cities, Lenin’s commandments, not only out of fear, but also out of conscience, this mission now lies in the continuation of this rejection…
…I pray to God that until my last breath He will prolong in me a similar canine holy hatred for the Russian Cain. And my love for the Russian Abel does not even need prayers to support it…
…They said in ancient Rus’: “Let’s wait, Orthodox, until God changes the horde!” Let’s wait too. Let’s wait to agree to a new “obscene peace” with the current horde.”
Bunin, whose manifesto was later described by the formula “we are not in exile, we are in exile” formulated the question of Russia as a “great house”, the order in which is equal to the concept of “culture”. It was the emigrant intelligentsia, in the opinion of Bunin and other “irreconcilables,” who were able, on the one hand, to preserve the national cultural heritage, and on the other, to develop Russian art in the modern world.
Not all emigrants agreed with this formulation of the question. Critic Gaito Gazdanov called the idea of the messianic role of literature “a kind of literary-social psychosis,” and the publicist Mark Slonim – “an illusion”, a “myth” and only a “symbol of faith” of a Russian intellectual who found himself in the role of a political refugee. Maksim Gorky, “who despises politicking emigrants,” wrote from Marienbad: “In Paris, I. A. Bunin preaches “dog hatred” for the Bolsheviks. That’s what he says: like a dog. These guys are completely mad with anger.”
Left-wing emigration circles perceived Bunin’s theses as openly right-wing and restorationist. A massive campaign was launched against the writer, which was launched by one of the most influential emigrant newspapers – “Last news”, headed by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government Pavel Milyukov.
From the editorial “Voices from the Grave,” February 20:
“Those of whom Russia is rightly proud delivered an almost prophetic sermon, in the role of teachers of life, in a role that has outlived its time… The prophets of our rally brought with them fierce hatred. To whom? Some of them are to the whole people, to their own people. Others go to the brain and heart of this people, to the intelligentsia. Some of them wanted to add something worse to hatred: contempt.”
“Such obvious slander, such defamation”
The criticism of the “Mission of Russian Emigration” and the discreditation of Bunin were unanimously picked up by many emigrant and then Soviet publications. The heated debate lasted about two months.
“The day before” (Berlin), March 2, 1924:
“The revolution scattered the stream of life – one went along the great path of renewal, the other, a trickle, spilled into the swamp of emigration. But Bunin and others are not water, not clay, but stones in the path of the flow of revolution… The brighter, the fuller the blossoming of new life in Russia, the more pitiful, the more hopeless the knocking of bony hands on coffin lids is heard in the darkness of the emigrant crypt.”
“Russian voice” (New York), March 1924:
“All three writers [Бунин, Мережковский и Шмелев] They did not hide that to be against the Soviet government means to be against Russia and the entire Russian people. But, according to Bunin, for him “God” is more important than “Russia”. And therefore, since all of “Russia has been captured by the Antichrist,” he, the Russian writer Bunin, calls on everyone, everyone to exterminate the “Antichrist” (i.e., exterminate the Russian people).”
“News” (Moscow), March 16, 1924:
“Looking through the seal of the white emigration, it seems that you find yourself at a masquerade of the dead… Bunin, the same Bunin, whose new story was once a gift for reading Russia… dreams, like another old White Guard, Merezhkovsky, of a crusade against Moscow.” .
“Is it true” (Moscow), April 24, 1924:
“Bunin is powerless. In his speech he does not give any recipe for the action of a Russian emigrant. But how his hatred bubbles… Such stifling apoplectic hatred, bending a person, throwing him on all fours, replacing his voice with barking – such anger cannot be found in the darkest forest of Bunin’s peasants. Lowlands, frightening pits of the human psyche. From them comes the stench of burning out, stirring up disgusting melancholy and pity.”
“Red Newspaper” (Leningrad), May 3, 1924:
“Such obvious slander, such defamation… This is how the white emigration lives and works; These are her interests; These are the questions that occupy her; This is how once talented people degenerated.”
“It’s not for you, security officers, to be arrogant over dogs.”
French writer and critic Boris de Schletser in the magazine “Modern Notes”, June 1924:
“I admit that one may not like Bunin’s art: but the significant fact is that this writer, who experienced the Russian catastrophe so acutely and deeply, reacting to it so passionately in his articles, still continues to create, and his creations, of course, are very different in value, always marked with the stamp of Bunin’s art… Bunin’s world was and is, diverse and complex, and it continues to be steadily built and unfolded before our eyes.”
Bunin’s position was approved mainly by the moderate-right press (Russkaya Gazeta in Paris, Rus, Novoye Vremya), emphasizing the national and religious significance of the “mission.” Bunin ignored most of the articles directed against the writer, but gave a commentary in a center-right newspaper “Steering wheel” (Berlin), which published his speech for the first time on April 3, 1924:
“The Moscow Pravda also passionately longs for our death, especially mine, and for the sake of appearance of impartiality, also does not skimp on praise in obituaries. She first reported that I was on my deathbed in Nice, then she buried me in the Latest News way – morally.”
Two years later Maksim Gorky again raised the topic of Bunin’s speech in “Red newspaper”: “Bunin gave moralists a good reason to talk about the blindness of hatred. Witty people will probably laugh very much at the plea of a cultured man and an excellent writer, who has lived to see that he prefers dog rabies to human feelings.”
Bunin replied in the newspaper “Renaissance” (Paris) May 26, 1927: “Yes, my dear and witty sir, I survived. I lived with your kind help – with the help of your friends, the Dzerzhinskys and Lunacharskys, who together with you are affirming throughout the world such a “blindness of hatred” that the world has never seen before… And it’s not for you, security officers, to be arrogant over dogs… and it’s not blindness that I preached I, namely hatred, is quite healthy and, I believe, quite legitimate.”
In 1933, Bunin was the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature – the Great Soviet Encyclopedia will characterize him as a “renegade.” Writer’s legacy it turns out in the USSR it was banned until the start of the “thaw,” but “Cursed Days,” a particularly objectionable book dedicated to the era of revolution and civil war, would be published only at the end of the USSR, during the years of perestroika.
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