Alexey Arsenyev Biography
When you read Bunin’s novel “Arsenyev’s Life”, it seems that the author wrote a book about his life. But even despite the fact that the heroes of the book have real prototypes, this does not make the text an autobiography. But why? About this in the article. Reading time: 5 minutes. Application for self -development. What Roman in Arsenyev’s life Bunin not only tells the story of his hero Alexei Arsenyev, but also reflects on the fate of Russia, about the essence of art and literature, about the nature of human relations.
The novel is not only about the life of one person, but also about the whole era, about its culture, changes, about eternal human values and the search for the meaning of life. The novel is divided into five books, each of which corresponds to a certain stage in Arsenyev’s life. In them, Bunin explores the topics of love, death, nature, art, as well as the relationship of man with the outside world.
Particular attention is paid to the inner world of the hero, his feelings, experiences and thoughts. The language of the novel is rich and expressive. The text is dominated by lyrical and philosophical digressions. Despite some parallels with the life of Bunin himself, the novel is not a strict autobiography. This is rather an artistic understanding and rethinking by the author of his experience and the era as a whole.
Ivan Bunin What parallels do we see? Vera Muromtseva-Bunina, the widow of the writer, emphasized that in the "life of Arsenyeva" there are many biographical features, but everything was artistically revised and filed creatively. Arsenyev in the novel passes a path similar to the life path of Bunin: he throws a gymnasium, works in a provincial newspaper, travels, worries an affair with a colleague in the editorial office.
Many characters of Arsenyev’s life have recognizable prototypes from the life of Bunin. For example, the Kamenka farm, where Arsenyev grew up, was written off from the Butyrki farm, where Bunin's childhood passed.
Babushkino Baturino estate in the novel is based on lakes, a generic nest of Bunin. The portrait of the hero’s father in the novel resembles the father of the writer. In George and Nikolai Arsenyevs, we see the real Bunin brothers. Fedor Stepun, one of the attentive readers of Bunin, pointed out that autobiographical motifs in Arseniev create the effect of live and departed reality, emphasizing the importance of the writer's memories of childhood and youth.
The performance by the novel Why not still? Despite the fact that in the novel there are many moments resembling real events from the life of Bunin, it is important to understand that the author used his life experience as the basis for creating an art world, where reality and fiction are closely intertwined. Firstly, although the main character of the novel, Alexei Arsenyev, and his creator, Ivan Bunin, share many common features and experiences, Arsenyev is not an exact copy of Bunin.
Bunin brings elements to the image of Arsenyev, which do not correspond to his own life, thereby creating a unique character. Secondly, the "life of Arsenyev" is permeated by a symbolic bulk that goes beyond the framework of a simple autobiography. Bunin explores universal topics of love, death, loneliness and the search for the meaning of life. The novel goes beyond just a story about his own life.
The third, important difference between Arsenyev’s life and an autobiography lies in the artistic method of Bunin. He uses memories of memoirs and temporary shifts to create a multi -level narrative structure. This approach is significantly different from the straightforward story of ordinary autobiography. Thus, “Arsenyev’s life” is a work of art in which autobiographical elements are used as a tool for creating a literary text.