Journal archive

Abstract: The article carries out a holistic-systemic analysis of the main parameters of the estate topos poetics based on the contents of Bunin’s first story “The Passion” (1897) and his novel “The Life of Arsenyev” (1933). It is shown how the estate topos takes shape in the “creative laboratory of a novice writer” (S. N. Morozov). A number of constant features that will become components of the image of the estate in the writer’s mature work, in particular in his novel are revealed. Describing three estates in his first story, young Bunin essentially gives a panoramic image of the Russian estate life since the second half to the end of the 19th century in its various forms – from an ancient manorial estate and an advanced landowner’s farm to a small farm estate. The first story also makes an attempt to outline a collective image of an estate resident and show that there is something common that unites all estate people – attachment to their native nest, loyalty to their roots, and desire to preserve these roots. Based on the discoveries of his early work, Bunin builds an entire estate world in his main book. In “The Life of Arsenyev” the estate topos is voluminous and heterogeneous, represented by a whole system of vectors / spaces of different qualities, and takes on the character of a heterotopia. The article identifies and analyzes such vectors as everyday, natural, national, literary, mythopoetic, existential and sacred. With a general vision of the estate topos, each vector of its construction in the novel has its own specificity, endowed with special identification loci and its own lexical and figurative markers. These spaces of different qualities do not exist in isolation in the general chronotope of the novel, but interact according to the principle of “unmerged and inseparable.” This principle is natural for Bunin the artist. For Bunin, the estate is the optimal way to “settle in,” to arrange a place of life for a Russian person. The writer actually expresses the idea that Russia is not only a village, as one of his characters said, but also an estate. Thus, in “The Life of Arsenyev”, an entire estate cosmos is built – not only in the national aspect, but also in the general cultural and religious ones as well: the vision of Russia is presented here as metaphysically enlightened, and this light extends to the estate culture, which is not subject to historical time.

About the author(s) :

Natalia V. Prashcheruk  

Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin

(Ekaterinburg, Russia) 

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4407-5293

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 14.09.2023; date of publication: 31.10.2023

References:

Baturchik, M. V. Gabitus [Habitus]. In Entsiklopediya sotsiologii. URL: http://bourdieu.name/ content/gabitus-enciklopedija-sociologii (mode of access: 10.08.2022). 

Bogdanova, O. A. (2019). Usad’ba i dacha v russkoi literature XIX–XXI vv.: topika, dinamika, mifologiya [Manor and Summer Estate in Russian Literature of the 19^th–21^st Centuries : Topic, Dynamics, Mythology]. Moscow, IMLI RAN. 288 p. 

Bourdieu, P. (2014). Sotsial’noe prostranstvo: polya i praktiki [Social Space: Fields and Practices]. Saint Petersburg, Aleteiya. 576 p. 

Bunin, I. A. (1965–1967). Sobranie sochinenii: v 9 t. [Collected Works, 9 vols.]. Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya literatura 

Ershova, L. V. (2001). Usadebnaya proza I. A. Bunina [Estate Prose by I. A. Bunin]. In Filologicheskie nauki.

No. 4, pp. 13–22. 

Glazkova, M. V. (2008). «Usadebnyi tekst» v russkoi literature vtoroi poloviny XIX veka: I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, A. A. Fet [“Estate Text” in Russian Literature of the Second Half of the 19^th Century: I. A. Goncharov, I. S. Turgenev, A. A. Fet]. Avtoref. dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. Moscow. 17 p. 

Kachkov, I. A. (2021). Poetika romana V. F. Odoevskogo «Russkie nochi»: intermedial’nyi aspekt [Poetics of V. F. Odoevsky’s Novel “Russian Nights”: Intermedial Aspect]. In Problemy istoricheskoi poetiki. Vol. 19. No. 4, pp. 305–319. 

Korostelev, O. A., Morozov, S. N. (Eds.). (2019). Literaturnoe nasledstvo – I. A. Bunin. Novye materialy i issledovaniya [Literary Heritage – I. A. Bunin. New Materials and Research]. Moscow, IMLI RAN, pp. 46–78. 

Lebedeva, T. A. (2002). Mir russkoi dvoryanskoi usad’by v tvorchestve I. A. Bunina 1920–1953 gg. [The World of the Russian Noble Estate in the Works of I. A. Bunin 1920–1953]. Avtoref. dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. Cherepovets. 18 p. 

Letyagin, L. N. (2004). Usadebnyi metalandshaft Rossii [Estate Metalandscape of Russia]. In Russkaya usad’ba: sb. OIRU. Issue 10 (26). Moscow, Zhiraf, pp. 9–18. 

Liu, Shumei. (2016). Poetika povsednevnosti v vospominaniyakh ob usadebnoi zhizni [Poetics of Everyday Life in Memories of Estate Life]. In Literatura i kul’tura Dal’nego Vostoka, Sibiri i Vostochnogo zarubezh’ya. Problemy mezhkul’turnoi kommunikatsii: materialy uchastnikov VI Vserossiiskoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii s mezhdunarodnym uchastiem, 4 fevralya 2016 goda. Vladivostok, Dal’nevostochnyi federal’nyi universitet, pp. 78–82. 

Lvov-Rogachevsky, V. Usadebniki [Estate Residents]. In Slovar’ literaturnykh terminov. URL: http://febweb.ru/feb/slt/abc/lt2/lt2-9911.htm (mode of access: 05.05.2021). 

Osadchaya, O. A. (2014). Yazykovye sredstva reprezentatsii kontsepta «Dvoryanskaya usad’ba» v russkom yazyke: na materiale proizvedenii I. A. Bunina [Linguistic Means of Representing the Concept “Noble Estate” in Russian: Based on the Works of I. A. Bunina]. Avtoref. dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. Kaliningrad. 21 p. 

Podoroga, V. Sobytie: Bog mertv Fuko i Nitsshe [Event: God is Dead Foucault and Nietzsche]. In Fridrikh Nitsshe. URL: http://www.nietzsche.ru/look/xxc/ontologie/vpodoroga/ (mode of access: 18.07. 2023). 

Popova, O. A. (2009). Rodovaya pamyat’ v sud’be dvoryanskoi usad’by v russkoi proze kontsa XIX – nachala XX vekov [Ancestral Memory in the Fate of a Noble Estate in Russian Prose of the Late 19^th and Early 20^th Centuries]. In Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. No. 2, pp. 112–118. 

Prashcheruk, N. V. (2020). Povest’ I. A. Bunina «Uvlechenie»: formirovanie tvorcheskoi individual’nosti [The Story of I. A. Bunin “Passion”: The Formation of Creative Individuality]. In Izvestiya Ural’skogo federal’nogo universiteta. Seriya 2: Gumanitarnye nauki. Vol. 22. No. 4 (202), pp. 224–237. 

Prashcheruk, N. V. (2020). Usadebnyi mir v proze I. A. Bunina: ot «Sukhodola» k «Stranstviyam» i «Zhizni Arsen’eva» [The Estate World in the Prose of I. A. Bunin: From “Sukhodol” to “Wanderings” and “The Life of Arsenyev”]. In Russkaya usad’ba i Evropa: diakhroniya, nostal’giya, universalizm: kollektivnaya monografiya. Moscow, IMLI RAN, pp. 187–197. 

Prashcheruk, N. V. (2022). «Tri rasskaza» I. A. Bunina – tri strategii avtorskogo pis’ma [“Three Stories” by I. A. Bunin – Three Strategies for Author’s Writing]. In Vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriya: Filologiya. Zhurnalistika. No. 4, pp. 49–53. 

Prashcheruk, N. V. (2022). Proza I. A. Bunina: filosofiya, poetika, dialogi [Prose of I. A. Bunin: Philosophy, Poetics, Dialogues]. Saint Petersburg, Aleteiya, Ekaterinburg, Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta. 432 p. 

Shestakova, E. G. (2014). Geterotopiya – rabochee ponyatie sovremennoi gumanitaristiki: literaturovedcheskii aspekt [Heterotopia is a Working Concept of Modern Humanities: Literary Aspect]. In Kritika i semiotika. No. 1, pp. 58–72. 

Zaytseva, N. V. (1999). Kontseptsiya melkopomestnoi usad’by v tvorchestve I. A. Bunina 1890-kh – nachala 1910-kh godov [The Concept of a Small Estate in the Works of I. A. Bunin of the 1890s – Early 1910s]. Avtoref. dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. Elets. 19 p. 

Zelentsova, S. V. (2020). Starinnaya usad’ba kak osobyi khronotop v proze I. A. Bunina 1920-kh gg. [An Ancient Estate as a Special Chronotope in the Prose of I. A. Bunin 1920s]. In Uchenye zapiski Orlovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. No. 3 (88), pp. 99–103.

Zhaplova, T. M. (2006). Obraz russkoi usad’by v poezii XIX – nachala XX veka [The Image of a Russian Estate in Poetry of the 19^th – Early 20^th Centuries]. Orenburg, Izdatel’stvo OGPU. 427 p. 

Zhaplova, T. M. (2012). Usadebnoe prostranstvo i vremya v epicheskom i liricheskom kontekste tvorchestva I. A. Bunina [Estate Space and Time in the Epic and Lyrical Context of I. A. Bunin’s Creativity]. In Vestnik Orenburgskogo gosudarstvennogo pedagogicheskogo universiteta. No. 4 (4), pp. 43–56.