Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953)
An untranslatably obscene epigram about the industrialist and publisher A.O. Gukasov. c.1928
Autograph epigram about Abram Osipovich Gukasov, n.p., n.d. [?c. January 1928].

In Russian. Four lines on one leaf, 196 x 210mm, folded, with autograph annotation on verso, ‘Soveshenno secretno! Is sobstvennih ruk’ (‘Top secret. From my own hands’).

An untranslatably obscene epigram about the industrialist and publisher A.O. Gukasov.

Kogda Gukasov (sovsem v sue)
Krichit tebe: ‘Takoy siakoy!’
Doloy shtani I xyi k xyu
Krichi emu: ‘Svoi doloi’.

Bunin’s ‘top secret’ epigram is an eye-wateringly crude piece of advice on how to react ‘When Gukasov (getting madly angry) / Shouts at you: ‘You so-and-so!’.

The Armenian industrialist Abraham Osipovich Gukasov (1872-1969) was the founder and publisher of the émigré newspaper Vozrozhdenie (‘Revival’), 1925-1940, to which Roshchin was a frequent contributor. Bunin had sharply criticised the direction of the previously monarchist Vozrozhdenie after it published an article by Z.N. Gippius in December 1927 affirming the February Revolution.

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