Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953)
On Cursed Days and The Liberation of Tolstoy. 1936
Autograph letter signed ('Iv. Bunin') to Bernard Guilbert Guerney, Villa Belvédère, Grasse, France, 10 October 1936.

In Russian. Two pages, 267 x 206mm. Envelope.

On translating Cursed Days and The Liberation of Tolstoy. Bunin discusses the translation and American publication of two works, the first being his study of Tolstoy, here referred to with the titles 'The Crimes of Tolstoy' or 'The Great Sinner' (published as Osvoboshdenie Tolstogo, or The Liberation of Tolstoy), the second being Okayannie dni (Cursed Days). He summarises the content of Cursed Days: its opening with pictures of Russian village life and its mood immediately after the Revolution, then Bunin's diaries under the Bolsheviks in Moscow and Odessa, then his escape from Russia in 1920, and finally snapshots of Russia in the period 1922-26, depicting ancient places in their new reality.

Okayannie dni (Cursed Days) is Bunin’s autobiographical account of the Bolshevik consolidation of power after 1917, based on his diaries and notes in Moscow and Odessa, 1918. Fragments were published as early as 1925/26 in the emigré newspaper Vozrozhdenye in Paris; the full text was not however published until 1936, as part of Bunin’s complete works. Osvoboshdenie Tolstogo (The Liberation of Tolstoy) is a literary biography of Tolstoy, the idol of Bunin’s youth – but also with a marked autobiographical angle: it was published in 1937. The recipient, Bernard Guilbert Guerney (1894-1979) was a Russian-born writer, translator, publisher and bookseller.

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