Joyful wartime poems to the young Olga Zhirova. c.1941

Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953).
Joyful wartime poems to the young Olga Zhirova. c.1941
Autograph manuscript, 'Iz pisem k Olechke' ('From the letters to Olechka'), two poems addressed to Olga Zhirova, n.p., [Grasse], n.d. [early 1940s].

In Russian. Title, 20 + 8 lines of verse, and a footnote of two lines, on two pages, 169 x 147 mm, squared paper.

'I jumped out of bed early / I got a letter from Olga!'. Two joyful wartime poems, addressed to the young Olga Zhirova.

S posteli rano ya vskochil –
Pismo ot Oli poluchil!
Ya ne chital i ne molchal,
A cheley den skakal, krichal:
„Kak Nacha Olia podrosla –
Pererosla ona osla”…

V imenini nashey Oli
Vse tveti zaplashut v pole,
Vse derevia i kustyi,
Vse dorogi i mosti,
Kuri, kroliki, kotiata,
Koshki, utki – i sama
S papoy pod ruku mamà!

The Olga of the poems is Olga (Olechka) Zhirova (1933-1964), a Ukrainian emigrée who with her mother was one of the group of friends and acquaintances whom the Bunins had sheltered in their villa at Grasse during the Nazi occupation: she and her mother stayed for three years, and other members of the household recounted the extraordinary, rejuvenating effect she had on the austere Nobel laureate. The first of the poems here is recorded in a diary note by Bunin on 29 June 1941, an extraordinary counterpoint at a period when he is chiefly preoccupied by the German invasion of Russia one week previously. The second poem is a celebration of Olga's saint's day (22 July): 'On our Olga's name day / All the flowers will dance in the field': a comment by Bunin at its conclusion notes Olga’s quirky gallicised pronunciation of ‘Mamà’. Bunin’s 19 short poems to Olga were published in Noviy Zhurnal in 1964 with the title 'Poslania K Chudnoy Devochke' ('Messages to a Wonderful Girl').

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