Ivan Alekseyevich Bunin (1870-1953)
On an exchange with Georg Brandes. 1953
Autograph postcard signed ('Iv. Bunin') to Mark Efimovich Weinbaum, 1 rue Jacques Offenbach, Paris, 15 March 1953.

In Russian. One page, 146 x 102mm.

On an exchange with Georg Brandes. ‘Yesterday I sent you a letter by airmail requesting you to publish a letter by Georg Brandes. The first lines of the article are written by me as follows: “Soon after the release of my book Mitya’s Love…”. I am afraid that an inattentive reader will not understand when precisely my novel was written. Be so kind as to insert three words into that line: “in the middle of the twenties”’.

The letter from the celebrated Danish critic Georg Brandes (1842-1927) expressed his admiration for the ‘subtlety of the analysis of love’ in Mitya’s Love, before (somewhat to Bunin’s amusement) expressing his refusal to attend the bicentenary of the Russian Academy because of his disagreement with ‘various actions of your government’ – clearly unaware of Bunin’s own lifelong opposition to the Soviet regime. The letter with Bunin’s introductory lines was published in the 22 March 1953 number of Novoye Ruskoye Slovo (New Russian Word), of which the recipient, Mark Efimovich Weinbaum (1890-1973), was editor from 1922 until his death.

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