"Cursed days", Bunin: a summary of the chapters

Reading the "Cursed Days" (Bunin, a brief summary follows), one can not help catching the thought that in Russia, one "cursed days" are replaced by endless new ones, no less "accursed" ... Externally, they seem to be different, but their essence remains The former - destruction, desecration, desecration, endless cynicism and hypocrisy that do not kill, because death is not the worst outcome in this case, but it maims the soul, turning life into a slow death without values, without feelings with only an immense emptiness. It becomes terrible when you assume that something like this happens in the soul of one person. And if you imagine that the "virus" multiplies and spreads, infecting millions of souls, destroying in whole the whole people all the best and valuable for decades? It's creepy.

Moscow, 1918

Beginning from January 1918 to January 1920, the great Russian writer Ivan Bunin ("Cursed Days") recorded in the form of a diary-the living notes of a contemporary-everything that happened before his eyes in post-revolutionary Russia, everything that he felt and experienced , That he suffered and with what until the end of his days he never parted - an incredible pain for his Motherland.

The initial entry was made on January 1, 1918. One "damned" year is behind, but there is no joy, it is impossible to imagine what awaits Russia further. There is no optimism, and even any little hope of a return to the "old order" or quick changes for the better melts with each new day. In conversation with the canvases, the writer quotes the words of one "curly" one that today only God knows what will happen to all of us ... After all, from criminals and psychiatric hospitals criminals and madmen were released, who smelled blood, endless power and impunity with their animals. They threw themselves on the throne and now run a huge people and rampaging in the vast expanses of Russia: in Simferopol, they say, soldiers and workers punish all indiscriminately, "walk knee-deep in the blood". And the most terrible thing is that there are only a hundred thousand of them, and millions of people, and nothing can be done about it ...

Impartiality

We continue the short content ("Cursed Days", Bunin IA). More than once the public, both in Russia and in Europe, accused the writer of the subjectivity of his judgments about those events, stating that only time can be impartial and objective in assessing the Russian revolution. Bunin answered unequivocally to all these attacks: impartiality in her direct understanding is not and never will be, and his "partiality", suffered by him in those terrible years, is the most impartiality.

He has every right to hate, and jaundice, and anger, and condemnation. It is very easy to be "tolerant" when you observe what is happening from a far corner and you know that no one and nothing can destroy you or, even worse, destroy your dignity, cripple the soul beyond recognition ... And when you find yourself in the midst of those most terrible events , When you leave the house and do not know if you will return alive, when you are evicted from your own apartment, when you are hungry, when you are given "on an octail of biscuits", "you chew them - the stench of hell, the soul burns", when the most intolerable physical suffering does not go either What comparison with the psychic And exhausted, exhausting, taking pain out of everything that "our children, grandchildren will not be able to even imagine the country, the empire, the Russia in which we once (that is, yesterday) lived, which we do not Appreciated, did not understand - all this power, complexity, wealth, happiness ... ", then" passion "can not but be, and it becomes that very true measure of good and evil.

Feelings and emotions

Yes, the "Cursed Days" of Bunin in brief content are also filled with devastation, depression and intolerance. But at the same time, dark paints prevailing in describing people of those years, events and their own internal state can and should be perceived not with a minus sign, but with a plus sign. Black and white picture, devoid of bright, saturated colors, more emotional and yet deeper and thinner. The black ink of hatred of the Russian revolution and the Bolsheviks against the background of white wet snow, "the gymnastes stuck to them go - beauty and joy" - is the painfully beautiful contrast that simultaneously conveys both disgust and fear, and a real, incomparable love for the Fatherland , And the belief that sooner or later a "holy man", "a builder, a high fortress" will overcome that same "ruffian" and "destroyer" in the soul of a Russian person.

Contemporaries

The book "Cursed Days" (Bunin Ivan) is filled, and even full, with the author's statements about his contemporaries: Blok, Gorky, Himmer-Sukhanov, Mayakovsky, Bryusov, Tikhonov ... Judgments, mostly unkind, stinging. IA could not. Bunin understand, accept and forgive their "slurping" before the new authorities. What can be the case between an honest, intelligent person and the Bolsheviks?

What are the relations between the Bolsheviks and the whole of this company - Tikhonov, Gorky, Himmer-Sukhanov? On the one hand, they "fight" with them, openly call them "the company of adventurers," who, for the sake of power, cynically disguised as "the interests of the Russian proletariat," betrays the Motherland and "races on the vacant throne of the Romanovs." And on the other? And on the other hand, they live "at home" in the "National Hotel", requisitioned by the Soviets, Trotsky and Lenin portraits on the walls, and at the bottom - protection from soldiers and a Bolshevik "commandant" issuing a badge.

Bryusov, Blok, Mayakovsky, openly joined the Bolsheviks, and in general, according to the author, people are stupid. With equal zeal they extolled both the autocracy and Bolshevism. Their works are "simple", quite "fence literature". But what is most depressing is that this "fence" becomes a blood relative to almost all of Russian literature, almost all of Russia is shielded by it. Worrying is one thing: will it ever be possible to get out from under this fence? The latter, Mayakovsky, can not even behave decently, all the time it is necessary to "exhibit", as if "boorish independence" and "stark directness of judgments" are indispensable "attributes" of talent.

Lenin

We continue the short content - "Cursed days", Bunin Ivan Alekseevich. Special image of Lenin is imbued with a special hatred in the work. The author does not skimp on sharply negative epithets about the "Bolshevik leader" - "insignificant", "scam", "Oh, what an animal!" ... Many times they said, and leaflets were posted on the city that Lenin and Trotsky were ordinary " Scoundrels, "the traitors bribed by the Germans. But Bunin does not really believe in these rumors. He sees in them "fanatics" who are pious believers in the "world conflagration", and this is much worse, because fanaticism is a frenzy, an obsession that erases the boundaries of the rational and puts on the pedestal only the object of its adoration, and therefore terror, and unconditional annihilation of all Dissenters. Traitor Judas calms down after receiving him "well-deserved thirty silversmiths", and the fanatic goes to the end. Evidence for this was enough: Russia kept in uninterrupted "heat", terror did not cease, civil war, blood and violence were welcomed, because they were considered the only possible means of achieving the "great goal". Lenin himself was afraid of everything "like a fire," everywhere he "imagined conspiracies", "trembled" for his power and life, because he did not expect and still could not fully believe in victory in October.

The Russian Revolution

"Cursed days", Bunin - the analysis of the work does not end there. The author also pondered a lot about the essence of the Russian revolution, which is inextricably linked with the soul and character of the Russian people, "for God and the devil are truly changing in Russia every minute". On the one hand, for a long time the Russians have been famous for the "robbers" of various "poshba" - "rods, Murom, Saratov, yarygs, runners, rebels against everyone and everything, sowers of all kinds of welds, lies and unrealistic hopes." On the other hand, there was also a "holy man", a plowman, a hard worker, and a builder. That was the "incessant struggle" with the brawlers and destroyers, then there was a surprising admiration for "any kind of svara, sedition, bloody turmoil and nonsense", which were unexpectedly equated with "great grace, originality and originality of future forms".

Russian Bacchanalia

What caused such a blatant absurdity? Relying on the work of Kostomarov, Solov'ev about the troubled times, the reflections of FM Dostoevsky, IA. Bunin sees the origins of all kinds of turmoil, vacillations and precariousness in Russia in spiritual darkness, youth, discontent and unbalance of the Russian people. Rus is a typical country of the brawler.

Here, Russian history "sins" with an extraordinary "repetition". After all, there was Stenka Razin, Pugachev, and Kazi-Mullah ... The people, as driven by a thirst for justice, extraordinary changes, freedom, equality, an early increase in prosperity, and many things that did not understand properly, rose and walked under the banners of the same leaders, Impostors and ambitious people. The people were, as a rule, the most diverse, but at the end of all "Russian bacchanalia" most of them were runaway thieves, lazy people, bastards and mob. It is no longer important and for a long time forgotten the original goal - before the foundation to destroy the old order and in its place to erect a new one. Rather, the ideas are erased, and the slogans are preserved to the end - one must somehow justify this chaos and darkness. Full robbery, complete equality, full will from all law, society and religion are allowed. On the one hand, the people become drunk with wine and blood, and on the other, they prostrate themselves before the "leader", for for the slightest disobedience, anyone could be punished by death as a torturer. "Russian Bacchanalia" surpasses in scope all that was before it. Magnitude, "senselessness" and a special blind, crude "ruthlessness", when "the hands are taken away from the good, the evil ones - are unleashed on all evil" - these are the main features of the Russian revolutions. And it was again a huge amount ...

Odessa, 1919

Bunin IA, "Cursed days" - the summary of the chapters does not end here. In the spring of 1919, the writer moved to Odessa. And again life turns into an incessant expectation of an early denouement. In Moscow, many were waiting for the Germans, naively believing that they would interfere in Russia's internal affairs and free it from Bolshevik gloom. Here, in Odessa, the people are constantly running to the Nikolayev Boulevard - whether the French destroyer is standing in the distance, gray in the distance. If so, then there is at least some kind of protection, hope, and if not - horror, chaos, emptiness, and then everything will end.

Every morning begins with reading newspapers. They are full of rumors and lies, it accumulates so much that you can suffocate, but it's raining, cold - all one author runs and spends the last money. What Petersburg? What's in Kiev? What are Denikin and Kolchak? Questions without answers. Instead of them, screaming headlines: "The Red Army is only ahead! We walk amicably from victory to victory! "Or" Go ahead, relatives, do not count corpses! ", And under them a calm, slender series, as if so and it is necessary, there are notes about the endless shootings of the enemies of the Soviets, or" warning "about the imminent disconnection of electricity from For complete exhaustion of fuel. Well, the results are quite expected ... In one month they "processed" everything and everything: "no railways, no trams, no water, no bread, no clothes - nothing!"

The city, once noisy and joyful, is all in the dark, except in places where "Bolshevik dens" are "lodged". There, chandeliers are burning with all their might, audible balalaikas are heard, black banners are seen on the walls, against which white skulls with slogans: "Death to the bourgeois! But it's scary not only at night, but also in the daytime. Out on the street a little. The city does not live, the whole huge city sits at home. In the air there is a feeling that the country is conquered by another people, some special ", which is much worse than any one seen before. And this conqueror roams the streets, plays the accordion, dances, "covers the mat," spits the seeds, trades from the trays, and on his face, this conqueror, first of all, there is no ordinary, there is no simplicity. It is completely sharply repulsive, frightening its evil stupidity and destroying all life with its "sullen and at the same lackey" challenge to everything and everyone ...

"Cursed days", Bunin, summary: conclusion

In the last days of January 1920 IA Bunin and his family fled from Odessa. The pages of the diary were lost. Therefore Odessa notes on this place are cut off ...

At the conclusion of the article "Cursed Days, Bunin: A Brief Content of the Work," I would like to add one more word of the author to the Russian people, who, despite his anger, righteous anger, loved and respected immensely, because he was inextricably linked with his Fatherland-Russia . He said that in Russia there are two types in the people: in the first dominates Russia, in the other - Chud. But in one, and in the second there is an amazing, sometimes terrible changeability of moods and guises, the so-called "shakiness". From it, people, as from a tree, can come out both a club and an icon. It all depends on the circumstances and on who this tree covers: Emelka Pugachev or Venerable Sergius. IA Bunin saw this "icon" and loved it. Many believed that he hated only. But no. This anger from love was also from suffering, so unlimited, so fierce that it really ravaged it. You see, but you can not do anything.

Once again I would like to recall that the article dealt with the work "Cursed Days," Bunin. The summary can not convey the entire subtlety and depth of the author's feelings, so reading the diary notes in full is simply necessary.