Cursed Days
Encyclopedia
Cursed Days is a book by a Nobel Prize-winning Russian
author Ivan Bunin, compiled of diaries and notes he made while in Moscow
and Odessa
in 1918-1920. Fragments from it were being published throughout 1925 and 1926 by the Paris
-based Vozrozhdenye newspaper. In its full version Cursed Days appeared in the Vol. X of The Complete Bunin (1936), compiled and published in Berlin
by the Petropolis publishing house. In the USSR the book remained banned up until the late 1980s. Parts of it were included in the 1988 Moscow edition of Complete Bunin (Vol. VI). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cursed Days became immensely popular in its author's homeland. Since 1991, no less than fifteen separate editions of Bunin's diary/notebook have been published in Russia. The English translation, made by Bunin scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo, was published (as Cursed Days. A Diary of the Revolution) in 1998 in the USA by Chicago
-based Ivan R. Dee Publishers.
On July 30, 1925, Vera Muromtseva-Bunina wrote in her diary: "Ian has torn up and burned all his diary manuscripts. I am very angry. 'I don't want to be seen in my underwear, ' he told me". Seeing Vera so upset, Bunin confided to her: "I have another diary in the form of a notebook in Paris..." According to some sources, "this was the diary that Bunin published under the title Cursed Days". In fact, Bunin destroyed his notes written in 1925, and Paris manuscripts Vera referred to, were recent ones. By the end of July 1925 fragments of Cursed Days were already being published for almost two months by the recently opened Pyotr Struve's newspaper. On June 4, 1925, Vera Muromtseva-Bunina wrote in her diary: "The Vozrozhdenye came out. All is well, and the editorial stuff is good. <...> They started publishing Cursed Days.
Powell's Books reviewer describes Bunin's "great anti-Bolshevik diary of the Russian Revolution" as a "chilling account of the last days of the Russian master in his homeland" where the time of revolution and civil war is recreated "with graphic and gripping immediacy". "Unlike the works of early Soviets and emigres, with their self-censoring backdrop of memory, myth, and political expediency, Bunin 's uncompromising truths are jolting", full of "pain and suffering in witnessing the takeover of his country by thugs and the chaos of civil war", the reviewer argues.
magazine's 1965 October issue, heavily censored. These diaries were included into the Vol. VI of the 1988 edition of the Soviet version of The Complete Bunin (published by Khudozhestvannaya Literatura publishing house) in 1988 and later into the Vol. VIII of the 2000 edition by Moskovsky Rabochy.
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
author Ivan Bunin, compiled of diaries and notes he made while in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
in 1918-1920. Fragments from it were being published throughout 1925 and 1926 by the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
-based Vozrozhdenye newspaper. In its full version Cursed Days appeared in the Vol. X of The Complete Bunin (1936), compiled and published in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
by the Petropolis publishing house. In the USSR the book remained banned up until the late 1980s. Parts of it were included in the 1988 Moscow edition of Complete Bunin (Vol. VI). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cursed Days became immensely popular in its author's homeland. Since 1991, no less than fifteen separate editions of Bunin's diary/notebook have been published in Russia. The English translation, made by Bunin scholar Thomas Gaiton Marullo, was published (as Cursed Days. A Diary of the Revolution) in 1998 in the USA by Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
-based Ivan R. Dee Publishers.
Background
In 1920, after three years of great anguish, Ivan Bunin left his country forever. In the years that led up to his exile, he kept an account of (in words of one reviewer) "the ever widening bestiality that accompanied the consolidation of Bolshevik power". Depending much on newspapers and rumors, Bunin misunderstood some of the events or related the biased versions of them and often let his anger get in the way of reason. Still, according to the New York Times, "these are the (mostly) immediate reactions of a man whose instincts have been proved eminently right, who knew that, with the victory of the Bolsheviks, the worst would happen". Using Cursed Days as a forum to castigate the Bolshevik Russia's leaders, publishers, and the writers like Aleksandr Blok who joined their ranks, he labeled the new leaders criminals and expressed his contempt for them.On July 30, 1925, Vera Muromtseva-Bunina wrote in her diary: "Ian
Critical reception
According to the book's translator, professor of Russian at Notre Dame University (who had already published the first two of three volumes of a biography of Bunin in his own words) Thomas Gaiton Marullo, -Powell's Books reviewer describes Bunin's "great anti-Bolshevik diary of the Russian Revolution" as a "chilling account of the last days of the Russian master in his homeland" where the time of revolution and civil war is recreated "with graphic and gripping immediacy". "Unlike the works of early Soviets and emigres, with their self-censoring backdrop of memory, myth, and political expediency, Bunin 's uncompromising truths are jolting", full of "pain and suffering in witnessing the takeover of his country by thugs and the chaos of civil war", the reviewer argues.
The American edition
In 1998 the first English translation of the book was published in the US by Ivan R. Dee Publishers under the title Cursed Days. A Diary of the Revolution. Reviewers praised the work of translator, Thomas Gaiton Marullo, a noted scholar on Russian literature, the author of two previous volumes on Bunin's life and works, "Ivan Bunin: Russian Requiem, 1885-1920" and "Ivan Bunin: From the Other Shore, 1920-1933" who also provided preface, introduction, and footnotes so as to guide the Western reader through the cascade of Russian names and historical references, giving the reader a sense of Bunin, the man, while also providing extensive information about contextual issues, carefully explain the writer's comments on colleagues, publishers, newspapers, journals, and politicians.1917-1918 diaries
The book had a prequel, Bunin's diaries dated August 1, 1917, - May 14, 1918, occasionally referred to as Cursed Days (1917-1918). In the USSR it was published for the first time in Novy MirNovy Mir
Novy Mir is a Russian language literary magazine that has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet literary magazine Mir Bozhy , which was published from 1892 to 1906, and its follow-up, Sovremenny Mir , which was published 1906-1917...
magazine's 1965 October issue, heavily censored. These diaries were included into the Vol. VI of the 1988 edition of the Soviet version of The Complete Bunin (published by Khudozhestvannaya Literatura publishing house) in 1988 and later into the Vol. VIII of the 2000 edition by Moskovsky Rabochy.
Quotes
- "April 20/May 3, 1919... It's a terrible thing to say, but it's the truth: if it were not for the misfortunes of the folk, thousands of our intellectuals would be profoundly unhappy people. How else could they have sat around and protested? What else would they have cried and written about? Without the folk, life would not have been life for them."
- "May 2/15, 1919. Members of the Red ArmyRed ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in OdessaOdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
led a pogrom against the Jews in the town of Big Fountain. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky and the writer Kipen happened to be there and told me the details. Fourteen comissarsCommissarCommissar is the English transliteration of an official title used in Russia from the time of Peter the Great.The title was used during the Provisional Government for regional heads of administration, but it is mostly associated with a number of Cheka and military functions in Bolshevik and Soviet...
and thirty Jews from among the common people were killed. Many stores were destroyed. The soldiers tore through the night, dragged the victims from their beds, and killed whomever they met. People ran into the steppeSteppeIn physical geography, steppe is an ecoregion, in the montane grasslands and shrublands and temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biomes, characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes...
or rushed into the sea. They were chased after and fired upon -- a genuine hunt, as it were. Kipen saved himself by accident -- fortunately he had spent the night not in his home, but at the White Flower sanitorium. At dawn, a detachment of Red Army soldiers appeared 'Are there any Jews here?' they asked the watchman. 'No, no Jews here.' 'Swear what you're saying is true!' The watchman swore, and they went on farther. Moisei Gutman, a cabby, was killed. He was a dear man who moved us from our dachaDachaDacha is a Russian word for seasonal or year-round second homes often located in the exurbs of Soviet and post-Soviet cities. Cottages or shacks serving as family's main or only home are not considered dachas, although many purpose-built dachas are recently being converted for year-round residence...
last fall."