ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 10 ( 2021/2 ) |
AUTOGRAPHS DON’T BURN: LETTERS TO BUNINS, By Ayse Dietrich*, Published by: Academic
Studies Press, Editor, translator, and writer of edit comment - Vera Tsareva-Brauner, Year of Publishing: 2020. Subject Area:
Bunin, Ivan Alekseevich, Friends and Associates. Book
Type: Russian literature. Total Number of Pages: 208. ISBN: 978-164-469-432-9,
hardback, $109.00.
This books
contains an Introduction and six chapters. In the Introduction,
Brauner explains that her research based on three
handwritten texts narrated by Ivan Bunin. She examines the life and letters of
Bunin’s two close friends, two of the Russian “White” émigré intellectuals who
fled the country during the Great Exodus of 1918-1922, Nikolai Karlovich Kulman and Natalia
Ivanovna Kulman, both of whom were mentioned in
Bunin’s handwritten texts. Both were intellectuals whose prerevolutionary researches
were classified as anti-Soviet and were kept in the special storage section of
the State Public Library. They are now preserved in the Russian Archive in
Leeds (RAL), and are published by Brauner for the
first time. The aim of Brauner is to bring out all the
detailed memories of the private life of Ivan and Vera Bunin and their close friends
Nikolai and Natalia Kulman.
In the first chapter, “The People Behind the Autograph”, Brauner states that the brief biographical information on
Nikolai and Natalia was mostly obtained from memoires and diaries, and a file
bearing the name N.K. Kulman found in the Russian
State Archives of Literature and Arts in Moscow dated from 1948. These are the
sources that allowed her to correct some incorrect biographical information on
Nikolai and his wife and to recreate their lives and their connections with
other intellectuals. These texts also provide information about the most
turbulent period of Russian history.
The second chapter, “Exodus”, provides information about the Civil War
and the departure of the Kulmans from Russia, how
they ended up in Constantinople, then movede to
Belgrade and then to Prague before they arrived in Paris, how Professor Kulman began to teach Russian language and literature at
the Sorbonne, and how the apolitical Kulman became a
public figure of anti-Bolshevism together with Bunin. These émigré
intellectuals tried to do anything they could to get rid of the Bolshevik
regime and to keep Russian culture alive by organizing meetings to discuss
their mission in this struggle. The author states that Professor Kulman also took an active role in political, social and
cultural projects, that he was behind a number of charitable activities to
raise money for the education of the Russian children, and that he took up a
new mission to conduct a campaign against the new orthography of the Russian
language adopted by the Bolsheviks in December 1917.
Chapter 3, “Note on Translation of Letters”, contains information about
the techniques used by the author in translating the letters.
Chapter 4, “Letters of Nikolai Kulman to Ivan
Bunin (1922-1935) includes the translations of twenty-seven letters written by
Nikolai Kulman to Bunin.
Chapter 5, “Letters of Nikolai Kulman to Vera Bunina (1928-1938) includes translations of eight letters
written by Nikolai Kulman to Vera Bunina.
In chapter six, “Letters to Natalia Kulman to
Ivan Bunin (1944-1953) there are translations of five letters written by
Natalia Kulman to Ivan Bunin.
By translating the letters of the Kulmans to
the Bunins, the author of Autographs Don’t Burn: letters to
Bunins sheds light on the unknown life of Russian
émigré intellectuals and their close friends who had to flee the country during
the establishment of the Soviet Union and provides information on what these intellectuals
went through during a very turbulent time in Russian history, as well as their
life experiences and activities to preserve their culture and language in a
foreign country.
*Ayse Dietrich - Professor, Part-time, at Middle East Technical University, Department of History, and Eurasian Studies. Editor and the founder of the International Journal of Russian Studies e-mail: editor@ijors.net, dayse@metu.edu.tr, dietrichayse@yahoo.com
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