One of the main motives in “Odessa” part of I. A. Bunin’s “Okayannye dni” is connected with
France. For the first time “Okayannye dni” was published in 1925 on the pages of Paris émigré newspaper “Vozrozhdenie”, and Bunin's text was addressed not only to Russian, but also
to foreign audience, primarily French. The editorial circumstances of the first publication
should be taken into account when explaining the significance of the “French” motives, but
journalistic logic of 1925 follows the specific circumstances of life in Odessa and related author’s experience of 1919.
“The French” appear in the first fragment of the “Okayannye dni”, published in the first issue
of “Renaissance” on June 3, 1925. In the newspaper publication the starting point is the decision of the French troops to leave Odessa. Bunin does not directly accuse France of abandoning the city and its inhabitants, but then constantly returns to the motive of unfulfilled hopes
associated with the French. The French navy destroyer becomes a symbol of the hopes and
their collapse.
Two other lines connecting Russia and France are also pointed in the first fragment of the
“Okayannye dni”. Bunin writes about modern political events and about French history. Bunin constantly reminds the French of their historical responsibility for committing and canonizing their “great” revolution, thus setting an example of the Russian revolution. Among the
semantic centers of the “Okayannye dni” in the newspaper publication are fragments about
the leaders of the French revolution, in which Bunin refers to the book “Vielles maisons,
vieux papiers” by G. Lenotre. References to Lenotr’s book help to avoid a negative assessment of the French revolution as a view of the Russian “from the outside”.
Significant changes in the text of the “Okayannye dni” in the book edition in Berlin in 1935
also relate to French motives. Their significance is reduced both by removing fragments and
by the restoration of the natural chronological structure, in which the “Okayannye dni” now
begin in Moscow on January 1, 1918, not by departure of the French troops from Odessa in
1919.
Bakuntsev A. V. I. A. Bunin na stranitsakh odesskoy pechati v gody Grazhdanskoy
voyny. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 10. Zhurnalistika, 2014, no. 5, р. 55–71. (in Russ.)
Bunin I. A. Sobranie sochineniy. Berlin, Petropolis, 1935, vol. 10: Okayannye dni,
255 p. (in Russ.)
Bunin I. A. Okayannye dni. Vospominaniya. Stat'i. Moscow, Sovetskiy pisatel’
Publ., 1990, 416 p. (in Russ.)
Lenotre G. Paris révolutionnaire. Vielles maisons, vieux papiers. Première serie.
Deuxième edition. Paris, Libraire Académique Didier Perrin et C, Libraires-Éditeurs,
1904, 366 p.
Nikolaev D. D. Dnevnik kak publitsistika: Okayannye dni Ivana Bunina v parizh-
skoy gazete “Vozrozhdenie” 1925 g. Avtobiografiya, 2019, no. 8, p. 117–148. (in Russ.)