The Diary as Political Commentary: Ivan Bunin’s Okaiannye dni (1925) and the Newspaper «Vozrodozhdenie»

Abstract

The article examines the first publication of Okaiannye dni [Cursed Days] in 1925 in the Russian émigré newspaper «Vozrozhdenie» [Rebirth] and the text’s role in the ideological debates of that year. The author argues that readers judged the newspaper based on the fragments of Okaiannye dni no less than by its editorial articles. Bunin’s diary is written in a subjective, documentary style, evoking the journalistic pathos characteristic of «Vozrozhdenie». The author’s ideological position combined two layers: one associated with the ideological struggles of the year of publication (1925), and the second, reflecting the pathos of the period covered in the diary (1919). When Okaiannye dni was finally published in 1935, the text had many fictional elements, and there exists a common misconception that the newspaper publication also included such elements. However, this article shows that readers in 1925 accepted Okaiannye dni as a real diary written in 1919 and that the newspaper text provides no reason to refute that view.