.jpg)
Анна Петровна Бунина
The first to live exclusively from literary work
Anna Petrovna Bunina was one of the first Russian female writers to make a living exclusively from literary work. Poet and translator, her Russian contemporaries nicknamed her as Russian Sappho (partly because of his passion for ancient poetry, whose style Bunina often imitated), the Tenth Muse and Corina of the North.
For intellectuals and instructors around the world, Russian literature has always been a centerpiece of intense study and debate. However, Anna Petrovna's name is rarely listed among Russian literary greats, not because she does not deserve high recognition. The fact that she was related to Ivan Bunin, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1933, did not help much.
However, she deserves to be celebrated with the same acclaim as her most outstanding peers. Disciplined, resilient, intelligent, practical, and talented, Bunina prevailed in her literary work against all odds.
At a time when society preferred the enthusiastic dramas of opera and theatre, the prolonged escapism of novels or the daring of writers such as Lord Byron, an influential name in British romanticism, Bunina distinguished herself by exercising her craft through poetry and poetry and life considered productive and peaceful.
The circumstances in which she was born shaped her adult life. Her mother died during childbirth, leaving the baby in the village of Urusovo, located in Ryazan, a rural district 200 km southeast of Moscow. Barely inhabited, the village provided space, solitude, and natural beauty for an imaginative mind like hers to flourish.
Her aunt raised Anna, but she also lived with other relatives, jumping from house to house. At the time, her educational level in reading, writing, and performing the four arithmetic operations was considered more than enough for a girl. As a girl, she could not practice any kind of profession.
Their caregivers did not consider their education a priority, although there were exceptions. Anna was particularly good at embroidering and weaving lace, but if she wanted to learn foreign languages, music or singing, she would have to move to the capitals. Despite this, she began writing poetry at age thirteen. His first published work was the prose fragment Lyubov (Love), in the magazine Ippokrena, 1799, n. 4.
Immersion in studies in Saint Petersburg
Anna Petrovna's father died in 1802 and left an income of six hundred rubles as an inheritance. It was not much, but it freed her from living in other people's houses and being treated as a "poor relative". In the same year, she went to visit her brother, a naval officer, in St. Petersburg, Russia's great cultural center. With the resources left by her father, she decided to live in the capital, in an apartment on Vassiliev Island.
In St. Petersburg, she established the closest thing a woman of the time could have to a university experience. She set up a house, hired a series of private tutors, and began a rigorous study regime. She studied physics, mathematics, French, German, English and especially Russian literature. As a result, she acquired a much more sophisticated writing style.
Debts and first poems
In less than two years, the cost of living in St. Petersburg consumed Bunina's inheritance. She was getting into debts and could not pay them. To help her, her brother introduced her to the town's literati, to whom Anna showed her works.
Her first poems began to appear in print in 1806. In 1809, she published her first poetic anthology Neopytnaia muza (Inexperienced Muse). The work was well received by the public and was presented to Empress Elizaveta Alekseieva, who excitedly granted Anna an annual pension of four hundred rubles.
The anthology has also won approval from masters of Russian literature, including Derjavin, Dmitriev, Krylov, creators of the literary group Conference of Lovers of the Russian Word (Беседа любителей русского слова). In 1811, during the conference of the literary group, Krylov read aloud the heroic-comic poem Padenie Phaetona (The Fall of Phaethon), by Anna Bunina, based on one of the plots of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
These writers named her an honorary member of the group. Unfortunately, this was an empty gesture because, for the conservative society of the time, a woman performing on a public stage, whether as an actress, an opera singer or even a political speech presenter, made her morally detached. Even more so for a respectable woman whom the royal family was financing.
In 1814, reacting to the terrible events, she offered the emperor the hymn Pesn Aleksandru Velikomu, pobediteliu Napoleona i vosstanoviteliu tsarstv (Song to the great Alexander, victorious over Napoleon and restorer of kingdoms).
Style of her works
Called by many the Russian Sappho, the poet left so many poems of philosophical meditations and hymns in praise of the "deeds of husbands" killed at the Battle of Borodino, and personal lyrical poetry, intimate and full of feeling.
She was inspired by Greek and Roman poets, especially Sappho and Ovid, writing philosophical meditations and hymns of praise to heroes killed on battlefields, such as the poem in honor of Captain Rostislav Ivanovitch Zakharov.
She also wrote personal, intimate, and emotionally charged lyric poems that carried her name to posterity. The poet and writer Evgueni Evtushenko (1932 – 2017) dedicated the poem Anna First (Анна Первая) to her, in which he highlights the poet’s pioneering spirit on the female front of Russian literature – even though Anna was not, in fact, the first female writer Russian and yes, the first to be successful.
Anna is recognized for having used themes that are more diverse, styles, and a wider metric range in her works than earlier Russian female poets are. Her poems include original and striking observations about women's experiences, especially their conflicts with men. This did not stop prominent elements of Russian literary society at the time from attacking her and her writings, limiting her influence on future poets.
An orchestrated smear campaign
Bunina's sharp decline among the literary elite of the time can be attributed to a vicious smear campaign led by Alexander Pushkin and the conservative Arzamas Society. Although Pushkin's novels and plays are notable landmarks in Russian literature, as a person he was despicable when he cruelly mocked Bunina in correspondence with friends.
The detailed criticism of Bunina's works, considered by him as trivial and quite simple, led to the poet's fall from grace. The style, which she had worked so hard to develop, was no longer in vogue.
Predictably, Anna was also mocked for never having married. Dedication to her studies had been her great love and her reason for facing life so hard. Selfish and misogynistic, these men did not understand – or did not want to understand – the trials of women who wanted to live and fulfill like them.
Career and main publications
In 1808, Anna made an abbreviated translation of Charles Batteux's The Rules of Poetry and a verse translation of the first part of Nicolas Boileau's Poetic Art (1808-1809; completed 1821). In 1812, she published the second volume of her poetic anthology Neopytnaia muza (Inexperienced Muse).
By 1819, she had established a reputation as a serious and revered writer. With her smart charm, strong wit, elegant rhymes, and feminist themes, she piqued the interest of the cultured Empress Dowager Maria Fedorovna, who arranged for Bunina to receive a small but much-needed pension.
This, for Anna, was a godsend as most of her inheritance had been drained to pay her guardians' salaries and her own expenses. An almost bohemian lifestyle in the bustling metropolis of St. Petersburg did not come cheap, even with Bunina's careful budget and simple tastes. Meanwhile, Anna socialized with the fascinating literary circle of Admiral and writer Alexander Shishkov, her patron and supporter, and fellow poet Gavrila Derzhavin.
Literary works
French translations:
Rules of Poetry by Charles Batteux.
Poetic art – by Nicolas Boileau.
Poems and Prose:
Safistic poems
Imitation of the Lesbos poet
Rural nights
Song to Aleksandr
The great, victorious over Napoleon and restorer of kingdoms
Cancer, lifetime pension and period of suffering
In 1815, she discovered that she had breast cancer. The best doctors treated her. The emperor personally monitored her condition. It was decided that they would take her to England, famous for the competence of its doctors. Unfortunately, the experimental treatments did not bring much relief. She remained in England until 1817. When she returned to Russia, she was granted a lifetime pension.
Anna spent the last five years of her life between Moscow and the village of Ryajsk. During this period, even lying down was uncomfortable for her. Therefore, she spent most of her time on her knees. She is said to have read the Bible a lot in her final weeks. One of her last poems, To the Loved Ones (К ближным), talks about this period of suffering.
According to the testimony of contemporaries, his letters (which have not been preserved) were reminiscent of Nikolai Karamzin's Letters of a Russian Traveler, for the depth and sharpness of the observations and the general sentimental tone.
Anna Petrovna Bunina died on December 16, 1829, and was buried in the village of Urusovo, located in Ryazan. A monument was erected over her grave by her godson, grandson of her sister Maria, traveler Pyotr Petrovitch Semyonov-Tian-Shansky and niece Nadezhda Ivanovna Bunina.
Links used and suggested
֎ Kripkit
Comments