Ivan Bunin’s 1920s Diaries: Limits and Space for their Reconstruction

This article examines the relationship between Ivan Bunin’s 1920s diary entries, the concrete events of his life and the diaries of his wife, Vera Bunina. An attempt is made to reconstruct what might have been in those parts of his diary, which Bunin subsequently destroyed. Attention focusses on the principles governing the choice of events to be recorded at the time the diary was being written (hypothetically) and the principles that determined the subsequent selection of diary entries for the retrospective construction of a personal history (more concretely). Interrogating the assembled documentary evidence makes it possible to delineate the visible limits of Bunin’s inner biography accessible to the scrutiny of researchers and readers in our own time.