Ivan Bunin's 1907 Palestine Journey: Chronicle and Context

Abstract

This article develops the theme expounded in the authors’ research published above. It contains a detailed reconstruction of the chronicle of Ivan Bunin’s main pilgrimage through Palestine in April –May 1907. Using all available documentary evidences, the authors of the article make an attempt to reveal the concrete texture of the days when Bunin and Vera Muromtseva spent on their “first distant voyage and honeymoon, which was at the same time a pilgrimage to the Holy Land of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (“The Rose of Jericho”). The article also shows how the immediate impressions of that journey are reflected in Bunin's works and what traces it left in his artistic and personal outlook. The research differs from many studies on the Oriental theme in Ivan Bunin's oeuvres by being primarily biographical and factual in nature.

Keywords

• i.a. bunin
• palestine
• biography
• travel
• “the temple of the sun” (1917)