The central place in Bunin's work is occupied by a cycle of stories that made up the collection "Dark Alleys". When the book was published in 1943, it became the only one in Russian literature where all the stories were about love. In thirty-eight short stories, the author presents the reader with the vicissitudes of love. Short, dazzling, illuminating the souls of lovers, like a flash. Love that visited this world for a moment, like a light breath, and ready to disappear at any moment.
The theme of love in the writer's work
Bunin's work is unique. Outwardly, in terms of subject matter, it looks traditional: life and death, loneliness and love, past and future, happiness and suffering. Bunin either separates these extreme points of being, or rapidly brings them closer together. And fills the space between them with some sensations, deep and strong. The essence of his art is accurately reflected by the words of Rilke: "He, like metal, burns and cuts with his cold."
The eternal themes addressed by the writer are expressed in his works with the utmost brightness and tension. Bunin literally destroys routine and familiar ideas, and from the first lines immerses the reader in real life. It does not just reveal the fullness of the feelings of its heroes, their innermost thoughts, and is not afraid to show the true essence.
There are many hymns about love, beautiful and touching. But Bunin dared not only to talk about this lofty feeling, but also to show what dangers it was exposed to. Bunin's heroes live in anticipation of love, seek it and often die, scorched by its light breath. Ivan Bunin shows that love-passion blinds a person and leads to a dangerous line, not understanding who is in front of her - a young girl who first encountered this feeling, or a person who has learned a lot in life, an elegant landowner or a peasant who does not even have good boots .
Bunin is perhaps the first writer in whose work the feeling of love plays such a significant role - in all its modulations and transitions, shades and nuances. Cruelty and at the same time the charm of genuine feeling equally determine the spiritual life of Bunin's heroes and explain what is happening to them. Love can be happiness and it can be tragedy. The story of such love is shown in one of Bunin's famous stories "Light Breath".
Design History
At the beginning of the 20th century, the question of the meaning of life was widely discussed in literature. Moreover, the previously established standard for all in the form of a clear goal was replaced by a new one. The most popular was living life, which called for imbued with a sense of the value of life, which, regardless of the content, is a value in itself.
These ideas were embodied in their creations by many writers of that time, and they were also reflected in Bunin's work. The work "Light Breath" is one of them. The author also told the story of this novel. One winter, while walking around Capri, he accidentally wandered into a small cemetery, where he saw a grave cross with a photograph of a young girl with lively and joyful eyes. He immediately made her mentally Olya Meshcherskaya and began to create a story about her with amazing speed.
Easy breath
In his diary, Bunin wrote about a childhood memory. When he was seven years old, his younger sister, the favorite of the whole house, died. He ran across the snowy yard and, as he ran, looked into the dark February sky and thought that her little soul was flying there. In the whole being of the little boy there was some kind of horror, a feeling of an incomprehensible event.
The girl, death, cloudy sky, winter, horror were forever hooked in the mind of the writer. And as soon as the writer saw a photograph of a young girl on a grave cross, childhood memories came to life and echoed in it. Perhaps that is why Ivan Bunin was able to write "Easy Breath" with amazing speed, because internally he was already ready for this.
"Light Breath" is Bunin's famous and most sensual short story. K. Paustovsky, having read this story in one of the April issues of the Russian Word newspaper, where it was first published in 1916, wrote about a deep emotional shock that everything inside him was trembling with sadness and love.
Paustovsky reread the same words several times about Olya Meshcherskaya's easy breathing. Having become acquainted with Bunin's story "Light Breath", with the content of this touching novel, many readers could repeat the words of Paustovsky: "This is not a story, but an insight, life itself with its trembling and love."
carefree youth
Olya Meshcherskaya was a noisy and cheerful schoolgirl. Playful and careless, Olga had noticeably prettier by the age of fifteen. A thin waist, slender legs and gorgeous hair made her a beauty. She danced and skated best of all, was known as the favorite of freshmen, but became a headache for her boss and her classy lady.
One morning, the headmistress called Olya to her place, began to chastise for pranks and noticed that an adult hairstyle, expensive combs and shoes did not suit a young girl. Olya interrupts her and says that she is already a woman. And he tells the astonished lady that the friend of the pope is to blame for this, and her, the head of the gymnasium, brother, 56-year-old Alexei Mikhailovich Malyutin.
Diary of Olya Meshcherskaya
A month after Olya confessed to the head of the gymnasium, officer Malyutin shoots a young girl on the platform. At the trial, he stated that she seduced him and promised to become his wife. But suddenly she declared that she did not love him, and talk about marriage was just a mockery of him, and gave her diary to read, where it was written about him, about Malyutin. He read this diary and immediately shot at her on the platform.
The girl wrote in her diary that in the summer the family rested in the village. Parents and brother left for the city. His friend, the Cossack officer Malyutin, came to visit his father and was very upset that he did not find his friend. It had just rained outside, and Olga invited Malyutin to visit. At tea, he joked a lot and said that he was in love with her. Olya, a little tired, lay down on the couch, Malyutin began to kiss her hand, then her lips, and Olya could not understand how it all happened. But now she feels a strong disgust for him.
Porcelain medallion
The spring city has become tidy. On a clean, pleasant road, every Sunday a woman in mourning walks to the cemetery. She stops at a grave with a heavy oak cross, on which is a porcelain medallion with a photograph of a young schoolgirl with amazingly lively eyes. The woman looked at the locket and thought, can this pure look be combined with the horror that is now associated with the name of Olya?
Olga's classy lady is already middle-aged, living in a world invented by her. At first, all her thoughts were occupied by her brother, an unremarkable ensign. But after his death, Olya took a place in her mind, to whose grave she comes every holiday. She stands for a long time, looks at the oak cross and remembers how she involuntarily witnessed Olya's conversation with her friend.
Olga told me that she had read in one book what a beautiful woman looks like - eyes boiling with resin, eyelashes black as night, a slender figure, arms longer than usual, sloping shoulders. And most importantly - the beauty should have easy breathing. And she, Olya, had it.
Door to eternity
The overture of Bunin's short story "Light Breath", the analysis of which we will now consider, carries a tragic denouement of the plot. In the first lines of the work, the author presents the reader with a harsh picture - a cold morning, a cemetery and the shining eyes of a young creature in the photo. This immediately creates a further setting that the reader will perceive all events under this sign.
The author immediately deprives the plot of unpredictability. The reader, knowing what happened in the end, turns his attention to why it happened. Then Bunin immediately proceeds to the exposition, full of zest for life. Slowly, richly describes every detail, filling it with life and energy. And at the moment of the highest reader's interest, when Meshcherskaya says that she is a woman and it happened in the village, the author cuts off her story and strikes the reader with the following phrase: the girl was shot by a Cossack officer. What does the reader see further in Bunin's short story "Light Breath", the analysis of which we continue?
The author deprives this story of much-needed development. Olya's earthly path ends at the moment when she embarks on the path for which she was created. “Today I have become a woman,” this voice sounds both horror and glee. This new life can meet with piercing happiness, or it can turn into pain and horror. Naturally, the reader has many questions: how did their relationship develop? Did they develop at all? What pushed the young girl to the old womanizer? By constantly destroying the sequence of events, what does Bunin achieve in Easy Breath?
An analysis of this work shows that the author destroys the causal relationship. Neither the development of their relationship, nor the motive of the girl who surrendered to the will of a rude officer is important. Both heroes in this work are just tools of fate. And Olga's doom is in herself, in her spontaneous impulses, in her charm. This violent passion for life was bound to lead to disaster.
The author, not satisfying the reader's interest in the events, could cause a negative reaction. But that did not happen. This is the skill of Bunin. In "Easy Breathing", the analysis of which we are considering, the author smoothly and decisively switches the reader's interest from the rapid run of events to eternal rest. Having suddenly interrupted the flow of time, the author describes the space - city streets, squares - and introduces the reader to the fate of a classy lady. The story of her opens the door to eternity.
The cold wind at the beginning of the story was an element of the landscape, in the last lines it became a symbol of life - a light breath was born by nature and returned there. The natural world freezes in infinity.
Bunin's pre-revolutionary stories "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Grammar of Love", "Easy Breath" are united by one theme, one mood - a sense of impending catastrophic social upheavals. Starting with "Antonov apples" (1900), until the last pre-revolutionary year and the story "Easy breathing" (1916), the writer does not leave the thought of fatality, the doom of beauty, and this is felt in his prose.
In the story "Easy Breathing", incompatible concepts collide from the first lines: on the one hand, youth and beauty, on the other, death and corruption. “In the cemetery, over a fresh clay mound, there is a new cross made of oak, strong, heavy, smooth ... A medallion is embedded in the very cross, and in the medallion there is a photographic portrait of a schoolgirl with joyful, amazingly lively eyes ...”
This is a portrait of Olya Meshcherskaya.
At the age of fifteen, she was already known as a beauty. “Without any worries and efforts, somehow imperceptibly, grace, elegance, dexterity, a clear gleam in her eyes came to her. In her last winter, Olya, as they said about her in the gymnasium, completely "went crazy with fun." She seemed the most carefree, the happiest."
But now, in the office of the head of the gymnasium, Olya has to make excuses for her beauty and reckless fun: “It’s not my fault, madame, that I have good hair!” "Ah, that's how it is, you're not to blame! the headmistress said. “You are not to blame for the hair, these expensive combs!”
This is how beauty is blamed. A month later, the verdict followed: "... a Cossack officer, ugly and plebeian in appearance ... shot her (Olya) on the platform of the station, among a large crowd of people ..." A page from Olya's diary, which the Cossack officer presented to the judicial investigator as his justification, makes this death even more ridiculous, inexplicable. One cannot seriously consider the fact that a beautiful young schoolgirl deceived a Cossack officer, who was three times her age, carried away by her beauty, as a basis for murder.
It remains to be recognized that the reason lies in her beauty, in her light breath, which "now dissipated in the world, in this cloudy sky, in this cold spring wind." material from the site
In Bunin's stories, everything that makes the world alive is doomed to death: youth, love, strength and beauty. The revolution of 1917 was for Bunin the victory of chaos, formlessness and ugliness. He perceived it as an irreparable loss of beauty, structure, harmony, harmony. In “Cursed Days”, written by Bunin in the first post-revolutionary years, the same anxiety about the fate of beauty and youth in Russia sounds: “Again it smells like wet snow. The schoolgirls are walking, plastered with it - beauty and joy ... blue eyes from under the fur muff raised to their face ... What awaits this youth?
The story "Easy breathing" is one of the most complex and philosophically filled works of I.A. Bunin. A rather simple story from the life of an ordinary schoolgirl opens up before the reader, but it is she who makes one think about many pressing issues not only of modernity, but also of being.
“Easy breathing” in terms of genre features refers to a short story that sets itself the task of showing not only the fate of its hero through a unique and specific event, but also recreating a picture of the life of the whole society, including its vices and delusions.
The composition of the story is complex and unusual. Reverse storytelling is taken as a basis. At the beginning of the work, the reader learns that the main character Olya Meshcherskaya is dead, and then he gets acquainted with her and the story of her life, already realizing that she will be tragic.
Analysis of Bunin's work "Easy breathing"
Compositional shifts and contrasts occur throughout the story. First, there is a narration from the present (the grave of a girl), which proceeds to the events of the past (a description of life in the gymnasium). Then the reader returns to a time close to the present - Olya's death and the investigation of the officer who committed the murder. After that, the narration again moves to the past, talking about the vulgar connection between the girl and Malyutin. Here again the present is described: a classy lady on the way to the cemetery where the heroine is buried. The work ends with another reference to the past - the dialogue of Ole Meshcherskaya with her friend and her reflections on the “light breathing” of a woman.
In each episode, which tells about the stage of Meshcherskaya's life (growing up, moral decline and death), the author turns to various forms: narration, portrait, speech of characters, landscape sketches, diary entries and author's remarks.
The time of the work is constantly interrupted or stopped, and the reader restores the chronology of what happened. The narrative is blurry, but thanks to this, reading the novel not only arouses interest, but also gives new meanings, gives an answer to the main question: “Why is Olya’s fate so tragic?”
Everyone is to blame for what happened. This is also a cool lady who could not establish communication with her student, give her advice and become a mentor. Naturally, this is Malyutin, who seduced and seduced Olya. There is also a share of guilt on the shoulders of the girl's parents, about whom there is little mention in the story. Were they not obliged to protect their daughter from frivolity and at least not to make friends with a man like Malyutin.
The tragic outcome was also predetermined by Ole Meshcherskaya's attitude to life. Man is also responsible for his fate and what happens to him. I.A. Bunin speaks about this in his work very clearly.
Characteristics of the main characters of the story "Easy breathing"
Olya Meshcherskaya is the main character of the story. She is the daughter of wealthy parents. Best of all dances at balls and skates. The girl differs from her peers in beauty and femininity: early "began to flourish, develop by leaps and bounds", and "at fifteen she was already known as a beauty." Olya is opposed to other high school students with her attitude to life. If others combed their hair carefully, were very clean, “followed their restrained movements”, then the heroine of the story was not afraid of “neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair.”
Her image intertwines childish naivete, sincerity, simplicity with unprecedented femininity and beauty. Such a disastrous combination caused envy, jealousy, the appearance of a thousand rumors that she is windy, incapable of loving, and brings her loved one to suicide with her behavior. However, the author makes it clear that these opinions of people about Olga Meshcherskaya are groundless. Her beauty and originality attracts not only young people, but also evil with a fatal outcome.
Children who feel in her a good person are drawn to the heroine. The narrator constantly mentions Olya only in the context of beautiful landscapes and harmonious places. When she skates, it's a fine pink evening outside. When a girl is out for a walk, the sun shines "through the whole wet garden." All this indicates the author's sympathy for his character.
Olga is always drawn to the beautiful, the perfect. She is not satisfied with the philistine attitude towards herself and life. However, it is precisely this position of the main character, together with her originality and spiritual subtlety, that predetermines the tragic outcome. How could it be otherwise? No. Olya Meshcherskaya is opposed to the whole world, her actions are unconscious, and her behavior does not depend on modern norms and rules accepted in society.
The rest of the characters, including the cool lady, Malyutina, Olya's friend and other environment, are introduced by the author only in order to emphasize the heroine's individuality, her unusualness and originality.
The main idea of the story "Easy breathing"
Researchers have long come to the conclusion that it is not so much the external as the internal plot, filled with psychological, poetic and philosophical meanings, that helps to understand the author's intention.
The heroine of the story is frivolous, but in a good sense of the word. Unconsciously, she is subjected to a love affair with Malyutin, a friend of her father. But is it really the fault of a girl who believed an adult who spoke about feelings for her, who, as it turned out, showed ostentatious kindness and seemed like a real gentleman?
Olya Meshcherskaya is not like all the other characters, she is opposed to them and at the same time lonely. The episode of the fall and relations with Malyutin only aggravated the internal conflict and protest of the heroine.
Main character's motives
A number of researchers believe that the heroine herself was looking for death. She specifically handed over a sheet from the diary to an officer who found out about the vicious connection of his beloved and was so upset that he shot the girl. Thus, Olga escaped from the vicious circle.
Other literary scholars believe that one mistake, i.e. a vicious connection with Malyutin did not make the girl think about what had happened. As a result, Olga started a relationship with an officer who had "exactly nothing to do with the circle to which she belonged", having made the second in a row and already a fatal mistake.
Consider the episode of farewell to the officer at the station from a different angle. Olga gave him the most valuable and intimate - a sheet with a diary entry. What if she loved her future killer and decided to tell the bitter truth about what happened to her. True, the officer took this not as a confession, but as a mockery, a deception of the one who "sworn to be his wife."
"Easy breathing", as the researchers rightly believe, is one of Bunin's most enchanting and mysterious stories. His brilliant analysis was proposed by the famous psychologist dealing with the problems of artistic creativity, L. S. Vygotsky. The researcher began the analysis of the story with the title, which, in his opinion, is a kind of dominant of the narrative and "determines the entire construction of the story." As the researcher notes, “this is not a story about Olya Meshcherskaya, but about easy breathing; its main feature is that feeling of liberation, lightness, detachment and perfect transparency of life, which cannot be deduced from the very events that underlie it.
These thoughts were expressed by L. Vygotsky in 1965 in the book "Psychology of Art". Even now, after almost half a century, they cause serious controversy. Firstly, researchers largely disagree with such an unambiguous interpretation of the title of the story, rightly believing that in the text “light breathing” serves as a designation for one of the components of female beauty (“I ... read what beauty a woman should have.”) Of course, even the adoption of such a code of beauty speaks of the mental inferiority of the heroine. However, in the story there is no moral judgment on Olya Meshcherskaya: the passionate love of life of the main character is very to the liking of the narrator. He also likes the harmony that reigns in the soul of the heroine when she feels her unity with the world, with nature, with her own soul.
"To be extremely alive means to be extremely doomed," the modern literary critic S. Vaiman once remarked. "Such is the terrifying truth of Bunin's worldview." As can be seen, the above comments only develop certain points put forward by L. S. Vygotsky. Actually, the differences between him and modern researchers begin when it comes to the reasons for the failed life of Olya Meshcherskaya. Vygotsky’s opponents tend to see them in the lack of spirituality of existence, in the absence of moral and ethical standards, and cite as evidence a conversation in the boss’s office, a story with a Cossack officer, and the most eye-catching story is the story of a classy lady who at first wanted to devote herself to her brother, “an unremarkable ensign” , then she imagined herself to be an "ideological worker" and, finally, found herself in a frenzied service to the memory of her pupil.
Features of the composition of the story "Easy breathing"
One of the researchers rightly noted that the originality of the composition of "Light Breath" lies in the fact that it excludes any interest in the plot as such. Indeed, the narrative begins with the finale of Olya Meshcherskaya's life, with a description of her grave, and ends essentially the same. The narrator transfers the action of the story from the past to the present, mixing two narrative planes, introducing extracts from the diary of Olya Meshcherskaya into the fabric of the literary text, building separate fragments of the text in contrast: the present - the past, the cheerful - the sad, the living - the dead. The story begins as an epitaph, “an epitaph to girlish beauty,” according to the apt expression of K. G. Paustovsky. Joyless pictures of wretched provincial life flash before the eyes of readers, like frames of a chronicle, a few heroes appear and disappear, and gradually a different world arises on the pages of the work, a world hostile to beauty, and there arises “a story about something completely different: about the doom of beauty and youth to death. "(Yu. Maltsev).
The story "Easy breathing" is one of the most complex and philosophically filled works of I.A. Bunin. A rather simple story from the life of an ordinary schoolgirl opens up before the reader, but it is she who makes one think about many pressing issues not only of modernity, but also of being.
“Easy breathing” in terms of genre features refers to a short story that sets itself the task of showing not only the fate of its hero through a unique and specific event, but also recreating a picture of the life of the whole society, including its vices and delusions.
The composition of the story is complex and unusual. Reverse storytelling is taken as a basis. At the beginning of the work, the reader learns that the main character Olya Meshcherskaya is dead, and then he gets acquainted with her and the story of her life, already realizing that she will be tragic.
Analysis of Bunin's work "Easy breathing"
Compositional shifts and contrasts occur throughout the story. First, there is a narration from the present (the grave of a girl), which proceeds to the events of the past (a description of life in the gymnasium). Then the reader returns to a time close to the present - Olya's death and the investigation of the officer who committed the murder. After that, the narration again moves to the past, talking about the vulgar connection between the girl and Malyutin. Here again the present is described: a classy lady on the way to the cemetery where the heroine is buried. The work ends with another reference to the past - the dialogue of Ole Meshcherskaya with her friend and her reflections on the “light breathing” of a woman.
In each episode, which tells about the stage of Meshcherskaya's life (growing up, moral decline and death), the author turns to various forms: narration, portrait, speech of characters, landscape sketches, diary entries and author's remarks.
The time of the work is constantly interrupted or stopped, and the reader restores the chronology of what happened. The narrative is blurry, but thanks to this, reading the novel not only arouses interest, but also gives new meanings, gives an answer to the main question: “Why is Olya’s fate so tragic?”
Everyone is to blame for what happened. This is also a cool lady who could not establish communication with her student, give her advice and become a mentor. Naturally, this is Malyutin, who seduced and seduced Olya. There is also a share of guilt on the shoulders of the girl's parents, about whom there is little mention in the story. Were they not obliged to protect their daughter from frivolity and at least not to make friends with a man like Malyutin.
The tragic outcome was also predetermined by Ole Meshcherskaya's attitude to life. Man is also responsible for his fate and what happens to him. I.A. Bunin speaks about this in his work very clearly.
Characteristics of the main characters of the story "Easy breathing"
Olya Meshcherskaya is the main character of the story. She is the daughter of wealthy parents. Best of all dances at balls and skates. The girl differs from her peers in beauty and femininity: early "began to flourish, develop by leaps and bounds", and "at fifteen she was already known as a beauty." Olya is opposed to other high school students with her attitude to life. If others combed their hair carefully, were very clean, “followed their restrained movements”, then the heroine of the story was not afraid of “neither ink stains on her fingers, nor a flushed face, nor disheveled hair.”
Her image intertwines childish naivete, sincerity, simplicity with unprecedented femininity and beauty. Such a disastrous combination caused envy, jealousy, the appearance of a thousand rumors that she is windy, incapable of loving, and brings her loved one to suicide with her behavior. However, the author makes it clear that these opinions of people about Olga Meshcherskaya are groundless. Her beauty and originality attracts not only young people, but also evil with a fatal outcome.
Children who feel in her a good person are drawn to the heroine. The narrator constantly mentions Olya only in the context of beautiful landscapes and harmonious places. When she skates, it's a fine pink evening outside. When a girl is out for a walk, the sun shines "through the whole wet garden." All this indicates the author's sympathy for his character.
Olga is always drawn to the beautiful, the perfect. She is not satisfied with the philistine attitude towards herself and life. However, it is precisely this position of the main character, together with her originality and spiritual subtlety, that predetermines the tragic outcome. How could it be otherwise? No. Olya Meshcherskaya is opposed to the whole world, her actions are unconscious, and her behavior does not depend on modern norms and rules accepted in society.
The rest of the characters, including the cool lady, Malyutina, Olya's friend and other environment, are introduced by the author only in order to emphasize the heroine's individuality, her unusualness and originality.
The main idea of the story "Easy breathing"
Researchers have long come to the conclusion that it is not so much the external as the internal plot, filled with psychological, poetic and philosophical meanings, that helps to understand the author's intention.
The heroine of the story is frivolous, but in a good sense of the word. Unconsciously, she is subjected to a love affair with Malyutin, a friend of her father. But is it really the fault of a girl who believed an adult who spoke about feelings for her, who, as it turned out, showed ostentatious kindness and seemed like a real gentleman?
Olya Meshcherskaya is not like all the other characters, she is opposed to them and at the same time lonely. The episode of the fall and relations with Malyutin only aggravated the internal conflict and protest of the heroine.
Main character's motives
A number of researchers believe that the heroine herself was looking for death. She specifically handed over a sheet from the diary to an officer who found out about the vicious connection of his beloved and was so upset that he shot the girl. Thus, Olga escaped from the vicious circle.
Other literary scholars believe that one mistake, i.e. a vicious connection with Malyutin did not make the girl think about what had happened. As a result, Olga started a relationship with an officer who had "exactly nothing to do with the circle to which she belonged", having made the second in a row and already a fatal mistake.
Consider the episode of farewell to the officer at the station from a different angle. Olga gave him the most valuable and intimate - a sheet with a diary entry. What if she loved her future killer and decided to tell the bitter truth about what happened to her. True, the officer took this not as a confession, but as a mockery, a deception of the one who "sworn to be his wife."
