Class- 11
Lesson Objectives:
- to acquaint students with the life and work of I.A. Bunin, the book “Dark Alleys”;
- analyze the story “Clean Monday”: reveal the problem of love, find out the reasons for the tragic fate of the heroes;
- to acquaint with the spiritual heritage of Russia;
- develop the skills of analytical reading of an epic work, the ability to draw micro-conclusions and, with their help, a general conclusion; develop critical thinking, stage abilities;
- to cultivate spiritual culture, responsibility for one's actions and the fate of the country;
- to carry out interdisciplinary connections - to draw a parallel: literature-painting, music, religion.
Equipment: exhibition “Who wants to know Russia, visit Moscow”, portrait of I.A. Bunin, music by L.-V. Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", Verdi's opera "Aida", "Red Ringing" of bells, candles, texts of the work and prayer by E. Sirin, Kustodiev's painting "Maslenitsa", magazine "LSh" - No. 2, 3, 1996, No. 3 , 1997, projector.
During the classes
I. Org. moment.
II. Preparation for the main stage.
Teacher's word.
Today we will get acquainted with the work of I.A. Bunin; let's find out what problems the author touches on in the story “Clean Monday” and how the characters solve them.
III. Assimilation of new knowledge and ways of action.
1. Presentation about I.A. Bunin. Speech by the student.
2. Reading the epigraph.
Is there an unhappy love?
Doesn't the mournful music in the world give happiness?
Every love is a great happiness,
even if it is not divided.
I. Bunin
3. Analysis of the epigraph. Teacher's word.
In these words - the meaning of the entire book "Dark Alleys". It can be called an encyclopedia of love dramas, a book of 38 love stories created during the years of World War II (1937-1944). I. Bunin in 1947 I appreciated my work this way: “She talks about the tragic and about a lot of tender and beautiful things - I think that this is the best and most original thing that I wrote in my life ...”
Bunin's love strikes not only with the power of artistic representation, but also with its subordination to some internal, unknown laws. It's a secret. And not everyone, in his opinion, is given to touch it. The state of love is not fruitless for the writer's heroes, it elevates their souls. However, love is not only happiness, but also a tragedy. It cannot end in marriage. Bunin's heroes part forever.
4. The history of writing the story “Clean Monday”.
The story "Clean Monday" was written on 05/12/1944.
Why is the date of writing specific, and the events described in the work refer to 1914? 1944 In the years of difficult trials for the country, I. Bunin reminded people of love as the most beautiful feeling that exists in life. Thus, Bunin rejected fascism and glorified Russia.
5. The meaning of the title of the story.
1) The historical basis of the holiday. Reading textbook article.
Maslenitsa - Forgiveness Sunday - Great Lent - Clean Monday - Easter
2) Description of Clean Monday by I. Shmelev in the novel “Summer of the Lord”.
(Against the background of Beethoven's music)
“Today we have a Clean Monday, and everyone in our house is being cleaned ... Dripping outside the window - like crying. So she cried - drip ... drip ... drip ... And something joyful swarms in the heart: everything is new now, different. Now the soul will begin...”, “the soul must be prepared”. To eat, to fast, to prepare for the Bright Day... A special day today, strict... Yesterday was a forgiveness day... Read - "Lord - the Lord of my stomach...". The rooms are quiet and deserted, smelling of a sacred smell. In the hallway, in front of the reddish icon of the Crucifixion... they lit a Lenten... lamp, and now it will burn unquenchably until Pascha. When my father lights, - on Saturdays he himself lights the lamps - he always sings pleasantly sadly: “We bow to Your Cross, Vladyka,” and I sing after him, wonderful:
And holy ... Your Resurrection
Glory-a-wim!..
Joyful prayer! She shines with a gentle light in these sad days of Lent!”
6. Acquaintance with the Great Lenten Prayer of Ephraim the Syrian.
Ephraim the Syrian is an outstanding figure in the Christian church of the 4th century, a renowned author of many theological works.
“Lord and Master of my life, the spirit of idleness, arrogance and idle talk, do not give me. Grant the spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love to me, your servant! Yes, Lord the King, grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother, for you are blessed forever and ever. Amen".
7. Composition of the story.
The composition is consistent.
Winter at the beginning and at the end of the story is syntactic parallelism.
8. Conversation on content.
What is interesting about the plot?
What emotions did the story evoke in you?
What ending did you expect?
Why didn't your hopes come true?
How would you complete the story of this unquenched love?
Where is the action taking place?
Name the holy places of Moscow mentioned in the story. (Temple of Christ the Savior, Novodevichy Convent, Conception Monastery, Archangel Cathedral, Marfo-Mariinsky Convent) (To the sound of bells, excerpts from poems about Moscow sound)
Here, as it was, so now -
Holy heart of all Rus'.
Here stand her shrines
Behind the Kremlin wall!
(V. Bryusov)
Wonderful city, ancient city,
You fit into your ends
And towns and villages,
And chambers and palaces!
Belted with a ribbon of arable land,
You are full of colors in the gardens:
How many temples, how many towers
On your seven hills!
Prosper with eternal glory,
City of temples and chambers!
City of the middle, city of the heart,
Indigenous Russia hail!
(F. Glinka)
“Here is the Russia that we lost,” I. Shmelev laments. And I. Bunin echoes him.
The story is built on contrasts.
Artistic detail plays a huge role. This is a color.
| black | yellow | red |
| Black hair | Shoes with gold clasps | pomegranate shoes |
| Black as coal eyes | golden dome | Garnet velvet dress |
| tar bangs | golden brocade | Brick and bloody walls of the monastery |
| Dark eyes | sunset golden enamel | red gate |
| Charcoal velvet eyes | Amber of bare hands | |
| Black board icons | Golden cross on the forehead | |
| Black kid glove | amber face | |
| Black felt boots ChangeClear | Book “Fiery Angel” | |
| Black velvet dress | Yellow-haired Rus | |
| Black shiny pigtails | Amber cheeks | |
| Smolny hair | fire pancakes | |
| indian persian beauty | Iconostasis Gold | |
| Eyebrows like black sable fur | ||
| Black leather sofa |
What is their function?
Yellow and red are the traditional colors of iconography.
Yellow symbolizes the Kingdom of Heaven.
Red - fire, i.e. life.
Black - humility, humility.
What does SHE do?
(Listening to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata)
The theme of “Moonlight Sonata” is IT.
He is the theme of the march from Aida. Prove it.
(Listening to Verdi's music)
“... all human life is under the power of a woman,” Maupassant remarked.
Let's listen to their dialogue.
(There are two armchairs nearby. She reads silently.)
She: - You are terribly talkative and restless, let me finish reading the chapter.
He: - If I had not been talkative and restless, perhaps I would never have recognized you.
She: - Everything is so, but still be silent for a while, read something, smoke ...
He: - I can not be silent! You can't imagine the power of my love for you! You don't love me!
She: - I represent. As for my love, you know very well, apart from my father and you, I have no one in the world. In any case, you are my first and last. Is this not enough for you? But enough about that.
He (to himself): -Strange love.
She : - I'm not fit for a wife. I'm not good, I'm not good.
He (to himself): -We'll see!
(out loud) No, this is beyond me! And why, why do you torture me and yourself so cruelly! “Yeah, it’s not love, it’s not love…”
She: - May be. Who knows what love is?
He : - I, I know! (exclaimed) And I will wait until you know what love, happiness is!
What do his internal remarks say?
Do you think they loved each other? Prove it.
Did he recognize her? Why?
And again the whole evening they talked about strangers.
This is how January and February passed... Maslenitsa.
On Forgiveness Sunday, she ordered him to come in the evening.
What is this day?
He arrived. She met him, all in black.
Read their dialogue. (Reading dialogue)
Why does she want to go to a convent?
Why didn't he know about her religiosity? What was blinded by?
(Sounds like "Moonlight Sonata")
At 10 o'clock On the evening of the next day (it was Clean Monday), he opened the door with his key. Everything was lit: chandeliers, candelabra, a lamp...and the Moonlight Sonata sounded. She was standing near the piano in a black velvet dress.
They went to the "kapustnik".
What is this entertainment?
How did she behave? Why cheeky? What is the strangeness of her character?
What was the weather like that evening? (Blizzard)
What role does the blizzard play?
Why, after the “skit”, did she leave him with her, which she had not done before?
Why did she take off all the black and remain in the same swan shoes?
What role does white play?
Why, when he left her, the blizzard was gone?
Why is she leaving for Tver?
What letter did she write? Read.
Why did she go to a convent?
Why was he not surprised by this finale of their meetings? (Did not look into the soul)
Read the end of the story.
When it was?
What brought him to the monastery?
What did he understand?
Why did he turn and quietly walk out of the gate?
Why is the story being told in 1st person?
IV. Systematization and generalization of knowledge.
Lesson conclusions.
Any true love is a great happiness, even if it ends in separation, death, tragedy. To such a conclusion, albeit late, Bunin's heroes come, who have lost, overlooked or destroyed their love themselves. In this late repentance, late spiritual resurrection of heroes, we see real people, their imperfection, inability to value what is nearby, and we also see the imperfection of life itself, social conditions, circumstances that often prevent truly human relationships.
The story, which tells about tragic collisions, does not carry pessimism. He, like music, like any great art, purifies, elevates the soul, affirming the truly high, beautiful.
V. Summing up the lesson.
VI. Reflection.
VII. Information about homework.
How would you complete the story? Write a love story.
Bibliographic description:
Nesterova I.A. The theme of Motherland and love in Bunin's story Clean Monday [Electronic resource] // Educational encyclopedia site
Comparison of the theme of Motherland and love in the work "Clean Monday".
The story was written by Bunin in 1944. At that time, the author was worried about the Motherland. "Clean Monday" is not just a story of failed love, it is also pain, the author's sadness for his homeland.
In the work "Clean Monday" the names of the characters are not called.
The center of the composition of the work, as the focus of all the thoughts and feelings of the narrator, is She.
Since for Bunin the people of the East seemed less corrupted, She was unusual:
There was some kind of Indian, Persian beauty: a swarthy-amber face ... black, like velvet coal, eyes ...
It is inextricably linked with Russia, with its past and with its present. The lessons of history, the use of quotations from Russian classics in speech emphasizes this. She aspired to learn Russian art, She visited theaters, She visited Griboyedov's house. She is the center of the composition, not just because she is connected with Russia, but also because she combines the western and eastern beginnings at the same time.
Bunin revered religion, because it was not in vain that the denouement of a love story happened on a clean Monday, after a forgiven Sunday. Since for Bunin She personified Russia, the events take place in 1912. It can be assumed that the heroine is Russia full of contradictions on the eve of the revolution. The main character never understood her. In her soul, however, the patriarchal, primordially Russian has overpowered, and this decides the fate of the heroine: she is saved from an unclean life in a monastery.
In his story, Bunin used his characteristic technique - memory. Here we learn about the love, fall and return to life of the narrator, but it was not a complete return: "... began to gradually recover - indifferent, hopeless." But love for her lived in his heart, probably until the end of his life.
Bunin, with his story, expressed hope for the power of his spiritual life, his "unquenchable" fire - a thirst for spiritual purity, faith and sacrificial deed.
Bunin connects the future of Russia not with the revolution and any social upheavals, but with the power of the spiritual roots of the people, thirsting for the purity of faith and sacrificial feat.
The world of falsehood, violence, greed is doomed to death. Salvation is in rapprochement with the outside world, in the naturalness of thoughts, feelings and actions.
Dark alleys - love is always tragic. The reasons may be different, but always so powerful that they separate the lovers. If there are no social or personal reasons, then fate intervenes.
Even unrequited love will be tragic according to Bunin. This, in his opinion, is the highest manifestation of the human spirit, and for this reason alone it is beautiful and illuminates the whole life of a person with its amazing light.
The story "Clean Monday", written in 1944, is one of the author's favorite stories. I.A. Bunin recounts the events of the distant past on behalf of the narrator - a young wealthy man without much work. The hero is in love, and the heroine, as he sees her, makes a strange impression on the reader. She is pretty, loves luxury, comfort, expensive restaurants, and at the same time she walks around as a “modest student girl”, has breakfast in a vegetarian canteen on the Arbat. She has a very critical attitude towards many fashionable works of literature, famous people. And she is clearly not in love with the hero the way he would like it to be. To his marriage proposal, she replies that she is not fit to be a wife. "Odd love!" - the hero thinks about it. The inner world of the heroine is revealed completely unexpectedly for him: it turns out that she often visits churches, is deeply passionate about religion, church rites. For her, this is not just religiosity - this is the need of her soul, her sense of homeland, antiquity, which are internally necessary for the heroine. The hero believes that these are just “Moscow whims”, he cannot understand her and is deeply shocked by her choice when, after their only night of love, she decides to leave and then go to a monastery. For him, the collapse of love is the catastrophe of a lifetime, an unthinkable suffering. For her, the power of faith, the preservation of her inner world turned out to be higher than love, she decides to devote herself to God, renouncing everything worldly. The author does not reveal the reasons for her moral choice, which influenced her decision - social circumstances or moral and religious quests, but he clearly shows that the life of the soul is not subject to reason. This is especially emphasized in the episode of the last meeting of the heroes in the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent. The heroes not only see how much they feel each other, they do not control their feelings: the hero “for some reason” wanted to enter the temple, the heroine internally feels her presence. This mystery, the mystery of human sensations is one of the essential properties of love in the image of Bunin, a tragic and powerful force that can turn a person's whole life upside down.
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/ / / The theme of love in Bunin's story "Clean Monday"
One of the most frequent themes raised in Russian and world literature is the theme of love. The theme of the relationship between a man and a woman, the theme of their feelings and emotional experiences. Many writers and poets wrote about love, and each in his own way tried to show and explain this multifaceted feeling. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was no exception and also shared with us his thoughts on this issue.
The love work of the author is reflected in the collection "Dark Alleys". This collection consists of 38 stories dedicated to the theme of love. Each of the presented stories is original in its own way. When reading them, we will not meet two identical stories, but after reading them all, we understand that the theme of love is so diverse and many-sided that you can write about it forever.
The story "" reveals to us the love story of two people. Bunin does not name them, simply saying - He and She. The heroes of this work were young people who lived in abundance and prosperity. They had everything you want. They dined in restaurants, attended theaters, secular evenings, were in the center of everyone's attention and admiration. But with such external similarity and unity, the main characters of the story differed from each other in their inner world.
He was "blind" to his beloved. Every day he tried to please her, inviting her to restaurants, to social evenings, to the theater. On weekends, He spoiled her with "fresh" flowers, sweets, and new literature. He was blinded by his feelings for her. Feelings of love did not allow him to look into her inner world, to understand its versatility. She remained a mystery to him. He was more than once at a loss from her behavior, from their relationship, never once trying to figure it out. About their relationship, he once said: "Strange love!". He is surprised by her behavior in moments of intimacy, he does not understand why she constantly rejects talk about their future.
Bunin does not endow his hero with the depth of emotional experiences that he gives to his heroine. She indifferently accepts all gifts, visits entertainment establishments. One day, She decides to declare that she wants to visit the Novodevichy Convent, because the restaurants are already extremely tired. The main character does not understand such thoughts and conversations of his beloved. It turns out that He does not know her at all. Her hobbies for Russian legends, Russian chronicles become a real discovery for him. In her free time from entertainment events, She goes to the Kremlin cathedrals. But all these stories are alien to him, it is important for him to be close to his beloved and enjoy every minute spent with her.
Bunin's love lyrics are characterized by the fact that the author does not show us the further development of the love relationship between two people. They do not end in a happy marriage, a strong family. The main character of "Clean Monday", having shared a bed with the main character, left without saying a word. She sent him a letter asking him not to look for her and said that she had gone to a monastery. For a long time she could not make a choice between pleasure and harmony. And only Pure Monday finally predetermined the choice of the main character and became decisive in their relationship.
In Clean Monday, Bunin showed us love as a feeling, as a test, as a great mystery of the universe.
The fate of the hero in "Clean Monday" is pushed aside, as if covered by something more significant, which breathed upon us from the fate of the heroine. We clearly felt that it was not without reason and not by chance that Bunin prepared such an unexpected finale for stories about love - renunciation of "worldly" affairs and departure to the monastery. And one more feature is striking when getting acquainted with this Bunin's masterpiece - the complete absence of fictitious names. Not names in general, and not the names of the main characters only, which is typical of most love stories, namely fictitious names, which cannot but give the impression of a kind of demonstrativeness. There is only one fictitious name in the story - the name of an episodic person, Fyodor, the coachman of the protagonist. All other names belong to real persons.
These are either the authors of fashionable works (Hoffmansthal, Schnitzler, Tetmayer, Pshibyshevsky); or fashionable Russian writers of the beginning of the century (A. Bely, Leonid Andreev, Bryusov); or genuine figures of the Art Theater (Stanislavsky, Moskvin, Kachalov, Sulerzhitsky); or Russian writers of the last century (Griboyedov, Ertel, Chekhov, L. Tolstoy); or heroes of ancient Russian literature (Peresvet and Oslyabya, Yuri Dolgoruky, Svyatoslav Seversky, Pavel Muromsky); the characters of "War and Peace" are mentioned in the story - Platon Karataev and Pierre Bezukhov; once the name of Chaliapin is mentioned; the true name of the owner of the tavern in Okhotny Ryad Egorov was named.
In such an environment, deliberately nameless heroes act, pushed into a certain chronological frame. At the end of the story, Bunin even accurately indicates the year in which the action takes place, although the chronological discrepancy between the facts mentioned in the story is immediately evident (obviously, chronological accuracy was the last thing he was interested in). Bunin calls the time of the action of his story the spring of the thirteenth year? coming to the end of the story, the hero remarks as if by chance: "Almost two years have passed since that clean Monday ... In the fourteenth year, on New Year's Eve, there was the same quiet, sunny evening ..." Pure Monday is the first Monday after Shrovetide , therefore, the action takes place in early spring (end of February - March).
The last day of Shrovetide is "forgiveness Sunday", on which people "forgive" each other insults, injustices, etc. Then comes "pure Monday" - the first day of fasting, when a person, cleansed of filth, enters the performance of rites, when the Maslenitsa festivities end and the fun is replaced by the strictness of the life routine and self-concentration. On this day, the heroine of the story finally decided to go to the monastery, parting with her past forever. But these are all spring rituals. Counting "almost two years" back from the end of 1914, we will get the spring of 1913.
The story was written exactly thirty years after the events described, in 1944, a year before the end of World War II. Obviously, according to Bunin, Russia has again found itself at some important historical milestone, and he is preoccupied with the thought of what now awaits his homeland on its way. He turns back, trying within the boundaries of a short story to reproduce not only the diversity, but the diversity and "restlessness" of Russian life, the general feeling of an impending catastrophe. He combines facts, separated in reality by several years, in order to further strengthen the impression of the diversity of Russian life at that time, the diversity of faces and people who did not suspect what a great test history was preparing for them.
1913 is the last pre-war year in Russia. This year is chosen by Bunin as the time of the story, despite its obvious discrepancy with the details of the described Moscow life. In the minds of the people of that era who survived it, this year has generally grown into a historical milestone of great importance. Standing at the window in the heroine's apartment, the hero reflects on Moscow, looking at the opening view, the central part of which is the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Kremlin wall: "A strange city! - I said to myself, thinking about Okhotny Ryad, about Iverskaya, about St. Basil the Blessed. - - St. Basil the Blessed and Spas-on-Boru, Italian cathedrals - and something Kyrgyz in the tips of the towers on the Kremlin walls ... "An important and telling reflection. This is a kind of result, which Bunin comes to as a result of many years of observation of the "East-Western" features of the face of Russia.
From the story "The Bonfire", written in 1902, to "Clean Monday" (1944), Bunin accompanies the idea that his homeland, Russia, is a strange but obvious combination of two layers, two cultural structures - "Western" and Eastern, European and Asian. The idea that Russia, in its external appearance, as well as in its history, is located somewhere at the intersection of these two lines of world historical development - this idea runs like a red thread through all fourteen pages of Bunin's story, which, contrary to the original impression, lies a complete historical concept, affecting the most basic moments for Bunin and the people of his era in Russian history and the character of a Russian person.
In numerous allusions and half-hints that abound in the story, Bunin emphasizes the duality, the contradictory nature of the way of Russian life, the combination of the incongruous. In the heroine’s apartment there is a “wide Turkish sofa”, next to it is an “expensive piano”, and above the sofa, the writer emphasizes, “for some reason there hung a portrait of barefoot Tolstoy”. A Turkish sofa and an expensive piano are East and West, barefoot Tolstoy is Russia, Rus' in its unusual, "clumsy" and eccentric appearance, which does not fit into any framework. The hero of the story, "being a native of the Penza province", that is, from the very heart of provincial Russia, is handsome, as he himself says about himself, "southern, hot beauty," even "indecently handsome," as "one famous actor" put it. , adding at the same time: "The devil knows who you are, some kind of Sicilian."
The Sicilian comes from the Penza province! The combination is incredible, unusual, but hardly accidental in the context of the story. Arriving in the evening on Forgiveness Sunday at Yegorov's tavern, which is famous for its pancakes, the heroine says, pointing to the icon of the Three-Handed Mother of God hanging in the corner: “Good! !" The same duality is emphasized here by Bunin: "wild men" - on the one hand, "pancakes with champagne" - on the other, and next to it - Rus', but again extraordinary, as if correlated with the appearance of the Christian Mother of God, reminiscent of the Buddhist Shiva .
Like a pendulum, the narration in "Clean Monday" deviates either towards Europe, then towards Asia, then towards the West, then towards the East, somewhere in the middle, in the very center, denoting an elusive line, line, point of Russia. Hearing the beat of the clock on the Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin, the heroine remarks: “What an ancient sound, something tin and cast iron. there it reminded me of Moscow..." And everything in Moscow is like in Europe, sometimes like in Asia, sometimes like in Italy, sometimes like in India.
How densely everything is intertwined and saturated in this story! Here every word is calculated, every insignificant detail is taken into account and carries a semantic load. Griboyedov, who was introduced into the story because he, Russian by origin, but European by education and culture, died in Asia - in Persia, at the very moment when he was busy developing a project that could connect Europe with Asia through Russia and Transcaucasia. And he died terribly, brutally murdered by a furious mob of Persians. Persia, the constantly emphasized Persian beauty of the heroine, has in the story a very special symbolic meaning of something formidable, spontaneously passionate. Then Ordynka itself, where Griboyedov's house is found, is nothing more than a former Tatar settlement (Ordynka - Horde - Horde). And, finally, the Egorova tavern in Okhotny Ryad (a purely Russian establishment!), where, however, they serve not just pancakes, but with champagne, and in the corner hangs an icon of the Virgin with three hands ...
The most significant and profound indicator of this two-sidedness (or, rather, bifurcation) of the historical process, in the power of which, according to Bunin, Russia turned out to be, is the heroine herself in the story. The duality of her appearance is so insistently emphasized by the writer that in the end the question arises: is there some hidden, not directly expressed, but perhaps the main idea of the story? The heroine's father is "an enlightened man of a noble merchant family, he lived in retirement in Tver." At home, the heroine wears a silk arkhaluk trimmed with sable: "The legacy of my Astrakhan grandmother," she explains (although, we note in brackets, no one asks her about this).
So, the father is a Tver merchant, the grandmother is from Astrakhan. Russian and Tatar blood merged in the veins of this young woman. Looking at her lips, "at the dark fluff above them, at the pomegranate velvet dress, at the slope of her shoulders and the oval of her breasts, smelling some slightly spicy smell of her hair," the hero thinks: "Moscow, Astrakhan, Persia, India!" Moreover, the distribution of shades here is such that the Russian, Tver is hidden inside, dissolved in the mental organization, while the appearance is completely given over to the power of Eastern heredity.
And the hero himself, on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted, does not tire of emphasizing that the beauty of his beloved "was some kind of Indian, Persian": "... a swarthy amber face, magnificent and somewhat sinister in its thick black hair, softly shining, like black sable fur, eyebrows, eyes as black as velvet coal; eyes captivating with velvety crimson lips were tinted with dark fluff; when leaving, she most often put on a pomegranate velvet dress and the same shoes with gold clasps ... "
This is an oriental beauty in all the splendor of her non-Russian, non-Slavic beauty. And when she "in a black velvet dress" appeared at the skit of the Art Theater and "pale with hops" Kachalov approached her with a glass of wine and, "looking at her with mock gloomy greed," said to her: "The Tsar Maiden, the Queen of Shamakhan, your health!" - we understand that it was Bunin who put into his mouth his own concept of duality: the heroine, as it were, is both a "tsar-maiden" and a "shamakhani queen". In Pushkin's "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel", which Bunin focuses on, it is said differently: "a girl, a Shamakhanskaya queen." Just "maiden" or "tsar-maiden" are two different things; in the first case, semantic and stylistic neutrality, in the second, a clear orientation towards Slavic folklore. But in Bunin's heroine, at least in her external appearance, there is nothing from the "tsar-maiden", that is, from the Russian, Slavic, folklore root.
A very important dialogue, and it is important primarily for its hidden allegoricalness. Indeed, where did Eastern wisdom come from here? After all, there is nothing specifically oriental either in the appearance of Platon Karataev, or in the content of speeches, or in the above proverb. We can consider eastern - Tatar - his surname Karataev, which is really of Tatar origin.
