Autographs Don't Burn: Letters to the Bunins, Part 1

by Vera Tsareva-Brauner

Overview

This book sprang from three handwritten lines by Ivan Bunin, Russia’s first winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Found inside a first edition of Mitya’s Love, they led to the discovery of one of the largest corpora of letters written to Ivan and Vera Bunin by two people whose lives and legacy had been, until now, forgotten. These letters are now in the Russian Archive in Leeds (RAL), and are published here for the first time. The book also focuses on memory and history in its purest form, as narrated by witnesses who lived through the most tragic century in Russian history. Their stories involve Grand Dukes, Russian literary and political giants, as well as one of the architects of the Gulag, and show how these lives intertwined. It also sheds new light on the life and works of Chekhov, Gorky, A. Tolstoy, and Bunin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781644694329
Publisher:	Academic Studies Press
Publication date:	11/03/2020
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Vera Tsareva-Brauner is a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, specializing in Russian language and translation studies. Born in St. Petersburg, she graduated from St. Petersburg State University, moving to Manchester, UK for her post-graduate studies. She edited the first full English translation of Yuri Tynyanov’s novel Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar and is currently editing a book on the challenges of translating from Slavic languages.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Archives and Libraries
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Chapter 1: The People behind the Autograph

Nikolai Karlovich Kulman
Natalia Ivanovna Bokii-Likhareva-Kulman
Nikolai and Natalia Kulman: Their Story
Gleb Bokii—The Case of Myth Creation

Chapter 2: The Exodus

Chapter 3: Note on Translation of Letters

Chapter 4: Letters of Nikolai Kulman to Ivan Bunin (1922–1935)

Chapter 5: Letters of Nikolai Kulman to Vera Bunina (1928–1938)

Chapter 6: Letters of Natalia Kulman to Ivan Bunin (1944–1952)

Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“The title of Vera Tsareva-Brauner’s book—Autographs Don’t Burn—echoes Mikhail Bulgakov’s famous line ‘Manuscripts Don’t Burn.’ Unfortunately, however, manuscripts are often lost or damaged, while autographs sometimes disappear without a trace.

The chance discovery of several books in Cambridge University Library autographed by Ivan Bunin, the first Russian Nobel Prize for Literature winner, inspired the author to undertake a journey into the lives and legacy of the addressees of Bunin’s autographs—professor Nikolai Karlovich Kulman, a prominent figure in pre-war ‘Russian Paris’, and his wife Natalia Ivanovna Kulman. By means of extensive research in various archive sources, Vera Tsareva-Brauner attempts to reconstruct the lives of two people who happened to live through the tragedy of the Russian revolution and their subsequent exile. But what makes the book interesting is that the initial discovery of the autographs uncovered a large corpus of letters between the Bunins and the Kulmans, currently part of the Russian Archive in Leeds University Library. These letters present a perfect reflection of the microcosm of two private lives, as well as the macrocosm of Russia Abroad.

It’s comforting and satisfying to know that some autographs do not burn but instead lead to new discoveries—not just into the life and works of Ivan Bunin, whose 150th anniversary of birth is widely celebrated in 2020, but also the lives of those whose names and legacy have been unjustifiably forgotten but are now brought back to life.”

—Tatiana Marchenko, Solzhenitsyn Centre for Russia Abroad Studies

Editorial Reviews

This is not an ordinary study of literary history. It starts as Tsareva-Brauner’s personal journey—beginning with her chance discovery of an autograph of writer Ivan Bunin on the inside cover of a book—and develops into a family history of Nikolai and Natalia Kulman, close friends and financial supporters of the Bunin family in Russia and France… This is a book for readers who already know and admire Bunin’s work. However, it is also a book for those interested in following the twists and turns of intellectual history as it unfolds... Highly recommended.”

–A. J. DeBlasio, Dickinson College, CHOICE

“By translating the letters of the Kulmans to the Bunins, the author of Autographs Don’t Burn: Letters to Bunins sheds light on the unknown life of Russian émigré intellectuals and their close friends who had to flee the country during the establishment of the Soviet Union and provides information on what these intellectuals went through during a very turbulent time in Russian history, as well as their life experiences and activities to preserve their culture and language in a foreign country.”

—Ayse Dietrich, International Journal of Russian Studies

From the Publisher