Анна Петровна Бунина
The first Russian female writer to make a living exclusively from literary work
Anna Petrovna Bunina was the first Russian writer to live exclusively from literary work, that is, the first professional female writer in Russia. Poet and translator, she was nicknamed by her contemporaries Russian Sappho, Tenth Muse and Corina of the North.
For
intellectuals and instructors around the world, Russian Literature has always
been a centerpiece of intense study and debate. However, Anna Petrovna's name
is rarely listed among Russian literary greats, not because she does not
deserve high recognition. The fact that she was related to Ivan Bunin, winner
of the Nobel Prize in 1933, did not help much.
However,
she deserves to be celebrated with the same acclaim as her most outstanding
peers. Disciplined, resilient, intelligent, practical, and talented, Bunina
ultimately prevailed in her literary work against all odds.
At
a time when society preferred the passionate dramas of opera and theatre, the
prolonged escapism of novels or the daring of writers such as Lord Byron, an influential name in
British Romanticism, Bunina distinguished herself by exercising her craft
through poetry and poetry and life considered productive and peaceful.
The
circumstances in which she was born shaped her adult life. Her mother died
during childbirth, leaving the baby in the village of Urusovo, located in Ryazan,
a rural district 200 km southeast of Moscow. Barely inhabited, the village
provided space, solitude and natural beauty for an imaginative mind like hers
to flourish.
Her
aunt raised Anna, but she also lived with other relatives, jumping from house
to house. Her educational level in reading, writing and performing the four
arithmetic operations was, at the time, considered more than enough for a girl.
As a girl, she could not practice any kind of profession.
Their
caregivers did not consider their education a priority, although there were
exceptions. Anna was very good at embroidering and weaving lace, but if she
wanted to learn foreign languages, music or singing, she would have to move to
the capitals. Despite this, she began writing poetry at age thirteen. His first
published work was the prose fragment Lyubov (Love), in the magazine Ippokrena,
1799, n. 4.
Immersion in studies in Saint Petersburg
Anna
Petrovna's father died in 1802 and left an income of 600 rubles as an
inheritance. It was not much, but it freed her from living in other people's
houses and being treated as a "poor relative". In the same year, she
went to visit her brother, a naval officer, in St. Petersburg, Russia's great
cultural center. With the resources left by her father, she decided to live in
the capital, in an apartment on Vassiliev Island.
In
St. Petersburg, she established the closest thing a woman of the time could
have to a university experience. She set up a house, hired a series of private
tutors, and began a rigorous study regime. She studied physics, mathematics,
French, German, English and especially Russian Literature. As a result, she
acquired a much more sophisticated writing style.
Debts and first poems
In
less than two years, the cost of living in St. Petersburg consumed Bunina's
inheritance. She was getting into debts and could not pay them. To help her,
her brother introduced her to the town's literati, to whom Anna showed her
works.
Her
first poems began to appear in print in 1806. In 1809, she published her first
poetic anthology Neopytnaia muza (Inexperienced Muse). The work was well
received by the public and was presented to Empress Elizaveta Alekseieva, who
excitedly granted Anna an annual pension of four hundred rubles.
The
anthology has also won approval from masters of Russian Literature, including
Derjavin, Dmitriev, Krylov, creators of the literary group Conference of Lovers
of the Russian Word (Беседа любителей русского слова). In 1811, during the
conference of the literary group, Krylov read aloud the heroic-comic poem
Padenie Phaetona (The Fall of Phaethon), by Anna Bunina, based on one of the
plots of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
These
writers named her an honorary member of the group. Unfortunately, this was an
empty gesture because, for the conservative society of the time, a woman
performing on a public stage, whether as an actress, an opera singer or even a
political speech presenter, made her morally detached. Even more so for a
respectable woman whom the royal family was financing.
In
1814, reacting to the terrible events, she offered the emperor the hymn Pesn
Aleksandru Velikomu, pobediteliu Napoleona i vosstanoviteliu tsarstv (Song to
the great Alexander, victorious over Napoleon and restorer of kingdoms).
Style of her works
Called
by many the Russian Sappho (in part because of her passion for ancient poetry,
whose style Bunina often imitated), the poet left so many poems of
philosophical meditations and hymns in praise of the "deeds of
husbands" killed at the Battle of Borodino, as well as personal, intimate
and feeling-laden lyrical poetry.
She
drew inspiration from Greek and Roman poets, especially Sappho and Ovid,
writing philosophical meditations and hymns of praise to heroes killed on
battlefields, such as the poem in honor of Captain Rostislav Ivanovitch
Zakharov.
She
also wrote personal, intimate, and emotionally charged lyric poems that carried
her name to posterity. The poet and writer Evgueni Evtushenko (1932 – 2017)
dedicated the poem Anna First (Анна Первая) to her, in which he highlights the
poet’s pioneering spirit on the female front of Russian Literature – even
though Anna was not, in fact, the first female writer Russian and yes the first
to be successful.
Anna
is recognized for having used themes that are more diverse, styles, and a wider
metric range in her works than earlier Russian female poets are. Her poems
include original and striking observations about women's experiences,
especially their conflicts with men.
This
did not stop prominent elements of Russian literary society at the time from
attacking her and her writings, limiting her influence on future poets.
An orchestrated smear campaign
Bunina's
sharp decline among the literary elite of the time can largely be attributed to
a vicious smear campaign led by Alexander Pushkin and the conservative Arzamas
Society. Although Pushkin's novels and plays are notable landmarks in Russian Literature, as a person he was despicable when he cruelly mocked Bunina in
correspondence with friends.
The
detailed criticism of Bunina's works, considered by him as trivial and very
simple, led to the poet's fall from grace. The style, which she had worked so
hard to develop, was no longer in vogue.
Predictably, Anna was also mocked for never having married. Dedication to her studies had been her great love and her reason for facing life so hard. Selfish and misogynistic, these men did not understand – or did not want to understand – the trials of women who wanted to live and fulfill like them.
Career and Main Publications
This,
for Anna, was a godsend as most of her inheritance had been drained to pay her
guardians' salaries and her own expenses. An almost bohemian lifestyle in the
bustling metropolis of St. Petersburg did not come cheap, even with Bunina's
careful budget and simple tastes. Meanwhile, Anna socialized with the
fascinating literary circle of Admiral and writer Alexander Shishkov, her
patron and supporter, and fellow poet Gavrila Derzhavin.
Literary works
French
translations:
- Rules of Poetry by Charles Batteux.
- Poetic art – by Nicolas Boileau.
Poems
and Prose:
- Safistic poems
- Imitation of the Lesbos poet
- Rural nights
- Song to Aleksandr
- The great, victorious over Napoleon and restorer of kingdoms
Cancer, lifetime pension and period of suffering
Anna
spent the last five years of her life between Moscow and the village of Ryajsk.
During this period, even lying down was uncomfortable for her. Therefore, she
spent most of her time on her knees. She is said to have read the Bible a lot
in her final weeks. One of her last poems, To the Loved Ones (К ближным), talks
about this period of suffering.
According
to the testimony of contemporaries, his letters (which have not been preserved)
were reminiscent of Nikolai Karamzin's Letters of a Russian Traveller, for the
depth and sharpness of the observations and the general sentimental tone.
Anna Petrovna Bunina died at the end of 1829 and was buried in the village of Urusovo, located in Ryazan. A monument was erected over her grave by her godson, grandson of her sister Maria, traveler Pyotr Petrovitch Semyonov-Tian-Shansky and niece Nadezhda Ivanovna Bunina.
Used and suggested links