The Village

THIS AUTHORISED TRANSLATION HAS BEEN MADE FROM THE ORIGINAL RUSSIAN TEXT BY ISABEL HAPGOOD
THE VILLAGE
By Ivan Bunin
LONDON: MARTIN SECKER NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI
LONDON: MARTIN SECKER (LTD.) 1923

Dear Publisher:—
You have asked me to furnish you with data concerning my life and literary activities. Permit me to repeat what I have already told my French publishers in answer to a similar request.
I am a descendant of an ancient noble family which has given to Russia a considerable number of prominent names, both in the field of statesmanship and in the realm of art. In the latter, two poets are especially well-known, Anna Petrovna Bunina and Vasili Zhookovski, one of the shining lights of Russian Literature, the son of Afanasi Bunin and a Turkish captive, Salma.
All my ancestors had always been connected with the people and with the land; they were landed proprietors. My parents were also land-owners, who possessed estates in Central Asia, in the fertile fringe of the steppes, where the ancient Tsars of Moscow had created settlements of colonists from various Russian territories, to serve as protectors of their Kingdom against the incursions of the Southern Tartars. Thanks to this, it was here that the richest Russian language developed, and from here have come nearly all the greatest Russian writers, with Turgenev and Tolstoy at their head.
I was born in 1870, in the town of Voronezh, and passed my childhood and youth almost entirely in the country, on my father’s estates. As a boy, I was deeply affected by the death of my little sister, and passed through a violent religious crisis, which left, however, no morbid traces whatsoever in my soul.
I also had a passion for painting, which, I believe, has manifested itself in my literary works. I began to write both verse and prose rather early in my life. My first appearance in print was likewise at an early date.