The Village (Ivan Bunin novel)

The Village (Russian: Деревня, translit. Derévnya) is a short novel by the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author Ivan Bunin, written in 1909 and first published in Sovremenny Mir journal (St.-P., ##3, 10–11, 1910) under the title Novelet (Повесть). The Village caused much controversy at the time, though it was highly praised by Maxim Gorky (who from then on regarded the author as the major figure in Russian literature), among others, and is now generally regarded as Bunin's first masterpiece. Composed of brief episodes in the Russian provinces at the time of the 1905 Revolution and set in the author's birthplace, it tells the story of two peasant brothers, one a brute drunk, the other a gentler, more sympathetic character. Bunin's realistic portrayal of village life jarred with the idealized picture of "unspoiled" peasants which was common in the mainstream Russian literature, and offended many with characters which "sunk so far below the average of intelligence as to be scarcely human."

Ivan Bunin completed the first part of The Village in September 1909, in Moscow, working, as his wife Vera Muromtseva attested, with extraordinary intensity. In a letter to Gorky the writer himself spoke of "sleepless nights" and "hands shaking" from nervous exhaustion.

The first part of the novel, "The Morning" (Утро), was premiered as a recital before a Moscow literary circle audience, then appeared in Utro Rossii newspaper (1909, No.34, November 15). On February 10, 1910, Bunin sent the first part to Saint-Petersburg's Sovremenny Mir for it to be published in March, promising the remaining parts for the April issue. But in April he unexpectedly left for North Africa and stayed at Capri, so the publication was postponed.

"What I am now engaged with is the completion of Деревня novelet. Two days will be spent in Moscow, then I'll depart for Orlovskaya gubernia to put all my energy into the work," Bunin told Odessky Novosty correspondent on May 16. These plans were disrupted by the writer's mother's illness and death. It was only after the burial that he returned to the unfinished book. On August 20, 1910 Bunin informed Gorky in a letter:

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