Abstract
Purpose. The article examines the previously unexplored mechanism of the systemic restructuring of Ivan A. Bunin’s poetics at the beginning of the 20th century. It is studied at different levels: images interaction, plots structure, subjects of narration. The last one seems to be the most important for understanding Bunin’s quick transition from the narodnichestvo and Tolstoyism ideas (prevailing in his work of the 1890s) to the philosophy close to the early symbolists (determining the poetics of the stories of 1900-1902).
Results. The gradual reduction of traditional ideological motifs associated with narodnichestvo and Tolstoyism – while Tolstoy’s ideologemes remained in the Bunin’s stories longer than narodnik ones – made room for landscape sketches not tied to socially significant subjects, and the narrator’s free reflections on beauty of the world and the incomprehensibility of God’s plan. At the formal level, this manifests in unusual compositional solutions and a new understanding of characters structure. The mechanisms of general change in poetics are shown: from characters to plots, from plots to new ways of formatting ideas within the narrative.
Conclusion. Along with demonstrating the dynamics of Bunin’s creativity and the gradual restructuring of poetics, a number of conclusions have been made that characterize the specifics of Bunin’s “modernity” against the background of early symbolism.