“Conversations with memory” by V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina: unknown book about childhood and youth

The article is dedicated to an unknown book by V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina, entitled in the same way as the well-known memoirs of the memoirist about her life together with Bunin - “Conversations with Memory”. These earlier “Conversations” are to be published soon as part of the Complete Works of Muromtseva-Bunina, they were written under the strong influence of the ideas and style of Bunin’s novel “The Life of Arseniev”. It is also important that Bunin himself read these memoirs and at some stage made stylistic corrections over the text of his wife. The book is full of extremely interesting information about the life of the Muromtsev family in Moscow at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. The circle of acquaintances of Vera Nikolaevna’s parents was very wide, so her memories of the days of childhood and youth represent the broadest encyclopedia of Moscow life. Vera Muromtseva’s circle of friends in her youth expanded even more: many of her classmates were girls from famous families, and later they took an active part in the cultural life of Russia and emigration. The stay of the memoirist at the Higher Women’s Courses was also reflected in the book: she found herself in the circle of student youth and pre-revolutionary ideas. The article outlines the discourses of the memoirs and analyzes its internal structure. He also compares the poetics of “Conversations with Memory” with the poetics and ideological structure of “The Life of Arseniev”, fixing significant coincidences.