The Theme of Childhood in the Novel by I. A. Bunin

The purpose of this article is to examine the features of the artistic embodiment of the childhood theme in the novel by I. A. Bunin “The Life of Arseniev.” In modern literary criticism, the work of Russian abroad writers of the first wave of emigration is in the center of attention. The work examines one of the important topics of Russian abroad literature, which determines its relevance. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time, when studying the novel “The Life of Arseniev,” attention is drawn to the changes in the artistic image of the world of a Russian abroad writer in comparison with that in the 19th-century classical tradition, and the special world-modeling position of the protagonist and the author is determined. The leading structural component of the artistic realm of childhood, recreated in the novel, is the absence of a cause-and-effect and temporal sequence of events. The main world-modeling images are the estate, the field, the city, the gymnasium. The child is the main character of the work. Alexey Arseniev builds and models his life in childhood. A child’s world is perceived as limited and closed, and as the child grows, it gradually opens up. The family and the surrounding reality are shown through the prism of the child’s consciousness, and are revealed to the extent that they are engaged in his personal experiences, feelings and thoughts. The author takes a special position in relation to the depicted character and the world. This position is determined by the influence of modernism, some of whose techniques I. A. Bunin adopted in his work that predates the October 1917 revolution. Arseniev is given the opportunity to recreate his world and at the same time participate in the depicted events. The emergence of memory, an important artistic category in the novel, is associated with the image of an adult narrator. It is characterized by the understanding of the flow of life as a spontaneous accumulation of impressions, representations and images. The flow of feelings, thoughts, memories of the past, and a nostalgic tonality determines the specifics of the discourse of the mature narrator. The category of memory disrupts the linear order of events, as a temporary inversion, a heterogeneous flow of artistic time, a change in its rhythm arises.