A district center and a provincial center in I. A. Bunin's "The life of Arsenyev"

The novel «The Life of Arsenyev» depicts and references numerous loci, which become especially diverse in the fifth book of the novel. The article analyzes the fifth book by tracing the interplay between the loci designated by true toponyms (the primary of which is the provincial center Orel where Alexey Arsenyev lives) and the loci whose names are fictitious or which remain unnamed. Such is the case with Lika’s hometown described as a «district center», or with «Baturino», as Arsenyev’s homestead is named. The «district center» becomes the focus of the novel’s lyrical theme. The «district center» of «The Life of Arsenyev» stands for the city of Yelets which was well known to the author who went to a secondary school there. There are a number of telling details in the novel that correspond to the city’s realia dating from the late XIX - early XX centuries and allow one to identify Yelets without hesitation. However, the «district center» of the novel purposefully remains unnamed and thus functions as a repository of the generalized lyrical semantics that is metonymic of any Russian provincial city. The indefinite name and features of the unknown city portrayed in the novel along with Orel create the abstract, universal, lyrical plane of the text whereas the specific loci corresponding to recognizable realia ensure an understanding and recognition by the reader of the realistic local details. The combination of abstraction and realism in the depiction of localities is characteristic for Bunin’s narrative style which antinomically combines realistic precision and forceful lyrical generalization.