Bunin's verbal forms of expressing patriotism in his diary texts

Patriotism is one of the core values having the status of sacral for ethno-society. However, like many other fundamental moral categories, it can acquire various concrete incarnations under the influence of these or those ideological concepts and political settings. Consequently, it quite often happens that - in the light of axiological reference points dominating in the state - qualification of someone's views as patriotic or, on the contrary, as anti-patriotic is extremely subjective. Historically recent invectives concerning some judgments expressed by the great Russian writer I.A. Bunin, who frankly and quite hostilely spoke about both the October revolution, and the Soviet power, are characteristic examples of assessments that accuse the writer of not being a patriot. The purpose of the article is to give an objective identification of I.A. Bunin's real position as regards his attitude to the Fatherland. In this connection the author of the article, taking into consideration rather well-known publications on the problem mentioned above, uses diary texts written by Bunin himself during the period of World War II. The content analysis of the sources used can be considered quite exhaustive. As the result the author managed to make well-grounded conclusions about Bunin's undeniable and sincere love for his Homeland. Genuine patriotism was expressed by the writer regarding not Soviet Russia but Russia of the previous epoch that he lovingly and carefully kept in his memory.