The End (Ivan Bunin)
The end ( Russian Конец , Konez ) is a short story by the Russian Nobel Prize winner for literature Iwan Bunin , which was written in Paris in 1921 and appeared there on March 12, 1923 in No. 6 of the Sweno newspaper . The text can be read as a piece of autobiography . Bunin emigrated from Odessa to France by sea in 1920 .
On a cold, wet winter's day, the defenders withdraw from the city and the first-person narrator takes the overcrowded Patras , an aged steamer under the French flag , “at the last second” . The journey into the winter night leads across the Black Sea along the stormy Bulgarian coast towards Constantinople .
On deck, impatient Russian refugees queue at the toilet. Other passengers queue for a cup of free red wine. The narrator is one of the privileged passengers on board - after all, he lives in his own cabin , but like everyone else, he has to withstand the tilt of the ship when the storm increases. On the stormy night he confessed that “Russia has“ an end ”for him and asks himself the question of those who were overwhelmed by the revolution :“ How was it possible that I didn't understand that earlier? ”
German-language editions
- Used edition
- The end. German by Ilse Tschörtner . P. 27–37 in: Karlheinz Kasper (Ed.): Iwan Bunin: Dunkle Alleen. Stories 1920–1953 . 580 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1985
Web links
- The text
- Notice of first publication in the Labor der Fantastik (Russian)