Analyzing Discursive Components of Ivan Bunin's "Cursed Days": "Insider" and "Outlander"

Ivan Buninchr('39')s "Cursed Days", which covers the events following Russian October Revolution at 1918 and 1919, features different discourses such as literary, political, historical, social, criminal, critical, and citation, and has been written as a diary compilation. Linguistic elements of "Cursed Days" reflect the biography of the author, the narrator of the book, as a chronicler, critic, and descriptor of the events and interpersonal relationships that he had with various strata of the Russian people throughout the Civil War. Bunin believes that the October Revolution had led to the destruction of culture and the use of abnormal words and phrases in the Russian language. Bunin describes the period using terms "devilish, damn, and cursed," and addresses the Bolsheviks leader as "animal". The present study, in addition to reviewing the procedure and date of "Cursed Days" publication and its genre, discusses the comments from Bunin, critics and experts regarding the book, the events following the October Revolution and its negative aftermath on the Russian language and literature. Bunin believes that the October Revolution caused the deterioration of people’s morals, language and literature, and resulted in the socio-cultural abnormalities. Bunin considers the Bolsheviks sabotages as irreparable damages to the Russian language that had delivered writers such as Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy to the society.


Ivan Bunin's "Cursed Days", which covers the events following Russian October Revolution at 1918 and 1919, features different discourses such as literary, political, historical, social, criminal, critical, and citation, and has been written as a diary compilation. Linguistic elements of "Cursed Days" reflect the biography of the author, the narrator of the book, as a chronicler, critic, and descriptor of the events and interpersonal relationships that he had with various strata of the Russian people throughout the Civil War. Bunin believes that the October Revolution had led to the destruction of culture and the use of abnormal words and phrases in the Russian language. The dominant discourse, main melody, and the words of the work are tedious. Bunin has described the period through the terms of "devilish, damn, and cursed," and addressed the Bolsheviks leader as "animal". In addition to reviewing the procedure and date of "Cursed Days" publication and its genre, the present study discusses the comments of author, critics and experts regarding the book, the events following the October Revolution, and its negative consequences on the Russian language and literature. Bunin believes that the October Revolution caused the deterioration of people’s morals, Russian language and literature, and resulted in the socio-cultural abnormalities. The authors believe that the period following the October Revolution is a period of excitements, and people scuffle with each other for a simple argument. This situation is observed throughout the Russia. Extensive changes in the mood of people and the use of incomprehensible and offensive words are the dominant features of this period. That is why the authors address the Bolsheviks leader with extremely negative titles such as “worthless”, “swindler”, and “animal”. Bunin considers the Bolsheviks sabotages as irreparable damages to the Russian language that had delivered writers such as Alexander Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy to the society. Moreover, the present study points to the tendency of some writers (e.g., Gorky, Blok, Bryusov, Mayakovsky) towards the October Revolution, which Bunin perceives it to be the predominant factor of employing norm-breaking language and literature in this period. Intellectual writers who became true-blue leftist and degenerated the Russian language. Untalented and treacherous writers who exaggerated in praising themselves and considered themselves as genius. Bunin considers the language of newspapers and literature following the October Revolution as street talk. He also calls the publications following the October Revolution yellow press. Publications that are full of jargon, and warning, threatening, intimidating and boring expressions. Accordingly, words and phrases in the work can be categorized as "Insider" (non-revolutionary) and "Outlander" (revolutionary). According to the authors, the “Insider” language which adheres to moral principles is high language, but the “Outlander” language which is full of jargon and norm-breaking words is low language. Due to the appearance of the work, the authors have employed descriptive elements and various strata to show the decline of the Russian language. Among these elements, one can refer to the confrontation of different strata of society, nature, past and present events and conditions, revolutionaries and opponents of the revolution. The authors have unpleasant feelings regarding the fatal disease that the Russian nation is suffering from. With the advent of the revolution, this disease has become epidemic and caused a decline in the spirituality and language of the people. Exploring "Cursed Days", we conclude that words in the "Insider" language are a manifestation of spirituality, transparency, peace, and order. On the other hand, words in the "Outlander" language have negative semantic combinations such as dissolution, deterioration, degradation, destruction, violation, darkness, death, inhumanity, dishonesty, ridicule, and stupidity which encompass the majority of the revolution language.