Did Bunin write: “I think with horror, who is the drunken bloody cattle that seized power in Russia.”

On the Web, you can often find a quote about the “drunken cattle” attributed to Ivan Bunin. We decided to check whether the authorship of this phrase belongs to the Russian writer.

The quote that Bunin is attributed is usually given in the following form: “I think with horror, whom this drunken bloody cattle that has seized power in Russia is giving birth, and what will happen to my country through two or three generations. However, what to think here. More or less clear. ” This phrase, sometimes abbreviated before the first sentence, can be found in many social networks: for example, in the social network X (formerly Twitter) of its mentioned Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Ruslan Stefanchuk. Quote is also found in Livejournal, on the site "Prose.ru", In the book of the writer Nikolai Uglov"Darkness over Russia"And on the blogger instagram Nicky Belotserkovskaya.

Most often, blogs indicate that the phrase about “drunken bloody cattle” is an excerpt from “cursed days”, Bunin’s diary notes about the 1918 post -revolutionary Moscow and Odessa 1919. In this text, there are really many sharp words: “What are all vile even by complexion, yellow and mouse hair! The soldiers and workers, now and then rumbling on trucks, are triumphant muzzles. ” Or another quote: "The crowd, now filling the streets, is physically unbearable, I am tired of this cattle crowd to exhaustion."

However, there is no phrases about “drunken bloody cattle” in “Cursed Days”. There is no one in other famous diary records Bunin, nor in notes and performances different years, neither in The correspondence of the writer. It was also not possible to find this quote in the national corps of the Russian languagenor in catalog Russian State Library.

The earliest mention of this phrase, which managed to detect “verified”, dates back to 2014. In April she appeared In the publication on the Proza.ru portal, but then, apparently, did not become viral. Popularity to the "quote of Bunin" came in mid -July, when it was placed in Livejournal Blogger @likasmileful along with other statements of the writer; Soon, users of social networks began to mention the phrase. Most quotes in that selection are genuine, although they belong to different periods in Bunin’s life: there are fragments from “Cursed Days” and from performances and notes of the 1920-1930s. For example, Lenin’s characteristic “Growth, moral idiot from birth” - this is the characteristic of Lenin. Paris speech 1924. But the first phrase, about “drunken bloody cattle”, has nothing to do with Bunin.

Photo on the cover: Wikimedia Commons

Incorrect attribution of quote

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Is it true that Pushkin is the author of the phrase “inspiration is needed in geometry no less than in poetry”?
2. Is it true that Saltykov-Shchedrin is the author of jokes about how “they will give in the face for the ruble”?
3. Is it true that Mikhail Bulgakov called the Russians “the wild horde of murderers and villains”?
4. Did Tyutchev spoke about the “frantic hatred”, which “was kindled in the West against Russia”?