linguistic:voice_change, structural:expansion, structural:scholar_edition, information:extraction, linguistic:paraphrasing
1900–1909

The collections Poems and Stories (1900) and Flowers of the Field (1901) were followed by Falling Leaves (Листопад, 1901), Bunin's third book of poetry (including a large poem of the same title first published in the October 1900 issue of Zhizn (Life) magazine). It was welcomed by both critics and colleagues, among them Alexander Ertel, Alexander Blok and Aleksandr Kuprin, who praised its "rare subtlety." Even though the book testifies to his association with the Symbolists, primarily Valery Bryusov, at the time many saw it as an antidote to the pretentiousness of 'decadent' poetry which was then popular in Russia. Falling Leaves was "definitely Pushkin-like", full of "inner poise, sophistication, clarity and wholesomeness," according to critic Korney Chukovsky. Soon after the book's release, Gorky called Bunin (in a letter to Valery Bryusov) "the first poet of our times." It was for Falling Leaves (along with the translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's The Song of Hiawatha, 1898) that Bunin was awarded his first Pushkin Prize. Bunin justified a pause of two years in the early 1900s by the need for "inner growth" and spiritual change.

At the turn of the century Bunin made a major switch from poetry to prose which started to change both in form and texture, becoming richer in lexicon, more compact and perfectly poised. Citing Gustave Flaubert, whose work he admired, as an influence, Bunin was "demonstrating that prose could be driven by poetic rhythms, but still remain prose." According to the writer's nephew Pusheshnikov, Bunin once told him: "Apparently I was born a versemaker... like Turgenev, who was a versemaker, first and foremost. Finding the true rhythm of the story was for him the main thing – everything else was supplementary. And for me the crucial thing is to find the proper rhythm. Once it's there, everything else comes in spontaneously, and I know when the story is done."

In 1900 the novella Antonov Apples (Антоновские яблоки) was published; later it was included in textbooks and is regarded as Bunin's first real masterpiece, but it was criticised at the time as too nostalgic and elitist, allegedly idealising "the Russian nobleman's past." Other acclaimed novellas of this period, On the Farm, The News from Home, and To the Edge of the World (На край света), showing a penchant for extreme precision of language, delicate description of nature and detailed psychological analysis, made him a popular and well-respected young author.

In 1902 Znanie started publishing the Complete Bunin series; five volumes appeared by the year 1909. Three books, Poems (1903), Poems (1903–1906) and Poems of 1907 (the latter published by Znanie in 1908), formed the basis of a special (non-numbered) volume of the Complete series which in 1910 was published in Saint Petersburg as Volume VI. Poems and Stories (1907–1909) by the Obschestvennaya Polza (Public Benefit) publishing house. Bunin's works featured regularly in Znanie's literary compilations; beginning with Book I, where " Black Earth " appeared along with several poems, all in all he contributed to 16 books of the series.

In the early 1900s Bunin travelled extensively. He was a close friend of Chekhov and his family and continued visiting them regularly until 1904. The October social turmoil of 1905 found Bunin in Yalta, Crimea, from where he moved back to Odessa. Scenes of "class struggle" there did not impress the writer, for he saw them as little more than the Russian common people's craving for anarchy and destruction.

In November 1906 Bunin's passionate affair with Vera Muromtseva began. The girl's family was unimpressed with Bunin's position as a writer, but the couple defied social convention, moving in together and in April 1907 leaving Russia for an extended tour through Egypt and Palestine. The Bird's Shadow (Тень птицы) (1907–1911) collection (published as a separate book in 1931 in Paris) came as a result of this voyage. These travelling sketches were to change the critics' assessment of Bunin's work. Before them Bunin was mostly regarded as (using his own words) "a melancholy lyricist, singing hymns to noblemen's estates and idylls of the past." In the late 1900s critics started to pay more notice to the colourfulness and dynamics of his poetry and prose. "In terms of artistic precision he has no equal among Russian poets," Vestnik Evropy wrote at the time. Bunin attributed much importance to his travels, counting himself among that special "type of people who tend to feel strongest for alien times and cultures rather than those of their own" and admitting to being drawn to "all the necropolises of the world." Besides, foreign voyages had, admittedly, an eye-opening effect on the writer, helping him to see Russian reality more objectively. In the early 1910s Bunin produced several famous novellas which came as a direct result of this change in perspective.

In October 1909 Bunin received his second Pushkin Prize for Poems 1903–1906 and translations of (Lord Byron 's Cain, and parts of Longfellow's The Golden Legend). He was elected a member of the Russian Academy the same year. In Bunin, The Academy crowns "not a daring innovator, not an adventurous searcher but arguably the last gifted pupil of talented teachers who's kept and preserved... all the most beautiful testaments of their school," wrote critic Aleksander Izmailov, formulating the conventional view of the time. It was much later that Bunin was proclaimed one of the most innovative Russian writers of the century.