Bunin in Ceylon and translation of his Ceylon cycle
The article is dedicated to the journey of the famous Russian writer Ivan A.Bunin to Ceylon in March 1911. The chronology is being updated on the basis of new data. It relates about the works of the Ceylon cyclic-stories and verses born out of this trip which have become masterpieces of world literature. The author shares the experiences of his own explorations by way of the entire Ceylon-cycle of the great Russian writer being translated into Sinhala language. It is known that Anton Chekhov told «young colleagues” - Maxim Gorky and Ivan Bunin about the delights of a tropical island and advised to visit it. The councils were heeded by I.A. Bunin, who visited Ceylon and left his images in classic stories and poems. There were also other special reasons, apparently medical ones: on December 17, 1910, Ivan Bunin wrote to Andreeva and Gorky that «the doctor persuaded me too much to stay in hot countries in discussing my ailments.» The main result of this trip of I.A.Bunin to Ceylon was a whole cycle of prose and poetic works that were born after his direct acquaintance with the island, its nature, inhabitants, their religion. The most famous of him were the stories “Brothers”, “Third Class”, “National”, “City of the King of Kings”, as well as poems “Goddess”, “Low Tide”, “Sanctuary”, “Ceylon”, “Mountain Alagalla”.