Where did Bonin's Nobel Prize go?
When Ivan Bunin received a call from Sweden, he was not at home: he was sitting in the cinema. His wife, Vera Muromtseva-Bonina, answered the phone and did not immediately believe what she heard. Her husband became the first Russian writer to receive the Nobel Prize. The year was 1933.
The prize was huge: 170,331 Swedish kroner, about 750 thousand francs at the time. The Bonnies, who lived very modestly in exile, could finally breathe freely.
But as soon as the news spread, letters poured in to the writer's address. In just the first week, almost two thousand of them arrived, and they were written mainly by people who found themselves in a desperate financial situation.
Bonin did not refuse. Later, he briefly explained to journalists: "I had to give about 120 thousand francs."
The prize never made him rich, and soon the Bunins lived very modestly again. But thousands of other people's troubles have become a little easier, and perhaps, this is the best fate for such a prize.