Cursed Days

"Cursed Days" by Ivan Bunin is a book based on the writer’s diary entries that he made in 1918 to 1920 in Moscow and Odessa before he left his country forever. In the years preceding his exile, he kept a record (as one reviewer put it) of "the ever-growing savagery that accompanied the consolidation of Bolshevik power."

Relying largely on newspapers and rumors, Bunin misunderstood some events or presented them in biased versions—and often allowed his anger to get in the way of reason. Nevertheless, according to The New York Times, "this (mostly) direct reaction of a person whose instincts were, to a very high degree, correct—that he believed with the victory of the Bolsheviks the worst would happen."