The article deals with the editor’s work of Y.A. Bunin - a writer, a journalist, a public man. His work in the prerevolutionary journal “VestnikVospitatiya” is analyzed in the article. The author attempts to reveal the personal qualities that allowed Y. Bunin to take and hold such a high and responsible post during 20 years, as well as to determine the level and quality of the transformations in the journal that he implemented in that period.

There are researched the memoirs of emigrant writers (I.Bunin, Z.Gippius, A.Kuprina, B.Zaitseva) about the historic events of the far and the recent past. The key events of the modern history for memoirists - the revolution of 1917, Civil War in Russia, emigration - are comprehended by the memoirists through the comparison with the Tartar invasion, Time of Trouble; there is emphasized the uncontrollable, spontaneous, destructive character of these crisis epochs.