EN
The article studies the contents of fi ve letters written by Zinaida Gippius in 1926–1932 to three persons: Nina Berberova, Vladislav Khodasevich and Alexandr Amfi teatrov. All the interlocutors, including Ivan Bunin, represent the fi rst wave of the Russian emigration. In her letters to the acquaintances Gippius shares remarks about Bunin as a man and an artist. With typical for her irony and arrogance, she refers to the works of her competitor revealing negative features of her character. Gippius letters also portray mechanisms of the social and cultural life of Russian emigrants originating from the older generation of writers.