Ivan Bunin

writer, Nobel laureate

1870 – 1953 · 83 years · Voronezh · Eastern Europe & Russia

The first Russian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1933). He emigrated to France in 1920, where he wrote the novel The Life of Arseniev and the stories of Dark Avenues; his diary of the revolutionary years came out as Cursed Days.

Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century

Portrait: Wikimedia Commons

Contemporaries around the world

Europe

Winston Churchill — Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 4 years younger
Albert Einstein — physicist, creator of relativity, 9 years younger
Pablo Picasso — painter and sculptor, 11 years younger
Marie Curie — physicist and chemist, twice Nobel laureate, 3 years older
Adolf Hitler — dictator of Nazi Germany, 19 years younger
Queen Victoria — Queen of the United Kingdom, 51 years older

Eastern Europe & Russia

Joseph Stalin — leader of the Soviet Union, 8 years younger
Georgy Zhukov — Marshal of the Soviet Union, 26 years younger
Vladimir Lenin — revolutionary, head of the Soviet government, born the same year
Leo Tolstoy — novelist, 42 years older
Dmitri Mendeleev — chemist, creator of the periodic table, 36 years older
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky — composer, 30 years older

Middle East

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk — founder and first President of Turkey, 11 years younger
Mehmed VI — last Ottoman sultan, 9 years older
Golda Meir — Prime Minister of Israel, 28 years younger
Richard Sorge — Soviet intelligence officer, 25 years younger
Abdul Hamid II — the 'Red Sultan' who dissolved the first parliament, 28 years older
Sergei Witte — finance minister, first chairman of the Council of Ministers, 21 years older

Africa

Nelson Mandela — first Black President of South Africa, 48 years younger
Haile Selassie — Emperor of Ethiopia, 22 years younger
Menelik II — Emperor of Ethiopia, 26 years older
Patrice Lumumba — first prime minister of Congo, 55 years younger
Albert Schweitzer — physician and philosopher, Nobel laureate, 5 years younger
Yaa Asantewaa — Queen Mother of Ejisu, war leader, 30 years older

Asia

Mahatma Gandhi — leader of the Indian independence movement, 1 year older
Mao Zedong — Chairman of the CCP, founder of the PRC, 23 years younger
Rabindranath Tagore — poet and writer, Nobel laureate, 9 years older
Jawaharlal Nehru — first Prime Minister of India, 19 years younger
Ho Chi Minh — President of North Vietnam, 20 years younger
Sun Yat-sen — revolutionary, founding father of the ROC, 4 years older

Americas

Nikola Tesla — inventor and electrical engineer, 14 years older
Charlie Chaplin — comic actor and filmmaker, 19 years younger
Thomas Edison — inventor and businessman, 23 years older
Martin Luther King Jr. — minister and civil rights leader, 59 years younger
Neil Armstrong — astronaut, first person on the Moon, 60 years younger
Henry Ford — industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company, 7 years older

Oceania

Ernest Rutherford — physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus, 1 year younger
Howard Florey — pharmacologist who made penicillin a drug, 28 years younger
Edmund Hillary — mountaineer and explorer, 49 years younger
Eddie Mabo — land-rights campaigner, 66 years younger
Douglas Mawson — geologist and Antarctic explorer, 12 years younger
Kate Sheppard — suffragist, 23 years older

The world in their lifetime

1870–1871 Franco-Prussian War — aged 0, Europe
1871 Unification of Germany — aged 1, Europe
1871 Paris Commune — aged 1, Europe
1874 First Impressionist exhibition — aged 4, Europe
1876 Invention of the telephone — aged 6, Americas
1876–1878 Great Famine in India — aged 6, Asia
1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — aged 9, Americas
1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — aged 13, Asia
1885 Founding of the Indian National Congress — aged 15, Asia
1886 Benz's first automobile — aged 16, Europe
1889 Eiffel Tower — aged 19, Europe
1893 New Zealand women win the vote — aged 23, Oceania
1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — aged 35, Europe
1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — aged 38, Middle East
1914–1918 World War I — aged 44, Whole world
1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — aged 44, Americas
1914 Assassination of Franz Ferdinand — aged 44, Europe
1915–1917 Armenian genocide — aged 45, Middle East
1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — aged 46, Middle East
1917 October Revolution — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
1917–1922 Russian Civil War — aged 47, Eastern Europe & Russia
1918–1920 Spanish flu pandemic — aged 48, Whole world
1919 Treaty of Versailles — aged 49, Europe
1928 Discovery of penicillin — aged 58, Europe
1929 Wall Street Crash — aged 59, Americas
1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — aged 59, Eastern Europe & Russia
1933 Hitler comes to power — aged 63, Europe
1936–1938 Great Purge — aged 66, Eastern Europe & Russia
1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — aged 66, Europe
1939–1945 World War II — aged 69, Whole world
1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — aged 71, Eastern Europe & Russia
1941–1945 The Holocaust — aged 71, Europe
1942–1943 Battle of Stalingrad — aged 72, Eastern Europe & Russia
1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima — aged 75, Asia
1945 German surrender and Victory Day — aged 75, Eastern Europe & Russia
1947–1991 Cold War — aged 77, Whole world
1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights — aged 78, Whole world
1949 Founding of NATO — aged 79, Whole world
1953 Discovery of the DNA double helix — aged 83, Europe
1953 First ascent of Everest — aged 83, Asia