In the novel "The Life of Arsenyev", the fate of the main character Alexey Arsenyev is largely consonant with the life path of I. A. Bunin, but the work should't be considered an autobiography in the traditional sense of the term. V. Khodasevich notes that this is «the autobiography of a fictional person», all memories and emotional experiences are given to the reader through a fictional person. At the same time, not all the events in the novel are really connected with the personality of I. A. Bunin, many facts and details are artistically reworked, so the purpose of the article will be to identify how real facts are transformed into an artistic word.