Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

Sergey K.’s: Kaplan’s.

  E. L.: Evsey Lazarevich (Slonim).

  Mlle Ioffe: Unidentified.

  Freud – pleasant topic: VN would become famous for his dislike of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and his baiting of Freudians.

  Day of Culture: Russian Culture Day, 8 June (in honour of Pushkin’s birthday), the most important cultural fixture in the émigré calendar.

  Letter of 6 June 1926

  Tartars: The Tatarinovs, whose name means ‘of the Tartar’.

  Karsavin: Possibly Lev Platonovich Karsavin (1882–1952), religious philosopher and historian of medieval culture.

  trying to prove: The dispute took place on 14 February at the Press Ball held by the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists.

  Aykhenvald: Yuly Isaevich Aykhenvald (1872–1928), literary scholar and critic, and friend; the first major critic to hail VN as a writer of the first rank.

  Purishkevich: Vladimir Mitrofanovich Purishkevich (1870–1920), high-ranking Russian right-wing politician and anti-Semite, who had been a friend of Aykhenvald (a Jew) during their student years. Aykhenvald’s article ‘Purishkevich’ appeared in 1926.

  Grif: Unidentified, and if his article was published, it remains untraced.

  Kadish: Mikhail Pavlovich Kadish (1886–1962), journalist, writer and translator.

  some Spaniard: Presumably the Spanish Jesuit, José de Anchieta (1534–97), who travelled to Brazil as a missionary in 1553.

  Leonov’s ‘Badgers’: Barsuki (Badgers, 1924), a novel about post-revolutionary transformations in Russian peasant life, by the Soviet writer Leonid Maksimovich Leonov (1899–1994). VN was studying Zoshchenko, Leonov and others for a talk on Soviet fiction for the Tatarinov circle; he would complete his draft on 11 June.

  Seyfullina’s ‘Vireneya’: The Soviet writer Lidiya Nikolaevna Seyfullina (1889–1954), author of ideologically correct but artistically lame fiction. Her novel Vireneya (1925) tells of a peasant woman caught up in the revolutionary turmoil.

  Letter of 7 June 1926

  A clipping of an announcement of Volya Rossii with a review of Sirin’s Mary is enclosed (the review would appear in the May 1926 issue, pp. 196–7). VN drew a line from the ‘N. M. P.’ initials of the reviewer, to her name above: ‘N. Melnikova-Papoushek’ (Nadezhda Fyodorovna (Filaretovna) Melnikov-Papoushek (Papoushkova), 1891–1978). Also enclosed is a page with the poem ‘Tikhiy shum’ (‘Soft Sound’), written in ink with minor corrections and, on the other side, the draft of the same poem in pencil.

  Wells: H. G. Wells (1866–1946), English writer whom VN’s father had hosted at his house in St Petersburg for dinner in February 1914, and whose fiction VN always esteemed highly.

  ‘Volya Rossii’: Volya Rossii (Russia’s Will), a Russian émigré periodical published in Prague between 1920 and 1932. Initially a daily, from 1922 it became a monthly literary and political journal.

  E. L.: Evsey Lazarevich (Slonim).

  S. B.: Slava Borisovna (Slonim).

  out of S. B.: St Blasien; perhaps a reference to VéN’s chilly relationship with her mother.

  your reprimand: VéN’s reply (in German) to the letter from the Finanzamt that VN forwarded to her on 2 June.

  ‘Soft Sound’: Poem (‘Tikhiy shum’) enclosed both as a draft and a final copy; published Rul’, 10 June 1926, p. 4; trans. by VN in PP, pp. 59–61, where he mistakenly hazards place and date of composition as ‘Le Boulou, 1929’.

  Letter of 8–9 June 1926

  success: VN’s reading at Russian Culture Day.

  ‘Moskva’: ‘Moscow’, a Russian bookstore in Berlin.

  wrapping the thing – not Anyuta, but the coat: The Russian form ‘eyo’ (here translated as ‘the thing’) in this sentence would at least as often mean ‘her’.

  Lena’s: A present for VN from Elena Evseevna Slonim (1900–1975), VéN’s older sister, whose later married name would be Massalsky.

  Weisskäse: Ger. curd (cheese).

  Sergey Gorny: Pseudonym of Aleksandr Avdeevich Otsup (1882–1949), writer, humourist.

  Kardakov: Nikolay Ivanovich Kardakov (1885–1973), entomologist, in Berlin from 1921, first at the German Entomological Institute, then the Natural History Museum; had participated in entomological expeditions in the Altai and the Russian Far East as well as in Indochina and Ceylon.

  Lyaskovsky: Aleksandr Ivanovich Lyaskovsky (1883–1965), historian of literature.

  Vl. Vl.: Vladimir Vladimirovich, VN’s first name and patronymic.

  Yasinsky: Ieronim Ieronimovich Yasinsky, pen-name Maksim Belinsky (1850–1931), writer and journalist.

  Zaytsev: Kirill Iosifovich Zaytsev (1887–1975), literary critic, historian, political commentator, and in later life a theologian, archimandrite Konstantin.

  Ilyin: Ivan Aleksandrovich Ilyin (1883–1954), Russian Orthodox philosopher.

  ‘The Jubilee’: Comic sketch, Yubiley (1876), by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904).

  Ofrosimov Group: Gruppa, a theatrical troupe organized by Yury Victorovich Ofrosimov (1894–1967), director and theatre critic. In 1927 VN’s play Chelovek iz SSSR (The Man from the USSR, 1927) would be premiered by Gruppa.

  immediately the applause exploded: The previous year, at the first of what would become the annual Russian Culture Days, VN had read his poem ‘Exile’, ‘which conjures up an image of Pushkin as a member of the emigration’ (VNRY, p. 242).

  Hessen: Iosif (Joseph) Vladimirovich Hessen (1865–1943), prominent member of the Constitutional Democratic party, member of the Second State Duma, political commentator, publisher (with Slovo) and co-editor of Rul’.

  print the poem in Rul’: Where it appeared on 10 June 1926, p. 4, with a report on its reception and on Russian Culture Day.

  ‘It’s Not Always Shrovetide for the Cat’: Ne vsyo kotu maslenitsa (1871), a play by Aleksandr Nikolaevich Ostrovsky (1823–86).

  Panchenko: Unidentified.

  K.: Kaplan’s.

  Letter of 9 June 1926

  street of winter fields: Winterfeldtstrasse, Berlin.

  Kaminka: Avgust Isaakovich Kaminka (1865–1941?), a close friend and colleague of VN’s father, business manager of Rul’; supported EN after the death of her husband in 1922, and personally subsidized Rul’ after the economic crisis of the mid-1920s made it no longer self-sustaining.

  Gladkov’s ‘Cement’: Tsement (1925), by the Soviet writer Fyodor Vasilievich Gladkov (1883–1958), was considered a model of Socialist Realist literature. Nabokov quotes Gladkov’s sentences exactly but runs absurd examples even more absurdly together.

  Lalodya: One of their named ‘Littlies’ (little figurines).

  Letter of 10 June 1926

  Hôtel Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: The postman crossed out the old address, ‘Sanatorium St-Blasien Todtmoos’, and wrote this one above.

  Dipod: In Russian, tushkan (tushkanchik means ‘jerboa’); jerboas form most of the family Dipodidae.

  fastbreak: VN’s word in Russian is not the usual zavtrak but the nonce-word postolom, which merges post, which can mean ‘a fast’, or specifically ‘Lent’ (but with echoes of ‘postal service’), and the root of the verb lomat’, ‘break’: so, a Russian ‘break fast’ also breaking the fast in his mail from VéN.

  Fedin: Soviet writer Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin (1892–1977). His novel Goroda i gody (Cities and Years, 1924) was his most important to this date.

  ‘The Fight’: ‘Draka’, written late June/early July 1925, published Rul’, 26 September 1925, pp. 2–3.

  ‘Beneficence’: ‘Blagost’’, written in March 1924, published Rul’, 27 April 1924, pp. 6–7.

  ‘The Seaport’: ‘Port’, written early 1924, published Rul’, 24 May 1924, pp. 2–3.

  chessboard … compose a problem: VN had begun to compose chess problems by at least 1917, and published his first in 1923. He would collect some of his best, along with thirty-nine Russian and fourteen English poems, in Poems and Problems (1970): ‘Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtu
es that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity’ (PP, p. 15).

  ‘V. Sirin recited …’: VN quotes from Rul’, 10 June 1926, p. 4, where ‘Soft Sound’ was prefaced: ‘below we print V. Sirin’s poem, read by the author yesterday. The poem had an enormous success, and the unending applause of the audience forced the talented poet to recite his composition twice.’

  Letter of 11–12 June 1926

  Hôtel Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: The postman crossed out the old address, ‘Sanatorium St-Blasien Todtmoos’ and wrote this above.

  wasted two marks on ‘Volya Rossii’: For the review signed N. M. P., ‘[Review.] Sirin, ‘Mashen’ka’, Volya Rossii, May 1926, pp. 196–7. Melnikov-Papoushek was an occasional contributor to Russian émigré periodicals.

  Melnikov-Papoushek (whose papa ushered no good news in): A play in Russian on her surname Papoushek: ey papa ushek ne dral (‘papa didn’t shake her by the ears’): he didn’t discipline her enough to make her a good writer.

  lecture: ‘Neskol’ko slov ob ubozhestve sovetskoy belletristiki i popytka ustanovit’ prichinu onogo’, MS, VNA; published in Diaspora, 2 (2001), pp. 7–23, ed. Alexander A. Dolinin.

  June 12th : VN had written ‘July’.

  Golubev-Bagryanorodny: Leonid Nikolaevich Golubev-Bagryanorodny (1890–1934), Russian avant-garde artist famous for his pencil drawings of the Russian émigré community and Berlin cityscapes.

  Bunin: Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870–1953), major novelist, short-story writer, poet, in 1933 would become the first Russian to win Nobel Prize for Literature.

  Uncle Kostya: Konstantin Dmitrievich Nabokov (1872–1927), brother of VN’s father, Russian diplomat, former Counsellor of the Russian Embassy in London.

  Letter of 12 June 1926

  Katyusha: From Katya, a Russian woman’s name.

  Squire, Steps to Parnassus: Steps to Parnassus: And Other Parodies and Diversions (1913), by poet, writer and editor John Collings Squire (1884–1958).

  Henry James, The Outcry: The last completed novel (1911) of Henry James (1843–1916).

  Sofa: Sofia Slonim, VéN’s sister.

  E. I.: Unidentified.

  E. L.: Evsey Lazarevich (Slonim).

  K.’s: Sergey Kaplan’s.

  Volkovysky: Nikolay Moiseevich Volkovyssky (1881–after 1940), journalist. VN sometimes spells his name with one s.

  Mme Falkovsky: Probably the wife of the lawyer and journalist Evgeny Adamovich Falkovsky (1879–1951).

  Letter of 13 June 1926

  ‘Rooms’. Or even ‘A Room for Rent’: Apparently never written as a story, but these thoughts result in the poem ‘Komnata’ (‘The Room’), written on 22 June 1926 (see below).

  Tegel: For the upkeep of VN’s father’s grave and for memorial services: see note to letter of 17 August 1924.

  Letter of 14 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension St Blasien: The postman crossed out VN’s words ‘Schwarzwaldhaus’ and ‘Todtmoos’ and added the new address.

  about the Maid with Madame K: About Joan of Arc with Madame Kaplan.

  the Walrus and the little saintly Nuki: Perhaps a nickname the Nabokovs gave a neighbour who walked his dog near where they lived, or a fantasy game involving the little creatures VN describes in his letters of this period.

  Grunewald: The largest municipal forest in Berlin, predominantly Scots pine and relatively unkempt, almost the only place in Berlin VN (and Fyodor in The Gift) liked.

  Veryovkin: A friend of Anna Feigin and the Nabokovs, otherwise unidentified.

  Sergey K.: Kaplan.

  ‘Ways to Strength and Beauty’: ‘Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit’ (1925) by Nicholas Kaufmann (1892–1970) and Wilhelm Prager (1876–1955).

  Letter of 15 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: Across the front of the envelope there is a typewritten inscription: ‘abgereist nach St Blasien Sanatorium’ (‘moved to St Blasien Sanatorium’).

  Bobby de Calry: Count Robert Louis Magawly-Cerati De Calry (1898–?), VN’s fellow student and friend at Cambridge.

  Sergey: Sergey Vladimirovich Nabokov (1900–1945), VN’s brother, a year younger than him. Theirs was a complicated relationship: ‘For various reasons I find it inordinately hard to speak about my other brother … I was the coddled one; he, the witness of coddling …’ (SM, p. 257).

  Lena: Perhaps Elena Evseevna Slonim, VéN’s sister.

  ‘Odd (A Fairy-Tale)’: ‘Odd’ in the sense of ‘Uneven’; under the title ‘Skazka’ (‘Fairy-Tale’), published Rul’, 27 June 1926, pp. 2–3, and 29 June 1926, pp. 2–3; trans. DN with VN as ‘A Nursery Tale’, TD.

  frivolous Hebe: A reference to the poem ‘Vesennyaya groza’ (‘Spring Thunderstorm’, 1828), by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev (1803–73): ‘Ty skazhesh’: vetrenaya Geba, / Kormya Zevesova orla, / Gromokipyashchiy kubok s neba, / Smeyas’, na zemlyu prolila!’ (‘You will say: it was the frivolous Hebe, / Who, while feeding Zeus’s eagle, / Laughing, spilled the thundering and boiling cup / From heavens to earth.’).

  Je ne dis que cela: Fr. ‘I’ll say no more.’

  Letter of 16 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: The words ‘Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus, Todtmoos’ are crossed out by the postman, and the letter readdressed: ‘St Blasien Sanatorium/ b Fr Slonim’.

  Winter Palace … purple: The Winter Palace was ochre-coloured for more than a century, until Nicholas II decided to paint it terracotta-red. After the Revolution, it would be painted grey in 1927 and other colours over the next few years.

  Librairie: Fr. ‘bookstore’; in this case, a bookstore–lending library, probably Ladyzhnikov’s.

  note-pad you arranged for me – with dates: In June–July 1926 VN wrote his letters on a note-pad numbered by VéN. He would sometimes add a year to the date, but almost all the dates at the top of the letters’ first pages were written in VéN’s hand.

  Letter of 17 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: ‘Schwarzwaldhaus, Todtmoos, Schwarzwald’ is crossed out, and the letter readdressed ‘St Blasien Sanatorium’.

  L.: Probably Ilya (‘Lyusya’) Feigin, Anna Feigin’s cousin.

  E. L.: Evsey Lazarevich (Slonim).

  Sofia S.: Unidentified.

  Letter of 18 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: ‘Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus, Todtmoos’ is crossed out, and the letter readdressed ‘St Blasien Sanatorium’.

  composed the whole poem: A fair copy of the poem ‘Pustyak …’ (‘A Trifle’) (see below) is enclosed, on a separate sheet.

  Terijoki: A Finnish resort thirty miles to the north of St Petersburg; from 1940, part of the Leningrad region; in 1948 renamed Zelenogorsk.

  Bubikopf: Page-boy cut.

  A Trifle … : ‘Pustyak, – nazvan’e machty, plan, – i sledom’, published Zveno, 4 July 1926, p. 7, and in Stikhi, p. 183; trans. DN, as ‘A Trifle’, SP, p. 25.

  Letter of 19 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus: The words ‘Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus, Todtmoos’ are crossed out, and the letter is readdressed ‘St Blasien Sanatorium bei Frau Slonim’.

  ‘Odd’: Working title of story ‘Skazka’ (‘A Nursery Tale’).

  S. K.: Sergey Kaplan.

  Danechka: A former girlfriend of VN’s; maiden name unknown; she later married Vladimir Tatarinov’s younger brother.

  Rusina: Mme or Mlle Rusin, unknown.

  Trotsky: Ilya Markovich Trotsky (1879–1969), journalist, Berlin correspondent of the newspaper Russkoe Slovo.

  Zvezdich: Pyotr Isaevich Rotenshtern, pen-name Zvezdich (1868–1944), journalist and translator.

  the story…the poem: His most recent works: the story ‘A Nursery Tale’; the poem ‘A Trifle’.

  like a rooster in soup: Kak kur vo shchi (‘like a rooster in soup’), a play on the proverbial kak kur v oshchip (‘like a rooster to be plucked’).

  Poletika: Vladimir Ivanovich Poletika (Waldemar von Poleti
ka, 1888–1981), geographer, statistician and agronomist.

  That’s Pushkin: From Pushkin’s letter to Pavel Voinovich Nashchokin, 23–30 March 1834: ‘They say that unhappiness is good school: perhaps. But happiness is the best university. It finishes the education of the soul capable of the good and the beautiful, like yours, my friend; like mine, too, as you know.’ VN would cite the aphorism in an interview at Wellesley College, ‘Vladimir Nabokov – A Profile’, The Last Word (April 1943), pp. 19–21.

  ‘I walk on a carpet …’: A joke, compounding the pun in Chekov’s 1898 story ‘Ionych’: ‘Ya idu po kovru, ty idyosh’, poka vryosh’’ (‘I walk on carpet; you walk, while you tell lies’). Po kovru, ‘on carpet’, sounds the same as poka vru, ‘while I tell lies’; poka vryosh’, ‘while you tell lies’, no longer resembles the Russian for ‘on carpet’. The pseudo-German Teppich, teppst du would be a weak pun on the German Teppich (carpet) pretending to be a verb, and meaning something like ‘If I tep, you tep too.’

  Letter of 20 June 1926

  Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus : ‘Hotel-Pension Schwarzwaldhaus, Todtmoos’ is crossed out, and the letter readdressed ‘St Blasien Sanatorium bei Frau Slonim’.

  the poem: ‘A Trifle’: see letter of 18 June 1926 above.

  My brother: Sergey Nabokov.

  review: Konstantin Mochulsky, ‘Roman V. Sirina’ (‘Novel by V. Sirin’), Zveno, 168, 18 April 1926, pp. 2–3.

  Elkin: Boris Isaakovich Elkin (1887–1972), lawyer, political commentator and publisher, member of the editorial board of Slovo.

  Mochulsky: Konstantin Vasilievich Mochulsky (1892–1948), literary critic, professor of literature at the Sorbonne (1924–39).

  Letter of 21 June 1926

  Berta Gavr[ilovna]’s: See note to letter of 2 June 1926

  Shura: Aleksandr Sack.

  Bavarian square: Bayerischer Platz.

  Konoplin: Ivan Stepanovich Konoplin (1894–1953), writer, poet, journalist and contributor to Rul’.

  Taboritsky and Shabelsky-Borg: Sergey Vladimirovich Taboritsky, (1895–?) and Pyotr Nikolaevich Shabelsky-Bork (1893–1952), Russian right-wing monarchists, who in 1922, while trying to assassinate one leading Russian liberal, Pavel Milyukov, killed another, VN’s father.

  E. L.: Evsey Lazarevich (Slonim).