Letters to Véra

by Vladimir Nabokov

  Chinaman with a nodding head: See The Gift, p. 14: ‘a small bare-bellied idol of almatolite’, identified by Alexander Dolinin as agalmatolite, a stone from which souvenir figurines are carved out in China: see his ‘The Gift: Addendum to Commentary’, Nabokov Online Journal, 1, 2007, http://etc.dal.ca/noj/articles/volume1/DOLININ.pdf

  the Mishas: Possibly VN’s close friend Mikhail (Misha) Avgustovich Kaminka (?–1960?), son of VDN’s friend Avgust Kaminka, and his wife, Elizabeth.

  Papilio alexanor: The Southern Swallowtail, butterfly.

  my larentia, my teplovata: Larentia, a genus of geometrid moths; VN invents the species name teplovata, from Russian teplovatyi – ‘tepid, lukewarm’.

  Letter postmarked 19 May 1930

  Bussa: A nickname the Nabokovs shared in the 1930s.

  undertufty: Mrs (or Miss)Tufty (Tuftikins) is a character VN invented in 1926, when writing to VéN in Schwarzwald.

  Fondamin: Ilya Isidorovich Fondaminsky, pen-name I. Bunakov (1880–1942), prominent Socialist Revolutionary leader, a founder and co-editor of Sovremennye zapiski, a close friend and supporter of VN in the 1930s.

  Pilgram to die in the basement: The main character of VN’s story ‘Aurelian’, dies from a heart attack on the threshold of his home. Podval: both ‘basement’ and ‘lower part of a newspaper page’.

  Fayard: Librairie Arthème Fayard, French publishing house, founded in Paris in 1857. Fayard would publish VN’s first book translated into French: La Course du fou (from The Defence), 1934.

  Letter of 20 May 1930

  Date: Undated. Postmark is torn off, ‘1930’ added on the envelope by VéN. The 20 May date of the reading is announced in letter of 12 May 1930.

  Adamovich’s review: Of Sovremennye zapiski, 42 – which serialized Zashchita Luzhina (The Defence), from Ch. 10 to the end – in Poslednie novosti, 15 May 1930, p. 3.

  Nalyanch writes something: Sergey Ivanovich Nalyanch, pen-name of S. I. Shovgenov (1902–79), poet and literary critic. His article is ‘Poety “Chisel” ’ (‘On the poets of Chisla’), Za svobodu, April 28,1930, p. 3 (on the notorious attack by poet, critic and novelist Georgy Ivanov, a longtime literary ally of Georgy Adamovich and foe of Khodasevich and Nabokov, in the first issue of Chisla (Numbers), March 1930, on VN’s four most recent books and on VN’s poetry); see note to Rathaus, letter of 16 May 1930.

  of your honourable: VN writes tvoyo pochtennoye, punning on the fact that he highly esteems (pochitaet) VéN’s letter, which arrived by post (pochta).

  Brandenburgers: Ornamental braid trimmings used on uniforms.

  Obenberger: Jan Obenberger (1892–1964), Czech entomologist, professor at the National Museum in Prague.

  sont pires que les juifs: Fr. ‘are worse than the Jews’.

  blackish: As in ‘Black Hundred’, a number of political groups and parties that joined the anti-revolutionary movement after the Revolution of 1905, with agenda based on anti-Semitism, monarchism and Orthodoxy.

  the Mishas: Possibly Mikhail Kaminka and family.

  ‘Les Caves du Vatican’ by A. Gide: The satirical tale Les Caves du Vatican (1914), translated as The Vatican Cellars and as Lafcadio’s Adventures, by André Gide (1869–1951).

  Letter postmarked 22 May 1930

  the following from Kipling: stanza 3 of ‘The Feet of the Young Men’ (1898), by Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936).

  She was Queen of Sabaea: From Kipling’s poem ‘There was never a Queen like Balkis’, included in Just So Stories (1902).

  [Countess] Panin: Countess Sofia Vladimirovna Panin (1871–1956), before the Bolshevik Revolution, leading Constitutional Democrat; the Nabokovs had been given refuge on her Crimean estate, Gaspra, in 1918.

  Astrov: Nikolay Ivanovich Astrov (1868–1934), before the Bolshevik Revolution, leading Constitutional Democrat; in emigration, chair of the Union of Writers and Journalists of Czechoslovakia (1930–32).

  Gorns: Vasily Leopoldovich Gorn (1876–1938), Zemstvo official, an émigré lawyer and journalist.

  Kovalevskys: Evgraf Petrovich Kovalevsky (1865–1941), member of the Third and Fourth State Dumas, Commissar of Education in the Russian Provisional Government of 1917.

  ‘Vozrozhdenie’: Vozrozhdenie (Renaissance), conservative daily with nationalist and monarchist tendencies, published in Paris, 1925–40. VN was interested in Vladimir Weidle’s recent review of The Defence: ‘Rets. Sovremennye zapiski. Kn. 42’. Vozrozhdenie, 1930, 12 May, p. 3.

  Its little face: the dog in the drawing.

  ‘Nedelya’: A Russian-language newspaper Nedelya (Týden, The Week), published in Prague in 1928–30.

  Letter postmarked 23 May 1930

  Gleb’s review: Gleb Struve, ‘Zametki o stikhakh’, Rossiya i slavyanstvo (Russia and Slavdom, Paris daily, 1928–34), 15 March 1930, p. 3.

  Olga … with her husband: Olga (née Nabokov) and Boris Petkevich.

  Avksentiev: Nikolay Dmitrievich Avksentiev (1878–1943), before the Bolshevik coup, a Socialist Revolutionary politician; in the emigration, one of the publishers of Sovremennye zapiski.

  Vishnyak: Mark Veniaminovich Vishnyak (1883–1976), Russian politician, lawyer, Socialist Revolutionary; in emigration, one of the editors of Sovremennye zapiski.

  Ivanov gave them just an ‘excerpt’: Georgy Ivanov’s novel Tretiy Rim (The Third Rome), started in 1926, began to be published in Sovremennye zapiski, 39 and 40, in 1929; the last instalment (‘Excerpts from Part Two of the novel’) appeared in Chisla, 2–3, 1930, pp. 26–54.

  Adamovich’s article in ‘P. N.’: Adamovich, review of ‘ “Sovremennye zapiski”, kniga 42’ (which included an instalment of The Defence), Poslednie novosti, 15 May 1930, p. 3.

  Sherman wrote charmingly: A. Saveliev (Savely Sherman), review of ‘‘‘Sovremennye zapiski”, kniga 42’, Rul’, 21 May 1930, p. 2.

  de ma part: Fr. ‘from me’.

  Letter of c. 23 May 1930

  Date: Undated. No envelope; the letter is inscribed in Véra’s hand ‘From Prague 1930.’

  Izgoev: Aron Solomonovich Lande, (pen-name Aleksandr Samoylovich Izgoev, 1872–1935), lawyer, prominent Constitutional Democrat and political commentator.

  Nika: VN’s cousin, the composer Nikolay (Nicolas, Nika) Dmitrievich Nabokov (1903–78).

  Ivanov is living with Zinaida: VéN has footnoted at the bottom of the page: ‘Gippius?’ Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (1869–1945), poet, literary critic, playwright, married since 1889 to poet and novelist Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky (1865–1941), both founders of Russian literary Symbolism and central figures in St Petersburg’s literary circles before the Revolution.

  Varshavsky: Possibly Sergey Ivanovich Varshavsky (1879–1945), journalist, lawyer, professor at the Russian law faculty in Prague, or (although he lived in Paris by now) his son, the writer and critic Vladimir Sergeevich Varshavsky (1906–78).

  Obstein: See letter of 4 June 1926 for VN’s conversation with Stein, who peppered his speech with the idiosyncratic filler ‘obli’.

  Undated Letter (1930s?)

  Misha … Kaminkas: Mikhail Kaminka and his wife Elizaveta moved to France early in the 1930s.

  1932

  Headnote

  cannot now be located: See Appendix Two, especially p. 539.

  Letter of 4 April 1932

  sky […]: The words ‘and so on’ here on the tape were probably added by VéN, as she tried to edit the letter while reading it aloud. Here and below, her words are replaced with ellipses and, in some cases, supplied in a note.

  Rostislav: Rostislav Borisovich Petkevich (1931–60), son of VN’s sister Olga.

  Seryozha: Sergey Nabokov, VN’s brother.

  one of our Yalta photographs: The photograph of the five Nabokov children, taken in Yalta in November 1919, reproduced in SM, facing p. 224. Elena holds Box, the family’s dachshund. See Plate Section, photo 2.

  ‘Lips to Lips’: ‘Usta k ustam’, a short story completed on 6 December 1931. The story transparently critiques the way writers behind th
e Paris journal Chisla – Nikolay Otsup, Georgy Adamovich and Georgy Ivanov – had shamelessly exploited the literary ambitions of a wealthy but untalented writer, Aleksandr Pavlovich Burd-Voskhodov, pen-name Burov (1876–1957), so that he would bankroll the journal. Poslednie novosti accepted the story, even set it in type, but once it recognized the targets, refused to publish. The story first appeared in Vesna v Fial’te (New York: Chekhov Publishing House, 1956); in English, trans. DN with VN, RB.

  my article on butterflies: ‘Notes on the Lepidoptera of the Pyrénées Orientales and the Ariège’.

  Letter of 5 April 1932

  Bertrand: Clarence Bertrand Thompson (1882–1969), management consultant and author of books on management, sociology and economics; American husband of VéN’s close friend Lisbet Thompson. VN first met him in 1926, and continued to think him one of the brightest people he knew (VNRY, 393–94).

  Thompson: A joke. VN has written to Thompson, but he is asking VéN to thank Bertrand, i.e. to pass on his thanks to the very person he has just written to.

  Leskov’s and Zamyatin’s: Nikolay Semyonovich Leskov (1831–95) and Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin (1884–1937). Zamyatin emigrated in 1931, after Soviet ideologists reacted to his anti-utopian novel We (1920) and viciously ostracized its author. VN may be comparing Leskov’s anti-nihilist novel Na nozhakh (At Daggers Drawn, 1870–71) to We, drawing a parallel between one of Leskov’s female characters, perhaps Glafira Akatov, and Zamyatin’s revolutionary heroine I-330.

  to start a new novel: Not the novel he would in fact next write, Otchayanie (Despair), which he would begin composing in June, complete in first draft in September, and finish revising in December.

  Letter of 6 April 1932

  ‘Magda’s Childhood’ … ‘Visit’: Excerpts from VN’s novel Kamera obskura, finished May 1931, serialized in Sovremennye zapiski, 49–52 (1932–3), published in book form in 1933 (Berlin and Paris: Parabola and Sovremennye Zapiski); translated by Winifred Roy as Camera Obscura (London: John Long, 1936) and by VN as Laughter in the Dark (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1938). For the excerpt VN calls ‘Magda’s Childhood’, see ‘Kamera obskura (Glava iz romana)’ (‘Camera Obscura (Chapter from a Novel)’), Poslednie novosti, 17 April 1932, pp. 2–3. If an excerpt appeared in Rossiya i slavyanstvo, it has not been located.

  Azef: Evno Fishelevich Azef (1869–1918), agent provocateur, secret agent of the Russian imperial police, and an early member of the Socialist Revolutionary party, for whom he organized assassinations. After being exposed in 1908, Azef escaped abroad.

  Pyotr Semyonovich: Bobrovsky.

  Glory: Podvig, published in Sovremennye zapiski, 45–8 (1931–2), and in book form (Paris: Sovremennye Zapiski, 1932); translated DN with VN (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971); see Podvig, p. 150 (ch. 31), Glory, p. 126 (ch. 30): ‘He saw in the mirror … that special expression on his mother’s pink, freckled face: by the fold of her lips, tightly compressed but ready to spread into a smile, he could tell there was a letter.’

  issue of Russkaya mysl’ where my poems: VN’s poem ‘Zimnyaya noch’’ (‘Winter Night’) had appeared in Russkaya mysl’ in March–April 1917; in fact he had been published previously in a journal (apart from earlier school journal publications) – the poem ‘Lunnaya gryoza’ (‘Lunar Reverie’), which appeared in Vestnik Evropy (The Messenger of Europe), July 1916, p. 38.

  a poem … written in Beaulieu: Domaine-Beaulieu, the farm near Solliès-Pont and Toulon, France, where VN worked in 1923 and from where he wrote his first letters and poems for Véra.

  I don’t like Camera: VN had been checking the proofs of his Kamera obskura, the first instalment of which would appear in late May in Sovremennye zapiski, 49.

  Nash vek: Our Age, a weekly Russian newspaper published in Berlin from 1931 to 1933, in the wake of the demise of Rul’, and edited by some of VN’s acquaintances, such as Yury Ofrosimov and Savely Sherman.

  Skit: ‘Skit Poetov’ (‘The Poets’ Hermitage’): see note to letter 2 of 12 May 1930.

  Letter of 7 April 1932

  Raevskys: Nikolay Alekseevich Raevsky (1894–1988), entomologist and Pushkin scholar, deported to the Soviet Union after the Second World War. He wrote a memoir, ‘Vospominaniya o Vladimire Nabokove’ (‘Recollections of Vladimir Nabokov’), Prostor, 2 (1989), pp. 112–17; an excerpt in English appears in N’sBs, p. 147.

  Letter of 8 April 1932

  Pushkin exhibition: ‘Pushkin and His Time’ exhibition organized by the Národní muzeum (National Museum) in Prague in 1932.

  Pteridophora alberti: The King of Saxony bird of paradise.

  the original of ‘Odelia dear’: Adèle Hommaire de Hell (1817[?]–1871[?]), French traveller; author, with her husband, geographer Xavier Hommaire de Hell (1812–48), of a travel memoir, Les steppes de la mer Caspienne, le Caucase, la Crimée et la Russie meridionale (Paris, 1843). She became the central subject of a literary mystification by Pavel Petrovich Vyazemsky (1820–88), son of Pushkin’s friend, the writer Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky. Vyazemsky first wrote about her in his article ‘Lermontov i gospozha Gommer de Gell v 1840 godu’ (‘Lermontov and Madame Hommaire de Hell in 1840’), Russkiy arkhiv (The Russian Archive), September 1887, pp. 129–42. In 1933, an ‘all-inclusive’ edition of Vyazemsky’s Pisma i zapiski Ommer de Gell (Letters and Memoirs of Hommaire de Hell) was published by M. M. Chistyakova (Leningrad: Akademia, 1933). The ‘letters’ mentioned Pushkin and described, among other things, an affair between Hommaire de Hell and Mikhail Lermontov. After its publication, in May 1934 the Pushkin scholar N. O. Lerner denounced it in a paper at the research institute Pushkinsky Dom (‘The Pushkin House’), where he revealed Vyazemsky’s authorship. Shortly thereafter, P. S. Popov published a more detailed essay demystifying Hommaire de Hell in ‘Mistifikatsiya’ (‘A Mystification’), Novyi mir, 1935, No. 3, pp. 282–93.

  Chlamydophorus truncatus: Correctly Chlamyphorus truncatus, the Pink Fairy Armadillo. VN plays in the next phrase on the Greek chlamys and Russian khlamida, ‘cloak, mantle’.

  Gazdanov’s story: Gayto Ivanovich Gazdanov (1903–71), Russian émigré writer and literary critic, whose story ‘Schast’e’ (‘Happiness’) appeared in Sovremennye zapiski, 49 (May 1932), pp. 164–202, in the same issue as the first chapters of VN’s Camera Obscura. Georgy Adamovich reviewed ‘Happiness’ and Camera Obscura in one essay, noting the brilliance of style shared by both writers (Poslednie novosti, 2 June 1932, p. 2). In 1935–6, reviewers continued to compare VN and Gazdanov: see, for example, Adamovich’s review of Sovremennye zapiski, 58, where he says that ‘reading Gazdanov after reading Sirin is a true relaxation: everything resumes its place, we are no longer in jail, in a madhouse, in a vacuum, we are among normal people …’ (Poslednie novosti, 4 July 1935, p. 3).

  Boris Vladimirovich: Petkevich.

  Roerich: Nikolay Konstantinovich Roerich (1874–1947), Russian painter, mystical philosopher, explorer. In 1900, the Roerich family, including his son Yury Nikolaevich, began to conduct spiritualist séances in their home.

  article by Adamovich about the … novel by Lawrence: Adamovich reviewed the Russian translation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1928) (trans. T. I. Leshchenko; Berlin: Petropolis, 1932): ‘O knige Lorensa’ (‘On Lawrence’s Book’), Poslednie novosti, 7 April 1932, p. 3.

  Letter of 11 April 1932

  Pletnyov: Rostislav Vladimirovich Pletnyov, pen-name Daniel, (1903–85), literary scholar, critic and professor at Charles University in Prague.

  Karpovich: Mikhail Mikhaylovich Karpovich (1888–1959), former political activist and member of the Socialist-Revolutionary party, then a historian of Russia and professor of history at Harvard. After the Nabokovs’ arrival in the US in 1940 they would become good friends with the Karpoviches.

  an invasion: Of bed-bugs.

  Ralph Hodgson: Ralph Hodgson (1871–1962), English poet: ‘The Bells of Heaven’ (Poems, 1917).

  ‘Za sobak …’: Here and below, VN inserts his translation of Hodgson’s po
em into Russian in the text of the letter.

  Sikorski: Vsevolod Vyacheslavovich Sikorski (1896–1958), a pre-revolutionary Russian army officer, who would marry Nabokov’s sister Elena in May 1932.

  Volkonsky: Unidentified.

  to propose: To Elena Nabokov, who had by then divorced her first husband, Pyotr Skulyari.

  aquarelle … Miskhor and Yalta: Miskhor, now part of Koreiz, on the Crimean Riviera about a mile west of Gaspra, itself to the south-east of Yalta. Probably a landscape painted by Vladimir Pohl (see below, note to letter of 11 November 1932), and later inherited by Elena Sikorski from her mother.

  Libythea celtis: The European Snout butterfly.

  Acropolis: In 1919 the Nabokovs, after fleeing the Crimea, stayed in Greece during April and May before departing for London, where they settled for a year before the parents and younger children relocated to Berlin.

  Letter of 12 April 1932

  Goethe evening: On 20 April 1932, the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists in Berlin celebrated the 100th anniversary of Goethe’s death.

  Golovin’s workshop: Aleksandr Sergeevich Golovin (1904–68), sculptor.

  Bem: Professor Alfred Lyudvigovich Bem, literary scholar, founder of ‘Skit Poetov’ (1886–1945).

  Tzadik: ‘A righteous man’ in Judaic tradition.

  Markovich: Vadim Vladimirovich Morkovin (1906–73), fiction writer and poet, historian of literature.

  Mansvetov: Vladimir Fyodorovich Mansvetov (1909–74), poet, journalist. In 1939, he would emigrate to the US and from 1940 to 1943 work for Novoe Russkoe Slovo (The New Russian Word, the Russian daily newspaper published in New York from 1910), and later for The Voice of America.

  such little Pasternakian words: Naobum, vslepuyu, pod spudom, ovatsii. Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890–1960), poet, novelist, translator.

  Alla Golovina: Alla Sergeevna Golovina (née Baroness Steiger, 1909–87), poet, wife of sculptor Aleksandr Golovin.

  Khokhlov: German Dmitrievich Khokhlov (1908–38), poet and literary critic. After returning to Russia in 1934 he would be arrested and executed as ‘a member of a terrorist organization’.