Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0006022, Mon, 11 Jun 2001 20:44:25 -0700

Subject
Re: capital punishment: Nabokov's father and Solzhenitsyn
Date
Body
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> From: M. Cotugno <mxc52@psu.edu>
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Subject: capital punishment
> Date: Monday, June 11, 2001 2:41 PM


EDITORIAL NOTE. I wonder if it is true that VN's father retracted his
statement.

Marianne Cotugno writes:
Today I ran across this mention of Nabokov on the English version of
Pravda.
It's an old article, but seems appropriate to forward to the list today.


12:14 2001-04-29
SOLZHENITSYN STANDS UP FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN RUSSIA

The well-known Russian writer and Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn
believes that Russia will stop terrorism only if it lifts the moratorium on
capital punishment.
"Sometimes, capital punishment is needed for the s
ake of saving the nation and the state. In Russia matters stand this way at
the
moment," Solzhenitsyn has told Interfax.
Chechnya remains "an unfinished chapter in Russian history, and a grim
political problem. Therefore, the wave of terrorism is rising in this
country,"
he said.
He said that writer Vladimir Nabokov's father, under the influence of Leo
Tolstoy's ideas, had spent 20 years campaigning against capital punishment
in
Russia. "But when the whole quagmire of the 1917 February revolution
inundated
Russia and the country was covered with a wave of unpunished murders, he
admitted in the State Duma that he was wrong and that uncontrollable
violence
could be stopped only by the execution of capital punishment verdicts.
"Those in Europe who are telling us to abolish capital punishment do not
know
the trials Russia has gone through. Europe has never experienced anything
of
the kind," Solzhenitsyn said.