Dear Don,

Strangely enough there seems to be some discrepancy in determining the birthdate of Nabokov's father. In Speak Memory it is given as "July 20, 1870" which appears to be the Julian (New Style) date. However there are two quite different Gregorian (Old Style) dates - - July 8 and July 15.  All the internet sources including the Nabokov Genealogy site (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/nfw01/nfw01_003.htm) give the July 15 date. However neither the 8th or the 15th Old Style will yield the 20th New Style.

To complicate matters further, Alexey Sklyarenko (The Nabokovian No. 53) insists that Speak Memory was off by one day, and that the correct date is July 21.

Can anyone clarify?

thanks,
Carolyn