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Krug, David, Olga & Shakespeare in Bend Sinister
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Adam Krug, the main character in VN's novel Bend Sinister (1947), has a son named David. David is a boy in VN's story Sovershenstvo ("Perfection," 1932). The story's title brings to mind Heine's poem Unvollkommenheit ("Imperfection"). Heine (who, like VN, lived in emigration) is the author of Adam der Erste ("Adam the First") and Koenig David ("King David"). In his Unvollkommenheit Heine mentions Lucretia, a Roman woman whose suicide led to the expulsion of the Tarquins and the establishment of the Roman republic:
Hatte Lucretia sich nicht erstochen,
Sie war’ vielleicht gekommen in die Wochen.
Had Lucrece not stabbed herself,
perhaps she would have become pregnant.
According to Pushkin, in his Graf Nulin ("Count Null," 1825) he parodied history and The Rape of Lucrece, "a rather weak poem by Shakespeare:"
В конце 1825 года находился я в деревне. Перечитывая «Лукрецию», довольно слабую поэму Шекспира, я подумал: что если б Лукреции пришла в голову мысль дать пощёчину Тарквинию? быть может, это охладило б его предприимчивость и он со стыдом принуждён был отступить? Лукреция б не зарезалась. Публикола не взбесился бы, Брут не изгнал бы царей, и мир и история мира были бы не те.
Итак, республикою, консулами, диктаторами, Катонами, Кесарем мы обязаны соблазнительному происшествию, подобному тому, которое случилось недавно в моём соседстве, в Новоржевском уезде.
Мысль пародировать историю и Шекспира мне представилась. Я не мог воспротивиться двойному искушению и в два утра написал эту повесть.
Я имею привычку на моих бумагах выставлять год и число. «Граф Нулин» писан 13 и 14 декабря. Бывают странные сближения.
"I am accustomed to date my papers. Count Nulin was written on 13 and 14 December. History does repeat itself strangely."
The disastrous Decembrist rising in St. Petersburg took place on December 14, 1825. The draft of Pushkin's poem K vel'mozhe ("To a Grandee") is dated April 23, 1829 ("1830" was corrected Pushkin to "1829"). April 23 (NS), 1899, is VN's birthday. In his poem "To a Grandee" Pushkin mentions oborot vo vsyom krugoobraznyi (a circular turn in everything):
Беспечно окружась Корреджием, Кановой,
Ты, не участвуя в волнениях мирских,
Порой насмешливо в окно глядишь на них
И видишь оборот во всём кругообразный.
There is krug (circle) in krugoobraznyi (circular). Krug ("The Circle," 1936) is another story by VN. Its hero, Innokentiy Bychkov, meets in Paris Tanya, the now married sister of Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev (the narrator and main character in VN's novel "The Gift," 1937). Innokentiy's first love has the same first name as the heroine of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Pushkin's Tatiana has a sister Olga (Olga was also the name of Pushkin's sister), poor Lenski's bride. Vladimir Lenski studied philosophy in misty Germany ("under the sky of Schiller and Goethe"). In Bend Sinister Olga is David's mother whose death Krug has to conceal from his son.
The main character in VN's story Sovershenstvo is Ivanov, David's Russian tutor. Ivanov (1887) is a play by Chekhov. After its unexpected success Chekhov signed a letter to his brother Aleksandr (father of Mikhail Chekhov, an actor of genius who played Hamlet) Shiller Shekspirovich Gyote. The characters of Bend Sinister include Dr Alexander. J. W. Goethe is mentioned in Bend Sinister. One of the novel's chapters is dedicated to Shakespeare.
In one of his epigrams on Count Vorontsov Pushkin mentions pevets-David ("David the bard") who was small but managed to bring down Goliath, a general whose title could not be lower than that of a Count:
Певец-Давид был ростом мал,
Но повалил же Голиафа,
Который был и генерал,
И, побожусь, не ниже графа.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Hatte Lucretia sich nicht erstochen,
Sie war’ vielleicht gekommen in die Wochen.
Had Lucrece not stabbed herself,
perhaps she would have become pregnant.
According to Pushkin, in his Graf Nulin ("Count Null," 1825) he parodied history and The Rape of Lucrece, "a rather weak poem by Shakespeare:"
В конце 1825 года находился я в деревне. Перечитывая «Лукрецию», довольно слабую поэму Шекспира, я подумал: что если б Лукреции пришла в голову мысль дать пощёчину Тарквинию? быть может, это охладило б его предприимчивость и он со стыдом принуждён был отступить? Лукреция б не зарезалась. Публикола не взбесился бы, Брут не изгнал бы царей, и мир и история мира были бы не те.
Итак, республикою, консулами, диктаторами, Катонами, Кесарем мы обязаны соблазнительному происшествию, подобному тому, которое случилось недавно в моём соседстве, в Новоржевском уезде.
Мысль пародировать историю и Шекспира мне представилась. Я не мог воспротивиться двойному искушению и в два утра написал эту повесть.
Я имею привычку на моих бумагах выставлять год и число. «Граф Нулин» писан 13 и 14 декабря. Бывают странные сближения.
"I am accustomed to date my papers. Count Nulin was written on 13 and 14 December. History does repeat itself strangely."
The disastrous Decembrist rising in St. Petersburg took place on December 14, 1825. The draft of Pushkin's poem K vel'mozhe ("To a Grandee") is dated April 23, 1829 ("1830" was corrected Pushkin to "1829"). April 23 (NS), 1899, is VN's birthday. In his poem "To a Grandee" Pushkin mentions oborot vo vsyom krugoobraznyi (a circular turn in everything):
Беспечно окружась Корреджием, Кановой,
Ты, не участвуя в волнениях мирских,
Порой насмешливо в окно глядишь на них
И видишь оборот во всём кругообразный.
There is krug (circle) in krugoobraznyi (circular). Krug ("The Circle," 1936) is another story by VN. Its hero, Innokentiy Bychkov, meets in Paris Tanya, the now married sister of Fyodor Konstantinovich Godunov-Cherdyntsev (the narrator and main character in VN's novel "The Gift," 1937). Innokentiy's first love has the same first name as the heroine of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Pushkin's Tatiana has a sister Olga (Olga was also the name of Pushkin's sister), poor Lenski's bride. Vladimir Lenski studied philosophy in misty Germany ("under the sky of Schiller and Goethe"). In Bend Sinister Olga is David's mother whose death Krug has to conceal from his son.
The main character in VN's story Sovershenstvo is Ivanov, David's Russian tutor. Ivanov (1887) is a play by Chekhov. After its unexpected success Chekhov signed a letter to his brother Aleksandr (father of Mikhail Chekhov, an actor of genius who played Hamlet) Shiller Shekspirovich Gyote. The characters of Bend Sinister include Dr Alexander. J. W. Goethe is mentioned in Bend Sinister. One of the novel's chapters is dedicated to Shakespeare.
In one of his epigrams on Count Vorontsov Pushkin mentions pevets-David ("David the bard") who was small but managed to bring down Goliath, a general whose title could not be lower than that of a Count:
Певец-Давид был ростом мал,
Но повалил же Голиафа,
Который был и генерал,
И, побожусь, не ниже графа.
Alexey Sklyarenko
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L