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----- Original Message -----
From: Dieter E. Zimmer
To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 12:11 AM
Subject: Re: VN & The Germans
I have a most direct answer for Alex Fak's question. When I interviewed Nabokov for a German tv station back in 1966, I cautiously asked him the very same question myself. Here is our exchange. It will be published, in German, in the forthcoming volume Vladimir Nabokov, "Eigensinnige Ansichten", Reinbek: Rowohlt, July 2004, a sort of sequel volume to "Strong Opinions". Nabokov's answers are verbatim, in his English.
Q: In your book on Gogol you said you would like to see Germany destroyed down to the last beer mug and forget-me-not. Have you since had reason to change your view?
A: Ich bin nicht sehr entzueckt mit? von meinem Gogol Buechlein. [By the way, this sentence shows once more that he knew German but did not know it well. In "Eigensinnige Ansichten", I rather translated the following sentence myself that his German sentence had been supposed to render: "Ich mag mein kleines Buch ueber Gogol nicht allzu sehr."] I am not overfond of my flippant little book on Gogol, written hastily more than twenty years ago, but the particular passage you mention is not quite as flippant as it seems when quoted out of context. Let me restore the beginning of the paragraph. "To exaggerate the worthlessness of a country at the awkward moment when one is at war with it, and would like to see it destroyed to the last beer mug and the last forget-me-not, means walking dangerously close to that abyss of poshlost' which yawns so universally at times of revolution or war." After all, the Japanese also yearned for the destruction on America down to the last peanut and the last pin-up. In that chapter I speak of the amo et odi emotions with which Russia as a nation viewed Germany as a nation. My personal attitude towards Germany is more complicated than that. Two facts should be taken into account: First, that I lived and wrote in Germany during precisely those years when not only my own impressions but also those of my German friends, and in fact history itself, became, as you put it, "more and more sinister," until the cruel kitsch they and I loathed developed into a regime which for sheer sinister vulgarity is only matched by the Russia of the Soviet era. This is one thing to be noted; the other is that on my own paternal grandmother's side I can trace my ancestry back not only to Baltic barons but to a famous composer in Saxony and to a distinguished book publisher in Koenigsberg, and way back to an obscure church organist at Plauen near Warenbrueck in the sixteenth century, and no doubt to many an amateur Schmetterlingsfaenger who may have had beer mugs on his shelf and forget-me-nots in his album. I would like to add that in the light of what looks in restrospect as a dismissal of German culture in a bitter footnote, I feel some embarrassment when confronted today with a third fact, namely, that in the post-war era German critics have understood and appreciated my books with unusual subtlety and artistry.
Q: Have you been to Gemany since the war?
A: I have not been to Germany since I left it in 1937.
Q: Do you intend ever to go there again?
A: No, I shall never go there again, just as I shall never go back to Russia.
Q: Why not?
A: As long as I am still alive there may be brutes still alive who have tortured and murdered the helpless and the innocent. How can I know the abyss in the past of my coeval--the good-natured stranger whose hand I happen to clasp?
If you want to know who those German ancestors were, I suggest you take a walk through the genealogical family tree I researched and compiled in Zembla.
Dieter E. Zimmer
Berlin, May 15, 2004
----- Original Message -----
From: D. Barton Johnson
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 7:12 PM
Subject: VN & The Germans
EDNOTE. I was about to suggest that VN's distaste for Germans was not
unconnected with the death of his brother Sergey in a Nazi camp. On
reflection I realized that the Gogol book was written before VN learned of
Sergey's fate. Note well that Nabokov's father was a prominent figure in the
struggle against Russian anti-Semitism. Nazi anti-Semitism was an important
factor in the Nabokovs' departure from Germany and doubtless added to his
dislike of Germans. There are several articles on the Nabokov & the Germans.
On the other hand, Fyodor in DAR (The Gift) ruefully laughs at himself for
disliking a German on a streetcar who proves to be Russian.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alex Fak" <afak@imedia.ru>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (26
lines) ------------------
> By the way, is anyone else puzzled by VN's generalized description of
> Germany and the Germans in "Nikolai Gogol"? I'm not sure if he's also
> written about it elsewhere. It is interesting that someone who once
> derided Dostoyevsky for appearing to mock all Poles, Jews and Germans
> is also the same person who peppered the "poshlust" section of
> Gogol's biography with digs at a whole nation. Does anyone know if
> there is a logic behind this apparent contradiction?
>
> Not to mention that the remarks about wishing Germany destroyed to
> the last beer mug and edelweiss (if I recall correctly) appear
> somewhat broad-handed for such a nuanced writer.
>
> Sorry if this has been chewed upon already (I was awol for a few months).
>
> Alex.
>
> --
> Alex Fak
> Business Reporter
> The Moscow Times
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> fax: +7 095 937 3393/94
>
> www.themoscowtimes.com
>
>