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Yakima jailers
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MM: Kim also shows up in the words Akimovich as well as Yakim Eskimossoff...
Much like a matryoshka doll, there is Kim in Yakim, Yakim in Yakima and Yakima in Yakimanka (a street in Moscow mentioned by Chekhov in several stories and letters). The Yakima Academy of Drama and its production of Chekhov's play Three Sisters (known on Antiterra as Four Sisters) is mentioned by Ada:
our wretched Yakima production could rely on only two Russians, Stan's protege Altshuler* in the role of Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbach-Krone-Altschauer, and myself as Irina, la pauvre et noble enfant... (2.9)
and the Yakima jailers are mentioned by Van:
All three scientists had vanished now: X had committed suicide; Y had been kidnapped by a laundryman and transported to Tartary; and Z, a ruddy, white-whiskered old sport, was driving his Yakima jailers crazy by means of incomprehensible crepitations, ceaseless invention of invisible inks, chameleonizations, nerve signals, spirals of out-going lights and feats of ventriloquism that imitated pistol shots and sirens. (2.2)
"Irina, la pauvre et noble enfant," played by Ada brings to mind Coppee's poem quoted by Demon (1.38):
Irene de Grandfief, la pauvre et noble enfant
Ferma son pi-ano... vendit son elephant'
The elephant is Demon's contribution. In a letter of September 11, 1890, to Suvorin Chekhov, sailing on the Gulf of Tartary from the north of Sahalin to the south, quotes the punch line of Krylov's fable "Любопытный" (The Inquisitive Person, its hero visited a zoo and failed to see one animal in it: the elephant): "now that I have done with the convict system, I have the feeling that I have seen everything but have not noticed the elephant (слона-то я и не приметил)." Slon is Russian for "elephant." On the other hand, SLON (Solovetskiy Lager' Osobogo Naznacheniya) was a particularly cruel Soviet labor camp (called by Solzhenitsyn "mother of the GULAG") on Solovki (the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea). In 1929 Chekhov's friend Gorky visited SLON and wrote a very favorable essay, praising the camp’s administration and rules. Indeed, he had not noticed the elephant!
After the publication of The Sahalin Island (in which a convict is mentioned whose name was Napoleon**) Chekhov wrote to Suvorin (a letter of January 2, 1894) that he was happy to have among his literary costumes a convict’s harsh robe (я рад, что в моём беллетристическом гардеробе будет висеть и сей жёсткий арестантский халат). After his visit to Solovki Maxim Gorky added to his writer’s wardrobe the uniform of a jailer.
*I. N. Altshuller (1870-1943) was a friend of Chekhov and his doctor in Yalta (note that shuler is Russian for "card-sharper" and alt means in German "old"). Stan [Slavsky] hints at Stanislavsky (stage name of K. S. Alekseev, 1863-1938, director and actor, a friend of Chekhov). Stan needs but a vowel to become Satan, and Russian particle li ("whether, if; or") will turn him into Stalin.
**The real Napoleon ended his life on the remote island in a different part of the world. I speak of Napoleon (who seems not to have existed on Antiterra) and his first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais (known on Antiterra as Queen Josephine: 1.5), in my article "'Grattez le Tartar...' or Who were the Parents of Ada's Kim Beauharnais?" (The Nabokovian ## 59, 60). And let's not forget that Comrade Napoleon is a hog in Orwell's Animal Farm.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Much like a matryoshka doll, there is Kim in Yakim, Yakim in Yakima and Yakima in Yakimanka (a street in Moscow mentioned by Chekhov in several stories and letters). The Yakima Academy of Drama and its production of Chekhov's play Three Sisters (known on Antiterra as Four Sisters) is mentioned by Ada:
our wretched Yakima production could rely on only two Russians, Stan's protege Altshuler* in the role of Baron Nikolay Lvovich Tuzenbach-Krone-Altschauer, and myself as Irina, la pauvre et noble enfant... (2.9)
and the Yakima jailers are mentioned by Van:
All three scientists had vanished now: X had committed suicide; Y had been kidnapped by a laundryman and transported to Tartary; and Z, a ruddy, white-whiskered old sport, was driving his Yakima jailers crazy by means of incomprehensible crepitations, ceaseless invention of invisible inks, chameleonizations, nerve signals, spirals of out-going lights and feats of ventriloquism that imitated pistol shots and sirens. (2.2)
"Irina, la pauvre et noble enfant," played by Ada brings to mind Coppee's poem quoted by Demon (1.38):
Irene de Grandfief, la pauvre et noble enfant
Ferma son pi-ano... vendit son elephant'
The elephant is Demon's contribution. In a letter of September 11, 1890, to Suvorin Chekhov, sailing on the Gulf of Tartary from the north of Sahalin to the south, quotes the punch line of Krylov's fable "Любопытный" (The Inquisitive Person, its hero visited a zoo and failed to see one animal in it: the elephant): "now that I have done with the convict system, I have the feeling that I have seen everything but have not noticed the elephant (слона-то я и не приметил)." Slon is Russian for "elephant." On the other hand, SLON (Solovetskiy Lager' Osobogo Naznacheniya) was a particularly cruel Soviet labor camp (called by Solzhenitsyn "mother of the GULAG") on Solovki (the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea). In 1929 Chekhov's friend Gorky visited SLON and wrote a very favorable essay, praising the camp’s administration and rules. Indeed, he had not noticed the elephant!
After the publication of The Sahalin Island (in which a convict is mentioned whose name was Napoleon**) Chekhov wrote to Suvorin (a letter of January 2, 1894) that he was happy to have among his literary costumes a convict’s harsh robe (я рад, что в моём беллетристическом гардеробе будет висеть и сей жёсткий арестантский халат). After his visit to Solovki Maxim Gorky added to his writer’s wardrobe the uniform of a jailer.
*I. N. Altshuller (1870-1943) was a friend of Chekhov and his doctor in Yalta (note that shuler is Russian for "card-sharper" and alt means in German "old"). Stan [Slavsky] hints at Stanislavsky (stage name of K. S. Alekseev, 1863-1938, director and actor, a friend of Chekhov). Stan needs but a vowel to become Satan, and Russian particle li ("whether, if; or") will turn him into Stalin.
**The real Napoleon ended his life on the remote island in a different part of the world. I speak of Napoleon (who seems not to have existed on Antiterra) and his first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais (known on Antiterra as Queen Josephine: 1.5), in my article "'Grattez le Tartar...' or Who were the Parents of Ada's Kim Beauharnais?" (The Nabokovian ## 59, 60). And let's not forget that Comrade Napoleon is a hog in Orwell's Animal Farm.
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
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/