Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0022801, Sun, 6 May 2012 22:40:30 +0300

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dark-blue
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Prince Ivan Temnosiniy... Van could not help feeling esthetically moved by the velvet background he was able to distinguish as a comforting, omnipresent summer sky through the black foliage of the family tree. (Ada, 1.1)

Nabokov's poem "Поэты" (The Poets, 1939), signed Vasiliy Shishkov in the magazine publication, begins:

Из комнаты в сени свеча переходит
и гаснет. Плывёт отпечаток в глазах,
пока очертаний своих не находит
беззвёздная ночь в тёмно-синих ветвях.

From room to hallway a candle passes
and is extinguished. Its imprint swims in one's eyes,
until, among the blue-black branches,
a starless night its contours finds.

Vasiliy Shishkov (the eponymous hero of a story by Sirin) is a namesake of Vasiliy Travnikov (the poet invented by Khodasevich) and Vasiliy Tyomnyi* (Blind), the Grand Prince of Moscow (1415-62) who was blinded by Dmitri Shemyaka. In Ada there are three blind characters.

*in modern Russian tyomnyi means "dark;" the name Shishkov comes from shishka (cone); as for shish, see Ivan Kalita

Alexey Sklyarenko

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