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Nabokov
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Critics
call Vladimir Nabokov a cosmopolitan writer, while he
himself used to say “My head speaks English, my heart
speaks Russian and my ear speaks French”. One way or
another, his creation is a world-wide heritage. The best
part of Nabokov’s writing career geographically indeed
belonged to the United States and Western Europe, but it
started and was formed in Saint-Petersburg and its
essential inspiration had always been his nostalgia for
the city of his youth. |
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Vladimir Nabokov was born on April 22,
1899 in a well-off noble family of Saint-Petersburg
aristocrats. He was brought up in the air of blissful
happiness and welfare. The family lived in the Nabokovs’
Mansion on Bolshaya Morskaya Street 47. The present look
of the house was designed by Geisler and Guslisty in
1901-1902 as the first example of the so-called Art
Nouveau style in Saint-Petersburg. It was not until 1992
that an exhibition devoted to the writer’s life and
career opened in the mansion. Today the exhibition is
housed on the ground-floor of the building and a true
Nabokov’s commemorative museum is to open
soon. |
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Nabokov's parents gave him a truly
comprehensive pre-school education, including excellent
knowledge of the three major languages that were later
to become of so much use for him as a writer. With all
the attention paid to painting, philology and natural
sciences, especially etymology and great attention to
physical education, it was hardly possible to get a
better education for a child. His father, a professor of
jurisdiction in the Imperial College, gathered
remarkable art collection and library. The house was
full of precious pieces of art, paintings by Bakst,
Benous, Somov, and priceless
books. |
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From 1911 till 1917 Nabokov studied at
Tenishevsky College. It was already at school when his
notorious self-confidence and aplomb began to show up.
There he won the reputation of a snob. Nevertheless,
those were the most happy years of his life. The
romantic memories of Saint-Petersburg were to play the
key role in his future writing. As already a
well-established writer he described the joyful years in
his nostalgic biographical novel “The Other
Coasts”. |
The political disorder in Russia of the late
1910ths ruined the Nabokovs’ idyll once and for all forcing
the family to seek shelter abroad. Terror and anarchy were to
follow the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power and the Nabokovs knew
this only too well. In 1919, they crossed Russian borders
heading for Western Europe and none of them ever returned to
Saint-Petersburg. Their mansion was then nationalized by
Bolsheviks. The family’s private art collection and library
were taken by the Soviet Government. Some of the items were
given to the Hermitage and the Russian Museum collections,
while the rest seems to have been dispersed for
ever. |
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While his parents, sisters and brothers settled
in Berlin, he himself arrived in England to study French and
Russian literature at Cambridge in 1919-1922. From this there
came his first bulk of verses. From the very beginning
Nabokov’s nostalgia served him as a kind of lyric background
for his narration. His first novels were written in his native
tongue, “Mashen’ka”, “Defence of Luzhin”, “Desperation”,
“Invitation for Execution”, “The Gift”. In 1925, when he
already began to enjoy popularity, Nabokov married Vera
Slonim. Not only was she the most helpful ally in the writer’s
career, but also the Muse to whom he dedicated many of his
brilliant novels. |
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In 1940 Nabokov arrived in the United States
where he lived until 1960. Thanks to his intelligence and hard
work Nabokov adapted quickly to the new way of life. His
special sense for foreign languages was important too. Soon he
was able to give public lectures in American colleges and
Universities. An already famous writer, he had to prove his
worth once again. The great success of his scandalous novel
“Lolita” written in English in 1950 let Nabokov quit his
teaching and concentrate on writing. Still, he kept his
Russian alive by translating into Russian all his originally
English works. |
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Nabokov viewed both great languages as a part of
his natural background and wanted the two cultures to know
each other as well as possible. The four volumes of his
painstaking attempts to clear up the poem “Eugenie Onegin” by
Pushkin for the English were a feat, however useless. He did
it by dissipating the poetical body into a desperate amount of
descriptive notes, and indeed made the origin so flat as if it
were no poem at all. Nonetheless, it doesn’t reduce his talent
for double-sided work. He knew perfectly how to bring an idea
from one language into another as long as his own work was
concerned. |
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In 1960 Nabokov moved to Switzerland were he
created his two most intricate English novels “Pale Fire” and
“Ada, or Passion”. As an old man he turned back to his native
language. He translated and published the Russian version of
“Lolita” and wrote a bulk of lyric poems in Russian. He died
on July 2, 1977 in Switzerland never returning to his native
city. |
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