Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the beginning of VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (The Luzhin Defense, 1930) little Luzhin writes dictations ('Being born in this world is hardly to be borne'):

The action in VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (The Luzhin Defense, 1930) begins on Saturday, August 28, 1910 (OS), Leo Tolstoy’s eighty-second birthday. Tolstoy is the author of Voskresenie ("Resurrection," 1899). Voskresen’ye is Russian for “Sunday.” In VN's play Sobytie ("The Event," 1938) the action takes place on Sunday, August 28, 1938. The play’s main character, the portrait painter Troshcheykin, has the same name and patronymic as Aleksey Maksimovich Peshkov (Maxim Gorky’s real name).

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) the word partiya (match) keeps floating through the brain of Luzhin’s wife after the wedding:

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) Kurt and Karl (the German revelers) mistake Luzhin who fainted in the street after his game with Turati for their friend Pulvermacher:

Describing Cincinnatus’s childhood in his novel Priglashenie na kazn’ (“Invitation to a Beheading,” 1935), VN mentions malina (rumpberry) and tych’ (poke) among the games that Cincinnatus played with other children:

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) not a single date is mentioned. But we can figure out at least three exact dates: Luzhin's birthday, the day on which the action in the novel begins and the day of Luzhin's death. Luzhin was born on October 19, 1902, goes to school on Monday, August 31, 1909 (OS), and dies on February 21, 1929.

In The Luzhin Defense, the English version of his novel Zashchita Luzhina (1930), VN renames Mit’ka (the boy of the lady from Russia) Ivan:

In VN's play Sobytie ("The Event," 1938) the action takes place in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening of one and the same day (the fiftieth birthday of Antonina Pavlovna Opoyashin, the lady writer):

In VN's play Sobytie ("The Event," 1838) the action takes place at the end of the summer, on the fiftieth birthday of Antonina Pavlovna Opoyashin (the lady writer):

Входит Антонина Павловна Опояшина, мать Любови, с пестрым мячом в руках. Это аккуратная, даже несколько чопорная женщина, с лорнетом, сладковато-рассеянная.

Антонина Павловна.

Здравствуйте, мои дорогие. Почему-то это попало ко мне. Спасибо, Алеша, за чудные цветочки.

Трощейкин (он не поднимает головы от работы во всю эту сцену).

In VN novel Ada (1969) Van tells Ada that he would like to be a goblin-sized Gulliver in order to explore her mouth: