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gradus
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It is well-known that the tsar Peter I was a drunkard. And so was his namesake, Pyotr Abramovich Gannibal (son of Abram Petrovich Gannibal, Peter's god-child; in fact, Pyotr Gannibal received his name after Peter I). In Tynyanov's "Pushkin" (1936; Part One: Childhood: 1.1.6) Pyotr Annibal says to his sister-in-law (the poet's maternal grandmother):
- Я, сударыня сестрица, - сказал он Марье Алексеевне, - настойки в простом виде не пью, я ее перегоняю. Я возвожу в известный градус крепости. Чтоб вишня, горечь, чтоб сад был во рту.*
VN must have read Tynyanov's novel. In his EO Commentary (Vol. 2, p. 295) he writes: "Incidentally, Pyotr Gannibal, our poet's granduncle and country neighbor, was, like the MS Larin, a passionate distiller of gin, vodka."
*Apologies, I find this passage too difficult to translate. Let me just say that [G]annibal mentions gradus kreposti (alcohol percentage) of the liquor he distills. Normally, gradus means "degree" and krepost', "fortress." One is reminded of Petropavlovskaya krepost', the Peter-and-Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, and its commander Ivan Aleksandrovich Nabokov (brother of VN's great-grandfather, 1787-1852).
According to Bulgarin, Pushkin's great-grandfather, Ibrahim (Abram) Gannibal was acquired for a bottle of rum. Bulgarin's coarse article in Northern Bee provoked Pushkin to compose Moya rodoslovnaya ("My Pedigree," 1830). A hundred years later, G. Ivanov in his Chisla review of Sirin's novels rudely called VN kukharkin syn ("son of a [female] cook"). Vivian Calmbrood responded with the poem Nochnoe puteshestvie ("Night Journey," 1931), in which he attacked Ivanov as "Johnson."
Alexey Sklyarenko
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- Я, сударыня сестрица, - сказал он Марье Алексеевне, - настойки в простом виде не пью, я ее перегоняю. Я возвожу в известный градус крепости. Чтоб вишня, горечь, чтоб сад был во рту.*
VN must have read Tynyanov's novel. In his EO Commentary (Vol. 2, p. 295) he writes: "Incidentally, Pyotr Gannibal, our poet's granduncle and country neighbor, was, like the MS Larin, a passionate distiller of gin, vodka."
*Apologies, I find this passage too difficult to translate. Let me just say that [G]annibal mentions gradus kreposti (alcohol percentage) of the liquor he distills. Normally, gradus means "degree" and krepost', "fortress." One is reminded of Petropavlovskaya krepost', the Peter-and-Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, and its commander Ivan Aleksandrovich Nabokov (brother of VN's great-grandfather, 1787-1852).
According to Bulgarin, Pushkin's great-grandfather, Ibrahim (Abram) Gannibal was acquired for a bottle of rum. Bulgarin's coarse article in Northern Bee provoked Pushkin to compose Moya rodoslovnaya ("My Pedigree," 1830). A hundred years later, G. Ivanov in his Chisla review of Sirin's novels rudely called VN kukharkin syn ("son of a [female] cook"). Vivian Calmbrood responded with the poem Nochnoe puteshestvie ("Night Journey," 1931), in which he attacked Ivanov as "Johnson."
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/