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EDNOTE. Another story on the plight of the ST. Petersburg Nabokov Museum.
Contributions to the St. Petersburg Nabokov Museum are tax-deductible for U.S. citizens. Information on contributions available at friendsofnabokov@sbcglobal.net. If you would like to contribute, you can send your donation to:
Friends of Nabokov, Inc.
P.O. Box 41146
San Jose, CA 95160
----- Original Message -----
From: Sandy P. Klein
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2414751
Feb. 22, 2004, 12:37AM
Bankrupt museum honoring Lolita writer looking for savior
By MARK MCDONALD
Knight-Ridder Tribune News
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- They come like pilgrims, wide-eyed and reverent, clutching their copies of Lolita or Pale Fire, sniffing the stale air in the elegant old rooms off Bolshaya Morskaya Street, sniffing as if they're trying to catch the scent of the legendary novelist Vladimir Nabokov.
But the Nabokov faithful -- along with the man's Scrabble board, his pencil stubs and butterfly-hunting jacket -- are facing eviction. The private Nabokov Museum hasn't paid any rent for the past five years, and the city, which owns the building, is demanding $23,000.
Appeals to the governor for a stay of execution have gone unanswered, and a court hearing has been scheduled for March 1.
"The people who set up the museum weren't legal experts and they made some mistakes," said museum curator Elena Kuznetsova. "But we're not like the other museums in the city. The government gives us no assistance."
"We're still hoping for a benefactor to save us," said director Tatiana Ponomareva.
One longtime benefactor, Terry Myers, a not-wealthy technical editor at Pratt & Whitney Aerospace in San Jose, Calif., has promised $10,000 of his own money. Myers, whose fascination with Nabokov began as a teenager, has already donated some of the museum's best items, including a number of first editions.
"Not to have a permanent monument recognizing Nabokov's genius will reflect poorly on the city government," Myers said. "By honoring him, the city would be honoring all the great Russian ИmigrИ writers, artists, musicians and scholars who were forced to die abroad in obscurity because of Soviet repression and neglect."
The museum, which subsists mainly on the sale of 75-cent admission tickets, is effectively bankrupt. There's certainly no money to expand the first-floor exhibits to the upper floors of the writer's former home, which are occupied by the Nevsky Times newspaper.
The museum now doesn't even have enough money for security guards and decent display cases. Not that there's much to steal: the premium items -- including Nabokov's field jacket and Myers' first editions -- are locked away in storage.
Nabokov was born in the three-story mansion in 1899. He wrote his first book there at age 17, a collection of dewy love poems that his family paid to have published. The poems were written in English, which was young Nabokov's first language, thanks to his English governesses and tutors.
He published Lolita in the United States in 1958. The story of a middle-aged man's erotic obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, the book caused a sensation. The notoriety of the novel would overshadow Nabokov's other works, but it also earned him wealth, international attention and a wider audience.
In 1961, Nabokov and his wife, Vera, moved to Montreux, Switzerland, to be closer to their son, Dmitri, an opera student in Geneva. From a suite in the Palace Hotel, Nabokov wrote two of his most acclaimed novels -- Pale Fire and Ada, which he considered his best work.
He never returned to Russia and died in Switzerland in 1977, with his books still banned in his homeland and with the fall of communism still more than a decade away.
Over the years, his original home was used as a morgue and the headquarters of the municipal laundry. At one point, it also housed the Soviet censorship committee that banned Nabokov's works.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2414751
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take off on a romantic weekend or a family adventure to these great U.S. locations.
Contributions to the St. Petersburg Nabokov Museum are tax-deductible for U.S. citizens. Information on contributions available at friendsofnabokov@sbcglobal.net. If you would like to contribute, you can send your donation to:
Friends of Nabokov, Inc.
P.O. Box 41146
San Jose, CA 95160
----- Original Message -----
From: Sandy P. Klein
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2414751
Feb. 22, 2004, 12:37AM
Bankrupt museum honoring Lolita writer looking for savior
By MARK MCDONALD
Knight-Ridder Tribune News
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- They come like pilgrims, wide-eyed and reverent, clutching their copies of Lolita or Pale Fire, sniffing the stale air in the elegant old rooms off Bolshaya Morskaya Street, sniffing as if they're trying to catch the scent of the legendary novelist Vladimir Nabokov.
But the Nabokov faithful -- along with the man's Scrabble board, his pencil stubs and butterfly-hunting jacket -- are facing eviction. The private Nabokov Museum hasn't paid any rent for the past five years, and the city, which owns the building, is demanding $23,000.
Appeals to the governor for a stay of execution have gone unanswered, and a court hearing has been scheduled for March 1.
"The people who set up the museum weren't legal experts and they made some mistakes," said museum curator Elena Kuznetsova. "But we're not like the other museums in the city. The government gives us no assistance."
"We're still hoping for a benefactor to save us," said director Tatiana Ponomareva.
One longtime benefactor, Terry Myers, a not-wealthy technical editor at Pratt & Whitney Aerospace in San Jose, Calif., has promised $10,000 of his own money. Myers, whose fascination with Nabokov began as a teenager, has already donated some of the museum's best items, including a number of first editions.
"Not to have a permanent monument recognizing Nabokov's genius will reflect poorly on the city government," Myers said. "By honoring him, the city would be honoring all the great Russian ИmigrИ writers, artists, musicians and scholars who were forced to die abroad in obscurity because of Soviet repression and neglect."
The museum, which subsists mainly on the sale of 75-cent admission tickets, is effectively bankrupt. There's certainly no money to expand the first-floor exhibits to the upper floors of the writer's former home, which are occupied by the Nevsky Times newspaper.
The museum now doesn't even have enough money for security guards and decent display cases. Not that there's much to steal: the premium items -- including Nabokov's field jacket and Myers' first editions -- are locked away in storage.
Nabokov was born in the three-story mansion in 1899. He wrote his first book there at age 17, a collection of dewy love poems that his family paid to have published. The poems were written in English, which was young Nabokov's first language, thanks to his English governesses and tutors.
He published Lolita in the United States in 1958. The story of a middle-aged man's erotic obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, the book caused a sensation. The notoriety of the novel would overshadow Nabokov's other works, but it also earned him wealth, international attention and a wider audience.
In 1961, Nabokov and his wife, Vera, moved to Montreux, Switzerland, to be closer to their son, Dmitri, an opera student in Geneva. From a suite in the Palace Hotel, Nabokov wrote two of his most acclaimed novels -- Pale Fire and Ada, which he considered his best work.
He never returned to Russia and died in Switzerland in 1977, with his books still banned in his homeland and with the fall of communism still more than a decade away.
Over the years, his original home was used as a morgue and the headquarters of the municipal laundry. At one point, it also housed the Soviet censorship committee that banned Nabokov's works.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2414751
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take off on a romantic weekend or a family adventure to these great U.S. locations.