Subject
Re: Lolita Note: The Poes of Peterburg (fwd)
Date
Body
From: Earl Sampson <esampson@cu.campuscwix.net>
>
> From: "John A. Rea" <jarea@uky.campuscwix.net>
<snip>
> that Russian city had its "St."
> sacrificed to the new regime in 1914, becoming more like the Virginia one
> (though later in 1924 it was renamed Leningrad, only to resume its
> original name in 1991 in the now reformed Russia). So Nabokov can
> superimpose not only the two American cities, but two variants of his
> native one.
> <snip>
> John
Some correction/clarification of the above: although VN's city underwent a
name change in 1914, there was no change of regime in that year. The name
change rather had to do with the entry of Russia into the war, and the
feeling that it was inappropriate, while fighting the Germans, to have a
capital city with a Germanic-flavored name, so the suffix "-burg" was
replaced with the Slavic suffix "-grad" (same meaning). Thus, with the
attendant loss of the "St.", Sankt Peterburg (in the Western convention St.
Petersburg) became Petrograd. This correction does not in itself invalidate
Professor Rea's point, since there always were two variants of the city's
name, like the two American cities with and without a "Saint": the official
Sankt Peterburg, and the colloquial Peterburg (plus the still more colloquial
-peasant dialect - "Piter").
I find, by the way, that the Florida St. Petersburg was named after the
Russian one ("by a railroad official for his boyhood home," Funk & Wagnalls
Encyclopedia), while the Virginia Petersburg was named for a Maj. Peter Jones
(at first Peter's Point, later Petersburg).
Earl
>
> From: "John A. Rea" <jarea@uky.campuscwix.net>
<snip>
> that Russian city had its "St."
> sacrificed to the new regime in 1914, becoming more like the Virginia one
> (though later in 1924 it was renamed Leningrad, only to resume its
> original name in 1991 in the now reformed Russia). So Nabokov can
> superimpose not only the two American cities, but two variants of his
> native one.
> <snip>
> John
Some correction/clarification of the above: although VN's city underwent a
name change in 1914, there was no change of regime in that year. The name
change rather had to do with the entry of Russia into the war, and the
feeling that it was inappropriate, while fighting the Germans, to have a
capital city with a Germanic-flavored name, so the suffix "-burg" was
replaced with the Slavic suffix "-grad" (same meaning). Thus, with the
attendant loss of the "St.", Sankt Peterburg (in the Western convention St.
Petersburg) became Petrograd. This correction does not in itself invalidate
Professor Rea's point, since there always were two variants of the city's
name, like the two American cities with and without a "Saint": the official
Sankt Peterburg, and the colloquial Peterburg (plus the still more colloquial
-peasant dialect - "Piter").
I find, by the way, that the Florida St. Petersburg was named after the
Russian one ("by a railroad official for his boyhood home," Funk & Wagnalls
Encyclopedia), while the Virginia Petersburg was named for a Maj. Peter Jones
(at first Peter's Point, later Petersburg).
Earl