Subject
Whit Monday in The Gift & elsewhere
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Духов день (28 мая 1862 г.), дует сильный ветер; пожар начался на Лиговке, а затем мазурики подожгли Апраксин Двор. Бежит Достоевский, мчатся пожарные, "и на окнах аптек в разноцветных шарах вверх ногами на миг отразились". А там, густой дым повалил через Фонтанку по направлению к Чернышеву переулку, откуда вскоре поднялся новый чёрный столб... Между тем Достоевский прибежал. Прибежал к сердцу черноты, к Чернышевскому, и стал истерически его умолять приостановить всё это. Тут занятны два момента: вера в адское могущество Николая Гавриловича и слухи о том, что поджоги велись по тому самому плану, который был составлен ещё в 1849 году петрашевцами.
Whit Monday (May 28, 1862), a strong wind is blowing; a conflagration has begun on the Ligovka and then the desperadoes set fire to the Apraxin Market. Dostoevski is running, firemen are galloping "and in pharmacy windows, in gaudy glass globes, upside down are in passing reflected" (as seen by Nekrasov). And over there, thick smoke billows over the Fontanka canal in the direction of Chernyshyov Street, where presently a new, black column arises…. Meanwhile Dostoevski has arrived. He has arrived at the heart of the blackness, at Chernyshevski's place, and starts to beg him hysterically to put a stop to all this. Two aspects are interesting here: the belief in Nikolay Gavrilovich's satanic powers, and the rumors that the arson was being carried out according to the same plan which the Petrashevskians had drawn up as early as 1849. (The Gift, Chapter Four)
Andrey Bely wrote his best poem, Pervoe svidanie ("The First Rendezvous"), in Petrograd on Whit Sunday and Whit Monday, 1921. Vladimir Solovyov's Deva Raduzhnykh Vorot (The Maiden of Iridescent Gate) is mentioned in it. This gnostic term and Boris Bugaev's penname (belyi means "white") bring to mind Iris Black, Vadim's first wife in VN's LATH (1974). Vadim's last Russian novel The Dare (1950) includes a concise biography and critical appraisal of Fyodor Dostoevski (2.5).
Vadim Vadimovich's princely surname seems to be Yablonski. The names of Vadim's first two wives, Iris Black and Annette Blagovo, as well as Blagidze (Iris Black's murderer who can be Vadim's half-brother) begin with Bl; but the -bl- sound is also present in Ableukhov, the name of the two main characters in Bely's novel Peterburg ("Petersburg," 1914), Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov and his son Nikolay Apollonovich. At the beginning of "The First Rendezvous" Bely mentions the crackles of consonants:
Киркою рудокопный гном
Согласных хрусты рушит в томы...
Я - стилистический приём,
Языковые идиомы!
Я - хрустом тухнущая пещь,-
Пеку приём: стихи - в начинку;
Давно поломанная вещь,
Давно пора меня в починку.
Висок - винтящая мигрень...
Душа - кутящая...
И - что же?..
Я в веселящий Духов день
Склонён перед тобою. Боже!
On the merry Whit Monday
I am kneeling before you. Oh Lord!
Alexey Sklyarenko
Whit Monday, 2014
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Whit Monday (May 28, 1862), a strong wind is blowing; a conflagration has begun on the Ligovka and then the desperadoes set fire to the Apraxin Market. Dostoevski is running, firemen are galloping "and in pharmacy windows, in gaudy glass globes, upside down are in passing reflected" (as seen by Nekrasov). And over there, thick smoke billows over the Fontanka canal in the direction of Chernyshyov Street, where presently a new, black column arises…. Meanwhile Dostoevski has arrived. He has arrived at the heart of the blackness, at Chernyshevski's place, and starts to beg him hysterically to put a stop to all this. Two aspects are interesting here: the belief in Nikolay Gavrilovich's satanic powers, and the rumors that the arson was being carried out according to the same plan which the Petrashevskians had drawn up as early as 1849. (The Gift, Chapter Four)
Andrey Bely wrote his best poem, Pervoe svidanie ("The First Rendezvous"), in Petrograd on Whit Sunday and Whit Monday, 1921. Vladimir Solovyov's Deva Raduzhnykh Vorot (The Maiden of Iridescent Gate) is mentioned in it. This gnostic term and Boris Bugaev's penname (belyi means "white") bring to mind Iris Black, Vadim's first wife in VN's LATH (1974). Vadim's last Russian novel The Dare (1950) includes a concise biography and critical appraisal of Fyodor Dostoevski (2.5).
Vadim Vadimovich's princely surname seems to be Yablonski. The names of Vadim's first two wives, Iris Black and Annette Blagovo, as well as Blagidze (Iris Black's murderer who can be Vadim's half-brother) begin with Bl; but the -bl- sound is also present in Ableukhov, the name of the two main characters in Bely's novel Peterburg ("Petersburg," 1914), Apollon Apollonovich Ableukhov and his son Nikolay Apollonovich. At the beginning of "The First Rendezvous" Bely mentions the crackles of consonants:
Киркою рудокопный гном
Согласных хрусты рушит в томы...
Я - стилистический приём,
Языковые идиомы!
Я - хрустом тухнущая пещь,-
Пеку приём: стихи - в начинку;
Давно поломанная вещь,
Давно пора меня в починку.
Висок - винтящая мигрень...
Душа - кутящая...
И - что же?..
Я в веселящий Духов день
Склонён перед тобою. Боже!
On the merry Whit Monday
I am kneeling before you. Oh Lord!
Alexey Sklyarenko
Whit Monday, 2014
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/