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red flowers of Democracy
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In my article "The Red Flower of Evil in Nabokov's Ada" (available in Zembla) I mention Alexander Blok and torf ("peat"):
Russian B (pronounced like English V) and English B look alike. Just as its homograph, English B and its Russian counterpart (that precedes Russian B in the alphabet) belong to the red group. B is Bosch’s initial, but also that of Baudelaire, the author of “Les fleurs du mal” (The Flowers of Evil, 1857), and Blok, the author of “Nochnaya Fialka” (The Night Violet, 1906) and “Neznakomka” (Incognita, 1906).
The latter poem is particularly important in Ada. Van compares the lone red-haired woman in a picture hat, whom he believes to have seen several times in his life and who eventually turns out to be Lucette, to Blok’s Incognita (3.3). Now, the woman in Blok’s poem is a prostitute; the drunks (who cry out: “In vino veritas!”) have red eyes of rabbits; and capitalizing the first letter of the poem’s last word would change the closing line’s meaning to “I know: in Veen [instead of “wine”] is truth.”
Veen (pronounced rather like “feign”) means “peat bog” in Dutch. Russian for “peat” is torf...
In his diary (the entry of July 8, 1917) Blok speaks of "fragrant fresh and red flowers of Democracy:"
Если будет работать талант, обладающий этими качествами (и, кроме того, в данном случае, государственным умом), то он сумеет вырастить на сухих прутьях благоухающие свежие и красные цветы Демократии.
In the entries of August 3 and August 6, 1917, Blok mentions the smoke of burning peat bogs over St. Petersburg:
А гарь* такая, что, по-видимому, вокруг всего города горит торф, кусты, деревья. И никто не тушит. Потушит дождь и зима
and in the millions of souls:
Такие же жёлто-бурые клубы, за которыми тление и горение (как под Парголовым и Шуваловым, отчего по ночам весь город всегда окутан гпрью), стелются в миллионах душ, пламя вражды, дикости, татарщины, злобы, унижения, забитости, недоверия, мести - то там, то здесь вспыхивает; русский большевизм гуляет, а дождя нет и бог не посылает его!
In Speak, Memory (unfortunately, I don't have the book at hand) VN refers to these entries in Blok's diary.
*Garin (the maiden name of Demon Veen's mother) comes from гарь ("[smell of] burning").
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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Russian B (pronounced like English V) and English B look alike. Just as its homograph, English B and its Russian counterpart (that precedes Russian B in the alphabet) belong to the red group. B is Bosch’s initial, but also that of Baudelaire, the author of “Les fleurs du mal” (The Flowers of Evil, 1857), and Blok, the author of “Nochnaya Fialka” (The Night Violet, 1906) and “Neznakomka” (Incognita, 1906).
The latter poem is particularly important in Ada. Van compares the lone red-haired woman in a picture hat, whom he believes to have seen several times in his life and who eventually turns out to be Lucette, to Blok’s Incognita (3.3). Now, the woman in Blok’s poem is a prostitute; the drunks (who cry out: “In vino veritas!”) have red eyes of rabbits; and capitalizing the first letter of the poem’s last word would change the closing line’s meaning to “I know: in Veen [instead of “wine”] is truth.”
Veen (pronounced rather like “feign”) means “peat bog” in Dutch. Russian for “peat” is torf...
In his diary (the entry of July 8, 1917) Blok speaks of "fragrant fresh and red flowers of Democracy:"
Если будет работать талант, обладающий этими качествами (и, кроме того, в данном случае, государственным умом), то он сумеет вырастить на сухих прутьях благоухающие свежие и красные цветы Демократии.
In the entries of August 3 and August 6, 1917, Blok mentions the smoke of burning peat bogs over St. Petersburg:
А гарь* такая, что, по-видимому, вокруг всего города горит торф, кусты, деревья. И никто не тушит. Потушит дождь и зима
and in the millions of souls:
Такие же жёлто-бурые клубы, за которыми тление и горение (как под Парголовым и Шуваловым, отчего по ночам весь город всегда окутан гпрью), стелются в миллионах душ, пламя вражды, дикости, татарщины, злобы, унижения, забитости, недоверия, мести - то там, то здесь вспыхивает; русский большевизм гуляет, а дождя нет и бог не посылает его!
In Speak, Memory (unfortunately, I don't have the book at hand) VN refers to these entries in Blok's diary.
*Garin (the maiden name of Demon Veen's mother) comes from гарь ("[smell of] burning").
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/