Subject: Re: QUERY: PALE fIRE Query: Duke Conmal and
K.R.
Mary Bellino's guess about refractions of K.R. (the penname of
Constantine Romanov), Grand Duke and a minor poet, playwright and translator, in
Conmal of PF seems quite interesting. Of course, the problem with VN always is
-- what's the contextual function of a real historical person's reflections or
rather refractions; and this case is pregnant with possibilities. K.R. was a
very mediocre poet and translator, and he was very popular exactly with the
public that did not like the really great poets of the Silver Age. Another
possibility to interpret the name Conmal : Constantine Malyi, that is,
Constantine the Small, as opposed to Constantine the Great, yet, with usual
Nabokovian perfidy, opposed not to the Byzantine Emperor, but to Constantine
Balmont (Bal -- Mal), one of the five great Russian poets of the age whose names
begin with "B" (see The Gift). Savely Senderovich