EDNOTE. I do not recall seeing Sergey
Karpukhin's "parallelism" in print but I find a marginal pencil note in my
copy of the Boyd biography. It caught my eye because I had included that Herzen
episode in EYEWITNESS, a Russian language reader that I co-compiled. BTW anyone
at all interested in Russian history will enjoy Herzen's marvellous
memoirs.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, May 02, 2004 7:29 AM
Subject: VDN and Herzen
In Brian Boyd's THE RUSSIAN YEARS
(I'm using the Russian translation actually) there described an
episode (Chapter 1, IV) from Vladimir Dmitriyevich Nabokov's student life. In
March 1890 he was arrested along with other students who demonstrated for
academic freedoms and independence of universities. They were kept in custody
till late evening, without the authorities starting an enquiry. And then the
Petersburg general governor arrived and ordered to release Nabokov, a son
of the former minister of justice. VDN asked if his friends would be released
with him. As the answer to this was "No", he decided to stay in prison with
friends.
In BYLOE I DUMY (Part 1, Chapter VI) A.I.
Herzen tells about a similar episode from his own student
life (he was arrested in consequence of the "Malov" affair - students evicted a
rude and ignorant professor from the lecture room). VN wrote in SPEAK, MEMORY
under the picture of their Petersburg house in Bolshaya Morskaya (Herzen Street
under the Soviets) that BYLOE I DUMY was his father's favourite book.
Admittedly, Nabokov's readers evolve a special
sensibility to all kinds of coincidence. This sensibility is the
source of a great amount of individual intellectual joy when one
finds some sort of significant pattern in details, but academically, as I
have come to realise lately, it often feels like discovering
electricity or inventing the camera lucida - people have been enjoying the
pattern for years before one even was born. In short, sorry if has been
noted and commented upon already.
Sincerely,
Sergey