Yesterday was the 31th anniversary of VN's death. I
recently learned that VN died on the same day as J. J. Rousseau, 199 years (why
not 200? either Jean Jacques was granted a superfluous year of life, or VN
didn't want to plagiarize) after the Swiss-born writer. Chekhov (1860-1904),
too, died on July 2, but the date is by the old style (it corresponds to July 15
of the Gregorian calendar).
Alexey Sklyarenko