I just received the latest Nabokovian (a little
present for which I don't know whom to thank) and would like to make a few
off-hand comments on Brian Boyd's Annotations to ADA (Part One,
chapter 30). As always, I read them with interest and found a lot of things
that are news to me, but there are even more things that can be added.
I shall limit myself only to one or two that seem most
important.
Let's start with Potyomkin. This name comes from
potyomki, Russian for 'darkness,' and reminds one of the Russian
saying chuzhaya dusha potyomki ("the heart of another is a dark
forest"). Dusha being Russian for 'soul,' 'psyche,' this saying
fits particularly well in the psychiatric context of this chapter. Anton Chekhov
(who had a keen interest in psychiatry both as a doctor and as a
writer and who was, in fact, an anti-Freudean before Freud), author of
the story V potyomkakh ("In the Dark,"
1886), quotes this saying in his letter of August 30, 1898,
to Lidiya Avilov, a woman who loved him (see her memoire piece "A. P.
Chekhov in my Life" in "Chekhov in the Reminiscences of his Contemporaries").
The name Avilov differs only in one letter from the
surname of Baron Klim Avidov (anagram of
Vladimir Nabokov), Marina's former lover who gave to her children the
Flavita set (1.36). On the other hand, Avilov needs but a
V to become Vavilov,* the name of the
Russian biologist, "the father of genetics," who died of hunger in a Stalin
prison. The name of Vavilov's main opponent, Trofim Lysenko, is echoed in
the name of ADA's Judge Bald (lysyi is Russian for "bald")
who protested against banning inbreeding** and incestuous
cohabitation (1.21), and Trofim Fartukov, a coachman in Ardis the Second
who has a blind child with Blanche, a French hand-maid at Ardis. (In his
letter of June 12, 1891, to Lika Mizinov, a woman with whom he
was in love, Chekhov mentions a drayman Trophim, who would enrich
Lika's vocabulary with vulgar words; instead of signature,
Chekhov drew a heart pierced with an arrow).
To be through with Potyomkins: Chekhov met one
Potyomkin, a former criminal, during his stay in Sakhalin.
There was a leading "Satirikon" poet Pyotr
Potyomkin (1886-1926), who emigrated after the Revolution. He appeared in
sketches in the Brodyachaya sobaka ("stray dog") cabaret in St.
Petersburg, usually playing a donkey that carried Virgin Mary (played by Olga
Glebova-Sudeikina) during the Holy Family's escape from Egypt. Nabokov
might have met Potyomkin in Berlin, if not in St. Petersburg.
There is a P. O. Tyomkin, Odessa, Tekhas (one
of Quilty's mock addresses), in the Russian LOLITA.
Finally, Countess Potyomkin (born Princess
Trubetskoy, sister of the Decembrist) was posazhyonnaya mat', the
bridegroom's proxy mother, at Pushkin's wedding. Pushkin is the author
of the following lines:
Kogda Potyomkinu v potyomkakh
Ya na Prechistenke naydu,
To pust' s Bulgarinym v
potomkakh
Menya postavyat naryadu.
(If I find the Potyomkin woman in the darkness on
the Prechistenskiy boulevard,*** let them place me beside Bulgarin**** in
posterity).
You will meet all these characters, and scores of
other real and fictional people, in my Russian charadoid article/book
that concentrates mainly on Chekhov (if I ever manage to publish
it).
"a poet... of the Black Belfry group...":
paradoxically, I'm reminded of the Steel Udder (stal'noe
vymya*****) group of writers in Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden
Calf" (1931). No doubt, it is because the tango tune to which Van dances on
his hands, Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny, was borrowed from that novel.
On the other hand, in Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" (1927), Bender
and Vorob'yaninov visit the Columbus theater and watch the
avant-garde stage version of Gogol's play Zhenit'ba ("The
Marriage," 1835). The hero's valet Stepan gives some cues in it standing on
his hands, the heroine is walking along a thin wire tensioned above the audience, etc.
The director of this hilarious performance is a certain Nik. Sestrin
(from sestra, Russian for 'sister'). It is interesting to compare Nik.
Sestrin's production to the performance in ADA, based on the famous Russian
romance, in which Marina plays the heroine and is seduced by Demon between the
two scenes (1.2). For details of the comparison, see my note
in English "The Naked Truth, or the Reader's Sentimental Education in ADA's
Quelque Chose University" that will soon appear, I
hope.
There is a shocking error towards the end of Boyd's
Annotations - presumably, because they were completed in a hurry, like
these notes.
Alexey Sklyarenko
*Note that Vavilov differs only in
one letter from Vavilon (Russian name of Babylon). In all
bold-tiped proper names (except Vavilon and Akva) the stress falls on the
second syllable. Vavilon is accented on the last syllable and rhymes with
Akvilon (Russian name of Aquilo, the ancient Roman
personification of the north wind). An anagramatically minded
reader remembers the French poet Villon, Gorky's friend
Vilonov, Van's mother Aqua (in the
Russian spelling, Akva). Perhaps the word
invalid should be thrown in to make the anagram
perfect.
**Note the Albino Riots mentioned in connection
with the inbreeding (1.21). Albino = Albion. Doch' Al'biona ("Albion's
Daughter") is a famous story by Chekhov (1883). Of course, one should also keep
in mind the hero of Wells' "The Invisible Man" who was almost an
albino.
***in Moscow
****Poets of Pushkin's circle used to
call Bulgarin 'Figlyarin' (from figlyar as
meaning 'clown,' 'wretched actor;' but figlyar can also mean
'circus acrobat') in their epigrams.
*****Note the epithet stal'noy (of steel)
reminiscent of the Soviet ruler perilously close to vymya
(udder).