"The poet's mother, nee
Caroline Lukin, assisted him [Samuel Shade] in his
work and drew the admirable figures of his Birds of Mexico, which I
remember having seen in my friend's house. What the obituarist does not
know is that Lukin comes from Luke, as also do Locock and Luxon and
Lukashevich." (Pale Fire, Kinbote's note to Line
71)
I wonder if Kinbote, the author of a book
on surnames, ever heard of Platon Lukashevich (1809-87), Gogol's
schoolmate, the mad author of "Чаромутие или священный язык
магов, волхвов и жрецов, открытый Платоном Лукашевичем с прибавлением обращённых
им же в прямую истоть чаромути и чарной истоти языков Русского и других
славянских" (Петргород, 1846)? The author attempted to
prove that the origin of all languages was a Slavic parent langauge.
Lukashevich's other books include "Объяснение Ассирийских имён" ("The Exegesis
of Assyrian Names," 1868) and "Причина ненависти англичан к славянским народам"
("The Reason why the English Hate the Slavic Peoples,"
1877).
One also remembers Ivan Lukash (1892-1940), the
writer who was VN's co-author in the 1920s.
To give an example of mesmertie (my
"protologism"): В основу религии Фрейда положен краеугольный догмат
месмертия души ("At the base of Freudian religion is the doctrine
of mesmertie of soul").
Alexey Sklyarenko