To commemorate VN's 112th birthday I'm sending my note
on the crown jewels in Pale Fire. When I wrote it last year,
I wasn't aware of the crown jewels in A. N. Tolstoy's novel Emigranty
("The Émigrés") set in Paris and Stockholm, Stekol'nyi
gorod ("Glass city," old Russian corruption of Stockholm) in Tynyanov's
story Voskovaya persona ("Wax Person"), gradus kreposti
(alcohol percentage, krepost' means "strength" and "fortress") in
Tynyanov's "Pushkin" and many other things. Incidentally, Prince Andronikov
(sic!), the adventurer, is a character in A. N. Tolstoy's play Zagovor
imperatritsy ("The Conspiracy of the Empress"), about the last months of
the Romanovs' rule. On the other hand, there is Garin (the hero of A. N.
Tolstoy's novel "The Hyperboloid of the Engineer Garin" who becomes
the dictator of the USA) in Niagarin. Had I known all this, my article
would have been much more interesting. But I am too lazy to rewrite it. Alexey
Sklyarenko