Subject
a Christmas Calendar and St.Petersburg "The Saviour-on-the-Blood"
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Dear List,
I came across a Xmas-Advent Calendar with one of the various cathedrals in St.Petersburg. In the image one discerns a mural with Christ surrounded by red seraphs. I remembered VN described what appeared to be a childhood experience of attending mass during Easter, but I could not find where he wrote about it (perhaps in The Luzhin Defense?). I wanted to check if the calendar-cathedral was the same as described by VN during Easter, also if Shade's "seraph with his six flamingo wings" was related to those serphs painted on this "Cathedral of the Resurrection".
The "ressurrection" theme was indeed present in PF's canto, but the lines left me doubtful about a certain hidden irony (VN's, not Shade's) that mingled idyllic lyres, pastoral walks, Turk's delights and Flemish hells.
Former discussions in our List were informative, but I cannot remember anything linked to the "irony" I now see with its hints about executions ( Socrates), tyrannies and cruelty (Flemish hells during the domination of Philip II, as depicted by Jan or Peter Brueghel).
If confirmed such irony might contaminate the tone of the preceding verses( "why scorn a hereafter none can verify")...
I learned that The Cathedral of the Resurrection (The Saviour-on-the-Blood) , at the Griboyedov Canal Enbankment was built in 1883-1907 to the design of Alfred Parland, on the site of the tragic attempt upon the life of Emperor Alexander II by terrorist I. Grinevitskij on 1 March 1881.
Searching for more information about the "Easter"cathedral mentioned by VN, I found something else:
Brian Boyd (RY), page 21:
"That afternoon on a St. Petersubrg street he [ Alexander II ] fell victim to a third assassination attempt, yet another bom. Dmitri Nabokov, at home at the Ministry of Justice, dashed to the tsar's deathbed in the Winter Palace. The future Alexander III later handed him as a memento the buttons he had torn from his father's blood-spattered sh irt.[...]With the detachment of time, Dmitri's famous grandson would have only this comment to make on Alexander II's death: "Russia has always been a curiously unpleasant country despite her great literature. Unfortunately Russians today have completely lost their ability to kill tyrants."
............................................................................................................
A correction to a former posting [During a college admission exam candidates were invited to intepret a line of a poem ... the author of the line in question knew what he had had in mind ( ie: nothing).]
When I searched for O.Montenegro's original line, I discovered a variant. Apparently he learned about the exam only years later, and not as a candidate. He stated that his sentence had no meaning, and added: "I've no clue about why I wrote spearmint"
The original line: "Fiz um drops the hortelã da bala que eu te dei para tirar o porém da frase que eu nunca fiz": ( I made spearmint-candy from the one I gave you so as to extract the but from the sentence I never made (wrote) ]
............................................................................................................
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I came across a Xmas-Advent Calendar with one of the various cathedrals in St.Petersburg. In the image one discerns a mural with Christ surrounded by red seraphs. I remembered VN described what appeared to be a childhood experience of attending mass during Easter, but I could not find where he wrote about it (perhaps in The Luzhin Defense?). I wanted to check if the calendar-cathedral was the same as described by VN during Easter, also if Shade's "seraph with his six flamingo wings" was related to those serphs painted on this "Cathedral of the Resurrection".
The "ressurrection" theme was indeed present in PF's canto, but the lines left me doubtful about a certain hidden irony (VN's, not Shade's) that mingled idyllic lyres, pastoral walks, Turk's delights and Flemish hells.
Former discussions in our List were informative, but I cannot remember anything linked to the "irony" I now see with its hints about executions ( Socrates), tyrannies and cruelty (Flemish hells during the domination of Philip II, as depicted by Jan or Peter Brueghel).
If confirmed such irony might contaminate the tone of the preceding verses( "why scorn a hereafter none can verify")...
I learned that The Cathedral of the Resurrection (The Saviour-on-the-Blood) , at the Griboyedov Canal Enbankment was built in 1883-1907 to the design of Alfred Parland, on the site of the tragic attempt upon the life of Emperor Alexander II by terrorist I. Grinevitskij on 1 March 1881.
Searching for more information about the "Easter"cathedral mentioned by VN, I found something else:
Brian Boyd (RY), page 21:
"That afternoon on a St. Petersubrg street he [ Alexander II ] fell victim to a third assassination attempt, yet another bom. Dmitri Nabokov, at home at the Ministry of Justice, dashed to the tsar's deathbed in the Winter Palace. The future Alexander III later handed him as a memento the buttons he had torn from his father's blood-spattered sh irt.[...]With the detachment of time, Dmitri's famous grandson would have only this comment to make on Alexander II's death: "Russia has always been a curiously unpleasant country despite her great literature. Unfortunately Russians today have completely lost their ability to kill tyrants."
............................................................................................................
A correction to a former posting [During a college admission exam candidates were invited to intepret a line of a poem ... the author of the line in question knew what he had had in mind ( ie: nothing).]
When I searched for O.Montenegro's original line, I discovered a variant. Apparently he learned about the exam only years later, and not as a candidate. He stated that his sentence had no meaning, and added: "I've no clue about why I wrote spearmint"
The original line: "Fiz um drops the hortelã da bala que eu te dei para tirar o porém da frase que eu nunca fiz": ( I made spearmint-candy from the one I gave you so as to extract the but from the sentence I never made (wrote) ]
............................................................................................................
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
