Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0016927, Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:44:13 +0400

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Fw: Savan-na-rylo
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Looking through Ilf and Petrov's journalism, I came across a piece entitled Savanarylo (1932). In Nabokov's novel Podvig ("Glory," 1931-32, written in 1930), the characters, Martyn Edelweiss and Sonya Zilanova, invent Zoorlandia, a northern tyranny, one of whose political leaders is a certain Savan-na-rylo ("Shroud-on-[each-]snout;" unfortunately, I don't have the English text of "Glory" at hand and cannot look up Nabokov's English rendering of the punning name). I'm not an expert, but I don't think that Ilf and Petrov have consciously plagiarized from Sirin (in fact, I'm not sure if they read him at all).
Interestingly, some pieces by Ilf and Petrov are signed "F. Tolstoevsky" (I wonder if Nabokov, who similarly crosses Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in one of his interviews, was aware that this portmanteau name had been used before).

Alexey Sklyarenko

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