EDNOTE:  Nabokovians world-wide should be grateful to Jeff Edmunds, a.k.a. "The  Wizard of ZEMBLA," who has created and sustained a remarkable Nabokov website under the auspices of the International  Vladimir Nabokov Society.  We also thank Penn State University Libraries for their generosity and foresight  in supporting the effort. Your support of ZEMBLA and all other activities of the Society are greatly appreciated.
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff Edmunds
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 8:00 AM
Subject: Zemblan news

From Jeff Edmunds <jhe@psulias.psu.edu>:

On December 1st, 2002, ZEMBLA will turn 7. My thanks to Don Johnson, esteemed and tireless editor of NABOKV-L, for helping get it off the ground, and to the Nabokov Society, especially the Board of Directors, for support. Thanks are due also to the generous contributors, among them the world’s leading Nabokovians on several continents, for their willingness to make their work freely available to the World Wide Web’s innumerable users.

This year ZEMBLA officially went trilingual. Since Nabokov was at home in three languages and literatures, Russian, English, and French, it seems appropriate for ZEMBLA to at least make an effort to reflect, howsoever dimly, this vast linguistic realm. The first contribution in French is the text of Maurice Couturier’s talk on Lolita delivered at the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg in the spring of 2001. Writers on Nabokov are invited to submit items for publication, be they in English, French, or Russian. For the time being, French texts are especially welcome to balance the already considerable weight of English and Russian contributions.

Thanks to Steve Parker and the Board of the Directors of the Nabokov Society, the Nabokov Program Fund, established last year here at Penn State to finance the otherwise virtually unfinanced venture, received a wonderful boost when a portion of the subscription revenues of The Nabokovian was earmarked for the Fund. By subscribing to The Nabokovian--essential reading for any serious student or scholar of Nabokov--subscribers are now supporting not only the Society’s work but ZEMBLA as well. (When ZEMBLA began in 1995, it was my hope that the Nabokov Estate might provide some support. Unfortunately, this has not been forthcoming.)

On a related note, donations to the Nabokov Program Fund can now be made via credit card and international postal money orders (in US funds) as well as by personal check. All contributions are tax deductible as allowed by US tax law.

A Friends of ZEMBLA page, listing the names of contributors to the Fund who agree to seeing their generosity publicly acknowledged, will be posted soon. Members of the Nabokov Society who would like their names listed should contact me directly (
jhe@psulias.psu.edu). No one will be listed without explicit permission.

The Web has grown in seven years, and technology has advanced rapidly. ZEMBLA has access to a RealAudio server; I would like to propose to teachers of Nabokov that recorded classroom lectures or papers delivered at conferences (audio or audio/video) would be a welcome addition to the sound files of Nabokov reading from his work that are currently available. Contact the editor for more information. As always, other suggestions for additions or changes are welcome.

Finally, to the hundreds of thousands of Nabokov fans who have visited the site over the years: thank you, spasibo, merci.

Jeff Edmunds