JM: Lisianski Urey was deputy commander of Kruzenshtern's expedition...
 
Dear Jansy,
 
A person named Lisianski Urey hardly ever existed. The name of the Russian navigator in question is Yuri Lisiansky (1873-1837). Lisiansky (or Lisyanski) is the surname and Yuri is the first name. Among famous men whose first name was Yuri are the first astronaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968), Prince Yuri Dolgorukiy ("Yuri the long arm," the sobriquet hinting at the Prince's wide connections), the founder of Moscow (1147), Yuri Zhivago, the hero of Pasternak's novel.
There is also a famous saying dating from the times of the tsar Boris Godunov (ruled in 1598-1605): Vot tebe, babushka, i Yur'yev den'! Literally, it means: "here you have, Grandma, the St. George's day!" (Boris Godunov has abolished the ancient law that had allowed a serf to change his master and a master to fire a lazy serf on the fall's St. George's day; it is not surprising that Pushkin makes a character of his play "Boris Godunov," 1826, to utter this saying), but is idiomatically translated as "Here's a fine how-d'ye-do!"
 
Re the Jules Verne novel: the fact that Phileas Fogg travels from West to East allows him to save one day and eventually win the wager, completing his round-the-world journey in less than 80 days. He nearly loses it, realizing (thanks to Aouda, the young Parsi woman Fogg saved in India) only at the last moment that, when crossing the Pacific (where the Lisiansky Island and the Hawaii are situated), on the trip from Yokohama to San Francisco, he crossed the International Date Line and therefore returned to London one day earlier than he thinks he did.
 
DEN' + IGOR = DEN'GI + OR (den' is Russian for "day;" Igor is Prince Igor, the hero of "The Song of Igor's Campaign;" den'gi is Russian for "money;" or is French for "or") 
 
Alexey Sklyarenko 
Search the archive Contact the Editors Visit "Nabokov Online Journal"
Visit Zembla View Nabokv-L Policies Manage subscription options

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.