From Abdella Bouazza:
Just a remark regarding the etymology of "narstran". I believe "n¨¢r" is the Persian (actually Arabic, but the Arabic words in Russian entered the language via Persian, like zumurrud, almaas, emerald and diamond, respectively) for fire or hell. In all Arabic countries naar refers equally to fire or hell.
Many thanks for this! It seems that VN was aware of the Persian meaning of nar. The Russian envoy in Persia, Griboedov (the author of ¡°Woe from Wit¡±) was assassinated in Teheran. On the other hand, in Andrey Bely¡¯s novel Peterburg (1914) there is a Persian man named Shishnarfne whom mad Dudkin¡¯s imagination transforms into Enfranshish. Dudkin is a terrorist whose name comes from dudka (pipe, fife) and brings to mind Dudyshkin (in Chapter Four of VN¡¯s novel ¡°The Gift¡± the critic who aimed his trostnikovaya dudochka, dudeen, at Chernyshevski). In 1924 Petrograd (St. Petersburg¡¯s name in 1914-1924) was renamed Leningrad. According to Kinbote, ¡°Leningradus [as Kinbote mockingly calls the killer Gradus] should not aim his peashooter at people even in dreams, because if he does, a pair of colossally thick, abnormally hairy arms will hug him from behind and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze¡± (note to Line 171). Gradus¡¯ peashooter brings to mind gorokhovoe pal¡¯to (agent of secret police; literally: ¡°a pea overcoat¡±) in Chapter Four of ¡°The Gift:¡±
§¯§Ñ §á§Ñ§ß§Ú§ç§Ú§Õ§Ö §á§à §ß§×§Þ §Ó §±§Ö§ä§Ö§â§Ò§å§â§Ô§Ö §á§â§Ú§Ó§Ö§Õ§×§ß§ß§í§Ö §Õ§Ý§ñ §á§Ñ§â§Ñ§Õ§Ñ §Õ§â§å§Ù§î§ñ§Þ§Ú §á§à§Ü§à§Û§ß§à§Ô§à §ß§Ö§ã§Ü§à§Ý§î§Ü§à §â§Ñ§Ò§à§é§Ú§ç §Ó §á§Ñ§â§ä§Ú§Ü§å§Ý§ñ§â§ß§à§Þ §á§Ý§Ñ§ä§î§Ö §Ò§í§Ý§Ú §á§â§Ú§ß§ñ§ä§í §ã§ä§å§Õ§Ö§ß§ä§Ñ§Þ§Ú §Ù§Ñ §ã§í§ë§Ú§Ü§à§Ó, §à§Õ§ß§à§Þ§å §Õ§Ñ§Ø§Ö §á§å§ã§ä§Ú§Ý§Ú §Ô§à§â§à§ç§à§Ó§à§Ö §á§Ñ§Ý§î§ä§à, §é§ä§à §Ó§à§ã§ã§ä§Ñ§ß§à§Ó§Ú§Ý§à §ß§Ö§Ü§à§Ö §â§Ñ§Ó§ß§à§Ó§Ö§ã§Ú§Ö: §ß§Ö §à§ä§è§í §Ý§Ú §ï§ä§Ú§ç §â§Ñ§Ò§à§é§Ú§ç §â§å§Ô§Ñ§Ý§Ú §Ü§à§Ý§Ö§ß§à§á§â§Ö§Ü§Ý§à§ß§Ö§ß§ß§à§Ô§à §¹§Ö§â§ß§í§ê§Ö§Ó§ã§Ü§à§Ô§à §é§Ö§â§Ö§Ù §Ù§Ñ§Ò§à§â?
At the requiem held for him in St. Petersburg the workmen in town clothes, whom the dead man's friends had brought for the sake of atmosphere, were taken by a group of students for plainclothesmen and insulted ¨C which restored a certain equilibrium: was it not the fathers of these workmen who had abused the kneeling Chernyshevski from over the fence?
By a charming coincidence, the Griboedov monument in St. Petersburg faces the Gorokhovaya street (in the Soviet era renamed, after the head of the Cheka, the Dzerzhinski street). The headquarters of the Petrograd Cheka (Lenin¡¯s secret police) was at Gorokhovaya 4, Gorokhovaya 64 was Rasputin¡¯s address. Rasputin was assassinated in the Yusupov Palace on the Moyka Canal, not too far from the Nabokovs¡¯ house in the Bolshaya Morskaya street. The name of one of the murderers, Felix Yusupov, brings to mind Hermann¡¯s double in VN¡¯s Otchayanie (Despair, 1934).
Btw., belyi means ¡°white¡± and Chernyshevski comes from chyornyi (black).
Alexey Sklyarenko