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[NABOKOV-L] Fundamentals?
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C.Kunin "Has anyone ever speculated, by the way, as to what kind of soviet writer Nabokov would have made?"
V.Fet: "none, or a very dead one. No speculation required: V. D. Nabokov's resume alone (as one of the leading CD figures) would be enough to deny his son all and any civic rights, above all to be published in the USSR -- provided the family would survive the concentration camps.After almost 100 years, many Western/American intellectuals are STILL harboring a soft spot for Lenin's terrorist 'proletarian State' along with all the 'creative powers' it allegedly 'released' in the 1920s...
Stan K-Bootle: The quick answer is a MURDERED Soviet writer, like Mandelstam and Babel.[...]Adding to Victor Fet¹s comment on the Soviet¹s brutal attack on artistic freedom and creativity, I see a new book ...ENGINEERS OF THE SOUL, In the Footsteps of Stalin¹s Writers, by Frank Westerman. Westerman reminds us of the romantic novel under Soviet Socialist Realism: Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Tractor. He tells of Akhmatova reduced to writing poems in praise of Stalin to try and get her son released from the camps.And who dare blame her for that? ³Stalin corralled the liriki to match the efforts of the fisiki, to serve the breakneck industrialization of the 1930s.²..Westerman seeks new ground,covering lesser-known writers, especially the "hangers-on" who suffered but survived."
C. Kunin:[to Stan]I would prefer a less quick answer. Let's try to think it through a little more. It's hard for me to liken Nabokov to Mandelshtam...They did go to the same gymnasium...the one to which Nabokov was driven by the family chauffeur...I also don't see Nabokov as being like Babel in any way ...Are you saying that Nabokov would have been incapable of bowing to authority?What I am saying is, did Nabokov have the right to criticize those who stayed behind?
JM: Was Stan's answer too quick and not well thought thru? I don't think so.
Like Fet, Stan avoids rancorous conjectures about what might have passed through Nabokov's mind and emotions (anyone can do that and everyonde shall fail), or his failures. They chose to dwell on the wider scenery of "soviet art" and on the artists who stayed behind in their homeland, and those who gained expression abroad.
Nabokov endured great losses and fought against more enemies than those who, at first, had forced him to become an "emigré writer." He was a menace to the Soviets, but also to any utopian "Republic"and tyrannies, because his loyalties were to the Russian language (not to a nation-state), and its cultural traditions as related to a more abstract word, "civilization." He is dangerous because he values the freedom of the individual and the expansion of consciousness. There are various ways to silence a voice, like Nabokov's, independently of his being murdered by the State and seeing his works burned in an "auto-de-fé," including an excessive preoccupation with his (like any other human's) weaknesses, to cast a shadow on what he achieved as a writer.
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V.Fet: "none, or a very dead one. No speculation required: V. D. Nabokov's resume alone (as one of the leading CD figures) would be enough to deny his son all and any civic rights, above all to be published in the USSR -- provided the family would survive the concentration camps.After almost 100 years, many Western/American intellectuals are STILL harboring a soft spot for Lenin's terrorist 'proletarian State' along with all the 'creative powers' it allegedly 'released' in the 1920s...
Stan K-Bootle: The quick answer is a MURDERED Soviet writer, like Mandelstam and Babel.[...]Adding to Victor Fet¹s comment on the Soviet¹s brutal attack on artistic freedom and creativity, I see a new book ...ENGINEERS OF THE SOUL, In the Footsteps of Stalin¹s Writers, by Frank Westerman. Westerman reminds us of the romantic novel under Soviet Socialist Realism: Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Tractor. He tells of Akhmatova reduced to writing poems in praise of Stalin to try and get her son released from the camps.And who dare blame her for that? ³Stalin corralled the liriki to match the efforts of the fisiki, to serve the breakneck industrialization of the 1930s.²..Westerman seeks new ground,covering lesser-known writers, especially the "hangers-on" who suffered but survived."
C. Kunin:[to Stan]I would prefer a less quick answer. Let's try to think it through a little more. It's hard for me to liken Nabokov to Mandelshtam...They did go to the same gymnasium...the one to which Nabokov was driven by the family chauffeur...I also don't see Nabokov as being like Babel in any way ...Are you saying that Nabokov would have been incapable of bowing to authority?What I am saying is, did Nabokov have the right to criticize those who stayed behind?
JM: Was Stan's answer too quick and not well thought thru? I don't think so.
Like Fet, Stan avoids rancorous conjectures about what might have passed through Nabokov's mind and emotions (anyone can do that and everyonde shall fail), or his failures. They chose to dwell on the wider scenery of "soviet art" and on the artists who stayed behind in their homeland, and those who gained expression abroad.
Nabokov endured great losses and fought against more enemies than those who, at first, had forced him to become an "emigré writer." He was a menace to the Soviets, but also to any utopian "Republic"and tyrannies, because his loyalties were to the Russian language (not to a nation-state), and its cultural traditions as related to a more abstract word, "civilization." He is dangerous because he values the freedom of the individual and the expansion of consciousness. There are various ways to silence a voice, like Nabokov's, independently of his being murdered by the State and seeing his works burned in an "auto-de-fé," including an excessive preoccupation with his (like any other human's) weaknesses, to cast a shadow on what he achieved as a writer.
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/