Subject
Re: the VDN-Suvorin duel
From
Date
Body
Alexey, you wrote that " Despite the fact that, in Drugie berega, VN mentions "Alexey Suvorin," it seems to me that the challenge from VDN was sent not to Alexey Suvorin pere (Chekhov's friend and publisher, who was seventy-seven in 1911), and not to his son Alexey Alexeyevich (Suvorin fils or, as Chekhov called him, "dolphin"), but to another son of the founder of the "Novoe Vremia" newspaper and publishing house, Mikhail Suvorin (1858-1936). This is confirmed by the information gleaned from this article: http://www.pseudology.org/Nabokov/Bio_papa.htm. Or is its author mistaken?"
I didn't check the URL but went instead to Boyd's "The Russian Years" where your correction is confirmed by Boyd.
On page 97 we read: "Nabokov's father had passed on to him his own strict sense of manliness and personal honor. To the outer world, the elegant V.D. Nabokov seemed almost a dandy; to his son...he was decidedly ...full-blooded...In the summer of 1911 his (V.D.Nabokov's) newspaper, the liberal Rech' , charged a man named Snessarev, a writer on the staff of ultraconservative Novoe Vremya...V.D.Nabokov's intensely chivalric standards of honor ( were affronted) too gravely to be ignored...Despite having written only two years earlier two dazzling and celebrated articles against dueling as a feudal custom, he now felt compelled to call someone to account... V.D. Nabokov asked the editor of Novoe Vremya, Mikhail Suvorin, the son of Chekhov's friend Alexey Suvorin, to print a retraction...Suvorin refused the retraction...and declined a duel..." and a lot more on duels and young VN's reactions and his thoughts about "inscrutable fate".
On BB's page 215 we also can read about Véra: "V.D. Nabokov's boxing and fencing lessons, his son's boxing and savate, and their duelist's sense of honor were things she understood well. Like V.D. Nabokov, Evsey Slonim had also challenged the editor of Novoe Vremya to a duel for a malicious and unfounded slur."
Cláudio Figueiredo seems to have relied only in the information he got from VN's "Speak Memory". His elegant line of argument, linking various real duelists, dueling authors and their characters, favored the irony of VN's words ( like one he'd mentioned in the context of Liermontov's character Gruchnitski, whom he thought had been inspired in N.S.Martinov who, unlike it happened with G. in Liermontov's novel, actually killed him in real life ) when he referred to Tchekhov's novel "The Duel" in his commentary to his parodic "A Matter of Honor". VN's words in SM and elsewhere ( "Armoles"?) were set side by side concerning Alexis Suvórin both as a rival and as Tchekhov's friend.
Thank you for the correction about patronymics: I understand I should have written down Anton Petróvitch.
Can you explain to me how should I correctly refer to Timofey Pnin without insulting him?
I hesitate about how to spell Russian names. Cláudio Figueiredo wrote: Tchekhov, Turguêniev, Anton Petróvitch in his preface in Portuguese.
Any further correction shall always be welcome.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Alexey Sklyarenko
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:03 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] the VDN-Suvorin duel
JM: we learn more about VN's father's planned duel against Alexis Suvórin (Tchekhov's editor friend and intricate links with )
I would like to learn more about this duel that hasn't been fought.
Jansy, you can not call VN's (or any other writer's) characters by their patronymics ("VN's own Petrovich")! True, one is sometimes allowed to address close friends "Palych" or "Vadimych". But both Timofey Pnin and Vadim Vadimovich of LATH who were spared a life in the Soviet Union would be terribly insulted if addressed that way.
Alexey
Search the Nabokv-L archive with Google
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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
I didn't check the URL but went instead to Boyd's "The Russian Years" where your correction is confirmed by Boyd.
On page 97 we read: "Nabokov's father had passed on to him his own strict sense of manliness and personal honor. To the outer world, the elegant V.D. Nabokov seemed almost a dandy; to his son...he was decidedly ...full-blooded...In the summer of 1911 his (V.D.Nabokov's) newspaper, the liberal Rech' , charged a man named Snessarev, a writer on the staff of ultraconservative Novoe Vremya...V.D.Nabokov's intensely chivalric standards of honor ( were affronted) too gravely to be ignored...Despite having written only two years earlier two dazzling and celebrated articles against dueling as a feudal custom, he now felt compelled to call someone to account... V.D. Nabokov asked the editor of Novoe Vremya, Mikhail Suvorin, the son of Chekhov's friend Alexey Suvorin, to print a retraction...Suvorin refused the retraction...and declined a duel..." and a lot more on duels and young VN's reactions and his thoughts about "inscrutable fate".
On BB's page 215 we also can read about Véra: "V.D. Nabokov's boxing and fencing lessons, his son's boxing and savate, and their duelist's sense of honor were things she understood well. Like V.D. Nabokov, Evsey Slonim had also challenged the editor of Novoe Vremya to a duel for a malicious and unfounded slur."
Cláudio Figueiredo seems to have relied only in the information he got from VN's "Speak Memory". His elegant line of argument, linking various real duelists, dueling authors and their characters, favored the irony of VN's words ( like one he'd mentioned in the context of Liermontov's character Gruchnitski, whom he thought had been inspired in N.S.Martinov who, unlike it happened with G. in Liermontov's novel, actually killed him in real life ) when he referred to Tchekhov's novel "The Duel" in his commentary to his parodic "A Matter of Honor". VN's words in SM and elsewhere ( "Armoles"?) were set side by side concerning Alexis Suvórin both as a rival and as Tchekhov's friend.
Thank you for the correction about patronymics: I understand I should have written down Anton Petróvitch.
Can you explain to me how should I correctly refer to Timofey Pnin without insulting him?
I hesitate about how to spell Russian names. Cláudio Figueiredo wrote: Tchekhov, Turguêniev, Anton Petróvitch in his preface in Portuguese.
Any further correction shall always be welcome.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
From: Alexey Sklyarenko
To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:03 PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] the VDN-Suvorin duel
JM: we learn more about VN's father's planned duel against Alexis Suvórin (Tchekhov's editor friend and intricate links with )
I would like to learn more about this duel that hasn't been fought.
Jansy, you can not call VN's (or any other writer's) characters by their patronymics ("VN's own Petrovich")! True, one is sometimes allowed to address close friends "Palych" or "Vadimych". But both Timofey Pnin and Vadim Vadimovich of LATH who were spared a life in the Soviet Union would be terribly insulted if addressed that way.
Alexey
Search the Nabokv-L archive with Google
Contact the Editors
All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.
Visit Zembla
View Nabokv-L Policies
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
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