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How "Strange" is VN's Strangelove?
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From: Galya Diment <galya@u.washington.edu>
We all know, of course, that Chernyshevsky's biographer in DAR (The Gift),
Strannoliubsky (Strangelove), is a fictitious character. I came across a
real Strannoliubsky recently while reading Sofya Kovalevskaya's
autobiography ("Russian Childhood"). Kovalevskaya (1850-1891), for those
who do not know, was the first Russian woman mathematician who, because
she was not allowed to hold a regular faculty position in Russia, ended up
teaching at the University of Stockholm. Her older sister, Anya, was
courted by Dostoevsky in 1865. The writer proposed marriage to her but was
rejected, in part, apparently, because Anna did not think she could be her
own person while married to Dostoevsky. Because of the Anna
Korvina-Krukovskaya -- Dostoevsky narrative, Kovalevskaya's considerable
skills as a writer, and also due to her own fame and, in some
quarters, notoriety, the autobiography, which first appeared in 1889, was
widely read in Russia.
While Nabokov was working on the Chernyshevsky chapter of Dar, he had
plenty of reasons to read or re-read K.'s autobiography. Both Sofya and,
especially, her sister Anna considered themselves "Nihilists," and they
were friends with Chernyshevsky, who, much to Dostoevsky's disgust, was
Anna's idol. Most remarkably, among Sofya Kovalevskaya's unfinished
manuscripts found after her death there was even a novel which was solely
about Chernyshevsky.
"Dr. Strangelove" or a Strannoliubsky in Kovalevskaya's life was Professor
A. N. Strannoliubsky, a Petersburg mathematician who gave Sofya private
lessons in analytic geometry and differential and integral calculus. I
would not be at all surprised if Nabokov got his idea for the name of the
Chernyshevsky's fictitious biographer from looking through the
autobiography of a woman who, among other things, had ambitions of writing
her own fictional life of Chernyshevsky.
Galya Diment
We all know, of course, that Chernyshevsky's biographer in DAR (The Gift),
Strannoliubsky (Strangelove), is a fictitious character. I came across a
real Strannoliubsky recently while reading Sofya Kovalevskaya's
autobiography ("Russian Childhood"). Kovalevskaya (1850-1891), for those
who do not know, was the first Russian woman mathematician who, because
she was not allowed to hold a regular faculty position in Russia, ended up
teaching at the University of Stockholm. Her older sister, Anya, was
courted by Dostoevsky in 1865. The writer proposed marriage to her but was
rejected, in part, apparently, because Anna did not think she could be her
own person while married to Dostoevsky. Because of the Anna
Korvina-Krukovskaya -- Dostoevsky narrative, Kovalevskaya's considerable
skills as a writer, and also due to her own fame and, in some
quarters, notoriety, the autobiography, which first appeared in 1889, was
widely read in Russia.
While Nabokov was working on the Chernyshevsky chapter of Dar, he had
plenty of reasons to read or re-read K.'s autobiography. Both Sofya and,
especially, her sister Anna considered themselves "Nihilists," and they
were friends with Chernyshevsky, who, much to Dostoevsky's disgust, was
Anna's idol. Most remarkably, among Sofya Kovalevskaya's unfinished
manuscripts found after her death there was even a novel which was solely
about Chernyshevsky.
"Dr. Strangelove" or a Strannoliubsky in Kovalevskaya's life was Professor
A. N. Strannoliubsky, a Petersburg mathematician who gave Sofya private
lessons in analytic geometry and differential and integral calculus. I
would not be at all surprised if Nabokov got his idea for the name of the
Chernyshevsky's fictitious biographer from looking through the
autobiography of a woman who, among other things, had ambitions of writing
her own fictional life of Chernyshevsky.
Galya Diment