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Russia Celebrates Nabokov's Birthday
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**They are quoting our very own Don Johnson here! GD****
Russia Celebrates Nabokov's Birthday
By ANDREW KRAMER
.c The Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- A Russian museum celebrated Vladimir Nabokov's
100th birthday Thursday in a ceremony also seen as marking the emigre
writer's belated recognition as a Russian national treasure.
Surviving members of the Nabokov family blew out candles on a cake in the
writer's childhood home, which was made a museum last year. Nabokov, author
of ``Lolita,'' fled Russia in 1919 and never returned. He died in 1977.
He wrote about half his books in Russian but the Soviet regime banned his
work until 1987. Now Russians are starting to claim him as their own.
``Besides the round date, for us today is Nabokov's symbolic return home,''
said Zakhar Fialkovsky, a deputy director of the Nabokov museum.
Critics have argued for years over whether Nabokov should be called a Russian
or an American writer.
In any case, his new popularity in Russia is undisputed. Schools across the
country require students read his novel ``Invitation to a Beheading.'' In the
past 10 years, Russia has seen 33 editions of ``Lolita,'' a renowned and
controversial novel about a man's love for his underage stepdaughter.
Thursday's party culminated weeks of Nabokov hype -- including new editions
of his works, theater productions and scholarly seminars -- in St.
Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city and seat of the country's literary
heritage.
The young Vladimir grew up on a tree-lined street surrounded by tutors. He
spoke three languages from early childhood and developed a refined taste in
music and art.
But his family left St. Petersburg in 1919 after the communists came to
power. In his memoirs, Nabokov wrote about the St. Petersburg he knew sinking
like the mythical continent Atlantis.
The Nabokov family home was in a fashionable neighborhood. Today, the
building across the street is a shell of brick covered in graffiti.
Nabokov never again owned real estate. He wrote nine Russian novels in
Berlin, eight English novels in France and three English novels in America,
all in rented rooms. He fled Berlin when the Nazis came to power, and he died
in a hotel room in Switzerland in 1977.
He spent his life being kicked out of countries that now proudly boast he
spent time on their soil.
Soviet scholars, eager to distance themselves from the banned author, labeled
Nabokov an American writer.
``Now the other extreme has arrived. They claim Nabokov as theirs,'' said
Donald Johnson, a professor of Russian literature at the University of
California at Santa Barbara and a founding member of the International
Vladimir Nabokov Society. ``In truth, he was both.''
Nabokov family members said they are glad the family home is now a museum.
But the writer had rejected ever returning to Russia, said Ivan Nabokov, a
second cousin.
``A museum in Russia would have been inconceivable to him,'' he said. ``He
did not look back. Russia had ceased to exist for him.''
AP-NY-04-22-99 1851EDT
Russia Celebrates Nabokov's Birthday
By ANDREW KRAMER
.c The Associated Press
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) -- A Russian museum celebrated Vladimir Nabokov's
100th birthday Thursday in a ceremony also seen as marking the emigre
writer's belated recognition as a Russian national treasure.
Surviving members of the Nabokov family blew out candles on a cake in the
writer's childhood home, which was made a museum last year. Nabokov, author
of ``Lolita,'' fled Russia in 1919 and never returned. He died in 1977.
He wrote about half his books in Russian but the Soviet regime banned his
work until 1987. Now Russians are starting to claim him as their own.
``Besides the round date, for us today is Nabokov's symbolic return home,''
said Zakhar Fialkovsky, a deputy director of the Nabokov museum.
Critics have argued for years over whether Nabokov should be called a Russian
or an American writer.
In any case, his new popularity in Russia is undisputed. Schools across the
country require students read his novel ``Invitation to a Beheading.'' In the
past 10 years, Russia has seen 33 editions of ``Lolita,'' a renowned and
controversial novel about a man's love for his underage stepdaughter.
Thursday's party culminated weeks of Nabokov hype -- including new editions
of his works, theater productions and scholarly seminars -- in St.
Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city and seat of the country's literary
heritage.
The young Vladimir grew up on a tree-lined street surrounded by tutors. He
spoke three languages from early childhood and developed a refined taste in
music and art.
But his family left St. Petersburg in 1919 after the communists came to
power. In his memoirs, Nabokov wrote about the St. Petersburg he knew sinking
like the mythical continent Atlantis.
The Nabokov family home was in a fashionable neighborhood. Today, the
building across the street is a shell of brick covered in graffiti.
Nabokov never again owned real estate. He wrote nine Russian novels in
Berlin, eight English novels in France and three English novels in America,
all in rented rooms. He fled Berlin when the Nazis came to power, and he died
in a hotel room in Switzerland in 1977.
He spent his life being kicked out of countries that now proudly boast he
spent time on their soil.
Soviet scholars, eager to distance themselves from the banned author, labeled
Nabokov an American writer.
``Now the other extreme has arrived. They claim Nabokov as theirs,'' said
Donald Johnson, a professor of Russian literature at the University of
California at Santa Barbara and a founding member of the International
Vladimir Nabokov Society. ``In truth, he was both.''
Nabokov family members said they are glad the family home is now a museum.
But the writer had rejected ever returning to Russia, said Ivan Nabokov, a
second cousin.
``A museum in Russia would have been inconceivable to him,'' he said. ``He
did not look back. Russia had ceased to exist for him.''
AP-NY-04-22-99 1851EDT