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Baron Klim Avidov & his politics
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Nikitin + ulika + pol = Nikulin + politika (Nikitin - Ivan Nikitin, poet, author of Kulak; Afanasy Nikitin, traveler to India, "Russian Marco Polo"; ulika - piece of evidence; pol - floor; sex; politika - policy, politics)
Politika is mentioned by Chekhov in his letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin: Вспомните, что писатели, которых мы называем вечными или просто хорошими и которые пьянят нас, имеют один общий и весьма важный признак: они куда-то идут и Вас зовут туда же, и Вы чувствуете не умом, а всем своим существом, что у них есть какая-то цель, как у тени отца Гамлета, которая приходила и тревожила воображение. У одних, смотря по калибру, цели ближайшие – крепостное право, освобождение родины, политика, красота или просто водка, как у Дениса Давыдова, у других цели отдалённые – Бог, загробная жизнь, счастье человечества и т. п. (Let me remind you that the writers, who we say are for all time or are simply good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and very important characteristic; they are going towards something and are summoning you towards it, too, and you feel not with your mind, but with your whole being, that they have some object, just like the ghost of Hamlet's father, who did not come and disturb the imagination for nothing. Some have more immediate objects—the abolition of serfdom, the liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, like Denis Davydov; others have remote objects—God, life beyond the grave, the happiness of humanity, and so on.)
A poet and hussar, Denis Davydov (1784-1839) was a friend of Pushkin (who addresses Davydov in his poem "To you, the bard, to you, the hero..." 1836) and Prince Vyazemski (who addresses Davydov in poem Epernay,* 1838, 1854).
Denis Davydov = de + syn Davidov (Russ., "son of David", as Jesus Christ was sometimes called; de - nobility particle)
vodka = k + voda (Russ., water)
Davidov = D + Avidov
The set [of Flavita**] our three children received in 1884 from an old friend of the family (as Marina's former lovers were known), Baron Klim Avidov, consisted of a large folding board of saffian and a boxful of weighty rectangles of ebony inlaid with platinum letters, only one of which was a Roman one, namely the letter J on the two joker blocks (as thrilling to get as a blank check signed by Jupiter or Jurojin). It was, incidentally, the same kindly but touchy Avidov (mentioned in many racy memoirs of the time) who once catapulted with an uppercut an unfortunate English tourist [Walter C. Keyway, Esq.] into the porter's lodge for his jokingly remarking how clever it was to drop the first letter of one's name in order to use it as a particule, at the Gritz, in Venezia Rossa. (Ada, 1.36)
Flavita = alfavit (Russ., alphabet)
Baron Klim Avidov = Vladimir Nabokov
"Keyway" seems to hint at K, the letter absent from voda but present in vodka.
Jesus (who turned water into wine) said that we should love our enemies: "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." (Matthew 5:39) But, according to Kunyaev, dobro dolzhno byt' s kulakami ("good should have fists").
In the Russian alphabet, the letter D (formerly called dobro) is preceded by G (formerly called glagol', "gallows"). The latter letter is present in the rebus composed by old Sinitsky (and solved in a jiffy by Koreiko) in Ilf & Petrov's "The Little Golden Calf." The rebus's solution is V bor'be obretyosh' ty pravo svoyo (“You will earn your right by fighting for it”), the old motto of the SR Party unacceptable to the Soviet newspaper for which poor Sinitsky composes his riddles. Apart from letter G, Sinitsky's rebus has a goose and a comma turned upside down (that must look like an apostrophe present in d'Avidov, the name imagined by Keyway).
According to a Russian saying (quoted by Chekhov in his novel Drama na okhote), gus' svin'ye ne tovarishch, p'yanyi trzvomu ne rodnya ("a goose is no comrade of a swine, a drunk person is no relation of a sober one"). In his EO Commentary (Note to Six: V: 9) VN quotes the proverb "as drunk as David's sow" and makes a reference to Denis Davydov's "brilliant poem" Reshitel'nyi vecher (The Decisive Evening, 1818), in which the locutions kak zyuzya natyanusya ("I shall get as tight as a sow") and nap'yus' svin'ya svin'yoyu (which means the same) are used. In vino veritas!
"The Gritz, in Venezia Rossa" hints at the luxurious Ritz Hotels, but also reminds one of Mme Gritsatsuev whom Bender marries in Ilf & Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" (one of its chapters is entitled "The Mirror of Life Alphabet"). Incidentally, in "The Little Golden Calf" Nikita Pryakhin, one of the inhabitants of voron'ya slobodka ("the crow's nest"), heroically attempts to save tsel'nyi gus', chetvert' khlebnogo vina (the full three-litre bottle of vodka) but perishes in the fire.
Nikita Pryakhin is a namesake of tsar Nikita, a character in Pushkin's poem "Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters". The tsar's beautiful daughters have one slight defect: they lack something between their legs. From Chekhov's letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin: У нас нет «чего-то», это справедливо, и это значит, что поднимите подол нашей музе, и Вы увидите там плоское место. (We lack "something," that is true, and that means that, lift the robe of our muse, and you will find within an empty void.)
A riddle: Letit gus' na svyatuyu Rus'. Who is that goose flying to Saint Russia? (no googling, please)
*Epernay, a town in N France, is mentioned by VN in his EO Commentary (Note to Four: XLV: 1-7). See also Ay (spelled Ai in Ada, 2.8).
**Russian scrabble
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Politika is mentioned by Chekhov in his letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin: Вспомните, что писатели, которых мы называем вечными или просто хорошими и которые пьянят нас, имеют один общий и весьма важный признак: они куда-то идут и Вас зовут туда же, и Вы чувствуете не умом, а всем своим существом, что у них есть какая-то цель, как у тени отца Гамлета, которая приходила и тревожила воображение. У одних, смотря по калибру, цели ближайшие – крепостное право, освобождение родины, политика, красота или просто водка, как у Дениса Давыдова, у других цели отдалённые – Бог, загробная жизнь, счастье человечества и т. п. (Let me remind you that the writers, who we say are for all time or are simply good, and who intoxicate us, have one common and very important characteristic; they are going towards something and are summoning you towards it, too, and you feel not with your mind, but with your whole being, that they have some object, just like the ghost of Hamlet's father, who did not come and disturb the imagination for nothing. Some have more immediate objects—the abolition of serfdom, the liberation of their country, politics, beauty, or simply vodka, like Denis Davydov; others have remote objects—God, life beyond the grave, the happiness of humanity, and so on.)
A poet and hussar, Denis Davydov (1784-1839) was a friend of Pushkin (who addresses Davydov in his poem "To you, the bard, to you, the hero..." 1836) and Prince Vyazemski (who addresses Davydov in poem Epernay,* 1838, 1854).
Denis Davydov = de + syn Davidov (Russ., "son of David", as Jesus Christ was sometimes called; de - nobility particle)
vodka = k + voda (Russ., water)
Davidov = D + Avidov
The set [of Flavita**] our three children received in 1884 from an old friend of the family (as Marina's former lovers were known), Baron Klim Avidov, consisted of a large folding board of saffian and a boxful of weighty rectangles of ebony inlaid with platinum letters, only one of which was a Roman one, namely the letter J on the two joker blocks (as thrilling to get as a blank check signed by Jupiter or Jurojin). It was, incidentally, the same kindly but touchy Avidov (mentioned in many racy memoirs of the time) who once catapulted with an uppercut an unfortunate English tourist [Walter C. Keyway, Esq.] into the porter's lodge for his jokingly remarking how clever it was to drop the first letter of one's name in order to use it as a particule, at the Gritz, in Venezia Rossa. (Ada, 1.36)
Flavita = alfavit (Russ., alphabet)
Baron Klim Avidov = Vladimir Nabokov
"Keyway" seems to hint at K, the letter absent from voda but present in vodka.
Jesus (who turned water into wine) said that we should love our enemies: "But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." (Matthew 5:39) But, according to Kunyaev, dobro dolzhno byt' s kulakami ("good should have fists").
In the Russian alphabet, the letter D (formerly called dobro) is preceded by G (formerly called glagol', "gallows"). The latter letter is present in the rebus composed by old Sinitsky (and solved in a jiffy by Koreiko) in Ilf & Petrov's "The Little Golden Calf." The rebus's solution is V bor'be obretyosh' ty pravo svoyo (“You will earn your right by fighting for it”), the old motto of the SR Party unacceptable to the Soviet newspaper for which poor Sinitsky composes his riddles. Apart from letter G, Sinitsky's rebus has a goose and a comma turned upside down (that must look like an apostrophe present in d'Avidov, the name imagined by Keyway).
According to a Russian saying (quoted by Chekhov in his novel Drama na okhote), gus' svin'ye ne tovarishch, p'yanyi trzvomu ne rodnya ("a goose is no comrade of a swine, a drunk person is no relation of a sober one"). In his EO Commentary (Note to Six: V: 9) VN quotes the proverb "as drunk as David's sow" and makes a reference to Denis Davydov's "brilliant poem" Reshitel'nyi vecher (The Decisive Evening, 1818), in which the locutions kak zyuzya natyanusya ("I shall get as tight as a sow") and nap'yus' svin'ya svin'yoyu (which means the same) are used. In vino veritas!
"The Gritz, in Venezia Rossa" hints at the luxurious Ritz Hotels, but also reminds one of Mme Gritsatsuev whom Bender marries in Ilf & Petrov's "The Twelve Chairs" (one of its chapters is entitled "The Mirror of Life Alphabet"). Incidentally, in "The Little Golden Calf" Nikita Pryakhin, one of the inhabitants of voron'ya slobodka ("the crow's nest"), heroically attempts to save tsel'nyi gus', chetvert' khlebnogo vina (the full three-litre bottle of vodka) but perishes in the fire.
Nikita Pryakhin is a namesake of tsar Nikita, a character in Pushkin's poem "Tsar Nikita and his Forty Daughters". The tsar's beautiful daughters have one slight defect: they lack something between their legs. From Chekhov's letter of Nov. 25, 1892, to Suvorin: У нас нет «чего-то», это справедливо, и это значит, что поднимите подол нашей музе, и Вы увидите там плоское место. (We lack "something," that is true, and that means that, lift the robe of our muse, and you will find within an empty void.)
A riddle: Letit gus' na svyatuyu Rus'. Who is that goose flying to Saint Russia? (no googling, please)
*Epernay, a town in N France, is mentioned by VN in his EO Commentary (Note to Four: XLV: 1-7). See also Ay (spelled Ai in Ada, 2.8).
**Russian scrabble
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/