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Aksakov & Vengerov in ADA
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Van remembered that his tutor’s great friend, the learned but prudish Semyon Afanasievich Vengerov, then a young associate professor but already a celebrated Pushkinist (1855-1954), used to say that the only vulgar passage in his author’s work was the cannibal joy of young gourmets tearing ‘plump and live’ oysters out of their ‘cloisters’ in an unfinished canto of Eugene Onegin. (1.38)
Van's chaste angelic tutor, Andrey Andreevich Aksakov (AAA), wrote verse in sprung rhythm and drank, in Russian solitude. A character in Chekhov's Play without a Title, Vengerovich pere is the owner of sixty three taverns:
Платонов. Одного поля ягоды, но... Шестьдесят
кабаков, друг мой, шестьдесят кабаков, а у тебя и шестидесяти копеек нет!
Венгерович 1. Шестьдесят три кабака.
Платонов. Через год будет семьдесят три... (Act One, scene XV)
Platonov predicts to Vengerovich (who is about fifty) that he will live to get twice his current age or even longer and die peacefully:
Венгерович 1. Вы начинаете фантазировать, Михаил Васильич! (Встаёт и
садится на другой стул.)
Платонов. На этой голове и громоотводов больше... Проживёт преспокойно
ещё столько же, сколько и жил, если не больше, и умрёт... и умрёт ведь
спокойно! (ibid.)
In a letter of June 5, 1903, to Veresaev (Vikentiy Vikentievich Smidovich) Chekhov says that he is reading S. T. Aksakov's Childhood Years of Bagrov Grandson and in a letter of June 12, 1903, to Mirolyubov that he is reading Aksakov's The Family Chronicle. Veresaev met Chekhov in spring, 1903, in Yalta and criticized his story Nevesta ("The Bride," 1903):
Накануне, у Горького, мы читали в корректуре новый рассказ Чехова "Невеста" (он шел в миролюбовском "Журнале для всех").
Антон Павлович спросил:
- Ну, что, как вам рассказ?
Я помялся, но решил высказаться откровенно:
- Антон Павлович, не так девушки уходят в революцию. И такие девицы, как ваша Надя, в революцию не идут.
Глаза его взглянули с суровою настороженностью.
- Туда разные бывают пути. (A. P. Chekhov v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, Moscow, 1960; reprinted in "A. P. Chekhov. Collected Works in Twelve Volumes," vol. 12, p. 649)
The heroine's fiance in Chekhov's Nevesta, Andrey Andreich is a namesake of Van's Russian tutor and of Ada's husband, Andrey Andreevich Vinelander.
Brian Boyd: I suspect also that Nabokov heard from Yakovlev—who certainly supplied Nabokov with other information the writer cherished and used, and who as an emigre founded an anti-Bolshevik organization Nabokov joined—something about Vengerov’s death that made Nabokov give him that almost improbably long life, outliving Stalin.
I suspect it was something about Chekhov's death that made Nabokov give Vengerov that almost improbably long life. Chekhov's last words were "It's a long time since I drank champagne."* Chekhov's dead body was brought from Badenweiler to Moscow in a carriage for oysters (dlya ustrits). Btw., it was Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna (1863-1957) and his wife Olga Leonardovna** Knipper-Chekhov (1868-1959) who outlived Stalin.
*"In vino veritas!" cry out the drunks s glazami krolikov (with the eyes of rabbits) in Blok's Incognita.
**cf. "Richard Leonard Churchill" (the author of a novel about a certain Crimean Khan)
Alexey Sklyarenko
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Van's chaste angelic tutor, Andrey Andreevich Aksakov (AAA), wrote verse in sprung rhythm and drank, in Russian solitude. A character in Chekhov's Play without a Title, Vengerovich pere is the owner of sixty three taverns:
Платонов. Одного поля ягоды, но... Шестьдесят
кабаков, друг мой, шестьдесят кабаков, а у тебя и шестидесяти копеек нет!
Венгерович 1. Шестьдесят три кабака.
Платонов. Через год будет семьдесят три... (Act One, scene XV)
Platonov predicts to Vengerovich (who is about fifty) that he will live to get twice his current age or even longer and die peacefully:
Венгерович 1. Вы начинаете фантазировать, Михаил Васильич! (Встаёт и
садится на другой стул.)
Платонов. На этой голове и громоотводов больше... Проживёт преспокойно
ещё столько же, сколько и жил, если не больше, и умрёт... и умрёт ведь
спокойно! (ibid.)
In a letter of June 5, 1903, to Veresaev (Vikentiy Vikentievich Smidovich) Chekhov says that he is reading S. T. Aksakov's Childhood Years of Bagrov Grandson and in a letter of June 12, 1903, to Mirolyubov that he is reading Aksakov's The Family Chronicle. Veresaev met Chekhov in spring, 1903, in Yalta and criticized his story Nevesta ("The Bride," 1903):
Накануне, у Горького, мы читали в корректуре новый рассказ Чехова "Невеста" (он шел в миролюбовском "Журнале для всех").
Антон Павлович спросил:
- Ну, что, как вам рассказ?
Я помялся, но решил высказаться откровенно:
- Антон Павлович, не так девушки уходят в революцию. И такие девицы, как ваша Надя, в революцию не идут.
Глаза его взглянули с суровою настороженностью.
- Туда разные бывают пути. (A. P. Chekhov v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, Moscow, 1960; reprinted in "A. P. Chekhov. Collected Works in Twelve Volumes," vol. 12, p. 649)
The heroine's fiance in Chekhov's Nevesta, Andrey Andreich is a namesake of Van's Russian tutor and of Ada's husband, Andrey Andreevich Vinelander.
Brian Boyd: I suspect also that Nabokov heard from Yakovlev—who certainly supplied Nabokov with other information the writer cherished and used, and who as an emigre founded an anti-Bolshevik organization Nabokov joined—something about Vengerov’s death that made Nabokov give him that almost improbably long life, outliving Stalin.
I suspect it was something about Chekhov's death that made Nabokov give Vengerov that almost improbably long life. Chekhov's last words were "It's a long time since I drank champagne."* Chekhov's dead body was brought from Badenweiler to Moscow in a carriage for oysters (dlya ustrits). Btw., it was Chekhov's sister Maria Pavlovna (1863-1957) and his wife Olga Leonardovna** Knipper-Chekhov (1868-1959) who outlived Stalin.
*"In vino veritas!" cry out the drunks s glazami krolikov (with the eyes of rabbits) in Blok's Incognita.
**cf. "Richard Leonard Churchill" (the author of a novel about a certain Crimean Khan)
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/