Krymskii Nabokovskii Nauchnyi Sbornik #3 (2003) This is a serial publication of  Tavrisheskii National University  “V.I. Vernadskii” in Simferopol’ [Ukraine]. The publication commenced in 1997 and the notes below describe the papers therein. (There are a few others that do not concern Nabokov.)  Most, but not all, of the papers are by scholars from the regional universities and reflect the paucity of resources available to researchers. One hopes the situation has improved since 2003. In any case, as the title of the series suggests,  the journal is primarily about Nabokov and non-Russian Nabokov scholars should be aware of it and its authors. I would encourage  NABOKV-L subscribers to provide brief synopses of their Nabokov-related readings for other busy souls. If you are too busy to do so, please consider at least sending in a scanned table of contents for issues and volumes devoted to VN. ----------------------------------------------

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A.V. Ledenev (Moscow) “Geographic Imagery in Nabokov’s Lolita.” Page 5.

 

            Argues that Lolita’s topology weaves a chronotopic “alphabet” that relates not so much to Mid-XXth century America as to Humbert’s consciousness which embodies a type of artist-demiurge familiar from the Symbolists. Ledenev argues HH & Lo’s travels throughout the US form a butterfly shape and offers good comments on VN’s alterations of place names in the Russian text. I (DBJ) crudely traced the outline of their journeys on a map and obtained only a rectangle. The article raises ome interesting points but perhaps stretched thin in the suggestion that “Gray Star”, where Lo dies, echoes the name of St Petersburg publishing house “Stella” that issued the 1911 edition of E.A. Poe’s poetry in a gray cover.

 

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V.D. Byalik (Chernovtsy)  “Neologisms, Occasionalisms. Realia in Nabokov’s Lolita” (p. 15)

           

            A brief survey of ways in which  VN handles “noncewords” in his Russian translation of Lolita. Examples of several types.

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 E.M. Boldyreva (Yaroslavl’) The Category of Memory in N’s Belletristic World (Other Shores [Drugie berega]) (p. 23)

 

            .A nicely done survey of the ways in which Nabokov’s DB differs from the “standard” autobiography arguing, inter alia, that For VN memory is not the reflection of the past but rather the construction of a new reality entailing a short-circuiting of linear time and elimination of the usual distinctions between the major event and the seemingly idle detail. The article offers   and illustrates six “mechanisms” triggering and organizing VN’s narrative memory: phonetic associations, color associations, smells, numbers, objects, & themes.

           

 

Ya.V. Pogrebnaya (Stavropl’) The Strategy of Discriminating the ‘Trace’ (Sleda) in
N’s Belletristic World  (p. 29 )

 

            By far the most ambitious offering,  the essay sets finds its theoretical basis in Derrida’s idea of the “trace,” drawing in Baudrillard  and Heidegger. The critic offers a general discussion of VN’s preoccupation with time and eternity and catalogues throughout his works “traces” (sledy)  bespeaking his disbelief in time.

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O.V. Reznik (Simferopl’) The Artistic World of N’s English Prose (p. 47)

 

            A brief discussion of  the interplay of past & present in Transparent Things. The essay ends by noting the similarity of the events and theme of the early story “The Return of Chorb.” 
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M.V. Nemtsev (Moscow) Theme & Cinematic Stylistic Devices in N’s Works. (Page 51)

 

            A brisk survey of movie references in VN’s Russian novels with a final section on VN’s transfer of silent cinematic devices to his writings.

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E.A. Kravchenko (Donets) Allusive & Auto-Allusive Names in Nabokov’s Works. (Page 62)

 

            A categorization and survey of personal names, real, concealed, and recurrent in VN’s works concluding with a short discussion of the latter in Mashenka (Mary) and The Defense.

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P.V. Kon’kov (Simferopl’‘) ‘Eugene Onegin’ and ‘Valerie’. N’s Reading. (Page 73)

 

            In VN’s commentaries to his translation of Pushlin’s Eugene Onegin he makes mention several authors that make up the reading lists of Tatyana and her mother.  Among them is Baroness Krudener’s “Valerie,” published in 1803 in French and wildly successful in several languages and influential on French and German literature --although now forgotten. Among the Baroness’s accomplishments as a religious mystic with influence in Russian court circles. Among her projects was a pietist colony in the Crimea (home of  the author’s university).

 

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V.N. Yarantsev (Novosibirsk) The Semiotics of “the Beginning” and the problem of Structural Synthesis in Post-Symbolist Prose (Nabokov’s “The Gift”) (p.  81)

 

            A survey of the features of the traditional vs the symbolist and post-symolist novel seeing the former as vaguely linear and the latter as circular or spriral.  The latter feature is examined in VN’s “The Gift.”

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A. Murashov (Moscow) The Poetics of Allusion in Nabokov and Xodasevich.

(p. 90)

            A comparison of  allusion in samples of Pushkin, Nabokov, and Xodasevich.

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Yu. Nevyarovich (Kherson)   Motifs of Ancient Greek Tragedy in the Works of Nabokov & Max Frisch. (Page 96).

 

            The essay’s epigraph is from Pushkin’s line “…physical blindness is in some sense spiritual insight.” The author  argues that Sophocles’ Oedipus plays are subtexts for VN’s “Laughter in the Dark” and also (if less so) for Frisch’s “Homo Faber.” Like Oedipus ,both heros find insight only in blindness.