Alexey, you wrote that "
Despite the fact that, in
Drugie berega, VN mentions "Alexey Suvorin," it seems to me that the
challenge from VDN was sent not to Alexey Suvorin pere (Chekhov's friend and
publisher, who was seventy-seven in 1911), and not to his son Alexey
Alexeyevich (Suvorin fils or, as Chekhov called him, "dolphin"), but to
another son of the founder of the "Novoe Vremia" newspaper and publishing
house, Mikhail Suvorin (1858-1936). This is confirmed by the information gleaned
from this article: http://www.pseudology.org/Nabokov/Bio_papa.htm. Or is its
author mistaken?"
I didn't check the URL but went instead
to Boyd's "The Russian Years" where your correction is confirmed by Boyd.
On page 97 we read: "Nabokov's father
had passed on to him his own strict sense of manliness and personal honor.
To the outer world, the elegant V.D. Nabokov seemed almost a dandy; to his
son...he was decidedly ...full-blooded...In the summer of 1911 his
(V.D.Nabokov's) newspaper, the liberal Rech' , charged a man named Snessarev, a
writer on the staff of ultraconservative Novoe Vremya...V.D.Nabokov's intensely
chivalric standards of honor ( were affronted) too gravely to be
ignored...Despite having
written only two years earlier two dazzling and celebrated articles against
dueling as a feudal custom, he now felt compelled to call someone to account...
V.D. Nabokov asked the editor of Novoe Vremya, Mikhail Suvorin, the son
of Chekhov's friend Alexey Suvorin, to print a retraction...Suvorin
refused the retraction...and declined a duel..." and a lot more on duels and
young VN's reactions and his thoughts about "inscrutable
fate".
On BB's page 215 we also can read about Véra:
"V.D. Nabokov's boxing and fencing lessons, his son's boxing
and savate, and their duelist's sense of honor were things she understood
well. Like V.D. Nabokov, Evsey Slonim had also challenged the editor of
Novoe Vremya to a duel for a malicious and unfounded
slur."
Cláudio Figueiredo seems to have relied only
in the information he got from VN's "Speak Memory". His elegant line of
argument, linking various real duelists, dueling authors and
their characters, favored the irony of VN's words ( like one
he'd mentioned in the context of Liermontov's character Gruchnitski,
whom he thought had been inspired in N.S.Martinov who, unlike it
happened with G. in Liermontov's novel, actually killed him in real
life ) when he referred to Tchekhov's novel "The Duel" in his
commentary to his parodic "A Matter of Honor". VN's words in SM and
elsewhere ( "Armoles"?) were set side by side concerning Alexis
Suvórin both as a rival and as Tchekhov's friend.
Thank you for the correction about patronymics: I
understand I should have written down Anton Petróvitch.
Can you explain to me how should I correctly refer to
Timofey Pnin without insulting him?
I hesitate about how to spell Russian
names. Cláudio Figueiredo wrote: Tchekhov, Turguêniev, Anton
Petróvitch in his preface in Portuguese.
Any further correction shall always be
welcome.
Jansy
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:03
PM
Subject: [NABOKV-L] the VDN-Suvorin
duel
JM: we learn more about VN's father's
planned duel against Alexis Suvórin (Tchekhov's editor friend and
intricate links with )
I would like to learn more about this duel that
hasn't been fought.
Jansy, you can not call VN's (or any other
writer's) characters by their patronymics ("VN's own Petrovich")! True, one is
sometimes allowed to address close friends "Palych" or "Vadimych".
But both Timofey Pnin and Vadim Vadimovich of LATH who were spared a life
in the Soviet Union would be terribly insulted if addressed that
way.
Alexey
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