Prince Ivan Temnosiniy, father of the children’s
great-great-grandmother, Princess Sofia Zemski (1755-1809), and a direct
descendant of the Yaroslav rulers of pre-Tartar times, had a millennium-old name
that meant in Russian ‘dark blue.’
Yaroslav
= slovarya ("of dictionary"). A reader of Nabokov should consult
not only Wikipedia, but also a good dictionary. Vivian Darkbloom's
advice.
Alexey
Sklyarenko