Ivan Tobak* (Cordula's first husband), Shura** Tobak, a Jewish musician (3.3), and Jean Nicot*** (with whom Admiral Tobakoff, Ivan Tobak's ancestor, had an epee duel: 2.5) are mentioned in Ada. You must be thinking of Charles Chateaubriand, after whom a mosquito was named (1.17).

 

Fyodor Tolstoevski was Ilf and Petrov's joint pen-name. They used it when publishing feuilletons in Literaturnaya gazeta.

 

Apropos Dr Yanovski & logogriphs. Gogol's full last name was Gogol-Yanovski. There is Gogol, spelt backward, in "logogriph". Of course, in Russian Gogol's name ends in the soft sign (letter ь).   

 

*Actually, the Russian word for "tobacco" is tabak (accented on the last syllable, a rhyme-word of kabak, "tavern"). Among the characters of Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs" is Fima Sobak (a friend of Ella the cannibal). Her amusing name rhymes with Tobak and is a homograph of sobak (accented, unlike Fima's surname, on the last syllable), which means "of dogs" in Russian.

**the diminutive form of Aleksandr.

***The name of the man who is said to have introduced tobacco into France was Jacques Nicot.

 

Alexey Sklyarenko