Sasha (or more free-and-easy Sashka) is a Russian
diminutive of Alexander.* Another, even more affectionate, diminutive of
this name is Shura. In Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" there is Shura
Balaganov, a member of the Antelope Gnu crew. In Ada (3.3)
there is Shura Tobak, the violinist, whom snobbish Cordula Tobak (born
de Prey) cannot forgive for being her husband's neighbor in the telephone
book. Shura Tobak's first name and profession link him to Aleksandr
Gertsovich, the Jewish musician in Mandelshtam's poem "Zhil Aleksandr
Gertsovich..." ("There lived Alexander Herzevich..." 1931), and to Mr
Alexander Screepatch,** the new president of the United Americas in Ada
(3.4).
In a previous post I mentioned several Chekhovian
characters (Andrey in The Three Sisters, Andrey Andreich in The
Bride) who play a violin. But I forgot about Yakov Bronza,*** the hero of
Chekhov's story Skripka Rotshil'da ("Rothschild's Violin",
1894),**** whose hobby is violin playing. Bronza's
profession is the making of coffins. It links him to Adrian Prokhorov, the hero
of Pushkin's story Grobovshchik ("The coffin-maker", 1830),
and master Bezenchuk, the coffin-maker in Ilf and Petrov's "The Twelve
Chairs" (who often hit the bottle, pil gor'kuyu, because people in N
died seldom).
In The Bronze Horseman (1833)
Alexander Pushkin describes the disastrous Neva flood of 1824 and
mentions, among other things, coffins from sodden
graveyards floating along the streets (Гроба с размытого кладбища /
плывут по улицам). The original title of Pushkin's poem is Mednyi
[copper] vsadnik; but the equestrian statue of Peter I is actually
made of bronze - the fact emphasised by the author who speaks of
kumir na bronzovom kone ("the idol on his bronze horse"). He also
mentions in The Bronze Horseman his namesake, the late tsar Alexander I
who "gloriously ruled Russia" (and whom Pushkin actually disliked) in
that grim year:
Покойный царь ещё Россией
Со славой правил.
Vladimir Lenin, who ruled Russia in
1917-24, isn't mentioned in Ada. But it seems to me that
Nabokov kept in mind that the leader of the Bolsheviks was his
(and his father's) namesake, and the mysterious L disaster in
Ada hints, among other real events (including the Neva flood on
November 7, 1824), at the 1917 October Revolution (Oct. 25/Nov. 7). It is
probably worth noting that the next great flood of the Neva
occurred exactly hundred years later, in 1924, the year of Lenin's
death. It was Stalin (who was to lyudoed, cannibal, Lenin what the
severe tsar Nicolas I was to mild Alexander I) who began
to rule Russia by the time. On Antiterra (the planet on which
Ada is set) they have Khan Sosso (a play on Soso, Dzhugashvili's
first name), the ruler of the ruthless Sovietnamur Khanate (2.2), instead of
him. While "Sosso" reminds me of the tong-twister shla Sasha po shosse
i sosala sushku ("Sasha walked along a highway sucking a dry cracker"),
"Sovietnamur" (combining the Soviet Union with Vietnam and the Amur) brings
the phrase shury-mury ("love affair" in nursery slang) to
mind.
Sashka + Shura = Sasha***** + shkura
(skin******)
*one remembers the poet Sasha Chyornyi
(pen-name of Aleksandr Glikberg, 1880-1932) and, by association, Andrey Belyi
(pen-name of Boris Bugaev, 1880-1934), another poet and prose writer (the author
of Petersburg) esteemed by Nabokov; chyornyi means "black",
belyi "white" in Russian
**skripach means "violinist", "fiddler"
***the hero's real name is Ivanov,
Bronza ("Bronze") is his nickname
****Chekhov's Moisey Rotshild, a poor Jew in a
Russian village, is merely a namesake of the Barons Rothshild, the famous family
of bankers
*****Sasha is a long poem by Nekrasov
(1855). Its heroine (Sasha is also a diminutive of Aleksandra) is a young
country girl. Interesting to note that in his poem Yubileynoe
("Anniversary Poem", 1924) Mayakovski, VN's "late
namesake", unceremoniously calls N. A. Nekrasov "Kolya, son of the
late Alyosha"
******usually of an animal; cf. Vityaz' v
tigrovoy shkure ("The Knight in a Tiger's Skin"), an epic by Shota
Rustavelli (who is believed to be Queen Tamara's lover); like English
"skin", shkura is often used idiomatically
Alexey Sklyarenko