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Dear All,
Today is Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov's 141st birthday. As a tribute to
VDN's memory, I would like to share with you what Richard Pipes, the
preeminent American historian of Russia, has written about VDN in his
Introduction to the English translation of VDN"s The Provisional
Government:
When I reflect why [V. D.] Nabokov and men of his kind seem so
attractive to me, I conclude that it is because of the quiet, natural
dignity with which they carried out public responsibilities. They had
no personal interests in what they did, and sought to derive from it no
personal publicity. They acted out of patriotic responsibility, pure
and simple […] They were admirable men, the Russian liberals, combining
Western individualism with the intelligentsia’s tradition of public
service. Their liberal ethos was remarkably free of that element of
calculation so prominent in the liberal tradition of the West. Russia
owes them a great deal. Some day it will recognize this debt and
perhaps will acknowledge it with a plaque long overdue at Bol´shaya
Morskaya 47.
Best wishes,
Gavriel Shapiro