Dmitry Nabokov. Life like fiction

This small fragment of a 6-hour interview has a long history. What you hear now may become a discovery of some sort. Probably it is certain to become a discovery because you will hear about Dmitry Nabokov, the son of the writer Vladimir Nabokov. It is always difficult to be a child of famous parents but Dmitry Nabokov who recently completed his course of life was an unusual person himself, talented and mysterious.

The 6-hour conversation with Dmitry Nabokov, an excellent translator, the custodian of his father’s heritage, a famous racer, a first-class mountain-climber and an opera bass, Luciano Pavarotti’s colleague, was recorded by playwright Dmitry Minchenok in Montreux about 7 years ago. Part of it was published some time ago. Now is the turn of another part. Dmitry Minchenok says: “We talked about the chances of staging a play about Vladimir Nabokov in Russia and then lapsed into discussing personal affairs.

Probably, at a different time and in a different condition of health Dmitry Vladimirovich would not have talked about it. I had an impression that he did not want that story to sink into oblivion. Nabokov kept returning to the same subject – a mysterious attempt at his life. The wheels of his car came off, the car ran into a hill and exploded but he miraculously remained alive, spending a year in a resuscitation ward. “I have no idea who wanted to kill me,” he said several times during our conversation. Suddenly I found the answer myself when I pointed to a photograph of him in an army officer’s uniform. “Where did you serve an  in what rank?” – “That was after Harward,” Dmitry Nabokov explained and then said a strange thing: “I had two military ranks,” adding softly: “I worked for the CIA”. 

Dmitry Nabokov: I was asked to be one and it was quite understandable from the ideological viewpoint. Everything was organised at a very high diplomatic level. I mostly worked in Italy. In the 1960s that country started dangerously shifting to the left. The danger was quite real. I was to find support for the right-wing parties and understand their goals. It was as difficult as a game of chess.  Unfortunately, Americans did not always understand certain things completely. One day I will tell you more about it.

I could never understand how French intellectuals – writers or artists – who enjoyed life in comfortable Paris, at the same time supported the Soviets.  What could deceive them when they knew that people were killed there? On the other hand, there is no denying that the Communist regime had its positive features.

‘Intellectuals’ is a contradiction in terms. As for communists, Mussolini used to say that the most important thing was for trains to run on schedule. 

You must have met the Italian ruling top. Is it true that they had a mafia which in those days was intertwined with the government and that corruption ruled supreme?

The problem still exists today. It has spread from the government of that time to Rome and Milan. I respect Berlusconi because he is trying to restrict this influence but it is extremely difficult to remove such things from the life of society. It is like cancer which penetrates deep into a living organism.

It is the same in Russia, by the way…

Oh, yes, but in Russia this phenomenon is not so well-organised as in Italy. 

Dmitry Nabokov did not specify if he was a professional salaried secret agent. His  job as an opera singer, as far as I understood, was just a disguise. Taking advantage of his famous name and reputation of a bonvivant, racer and popular opera singer, he was received in the upper classes of Italian society and managed to perform his task. Dmitry Nabokov told me in Montreux that he had described that detective story of his life with more details in his autobiography. Some time later he said that he was not planning to publish it. So I kept Vladimir Nabokov’s son’s secret all these years. When he died I decided that this was not only part of the history of Russian literature but also part of Dmitry Nabokov’s life.What did his work for the CIA mean to him? Was it an attempt to prove to himself that he was worth something or just a substitute for adrenalin injections – I never knew. But he managed to arrange even that part of his life artistically. He never wanted to tell his father about it. Dmitry Nabokov’s life was like the plot of a captivating novel in which true facts were closely intertwined with fiction and there was no telling which was which.Dmitry Minchenok, Yelena Tsiplakova