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Tobakoff
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Tabachnyi kapitan ("The Tobacco Captain," 1944) is a comedy by N. A. Aduev (the penname of Nikolay Rabinovich, 1895-1950, who finished the Tenishev school, as Mandelshtam and VN did). The action in it takes place in the reign of Peter I. The czar sends a boyar's son to study navigation in Holland but it is the young ignoramus' kholop Ivan who succeeds in learning and becomes a naval officer after returning to Russia. (Other characters include Karpiy Smurov and his daughter Lyubov'.) Ivan Giovannovich Tobak (Cordula's first husband) is a namesake of the Tobacco Captain.
A. N. Tolstoy (who coined the phrase propustit' cherez tabak) is best known as the author of Peter I, a historical novel (1929-34). Btw., it was Peter I who never parted with his pipka (pipe) and taught Russians to smoke. In his long poem Rossiya ("Russia," 1924) M. A. Voloshin (VN's teacher of prosody) calls Peter I "the first Bolshevik." Koba, too, loved his trubka (pipe)...
kholop = plokho
S + Tobak = T + Sobak = St. Koba
kholop - Russ., serf
plokho - Russ., bad
Sobak - Fima Sobak, a character in Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs" (the private furrier, a friend of Ellochka the cannibal); sobak (unlike Sobak, accented on the second syllable) - gen. pl. of sobaka, dog, hound
St. Koba - Stalin (Koba was Stalin's nickname, after the hero of Kazbeghi's novel "The Patricide;" cf. Colonel St. Alin, a scoundrel, one of the two seconds in Demon's duel with d'Onsky: 1.2)
Alexey Sklyarenko (VN's ustalyi rab, weary slave)
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A. N. Tolstoy (who coined the phrase propustit' cherez tabak) is best known as the author of Peter I, a historical novel (1929-34). Btw., it was Peter I who never parted with his pipka (pipe) and taught Russians to smoke. In his long poem Rossiya ("Russia," 1924) M. A. Voloshin (VN's teacher of prosody) calls Peter I "the first Bolshevik." Koba, too, loved his trubka (pipe)...
kholop = plokho
S + Tobak = T + Sobak = St. Koba
kholop - Russ., serf
plokho - Russ., bad
Sobak - Fima Sobak, a character in Ilf and Petrov's "The 12 Chairs" (the private furrier, a friend of Ellochka the cannibal); sobak (unlike Sobak, accented on the second syllable) - gen. pl. of sobaka, dog, hound
St. Koba - Stalin (Koba was Stalin's nickname, after the hero of Kazbeghi's novel "The Patricide;" cf. Colonel St. Alin, a scoundrel, one of the two seconds in Demon's duel with d'Onsky: 1.2)
Alexey Sklyarenko (VN's ustalyi rab, weary slave)
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/