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pecheneg in ADA
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"Colonel Erminin, a widower whose liver, he said in a note, was behaving like a pecheneg" (Ada, Part I, chapter 13)
In his "Annotations" Boyd, with some help of Vivian Darkbloom, says: "pecheneg: a savage." A pun on Russian pechen', "liver." The Pechenegs were a nation of warrior horsemen of Turkic origin, related to the Kumans who attack Igor's troops in Slovo o polku Igoreve, which Nabokov translated as The Song of Igor's Campaign (1960).
Unlike polovtsy (the Kumans), the Pechenegs do not appear in Slovo. But they are mentioned by Pushkin in Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820):
Там русский пал, там печенег
Here a Russian is killed, there, a Pecheneg (Canto Six).
Besides, Pecheneg ("The Savage," 1897) is a story by Chekhov about a man with a bad temper. Cf. Van's words to Greg Erminin: "Your father preferred to pass for a Chekhovian colonel" (3.2).
The evil sorcerer in Pushkin's R. & L. is a bearded dwarf Chernomor. Chernomor + dik = Chernomordik, the chemist's name in Chekhov's story "Aptekarsha" (The Chemist's Wife, 1886). Chernomor + s + k = Chernomorsk, an invented city on the Black sea coast, the setting of Ilf and Petrov's The Golden Calf (1931).
Chernomor had a brother, a giant whom he decapitated. Although bodyless, the giant's head remained alive. In fact, Golova is a character in the first of Pushkin's fourteen long poems. Pushkin's last long poem was Mednyi vsadnik ("The Bronze Horseman," 1833). It is known on Antiterra as Headless Horseman (1.28). Captain Mayne Reid's Vsadnik bez golovy was one of favorite books of little Antosha Chekhov. But, unlike young VN who enjoyed the unabridged English version, he read it in Russian.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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In his "Annotations" Boyd, with some help of Vivian Darkbloom, says: "pecheneg: a savage." A pun on Russian pechen', "liver." The Pechenegs were a nation of warrior horsemen of Turkic origin, related to the Kumans who attack Igor's troops in Slovo o polku Igoreve, which Nabokov translated as The Song of Igor's Campaign (1960).
Unlike polovtsy (the Kumans), the Pechenegs do not appear in Slovo. But they are mentioned by Pushkin in Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820):
Там русский пал, там печенег
Here a Russian is killed, there, a Pecheneg (Canto Six).
Besides, Pecheneg ("The Savage," 1897) is a story by Chekhov about a man with a bad temper. Cf. Van's words to Greg Erminin: "Your father preferred to pass for a Chekhovian colonel" (3.2).
The evil sorcerer in Pushkin's R. & L. is a bearded dwarf Chernomor. Chernomor + dik = Chernomordik, the chemist's name in Chekhov's story "Aptekarsha" (The Chemist's Wife, 1886). Chernomor + s + k = Chernomorsk, an invented city on the Black sea coast, the setting of Ilf and Petrov's The Golden Calf (1931).
Chernomor had a brother, a giant whom he decapitated. Although bodyless, the giant's head remained alive. In fact, Golova is a character in the first of Pushkin's fourteen long poems. Pushkin's last long poem was Mednyi vsadnik ("The Bronze Horseman," 1833). It is known on Antiterra as Headless Horseman (1.28). Captain Mayne Reid's Vsadnik bez golovy was one of favorite books of little Antosha Chekhov. But, unlike young VN who enjoyed the unabridged English version, he read it in Russian.
Alexey Sklyarenko
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/