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Bronze Horseman, architects & Sun Horse
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In one of my previous posts I mentioned Ibsen's play Bygmester Solness ("The Master Builder"). Its Russian title, Stroitel' Sol'ness, reminds one of stroitel' chudotvornyi ("the marvellous architect") as the mad hero of Pushkin's Mednyi vsadnik ("The Bronze Horseman") calls Peter I (Falconet's equestrian statue of St. Petersburg's founder):
«Добро, строитель чудотворный! —
Шепнул он, злобно задрожав, —
Ужо тебе!..»
And shuddered, whispering angrily,
"Ay, architect, with thy creation
Of marvels.... Ah, beware of me!" (Part Two, ll. 177-179; transl. W. Lednicki)
The epithet chudotvornyi (miracle-working) is used today only in the phrase chudotvornyi obraz (or chudotvornaya ikona), "the miracle-working icon" (cf. "the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon whose magic effect was said to change anemic blond maidens into... children of the Sun Horse").
On Antiterra Pushkin's poem is known as Headless Horseman (1.28). There are no headless horsemen in Pushkin (whom Zhukovsky called "the sun of Russian poetry"), but a character in Pushkin's poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820) is the live head of a giant who was beheaded by his brother, the evil dwarf Chernomor.
добро = Бордо = борода – а = Бородино + в – вино
Ибсен + Фальконет + Гольдони = Несбит + Фальдони + конь + Олег
добро - good (a noun, as opposed to zlo, "evil," which is also mentioned in "The Bronze Horseman")
Бордо - Bordeaux, city in France and the red wine praised in Eugene Onegin
борода - beard (Chernomor's magic power is in his long beard)
Бородино - Borodino, the place of the greatest battle of the 1812 war against Napoleon; poem by Lermontov
вино - wine
Ибсен - Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist
Фальконет - E. M. Falconet, French sculptor
Гольдони - Carlo Goldoni, Venetian dramatist
Несбит - Nesbit, a character in VN's Speak, Memory
Фальдони - Faldoni, a character in Dostoevsky's Bednye lyudi ("Poor Folks") named thus after a character in NG Leonard's Therese et Faldoni, ou Lettres de deux amants habitants de Lyon (1783)
конь - horse
Олег - Oleg
Headless Horseman, by Captain Mayne Reid, was the favorite book of many a Russian child, including VN, Antosha Chekhov and Ilyusha Feinsilberg (Ilf). When they grew up, Pushkin and Lermontov became their favorite writers. Chernomordik is a character in Chekhov's stroy "A Chemist's Wife" and Chernomorsk is a setting of Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" (more anagrams in the upcoming article).
Incidentally, Mijn herz (as "Menschenkot," I mean Menshikov, used to address the czar Peter I) is 339 years old today (May 30).
Alexey Sklyarenko
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«Добро, строитель чудотворный! —
Шепнул он, злобно задрожав, —
Ужо тебе!..»
And shuddered, whispering angrily,
"Ay, architect, with thy creation
Of marvels.... Ah, beware of me!" (Part Two, ll. 177-179; transl. W. Lednicki)
The epithet chudotvornyi (miracle-working) is used today only in the phrase chudotvornyi obraz (or chudotvornaya ikona), "the miracle-working icon" (cf. "the Helmeted Angel of the Yukonsk Ikon whose magic effect was said to change anemic blond maidens into... children of the Sun Horse").
On Antiterra Pushkin's poem is known as Headless Horseman (1.28). There are no headless horsemen in Pushkin (whom Zhukovsky called "the sun of Russian poetry"), but a character in Pushkin's poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820) is the live head of a giant who was beheaded by his brother, the evil dwarf Chernomor.
добро = Бордо = борода – а = Бородино + в – вино
Ибсен + Фальконет + Гольдони = Несбит + Фальдони + конь + Олег
добро - good (a noun, as opposed to zlo, "evil," which is also mentioned in "The Bronze Horseman")
Бордо - Bordeaux, city in France and the red wine praised in Eugene Onegin
борода - beard (Chernomor's magic power is in his long beard)
Бородино - Borodino, the place of the greatest battle of the 1812 war against Napoleon; poem by Lermontov
вино - wine
Ибсен - Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian dramatist
Фальконет - E. M. Falconet, French sculptor
Гольдони - Carlo Goldoni, Venetian dramatist
Несбит - Nesbit, a character in VN's Speak, Memory
Фальдони - Faldoni, a character in Dostoevsky's Bednye lyudi ("Poor Folks") named thus after a character in NG Leonard's Therese et Faldoni, ou Lettres de deux amants habitants de Lyon (1783)
конь - horse
Олег - Oleg
Headless Horseman, by Captain Mayne Reid, was the favorite book of many a Russian child, including VN, Antosha Chekhov and Ilyusha Feinsilberg (Ilf). When they grew up, Pushkin and Lermontov became their favorite writers. Chernomordik is a character in Chekhov's stroy "A Chemist's Wife" and Chernomorsk is a setting of Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" (more anagrams in the upcoming article).
Incidentally, Mijn herz (as "Menschenkot," I mean Menshikov, used to address the czar Peter I) is 339 years old today (May 30).
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/