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St. Petersburg Marks 100th Anniversary of Nabokov's Birth (fwd)
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St. Petersburg Marks 100th Anniversary Of
Nabokov's Birth
April 12, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse)
Members of the international literary community met in St.
Petersburg Saturday at the birthplace of emigre author
Vladimir Nabokov, born 100 years ago in the former Russian
capital.
But they were disappointed when the writer's son, Dmitry
Nabokov, expected to fly to St. Petersburg for the
anniversary, sent a late rain check due to illness.
Vladimir Nabokov was born into one of the Russian empire's
wealthiest families, whose urban home in central St. Petersburg has been
preserved as a museum dedicated to the writer's early years.
On Saturday the museum revealed its latest
acquisitions, donated by Dmitry: several valuable
Russian-language first-editions of Nabokov's novels, the
writer's original pince-nez and some 50 butterflies caught by
the avid lepidopterist during the more than two decades
he spent in North America.
Nabokov and his family were expelled from
Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1917, and the writer lived
alternately in England, Germany and France before moving to
the United States, where he achieved critical and
material success with the 1955 publication of his novel, Lolita.
His official birth date, like that of the
revolution itself, is leading: due to Russia's post-revolution changeover
to the Western calendar, with its difference of 11
days, Nabokov was actually born on April 21.
the year of his birth is correct, which
means the author was born 100 years after Aleksander Pushkin,
the prolific Russian poet whom Nabokov revered throughout
his career in literary criticism.
Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977. He had
never returned to Russia after the revolution. ( (c) 1999
Agence FrancePresse)
St. Petersburg Marks 100th Anniversary Of
Nabokov's Birth
April 12, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse)
Members of the international literary community met in St.
Petersburg Saturday at the birthplace of emigre author
Vladimir Nabokov, born 100 years ago in the former Russian
capital.
But they were disappointed when the writer's son, Dmitry
Nabokov, expected to fly to St. Petersburg for the
anniversary, sent a late rain check due to illness.
Vladimir Nabokov was born into one of the Russian empire's
wealthiest families, whose urban home in central St. Petersburg has been
preserved as a museum dedicated to the writer's early years.
On Saturday the museum revealed its latest
acquisitions, donated by Dmitry: several valuable
Russian-language first-editions of Nabokov's novels, the
writer's original pince-nez and some 50 butterflies caught by
the avid lepidopterist during the more than two decades
he spent in North America.
Nabokov and his family were expelled from
Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1917, and the writer lived
alternately in England, Germany and France before moving to
the United States, where he achieved critical and
material success with the 1955 publication of his novel, Lolita.
His official birth date, like that of the
revolution itself, is leading: due to Russia's post-revolution changeover
to the Western calendar, with its difference of 11
days, Nabokov was actually born on April 21.
the year of his birth is correct, which
means the author was born 100 years after Aleksander Pushkin,
the prolific Russian poet whom Nabokov revered throughout
his career in literary criticism.
Nabokov died in Switzerland in 1977. He had
never returned to Russia after the revolution. ( (c) 1999
Agence FrancePresse)