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Re: BIRTHDATES: Pnin's Birthday
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Sandy Drescher: Pnin's birthday is given as May 18th in The New Yorker, but becomes February 5th in the novel.
Jansy Mello quotes from PNIN
(a) "Pnin felt what he bad felt already on August 10, 1942, and February 15 (his birthday), 1937, and May 18, 1929, and July 4, 1920" ch2
(b) "Pnin's birthday for instance fell on February 3, by the Julian calendar into which he had been born in St Petersburg in 1898. He never celebrated it nowadays, partly because, after his departure from Russia, it sidled by in a Gregorian disguise (thirteen - no, twelve days late)..." ch3
Relating mentions to calendric variations, I began to wonder about Saint George's Day , also on April 23*, after reading a reference to it in ADA: "The modest narrator has to remind the rereader of all this, because in April (my favorite month), 1869 (by no means a mirabilic year), on St George's Day (according to Mlle Larivière's maudlin memoirs) Demon Veen married Aqua Veen - out of spite and pity, a not unusual blend."
(Ada's husband, A.Vinelander died on April 23, 1922 in Arizona.)
*According to wikipedia, "the feast day of Saint George [ ] is celebrated on 23 April, the traditionally accepted date of Saint George's death in AD 303. For Eastern Orthodox Churches which use the Julian calendar, 23 April corresponds to 6 May on the Gregorian calendar.
I also learnt that "One of the most popular references of a Russian name day is the entire first act of Anton Chekhov's Three Sisters, where Irina is celebrating her name day.Another literary depiction of a formal Russian name day ceremony occurs in Alexander Pushkin's "Eugene Onegin" where Tatiana's name day is celebrated. Name days are also mentioned in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, such as Book I, chapter 7 where both mother and youngest daughter of the Rostov family are celebrating the same name day of Natalya.
Note: although name day ("???????"/"imeniny") celebration is not as popular as birthday celebration, the Russian word for a birthday ("???? ????????"/"djen' rozhdenia") person is still "?????????"/"imeninnik" (a person whose name day is being celebrated)."
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