If you are going to go after Melnikov and are concerned about his hilarious views of VN's character, take a look at his comments on similarities between VN and _DESPAIR_'s Herman Karlovich toward the end of the article I sent. Apart from the latter idiocy, it's a pretty good piece that uncovered the factual incident underlying Otchayanie. Melnikov and I ran across the RUL' article independently but his appeared in a new ournal that lasted only a few months.