Thank you Dana. Robert Browder seems to agree with VN himself in Speak Memory.

But the question remains - - why does Brian Boyd make the date to be July 21? The character John Shade in Pale Fire is "shot" on that day and Boyd finds this to be a personally significant date to VN. Alexey Sklyarenko similarly finds significance in the fact that Ada's birthday is July 21.

Nor does it explain why the Nabokov genealogy (and other online sources) gives the date as July 15.

To add to this confusion I discover that the University of California's book catalog gives a birth year of 1869 instead of 1870.

Perhaps there were two of him? or three?

Carolyn





> From: "Donald B. Johnson" <chtodel@gss.ucsb.edu>
> Reply-To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum <NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU>
> Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 08:08:05 -0700
> To: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
> Subject: Fwd: Nabokov's father's birthday
>
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from dana.dragunoiu@sympatico.ca -----
> Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 07:51:40 -0400
> From: Dana Dragunoiu <dana.dragunoiu@sympatico.ca>
> Reply-To: Dana Dragunoiu <dana.dragunoiu@sympatico.ca>
> Subject: Nabokov's father's birthday
> To: Vladimir Nabokov Forum
>
> Dear Carolyn, Don, and list members:
>
> Robert Browder, in his Introduction to V.D. Nabokov and the Russian
> Provisional Government, 1917 (edited by Virgil Medlin and Steven
> Parsons), states that V.D. Nabokov was born on July 20, 1870 (pg. 2).
> Hope this helps.
>
> Best wishes,
> Dana
>