Dear Jansy,

 

Van's stage name, or, as Van puts it, "thespionym,"* Mascodagama, evokes an episode in Ilf and Petrov's novel "The Twelve Chairs" (1927), when Bender and Vorob'yaninov visit the Columbus Theater and watch its avanguard production of Gogol's play Zhenit'ba ("The Marriage," 1833-41). The hero's valet, Stepan,** appears on the stage walking on his hands, his friend is supposed to arrive riding a camel, and the heroine is walking along a thin wire tensioned above the audience. Needless to say that the poor author would have been highly surprised and probably wouldn't have even recognized his play, if granted a possibility to see this performance. The name of the director is Nik. Sestrin, sestra being Russian for "sister."

Those who have Russian may read more about all this in my article "Ada as a Charade Novel" in Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/sklyarenko5.doc.

 

Here are a few anagrams involving the Portuguese navigator's name and Van's thespionym playing upon it:

 

MASCODAGAMA + V = VASCO DA GAMA + M

 

MASCODAGAMA = MACAO + SMARAGD – R = GAMMA + ADA + COSMOS + COW – MOSCOW (Macao is a Portuguese overseas territory in S China and a card game of chance; smaragd is Russian for “emerald;” like its synonym, izumrud, this obsolete word occurs in Pushkin’s poem "K kastratu raz prishyol scrypatch..." ("A violinist once visited a eunuch…" 1835); gamma is the third letter of the Greek alphabet that looks more or less like the Russian ç; besides, it is Russian for "gamut" and "musical scale")

 

MASKODAGAMA = MOSKVA + MAGADAN - VN (Maskodagama is the Russian spelling of Van’s thespionym; Moskva is the Russian name of Moscow; Magadan is the city in NE Russia, on the sea of Okhotsk, the "capital" of the severe Kolyma region, the site of Soviet remotest labor camps; VN is Nabokov's initials)

 

MASKODAGAMA + YOK = DAMASK + YOKOGAMA = KAMA + MAYA + GOD + SKORO – OR (yok is Tatar for “no;” Damask is the Russian name of Damascus; Yokogama is the Russian spelling of Yokohama; Kama is Volga’s tributary, the river that flows in Perm and is mentioned in Ada: 2.9; Indian god of erotic desire and death; Maya points to both Indias, West and Ost; apart from its English meaning, god is Russian for “year;” skoro is Russian for “soon;” or is also French for "gold")

 

VASCO DA GAMA + IRINA = MADAGASCAR + VINO + AI (Irina is the youngest of Chekhov’s Three Sisters whom Ada plays in the Yakima Academy of Drama stage version of Chekhov’s Four Sisters, as this play is known on Antiterra: 2.9; Aï is champagne that Van, Ada and Lucette drink at “Ursus:” 2.8)

 

GAMA + GALILEO = GAMALIEL + GOA = GAME + LOLITA + GORA – ROT = MAGELLAN + GOYA + I - NY (Gamaliel is an Antiterran politician, American president;*** for several historical Gamaliels, see Wikipedia, or better, a good dictionary; Goa is the former Portuguese territory in India mentioned, for example, in V. Solov’yov’s fable Efiopy i brevno ("The Ethiopians and a Log," 1894); gora is Russian for "mountain;" cf. in Ada: Sestra moya, ty pomnish' goru: 1.22; rot is Russian for "mouth" and German for "red;" NY is the acronym of New York, gorod Zhyoltogo d'yavola tozh, known as "Man" on Demonia)
 
*Note that thespionym has both English "spy" and Russian shpion ("spy") in it. Does it hint that Rita (a Karaite girl, Van's partner in his circus stunt: 1.30), or her husband, the make-up man in the circus company, or both, are spies spying for Tartary? Or are they, like Kim Beauharnais, the kitchen boy at Ardis, visitors from Terra (the "Golden Veil" separating Tartary from the rest of the world being zolotaya zavesa that in Tyutchev's poetry separates our world from the abyss of the unknown, a sinister chaos) who are spying for Demonia's twin planet? Note that Rita sings the same tango tune ("Pod znoynym nebom Argentiny") to which Ostap Bender dances tango in "The Golden Calf," "The Twelve Chairs'" sequel.  
**He has the same first name as old Van's valet, Stepan Nutkin.
***Not reelected after his fourth term, Gamaliel is succeeded by Mr. Alexander Screepatch, an American Russian. Skripatch (skrypatch, as in Pushkin's above-mentioned poem, is an obsolete spelling) is Russian for "violinist." In one of my old notes in "The Nabokovian" ("The Sores of Eros in Nabokov's Ada," the piece should be rewritten because of its bad English) I argue that Mr. Alexander Screepatch is none other than Sashka the fiddler, the hero of Kuprin's story "Gambrinus" (1906).
 
Alexey Sklyarenko
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