Pope Francis I - and a Jesuit. One might call VN jesuitical (and I'm sure his friend Wilson, whose wife Mary McCarthy was extremely Catholic, was tempted to call him just that). Then there is Charles I of Zembla, with his middle name Xavier to John Shade's Francis, referring to one of the first Jesuits.*  This is another clue that Kinbote and Shade are in fact one person.

I also recall the day when Professor Alexander Isachenko (formerly a famous Czech personality of stage and radio) told us about various popes of this village and that. Shy undergraduate that I was (the UCLA class was attended by both grads and undergrads) I finally raised my hand to ask how there could have been quite so many popes running around a small area of eastern Europe. Isachenko laughed and said that of course he meant 'priests' not popes - in Slavic languages, at least in Czech, the word is the same for both I guess.

Another 'Slavic' touch - I heard that a chaika (seagull) had perched on the chimney at the Vatican and was "the most watched seagull in history" which was very likely true.

Carolyn

p.s. A rather odd joke that I recall: What do you call an abortion in Czechoslovakia? A cancelled Czech.

* And if Francis Xavier is in fact the man Pope Francis is honoring with his name, the timing couldn’t be much better. The day before Pope Francis' election was the final day of the Novena of Grace, a nine-day prayer that leads up to the anniversary of the canonization of Francis Xavier in 1622.