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 ("именины"/"imeniny") celebration is not as popular as
birthday celebration, the Russian word for a birthday ("день рождения"/"djen'
rozhdenia") person is still "именинник"/"imeninnik" (a person whose name day is
being celebrated)."