In his poem Chetvert' veka. 1900-1926 ("The
Quarter of the Century," 1927) Voloshin says that, among other things, he
witnessed sram altarey (the shame of altars):
Видел позорное самоубийство
Трона, династии,
срам алтарей,
Славу "Какангелия" от Маркса,
Новой враждой разделившего
мир.
I saw the infamous suicide
of throne, dynasty, the shame of
altars,
the glory of the Kakangel of Marx
that had divided the world with new
enmity.
In 1920 Wells visited Russia and wrote a series of articles
"Russia in the Shadows" (1921). During his visit to Russia Wells visited
his old friend Maxim Gorky, whom he had first met in 1906 on a trip to the
United States, and who arranged Wells's meeting with Lenin. In Russia in the
Shadows Wells calls Lenin "the Kremlin dreamer."
"Altar" hints at Gibraltar. In Gorky's play Na dne ("At the
Bottom," 1902) Gibraltar is mispronounced by Satin as "Giblartar."
"Palermontovia" blends Palermo, the biggest city in Sicily, with
Lermontov, the author of Demon (1829-39). As he speaks to his son Van,
Demon Veen mentions Kremlin and calls the new kerosene distillary "styd i
sram (a shame) of our county:"
'Your dinner jacket is very nice - or, rather it's very
nice recognizing one's old tailor in one's son's clothes - like catching oneself
repeating an ancestral mannerism - for example, this (wagging his left
forefinger three times at the height of his temple), which my mother did in
casual, pacific denial; that gene missed you, but I've seen it in my
hairdresser's looking-glass when refusing to have him put Crêmlin on my bald
spot; and you know who had it too - my aunt Kitty, who married the Banker
Bolenski after divorcing that dreadful old wencher Lyovka Tolstoy, the writer.'
(1.38)
The author of the "Kakangel," Karl Marx appears in
Ada as "Marx père, the popular author of 'historical'
plays:"
Van Veen [as also, in his small way, the editor of Ada] liked to
change his abode at the end of a section or chapter or even paragraph, and he
had almost finished a difficult bit dealing with the divorce between time and
the contents of time (such as action on matter, in space, and the nature of
space itself) and was contemplating moving to Manhattan (that kind of switch
being a reflection of mental rubrication rather than a concession to some
farcical 'influence of environment' endorsed by Marx père, the popular
author of 'historical' plays), when he received an unexpected dorophone call
which for a moment affected violently his entire pulmonary and systemic
circulation. (2.5)
Poor mad Aqua is a victim of the Great Revelation. According to Van,
Revelation can be more perilous than Revolution. (1.3)
In "The Quarter of the Century" Voloshin mentions sumasshestvie
Martobrya ("the madness of Martober," i. e. of the February/March and
October 1917 Revolutions):
Но посреди ратоборства народов
Властно окликнут с
Востока, я был
Брошен в плавильные горны России
И в сумасшествие
Мартобря.
The month Martober first appears in Gogol's Notes of a Madman
(1835). It hero and narrator Aksentiy Poprishchin imagines that he is the King
of Spain Ferdinand VIII.
The author of the prophetic "Prdediction" (1830), Lermontov believed that
he was a descendant of Thomas Learmonth, a Scottish laird of the 13th century.
But, according to a different version, the poet's ancestors came from
Spain.
Maskarad = Marks + Ada
Arbenin + L = rab/bar + Lenin
Maskarad - "The Masquerade," a play in
verse (1835) by Lermontov
Marks - Russian spelling of Marx
Arbenin - the main character in "The
Masquerade"
rab - slave
Alexey Sklyarenko