Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
[b]
(Russian: Владимир Владимирович Набоков
[vlɐˈdʲimʲɪr
vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvʲɪtɕ nɐˈbokəf]
(
listen
)
; 22 April [
O.S.
10 April] 1899
[a]
– 2 July 1977), also known by
the
pen name
Vladimir Sirin
(Владимир Сирин), was a Russian-American
novelist
, poet,
translator, and
entomologist
. Born in Russia, he wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–
1938) while living in Berlin. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to
the United States and beginning to write in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in
1945, but he and his wife returned to Europe in 1961, settling in
Montreux
, Switzerland.
Vladimir was the family's eldest and favorite child, with four younger siblings:
Sergey
(1900–
45), Olga (1903–78), Elena (1906–2000), and Kirill (1912–64). Sergey was killed in a Nazi
concentration camp in 1945 after publicly denouncing Hitler's regime. Writer
Ayn Rand
recalled Olga (her close friend at Stoiunina Gymnasium) as a supporter of constitutional
monarchy who first awakened Rand's interest in politics.
[13][14]
Elena, who in later years
became Vladimir's favorite sibling, published her correspondence with him in 1985. She was an
important source for later biographers of Nabokov.
Nabokov spent his childhood and youth in Saint Petersburg and at the country estate
Vyra
near
Siverskaya
, south of the city. His childhood, which he called "perfect" and "cosmopolitan",
was remarkable in several ways. The family spoke Russian, English, and French in their
household, and Nabokov was trilingual from an early age. He related that the first English book
his mother read to him was
Misunderstood
(1869) by
Florence Montgomery
. Much to his
patriotic father's disappointment, Nabokov could read and write in English before he could in
Russian. In his memoir
Speak, Memory
, Nabokov recalls numerous details of his privileged
childhood. His ability to recall in vivid detail memories of his past was a boon to him during his
permanent exile, providing a theme that runs from his first book
Mary
to later works such as
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
. While the family was nominally
Orthodox
, it had little
religious fervor. Vladimir was not forced to attend church after he lost interest.
In 1916, Nabokov inherited the estate
Rozhdestveno
, next to Vyra, from his uncle Vasily
Ivanovich Rukavishnikov ("Uncle Ruka" in
Speak, Memory
). He lost it in the
October Revolution
one year later; this was the only house he ever owned.
Nabokov's adolescence was the period in which he made his first serious literary endeavors. In
1916, he published his first book,
Stikhi
("Poems"), a collection of 68 Russian poems. At the
The
Rozhdestveno estate
16-year-old Nabokov inherited from his maternal uncle. Nabokov possessed it for less than
a year before losing it in the October Revolution.
time he was attending Tenishev school in Saint Petersburg, where his literature teacher
Vladimir Vasilievich Gippius had criticized his literary accomplishments. Some time after the
publication of
Stikhi
,
Zinaida Gippius
, renowned poet and first cousin of his teacher, told
Nabokov's father at a social event, "Please tell your son that he will never be a writer."
[15]
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