A rough democracy of hats: Nabokov’s father and Russia between the revolutions
When most people think of the Russian Revolution, they think of 1917, the fall of the Romanovs, and the Bolshevik takeover. But before that Revolution (which was actually two revolutions, months apart), there was another one. More than a year into a disastrous war with Japan, and after months of strikes and bitterness over protesters killed in […]
Nabokov, concentration camps, and a century of civilian casualties
Vladimir Nabokov was born in 1899, less than three years after the first concentration camps were founded thousands of miles away in Cuba. What does Vladimir Nabokov—creator of decadent fiction and king of literary insults—have to do with concentration camps? It’s a reasonable question. Like Nabokov, concentration camps were born in the nineteenth century but […]
Why we need a Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov
Why focus on Nabokov? And why now? These are questions I’ve been asked by everyone from prospective publishers to strangers who have heard I’m writing a book. Because there was no shortage of drama in his life, stories about Nabokov have endless potential. He fled the aftermath of the Russian Revolution with Bolsheviks firing machine […]
