Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov

Mashenka, The Defense, The Gift, Invitation to a Beheading and other works were published in Russian in Europe and were highly valued among émigrés. Some of his novels written in Russian while he was living in Europe explore the issue of homesickness, as well as shining a spotlight on the Russian émigré community in Berlin and Paris. It was also where their son Dmitry was born, who went on to be heavily involved in preserving his father’s legacy, translating his novels and even bringing Nabokov’s unfinished work The Original of Laura to publication.īecause of his hasty exile, one of Nabokov’s leitmotifs is nostalgia. Writing 8 outstanding novels in RussianĪfter studying in England, Nabokov moved to Berlin, where he married Vera Slonim. Nabokov began learning English before he learned Russian. As an interesting aside, Carroll wrote the novel after visiting St. During this period Nabokov wrote poems in Russian and was produced the first translation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland into Russian. Nabokov was sent to study at Cambridge's Trinity College, where he founded the Slavonic Society, which was later reborn as the Cambridge University Russian Society.

Translating Alice in Wonderland into RussianĪt the age of 20, Nabokov left Russia with family, as his father had been engaged with politics during the time of the Russian Revolution – against the Bolsheviks. This overview highlights his key intellectual contributions. There is much more to the writer than this work, though, and he lived a varied life that took him to many countries, as he fled first the Bolsheviks, then the Nazis. This controversial work brought Nabokov global success, but also closed off the Nobel Prize to him. Most people have read, seen the movie, or at least heard about Lolita, which chronicles an adult man’s love affair with a young girl.

Lectures on Russian Literature by Vladimir Nabokov