Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov (68 page)

44
This passage would not make the editing cut for the version that appeared in Paris and was translated into English and became the definitive document. It would find publication only in some later Russian-language versions and collected writings of Solzhenitsyn.

45
Scammell,
Solzhenitsyn
, 524.

46
“Electronic Prying Grows: CIA Is Spying from 100 Miles Up,” NYT, April 27, 1966, 1.

47
a letter to the editor
: “Record of Congress for Cultural Freedom,” NYT letters to the editor, May 9, 1966, 38;
current and former Encounter editors
: “Freedom
of Encounter Magazine,” NYT letters to the editor, May 10, 1966, 44;
Nicholas Nabokov himself wrote
: “Group Denies C.I.A. Influence,” NYT letters to the editor, May 16, 1966, 46.

48
Braden, Thomas, “Speaking Out: I’m Glad the CIA Is ‘Immoral,’”
The Saturday Evening Post
, May 20, 1967, 10–14.

49
active in American intelligence work
: Josselson himself described his history and clearances in a draft memoir (Stonor Saunders,
The Cultural Cold War
, 42).

Strangely enough, the declassified portions of Nicholas Nabokov’s very thick FBI file do not include any pages from 1948, when he ostensibly left government employment, up until April 1967, two weeks’ before the effective dissolution of the Congress.

50
a former intelligence operative argued
: Stonor Saunders, Frances.
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters
(1999), 402; “
They’re all the same
”: Stonor Saunders, 401.

51
The critical volume they were preparing was about another classic of Rus sian literature,
The Song of Igor’s Campaign
. Nabokov and Jakobson had been working with a third person, Marc Szeftel. For a fuller account of the Nabokov/ Jakobson/Szeftel collaboration, see Diment’s
Pniniad
.

52
“
little trips
”: VNSL, 216; “
Bolshevist agent
”: Diment, 40;
had belonged to the Kadets
: Meyer, Priscilla, “Nabokov’s Critics: A Review Article,”
Modern Phi lology
91.3 (1994), 336;
Jakobson had torpedoed Nabokov’s chances
: Diment, 40 and 167.

53
“A Look Back…,” U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Web site:
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2007-featured-story-archive/a-look-back.html
.

54
VNSL, 431–2. Letter from Véra Nabokov to Lauren Leighton.

55
VNSL, 431.

56
Slavic scholar Lauren Leighton sent a postscript to NABOKV-L, the Nabokov Listserv, detailing what had happened to the young Leningrad writers after he had exchanged letters with Véra Nabokov (Leighton, Lauren, note to NABOKV-L, the Nabokov Listserv, July 14, 1995: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/ wa?A2=nabokv-l;54cd537.950y). Mikhail Meylakh was the writer arrested in 1983 for having a copy
of Speak, Memory
.

57
a foreword and an index
: For those inclined to go down the ubiquitous rabbit holes in the field of Nabokovian interpretation, it may be worth noting that Nabokov closed his foreword with a mention of the index: “through the window of that index climbs a rose” (SM, 16). In addition to the English and Russian versions of Nova Zembla that are listed in the index, Nova Zembla is in fact a rose variety—a hardy strain, widely cultivated, and more than a century old.

“
of all places
”: SM, 52.

58
SM, 256.

59
Ibid., 248.

60
Ibid., 257.

61
GIFT, 355.

62
BBAY, 456.

63
These
Pale Fire
parallels bring a certain tragic note to the repeated appear ances of the word “Hamburg” in
Lolita
, which ostensibly occur in the book as a play on Humbert’s name (see pages 109, 261, and 262) but also echo Sergei’s fate. If Humbert is recalling forgotten world history, he may also be carrying water for his author. For more on Sergei in
Pale Fire
, see Maar,
Speak, Nabokov
, 40–41.

64
Neuengamme Camp archives.

65
“Le céremonial esttoujours le même…”
Neuengamme, Camp de Concentration Nazi
(2010), 185.

66
an experimental treatment for lice-born typhus
: Neuengamme entry, USHMM Website,
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005539
;
a fatal experiment
: 20 Jewish children were chosen by Dr. Heissmeyer to have tubercular infection blown into their lungs through rubber tubes inserted in their noses. When the Allies were advancing, the children were taken offsite, injected with morphine, and hanged. Their remains were destroyed for fear of anyone learning about the experiment. The doctor conducting the experi ment remained in practice in East Germany (which was desperate for trained medical professionals) for twenty years after the war, when he crossed paths with a local Party Official and was put on trial, after which we was sent to prison for the rest of his life.

67
Neuengamme, Camp de Concentration Nazi
, 197–8.

68
November 2011 interview with Reimer Möller.

69
Russians formed the largest contingent of the camp population during Sergei’s months at Neuengamme. Other significant population groups of prisoners included Poles, French, and Norwegians, in that order, though there were many other countries represented. “Death, Neuengamme Concentration Camp.” Neuengamme Web site:
http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-neuengamme.de/index.php?id=990

70
November 2011 interview with Reimer Möller.

71
Ibid.

72
Grossman, “The Gay Nabokov,” Salon.

73
November 2011 interview with Reimer Möller.

74
Ibid.

75
The Neuengamme book of the dead and hospital records seem to be at odds on whether Sergei died January 9 or 10; but the camp archivist Reimer Möller determined January 10th as the correct date.

76
November 2011 interview with Reimer Möller.

77
Ibid.

78
SM, 258.

79
fairy tales
: LL, 2;
escape from prison
: ITAB, 114.

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN
: W
AITING FOR
S
OLZHENITSYN

1
portable Winter Palace
: a reference to Nabokov later made by John Leonard in his piece on Isaac Babel, “The Jewish Cossack” in
The Nation
, November 26, 2001.

2
always had nightmares
: SM, 108–9; Boyd’s “New Light on Nabokov’s Russian Years”;
guillotines set up
: Schiff, 347;
dreamed of Sergei
: Vladimir Nabokov diary, 1967, Berg;
a happy reunion
: BBAY, 499;
father came to visit
: Vladimir Nabokov diary, 1973, Berg Collection.

3
blood-filled mosquitoes
: Literary mosquito tropes appear throughout
Ada
(this one on 108), but the reference to sated insects in a secret habitat car ries echoes of one of the most notorious tortures of Solovki and other camps, which was written about in American and European newspapers as early as 1925. Prisoners were sent or tied naked outside to be tortured by mosquitoes. Robson,
Solovki
, 238.

first prison term
: ADA, 81;
rape ofayoung boy
: ADA, 355.

4
outside the study of dreams
: ADA, 15;
the existence of Terra
: ADA, 264.

5
ADA, 582.

6
high-profile trials
: Stories of Yuli Daniel’s and Alexander Esenin-Volpin’s involuntary institutionalizations became widespread during the 1960s, in the wake of Daniel’s public trial and Esenin-Volpin’s re-institutionalization by the state. No public stance was taken on the issue by the World Psychiatric Association until records of actual case histories were smuggled into the West in 1971. Even then, it took six years for the Association to officially condemn the Soviet practice. “Soviets finally condemned for psychiatric malpractice,”
New Scientist
, September 8, 1977, 571.

sentenced to a mental hospital
: Shabad, Theodore, “Soviet Said to Jail Writer Suspected of Criticism Abroad,” NYT, October 19, 1965, 1.

7
former leader himself might have been condemned
: Sulzberger, C. L. “Foreign Affairs,” NYT, October 28, 1964, 44.;
a group of Soviet mathematicians
: It was not even the first time the state had institutionalized mathematician Alex ander Esenin-Volpin. For information on his 1968 institutionalization, see “Action on Dissident Protested in Soviet,” NYT, March 13, 1968, 6.

8
Schiff, 330.

9
BBAY, 569.

10
wanted to see butterflies there
: For a full discussion of the plans of the trip to Israel, which was never made, see Yuri Leving’s “Phantom in Jerusalem,”
The Nabokovian
, Fall 1996, 30–44;
French response to the Six-Day War
: BBAY, 526.

11
BBAY, 582.

12
just wouldn’t talk about Vietnam
: AFLP, 216;
coaxing old friends to visit
: Schiff, 343.

13
Fosburg, Lacey, “Art and Literary people urged to look inward,” NYT, May 22, 1969, 52.

14
In his “
Lolita
class list,” Gavriel Shapiro notes that when he translated
Lolita
into Russian, Nabokov changed Irving Flashman’s name to Moisei Fleishman, emphasizing his Jewishness. With the addition of the first part of the word “kike” to a slur earlier in the novel, it is another sign that given a chance to revisit the anti-Semitic theme for another audience, Nabokov emphasized it in more than one location.
Cahiers du Monde Russe
, XXXVII 3, July-September 1996, 317–335.

15
ANL, liii.; In
Vladimir Nabokov: His Life in Art
, Andrew Field also observed that Nabokov’s mature books had grown from seeds apparent in his works from the 1920s. Like Appel after him, he directly linked Nabokov’s
Agasfer
and its Wandering Jew roots to its future transformation into
Lolita
(79).

16
Levy, Alan, “Understanding Vladimir Nabokov: A Red Autumn Leaf Is a Red Autumn Leaf, Not a Deflowered Nymphet,”
NYT Magazine
, October 31, 1971, 20.

17
BBAY, 483.

18
AFLP, 8.

19
an international incident
: “U.S. Student Held by Poland On Issue of Border Transit,” NYT, February 1, 1964, 3;
ten days in jail
: Field, Andrew. “Prime Exhibits,” NYT, September 18, 1966, 419;
he stood trial
: “Poles Free U.S. Stu dent after Prison Sentencing,” NYT, February 16, 1964, 16;
had to wait two more weeks
: “Poland Allowing Field To Go,” NYT, March 3, 1964, 5. In fact, he waited around even longer in the hopes of getting back the $3,000 bond his parents had posted, but finally left empty-handed. The bond money, minus court fees, was later returned to Field’s family after his conviction was thrown out that April.

20
Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, whose work had found widespread publica tion in the West.

21
AFLP, 201.

22
Ibid., 208.

23
Ibid., 135.

24
Ibid., 30. Nabokov noted that Adamovich’s only passions in life had been “Rus sian poetry and French sailors.”

25
AFLP, 30.

26
illegitimate son of Tsar Alexander II
: AFLP, 13;
wobbly on dates
: BBAY, 619–20.

27
LATH, 95.

28
Ibid., 218.

29
Ibid.

30
LATH, 95.

31
LRL, 105.

32
AFLP, 25.

33
NWL, 372.

34
crimp relations between them
: NWL, 373;
his friends are in bad shape
: Letter written days later to Helen Muchnic, quoted here from Meyers, 445.

35
Wilson, Edmund,
Upstate: Records and Recollections of Northern New York
(1971), 162.

36
Wilson,
Upstate
, 219; SO, 218–9.

37
Dabney, Lewis,
Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature
, 510, from a December 22, 1971 letter to Edmund Wilson from Katharine White.