Above Nabokov manuscripts

On the 40th anniversary of the death of the writer

Ivan Tolstoy: I remember this day perfectly, more precisely the evening, - July 2, 1977, exactly forty years ago. I stood by the window in the Leningrad apartment and smoked a phone. Nearby rustled and whistled the radio. The Voice of America passed the news. The announcer, as expected, said completely impassively: "The Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov died in Switzerland."

And then - the wall collapsed, the world broke off. Wild melancholy suddenly took possession of me, the meaninglessness of existence.

What did I count on? The fact that he will always exist, as before - lived in me, as I remembered myself. Moreover, I did not think that it could be seen: the Soviet Union still did not rotate on the orbit with the planet, but a certain hope is not clear what I lived in my soul. And then he is no more.

And almost immediately, without a pause, I realized: I will write about him. What to write? What exactly? I couldn’t say this then, forty years ago, but no one asked me, because it was possible to discuss Nabokov only at home in those days, with my father or with two or three closest friends.

Now I understand that that impulse was a declaration of love, belated and desperate.

By the age of 19, I read almost all the Russian books of the writer-something was at home, something brought me a classmate-Finn from Helsinki. Fortunately, he was not searched at customs.

It would be very ashamed now

At that time, I just began to look for biographical information about my idol, but, thank God, I did not write anything. Now it would be very ashamed.

Forty years have passed. All this time I am collecting Nabokov’s books, rare and rare editions in Russian and English, his photographs, newspaper and magazine publications. Without much fanaticism, but with pleasure. The collection is my rich, but amateur. Gymnasium, as they would say before. I don’t go crazy about Nabokov anymore, but tell me that somewhere an unknown manuscript is stored somewhere, I would have passed a thousand kilometers on foot without thinking.

But this year, without tearing any vests on myself, I got into the Nabokov archive stored in the New York Public Library on the corner of the 5th Avenue and the 42nd Street. The archive rests in a special room - in the Berg Collection brothers collection. The brothers Henry and Albert Berga gathered during their lives one of the most impressive collections of English and American literature - the rarest editions, manuscripts and memorable things. In the reading room, where I was inclined above the manuscripts of Nabokov, in glazed old cabinets stood silently, hundreds of exquisite leather bindings - Tekkeraei and Dickens, historical monographs, bibliographic reviews.

Here, to this treasury, 15 years ago, Nabokov papers were transferred from Montreo. Since then, they are dismantled, painted, photocopies have been made from many pages. The archive does not lie with a dead load, researchers study it, use it for their articles and monographs, dissertations and translations. But getting here is not easy: permission is required from the curator and from the literary agent, taking care of observing the hereditary copyright.

The archive is rich: manuscripts - white and draft, correspondence with friends, writers and publishers, family documents, notebooks, newspaper clippings with the first publications. You are leafing through and understand how the myth of Nabokov, supposedly not storing his drafts and leaving only impeccably trimmed, final options for texts, has developed incorrectly in your head. It didn’t happen! Crossings, repeated corrections, inscriptions and inserts - like Pushkin. Literature is enough for a long time. And sometimes, still leafing through an unrelated correspondence, it seems that you can write another Nabokov biography - parallel to the famous two -volume Boydovskaya, where there will be no coincidences with the text of Brian Boyd: so many unrequited ones.

This collection of the younger sister is priceless

Among other things, I met the home notebooks of the Nabokov sister of Elena, who lived with her mother before the war in Prague and adored his brother Vladimir. All that came across in the newspapers, Elena carefully cut out and glued into ordinary thick notebooks, which all of us had at school-96-page, with boring crankshaft. There, a loving sister glued both typewritten and manuscript pages with his brother’s poems, and when a rare guest came to visit a family from Berlin, he sometimes entered something in these notebooks additionally. For the textual preparation of the Nabokov’s collected works, this collection of the younger sister is priceless. Not to mention the literary context: Elena Vladimirovna had a wide circle of reading, and their favorite pages of other authors were glued here.

The famous philologist Roman Timenchik is now studying the history of readers. Flying the notebooks of the Nabokov sister, I have repeatedly thought: and this is just for Professor Timenchik.

And I also recalled that in 1996 I went to Geneva to record the stories of Elena Vladimirovna, who was then 90 years old. I settled nearby and went to her as a job every day. She was exceptionally generous and hospitable and spent much more time on me than I deserved. Many hours of conversation have accumulated, they are still not published. Today I offer two small fragments.

Geneva apartment Elena Vladimirovna Nabokova-Sikorskaya. I ask the question: they say that the English language of Vladimir Vladimirovich was faint. Is it so?

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: Of course, very pretentious and very difficult for reading. A lot of such mysterious places. There was even a very interesting story with ADA. I read it when it was not yet printed, only on the typewriter was printed, but has not yet come out. And there is one strange episode there. There is a hero, a young man. I will not tell you the content of the novel, because this is not the point. But what happens in one chapter of this novel. The hero, a young man, sits with guests in his big garden. And at this time, he sees that very poorly dressed people with beards come, one person even a little oblique, spread the carpet on the ground (not a real carpet, but a canvas or something cloth) and eat pieces of bread broken into the unit. The young man, the hero of the novel, approaches and asks them in his own language, who they are and why they are here. They answer him in a language completely unfamiliar to him. Then he tries all the languages that he knew, French, Italian, but they do not understand, wave his hand on him. Then they leave and pull this matter behind them, on which they remained of pieces of bread. And then the young man, the hero of the novel, sees that something like a belt hangs on one of the branches. There were twelve of them, I must say. They pulled this fabric like a network. And after reading this, I immediately realized what was the matter. But imagine that Boyd did not notice it and then wrote about it in one of the Nabokovian, which is produced in America.

Ivan Tolstoy: Maybe he did not read one well -known book?

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: Boyd? No, he has a wonderful book of comments.

Ivan Tolstoy: I mean the same book with which you can understand this scene.

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: He could not help but figure it out!

Ivan Tolstoy: At school, of course, I read.

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: But Vera did not notice! It passed her. She, of course, knew, she knew the gospel. But it passed by her. I was very proud of this. It is remarkable that his first book The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, when I read it, I read it as an accurate translation from Russian. In this book it was felt that this was not what would happen next. It was an accurate translation from the Russian language. This was his first book.

Ivan Tolstoy: She was still written in Paris, in 1938.

V. Nabokov. Correspondence with her sister. Ann Arbor, Ardis, 1985. The cover of the book.

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: One of my favorite books, by the way. This is the "gift" - these are my favorite books. I can’t say that I love “hell” so, this is a very interesting book, it is very interesting to read it, but sincerely - no. It is also very interesting that I have recently read, as we said, this book of Charlotte Bronte, it is also based on the so -called incest, that is, the father loves his daughter. And it seems to me that it is possible that he had read this book before and he had the idea to write a novel about this. Because there is a lot of similar in this book with ADA. It is very difficult to explain. I once read it, for a very long time, and completely forgot, or maybe I never read it. And now I have found something in common. It is possible that he also read this book by accident, he did not tell me this, but maybe he read it and he came the idea of this incest when he began to write "hell".

Ivan Tolstoy: Yes, I understand that you are talking about a literary source, but there was some other internal source that has been developing all the time, this topic is developing all the time, the theme of an adult man who loves a girl, a constant topic. This and the same one went and disgustingly told by this Schegolev in the "gift", then "Wizard", "Lolita" and now - "Ada". This is a naturally developing topic. "Dar" and "Sebastian Knight" - two of your favorite books. And the "feat"?

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: "Sebastian Knight"-the book is very biographical, extremely. This is a meeting of my brother, who is told by Boyd, so this is no secret, in 1937 with the Russian young lady in Paris. You know that. What was her name?

Ivan Tolstoy: Irina Guadanini.

Elena Nabokova-Sikorskaya: And this is reflected in Sebastian Naiti, and even Boyd noticed and wrote about it.

Ivan Tolstoy: So said the sister of Vladimir Nabokov in a conversation recorded in her Geneva apartment in 1996.

In May of this year, I had the happiness of reading the Nabokov manuscripts in the New York archive of the writer stored in the building of the Public Library in the premises of Berg Collection. Not all biographical subjects are told in the largest and most thorough two -volume Brian Boyd.

One of the dramatic stories around Nabokov’s books happened with a work that, it would seem, was supposed to go through the market without a bitch and a bitch. This is the story of the Russian edition of Lolita. By the mid-60s, after the novel was released in many world languages, Nabokov was an exceptional person. He could afford not only a lifestyle, unimaginable in his young years, but also a style of existence, inaccessible to most writing people in the world.

Back in the mid-50s, he traded with publishers for every 50, no-20, no-10 dollars of increase to the fee. But since 1958, everything has changed decisively. He was able to finally leave the teaching strap, move to Europe closer to his son, singing in La Scala, and to a sister who worked in Geneva.

Then the concerns of a pleasant kind began - not to persuade publishers to print a new book, but to fight off the few proposals to reprint the old and choose and build publishing tactics yourself. For the first time in the whole writing life. He finally deserved it.

In February 1966, Nabokov began searching for the publisher for the Russian Lolita. Two European publishers were already ready to offer their services. But along this path there were several obstacles of a legal nature, and the main one was the danger of a copy of the copy: Nabokov was an American citizen, and his lawyers explained to him that he was obliged to be published primarily in the United States. That is why his choice stopped at Oscar de Liso, the president of the young New York publishing house Phaedra ("Fedra").

All Nabokov’s desire is to prevent any unknown “butcher” shove this book

Vera Evseevna Nabokova, who regularly wrote to her husband almost all letters, immediately explained to the publisher that interest in Russia in Lolita is huge, despite the fact that only the English original is spreading there so far. What can we say about the future of Russian translation! Therefore, all the Nabokov’s desire is to prevent any unknown “butcher” to shove this book.

However, Nabokov’s works in Russia are prohibited. Vera Evseevna asks de Liso to answer what he thinks about the Russian publication, since in his plans, as she heard, the release of some books for the public for an iron curtain is included.

At first, it seems that de Liso was recommended by Nabokov someone who talked about his connection to the book program-a special plan for printing and transporting books for an iron curtain, to the Soviet Union. But with each letter, it is more and more clear that it is the Nabokovs who explain to the New York publisher how to behave on the book market-namely the Russian market. It comes to comic clarifications: de Liso understands that he will not be able to advertise the Russian Lolita in Moscow and Leningrad, which means that he will have to trade it without advertising, and this is bad. No, they explain the Nabokovs, not to trade, but to send there for free. Soviet readers will not be able to pay for the novel.

As a businessman de Liso does not understand such a formulation of the question. Why, in this case, release a novel?

It is Vera Nabokova that tells the publisher: it is necessary to contact the Radio Liberty, it will be able to buy 500 copies at once and, through its channels, will send the book to the USSR.

What does the Radio Freedom are about to do with it?

Correspondence does not contain explanations of how this mechanism will work. Therefore, we will clarify this situation ourselves.

Radio Liberty never engaged in books, but the American Committee on the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (abbreviated: Amkomlib, later - the Radio Liberty Committee) was a special Russian book program. Radio Liberty has (the first name - Radio Liberation) and the book program had one president - Hauland Sargent. Books and radio were nursing organizations. Radio was called freedom, and the book program was called the Publishing House "Bedford".

The Russian Book Program of Amkomlib was created under the leadership of the American diplomat Isaac Patch.

For some time, Isaac Patch was headed by a department of special projects in Munich, which issued the newspaper and the quarterly journal for the Russian Emigrant community, and in 1956 he was transferred to New York, where he began to book project. He substantiated the goal as follows: "To bring Western ideas to Soviet citizens with the help of books about politics, economics, philosophy, art and a little about technology - about everything that the Soviet dictatorship refuses them."

In addition to the New York headquarters, Bedford opened its representative offices in London, Munich, Paris and Rome. In total, under the leadership of Isaac Patch, the company lasted 14 years-from 1956–1957 to the beginning of the 1970s and closed for reasons for the same public exposure of the Relations of the Radio Freedom Committee with the CIA. Nevertheless, the followers of Patcha did not give up and continued work under other signs.

All this happened in the era when the human contacts of the West with the Soviet Union were still relatively weak - during the "heroic era" of Tamizdat.

This book program was meant by Vera Evseevna Nabokova, offering Oscar de Liso to turn to Radio Liberty. He did so, 500 copies were purchased and, obviously, penetrated the country of Soviets.

Several painful months have passed. The Russian "Lolita" was published, but was sold very poorly. Why?

Firstly, Nabokov overestimated the interest of the Russian emigrant reader in his scandalous novel. The reading public in exile was too dumb, the love of Humbert Gumbert for a 12-year-old girl did not interest her. In addition, who wanted and could, has long read the book in English or in French, watched Kubrick’s film, knew about the book on many reviews and reviews.

Secondly, Oscar de Liso set too high price. At first, he generally estimated an instance in a solid binding of $ 10, then reluctantly reduced to $ 6 40 cents, but this was also expensive for a Russian buyer in 1967. In his letters to Nabokov, the publisher reports that in Russian stores in America, one copy is sold per week. (I repeat in case of radio interference: one copy per week, throughout America).

De Liso understood that the main reader mass was behind the iron curtain, but his political naivety came to the point that he wrote to Montreo: I am going to turn to one American book trader (Laiopinkotta), whose company has been working since 1788; They have strong ties with Washington, and he hopes that Washington will put pressure on the Soviet authorities, and they will remove the ban on the name of Vladimir Nabokov.

The Nabokovs respond with sadness: alas, all hope only for Soviet tourists and Western visitors to Russia - scientists, athletes, musicians.

Between correspondents, tension is growing. Nabokovs are annoyed by the financial failure of the Russian translation. Fair or not - but annoyed. And it ends in the fact that they hire a lawyer for further communication with the publisher.

This is only one plot of the set that pops up when reading papers in the collection of the Berg brothers. I now retold this story briefly and without a single quote from letters. A serious and non -hurrying researcher awaits a sea of historical pleasure.

Nabokov’s voices were not yet in our program. Correct this omission.

Vladimir Nabokov:
You and I believed so in the connection of being,
But now I looked around, and surprisingly
What do you seem to me, my youth,
On colors not mine, according to the features invalid.

If you think about it, it's like a wave of wave
Between me and you, between Melya and drowning;
Or I see the pillars and you from the back
как ты прямо в закат на своем полугоночном.

Ты давно уж не я, ты набросок, герой
всякой первой главы, а как долго нам верилось
в непрерывность пути от ложбины сырой
до нагорного вереска.