“imagining my father, with a wry smile, in a calmer and happier moment, saying,”
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Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist.
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culture · Russian and American novelist (1899–1977) · novelist · poet · writer · zoologist · translator · playwright · autobiographer · screenwriter · lepidopterist · university teacher · also Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, Vladimir Sirin, Vl. Sirin, Wladimir Nabokoff-Sirin, V. Sirin
Born 10 April 1899 · Died 2 July 1977 · Q36591
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2026· 11 entries
“Until the last moments, practically, he was writing in his hospital bed.”
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“I came to the very clear conclusion,”
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“s least likely candidate to set down the confessions of a white widowed female. (She did keep a diary of one girl”
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“We were all of the same opinion. It was just a torso, and not a glorious torso.”
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“I dislike Jane, and am prejudiced, in fact, against all women writers. They are in another class.”
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“friends among intellectual constitutional monarchists as well as among intellectual social revolutionaries”
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Public attention spiked: 9,310 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.7× the usual 1,634, with 0 article edits.
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Public attention spiked: 9,310 Wikipedia readers in one day, 5.2× the usual 1,800, with 0 article edits.
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nytimes.com: Vladimir Nabokov
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The New York Times: Vladimir Nabokov
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2023· 1 entry
The Guardian: Graham Greene was ‘ready to go to jail for Lolita’, says Véra Nabokov’s diary
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2022· 1 entry
Publishers Weekly: Books by Vladimir Nabokov and Complete Book Reviews
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2021· 2 entries
The Guardian: Poem of the week: To Vladimir Nabokov … by Anthony Burgess
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The Guardian: Vladimir Nabokov's Superman poem published for the first time
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2020· 2 entries
The Guardian: How I found solace in Nabokov’s Speak, Memory during the pandemic
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The Guardian: Vladimir Nabokov's Colour Plate 55: an evolving mimetic power
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2019· 3 entries
New Republic: Vladimir Nabokov’s Fighting Spirit
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The New Republic: Vladimir Nabokov’s Fighting Spirit
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The New Criterion: Vladimir Nabokov: ardor and art
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2018· 1 entry
“Citation choisie pour le 18 juin 2018.”
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2017· 1 entry
Princeton University Press published a compilation of his dream diary entries, Insomniac Dreams: Experiments with Time by Vladimir Nabokov
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2016· 4 entries
Smithsonian Magazine: Vladimir Nabokov’s Butterfly Drawings Take Flight in This New Book
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The New Republic: Vladimir Nabokov, Scientific Genius
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The Washington Post: Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov’s Scientific Art
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Washington Post: Fine Lines: Vladimir Nabokov’s Scientific Art
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2015· 1 entry
SFGate: ‘Letters to Véra,’ by Vladimir Nabokov
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2014· 2 entries
"the coats-of-arms on the windows of his room protected him from the cold and from the melancholy over the recent loss of his country
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“La solitudine è terreno di caccia di Satana. (2014)”
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2013· 1 entry
The New Yorker: Letter from the Archive: Vladimir Nabokov’s “Signs and Symbols”
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2012· 1 entry
“Citation choisie pour le 3 février 2012.”
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2010· 3 entries
“Cette citation est extraite de la nouvelle Le Mot qui parut pour la première fois en langue française en 2010.”
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Kitsch magazine, a student publication at Cornell, published a piece that focused on student reflections on his lectures and explored Nabokov's long relationship with Playboy
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“Cécile Guilbert préfaçant la réédition de 2010 des cours de littérature européenne de Vladimir Nabokov, professés entre 1941 et 1958 dans plusieurs universités américaines et réunis sous le titre Littératures.”
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2009· 1 entry
The Daily Beast: Rare Photos: Vladimir Nabokov
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2006· 1 entry
“On Sigmund Freud, as quoted in Sigmund Says: And Other Psychotherapists' Quotes (2006) edited by Bernard Nisenholz, p. 6 ISBN 0595396593”
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1998· 1 entry
And is considered one of the greatest works of 20th-century literature
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1990· 1 entry
The psychiatrist Brandon Centerwall published the most direct accusation, arguing in Texas Studies in Literature and Language that Nabokov was a "closet pedophile" whose repeated literary treatment of the theme across de
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1988· 1 entry
“s a science fiction novel, but I can”
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1987· 1 entry
As "my culture shock": "I was reading Nabokov and waiting for America
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1986· 1 entry
His first novel Mary (in Russian Maschenka) was loosely adapted for the movie Maschenka, starring Cary Elwes
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1978· 1 entry
The novel Despair was adapted by Tom Stoppard for the movie directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
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1977· 16 entries
Died 1977-07-02.
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“As far as I can recall, the initial shiver of inspiration was somehow prompted by a newspaper story about an ape in the Jardin des Plantes who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage.”
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“Lolito, światło mego życia, płomieniu mych lędźwi. Mój grzechu, moja duszo. Lo-li-ta: czubek języka schodzący w trzech stąpnięciach wzdłuż podniebienia, aby na trzy trącić o zęby. Lo. Li. Ta. (…) W rybaczkach Lola. W szkole nazywała się Dolly. Na wykropkowanej linii do wypełnienia Dolores. A w moich ramionach zawsze Lolita.”
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“Wiesz, co w umieraniu jest najstraszniejsze, to że jesteś tak zupełnie zdana tylko na siebie.”
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“Wyobraź mnie sobie; nie zaistnieję, jeśli mnie sobie nie wyobrazisz.”
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“Lolita is famous, not I. I am an obscure, doubly obscure, novelist with an unpronounceable name.”
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“Genius still means to me, in my Russian fastidiousness and pride of phrase, a unique dazzling gift. The gift of James Joyce, and not the talent of Henry James.”
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“Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.”
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“Istnieje ogromna różnica pomiędzy sentymentalizmem i zdolnością doznawania szlachetnych uczuć. Człowiek sentymentalny może być w życiu codziennym niebywale okrutny. Człowiek zdolny do szlachetnych uczuć natomiast nie będzie nigdy człowiekiem bez serca.”
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“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.”
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“After Olympia Press, in Paris, published the book, an American critic suggested that Lolita was the record of my love affair with the romantic novel. The substitution "English language" for "romantic novel" would make this elegant formula more correct.”
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“Certe persone – e io sono di quelle – odiano il lieto fine. Ci sentiamo truffati. Il fallimento è la norma.”
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“Estoy suficientemente orgulloso de conocer algo para ser humilde por ignorarlo todo.”
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“Il compiacimento è uno stato d'animo che è autentico solo se visto in retrospettiva: lo si deve infrangere prima di poterlo constatare.”
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“Hay aforismos que, como los aviones, se sostienen solo cuando están en movimiento.”
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“La disperazione umana di rado conduce alle grandi verità.”
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1974· 1 entry
“Look at the Harlequins! (1974).”
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1972· 2 entries
“Transparent Things (1972), Ch. 24.”
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The novel King, Queen, Knave was released as a movie directed by Jerzy Skolimowski and starring Gina Lollobrigida, David Niven and John Moulder-Brown
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1969· 1 entry
Whether he would like to revisit the land he fled in 1918, now the Soviet Union, he replied: "There's nothing to look at
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1967· 1 entry
Nabokov commented: "The pleasures and rewards of literary inspiration are nothing beside the rapture of discovering a new organ under the microscope or an undescribed species on a mountainside in Iran or Peru
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1962· 1 entry
“Opis: cytat z wypowiedzi z 1962.”
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1961· 1 entry
And Véra moved to the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, where he remained until the end of his life
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1959· 2 entries
“On Translating 'Eugene Onegin'", lines 1–4. Poems (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959) p. 37”
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“Nella Russia d'oggi [del 1959], le idee sono blocchi rifilati a macchina e prodotti in colori uniformi; la sfumatura è dichiarata illegale, l'interstizio murato, la curva ridotta rozzamente a gradino. (p. 239)”
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1955· 1 entry
“Problems of translation (1955).”
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1951· 1 entry
Is considered among the greatest nonfiction works of the 20th century, placing eighth on Random House's ranking of 20th-century works
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1948· 1 entry
To teach Russian and European literature at Cornell University, where he taught until 1959
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1945· 4 entries
And lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland
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“Letter to his sister Elena Sikorski (1945); in Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (2000) Edited and annotated by Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle, p. 387.”
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After publicly denouncing Hitler's regime
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Became a naturalized citizen of the United States
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1943· 1 entry
Awarded Guggenheim Fellowship (1943).
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1942· 1 entry
Declared: "Democracy is humanity at its best
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1941· 4 entries
As resident lecturer in comparative literature
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“A Discovery" (December 1941); published as "On Discovering a Butterfly" in The New Yorker (15 May 1943); also in Nabokov's Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings (2000) Edited and annotated by Brian Boyd and Robert Michael Pyle, p. 274.”
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“Vladimir Nabokov a enseigné la littérature européenne de 1941 à 1958. Ces cours qu'il a professé dans plusieurs universités américaines se trouvent réunis dans Littératures.”
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When Nabokov had been an apprentice American for less than one year
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1939· 2 entries
“the first little throb of Lolita.”
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In Paris, Nabokov wrote the 55-page novella The Enchanter, his final work of Russian fiction
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1937· 1 entry
Nabokov left Germany for France, where he had a short affair with Irina Guadanini, also a Russian émigrée
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1936· 1 entry
“Despair [Отчаяние (Otchayanie)] (1936).”
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1933· 1 entry
Career landmark: Nazi book burnings.
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1925· 1 entry
“My sweet, today I sense especially vividly that since that very day when you came to me in the mask that I have been unbelievably happy, that the golden age of my soul has begun.”
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1923· 1 entry
“Letter to then-girlfriend Véra (26 July 1923); in Letters to Véra (2014), p 3.”
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1922· 2 entries
Nabokov became engaged to Svetlana Siewert, but she broke the engagement off early in 1923 when her parents worried whether he could provide for her
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Studied at Trinity College, Bachelor of Arts (1922).
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1920· 1 entry
Nabokov's family moved to Berlin, where his father set up the émigré newspaper Rul' ("Rudder")
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1917· 1 entry
Called Lenin's Bolsheviks "grey rag-tag people"
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1916· 2 entries
Nabokov inherited the estate Rozhdestveno, next to Vyra, from his uncle Vasily Ivanovich Rukavishnikov ("Uncle Ruka" in Speak, Memory)
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Published his first book, Stikhi (Poems), a collection of 68 Russian poems
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1899· 3 entries
Born 1899-04-10.
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“In « La dame au petit chien » (1899).”
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Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov (née Slonim)
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1871· 1 entry
“Marcel Proust (1871-1922) — Du côté de chez Swann (1913)”
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1860· 1 entry
“Anton Tchekhov (1860-1904)”
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1821· 1 entry
“Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) — Madame Bovary (1856)”
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1818· 1 entry
“Ivan Tourguéniev (1818-1883)”
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1809· 1 entry
“Nikolaï Gogol (1809-1852) — « Le manteau » (1842)”
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