Vladimir Nabokov – his life and works
1899. VN born in St Petersburg on April 23 [same birthday as Shakespeare}. His father was a prominent jurist, liberal politician, and a member of the Duma (Russia's first parliament). His mother was the daughter of a wealthy aristocratic family.
1900. VN learned English and then French from various governesses. The Nabokov family spoke a mixture of French, English, and Russian in their household.
1904. First national congress of zemstvos held in St Petersburg in November. Final session held in the Nabokov home.
1905. 'Bloody Sunday' in January when Tsar's troops fire at demonstration of workers converging on the Winter Palace. General strike throughout Russia in October.
1906. N's father elected to the first state Duma - then banned from politics for signing a manifesto opposing conscription and taxes.
1908. Father serves three month sentence in Kresty Prison.
1911. Began attending the highly regarded Tenishev School - a noted liberal academy. [Taken to school each day in family Rolls Royce.]
1914. Writes first poems. First World War begins.
1915. Start of first love affair, with Valentina Shulgina.
1916. VN privately publishes Stikhi (Poems) in Petrograd. Uncle dies, leaving him a country house and estate, plus a substantial fortune.
1917. February revolution in Russia. Fathera member of the provisional government. Following the October revolution, the aristocratic Nabokov home under attack. Family moves to Crimea in the south.
1919. Family flees into exile from the Crimea on an old Greek ship carrying dried fruit. Family settles provisionally in London.
1919. Father moves family to Berlin – the first centre of Russian emigrees. VN stays in the UK, studying French and Russian literature at Trinity College Cambridge.
1922. Father murdered while attempting to stop an assassination attempt on the politician Pavel Miliukov. [This episode later appears in The Gift. VN translates Alice in Wonderland into Russian. Engaged to Svetlana Siewert in Berlin.
1923. VN moves to Berlin, where earns a living giving English and tennis lessons, and working as a walk-on extra in films. Engagement broken off. Publishes poems, reviews, chess problems, and short stories in The Rudder, a liberal newspaper founded by his father.
1925. Marries Vera Evseena Slonim.
1926. Publishes Mary, his first novel. It goes unnoticed.
1928. Second novel, King, Queen, Knave appears, and causes the first stirrings of interest and controversy.
1929. Third novel, The Luzhin Defense is published serially. he develops a readership in Berlin and Paris – the ’second’ centre of Russian emigration.
1930. Critical attacks on VN’s writing begin in emigre circles. Publishes The Eye.
1931. Publishes Glory, his fourth novel.
1932. Publishes Kamera Obskura – Laughter in the Dark.
1933. Begins work on The Gift. Hitler comes to power in Germany.
1934. Birth of Dmitri, VN’s only son.
1935. Breaks off work on The Gift to write Invitation to a Beheading which appears serially, giving rise to much debate and controversy.
1936. Publication of Despair. A small circle of writers, critics, and readers begin to place VN’s work alongside other great modern Russian writers. VN composes ‘Mademoiselle O’ – in French.
1937. The Gift begins to appear serially. The Nabokov’s move to Paris to escape the threat from Nazism. VN becomes involved with La Nouvelle Revue Francaise, meets Jean Paulhan and James Joyce, and composes in French an essay on Pushkin entitled Pouchkine, ou le vrai et le vraisemblable. VN begins an affair with Irina Guadanini.
1938. VN writes two plays produced in Russian in Paris: Sobytia (The
Event) and Izobretenie Wal’sa (The Waltz Invention). Begins writing The Real Life of Sebastian Knight – in English.
1939. Write novella The Enchanter, his first version of the Lolita story (which contradicts the account he gives in the introduction to Lolita).
1940. The Nabokovs leave for the United States on board the Champlain. VN begins his lepidopteral studies at the Museum of Natural History in New York. VN meets Edmund Wilson, who will introduce him to The New Yorker.
1941. One year appointment in comparative literature at Wellesley College. Publication of VN’s first English novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight.
1942. Named researcher at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Teaches Russian literature three days a week at Wellesley College.
1943. VN receives a Guggenheim Award.
1944. Publication of Nikolai Gogol and Three Russian Poets – translations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tiutchev. Appointed lecturer at Wellesley College.
1945. VN and Véra become American citizens. Brother Sergey dies in Nazi concentration camp.
1947. Publication of Bend Sinister. Begins planning Lolita.
1948. VN is offered and accepts a professorship of Russian literature at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
1951. VN is guest lecturer at Harvard. Publication of autobiography Conclusive Evidence.
1953. Second Guggenheim Award and American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Finishes writing Lolita.
1954. Works on Pnin and Eugene Onegin.
1955. Lolita, refused by four American publishers, is published in Paris by Olympia Press, run by Maurice Girodias, largely a pornographer.
1956. Publication of Vesna v Fial’te – 14 stories in Russian.
1957. Publication of Pnin
1958. Publication of Dmitri and VN’s translation of Lermontov’s A Hero of Our
Time, Nabokov’s Dozen (stories), and Lolita in the United States.
1959. Lolita becomes an international best-seller. VN is able to resign from teaching in order to devote himself full time to creative writing. Family move to Switzerland, to be near Dmitri, who is studying opera in Italy.
1960. Publication of VN’s translation of The Song of Igor’s Campaign. VN writes screenplay of Lolita for Stanley Kubrick. Begins Pale Fire.
1961. Moves into the Palace Hotel, Montreux – and stays there for the rest of his life.
1962. Publication of Pale Fire. The release of Stanley Kubrick’s film version of Lolita, starring James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers, and Sue Lyon. VN makes the cover of Newsweek.
1964. Publication of VN’s mammoth translation with commentary of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin – which becomes the subject of protracted controversy between VN and Edmund Wilson.
1967. Publication of Speak, Memory. Publication of the first important critical works on Nabokov: Page Stegner’s Escape into Aesthetics and Andrew Field’s Nabokov, His Life in Art.
1969. Publication of Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle Nabokov makes the cover of Time magazine.
1972. Publication of Transparent Things
1973. Publication of A Russian Beauty and Other Stories – 13 stories, some
translated from the Russian, some written directly in English. Publication of Strong Opinions – interviews, criticism, essays, letters. Rift with biographer Andrew Field.
1974. Publication of Lolita: A Screenplay, which was not used by Kubrick for the film. Publication of Look at the Harlequins.
1975. Publication of Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories – 14 stories, some from the Russian, some written in English.
1976. Publication of Details of a Sunset and Other Stories – 13 stories, translated from the Russian.
1977. Nabokov dies July 2 in Lausanne. He is buried in Clarens, beneath a tombstone that reads ‘Vladimir Nabokov, écrivain.’
© Roy Johnson 2001
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