Nabokronology

Original of this document is at
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/iasweb/nabokov/nabokr.htm

        The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense
        tells us that our existence is but a brief crack
        of light between two eternities of darkness.


compiled by Jeff Edmunds



1899-1919 -- Russia


1899: 


April 23: Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov born to Elena Rukavishnikov and

Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov in St. Petersburg at 47 Bol'shaia Morskaia Ulitsa.


1900:


	Birth of Sergei, VN's first brother. (Sergei would die in a Nazi concentration camp

in 1945.)


1901:


Nabokov's mother brings her two young sons to Pau, France, to the estate of her

brother Vassilii, known as Uncle Ruka. In 1916 Uncle Ruka would

bequeath to VN an immense fortune that the latter would never see.


1902:


Arrival of VN's first English governess, Miss Rachel Home.


1903:


	Birth of VN's first sister, Olga. In Speak, Memory, Nabokov notes that his first memories of childhood can be dated to 1903.


1905:


	Arrival of "Mademoiselle," the Swiss governess from Lausanne who would stay

with the Nabokovs until 1912.


1906:


	Birth of VN's second sister, Elena.


1908:


	Nabokov's father, a member of the first Duma, is imprisoned for ninety days after

signing a political manifesto.


1911:


	VN enters the Tenishev School.


	Birth of VN's second brother, Kiril, who would die in Munich in 1964.


1914:


	VN writes his first poem.


1916:


VN's first book of poetry, Stikhi (68 poems in Russian), is privately published in

St. Petersburg.


1917:


	Nabokov's father accepts a post in the Provisional Government after the

Revolution.


November 2: VN and his brother Sergei leave St. Petersburg for the Crimea, where

the family is offered refuge near Yalta on a friend's estate. His mother and sisters follow

soon after.


1919-1939 -- Europe


1919:


	The Nabokov family leaves Sebastopol in March on a ship bound for

Constantinople, thence to London.


1919-22:


	VN and his brother attend Cambridge University, Vladimir in Trinity College,

Sergei in Christ College. The family is temporarily settled in England.


1920:


August: The Nabokov family moves to Berlin, where Nabokov's father will

become editor of the Russian newspaper Rul' (The Rudder). It is in Rul' that many of VN's first prose

works and translations of French and English poets will appear.


1922


March 28: Nabokov's father is fatally shot during an assassination attempt on the

politician Miliukov by right-wing monarchists. (Follow this link for a photograph of his tomb.)



June: Nabokov receives his degree from Cambridge in French and Russian.


VN moves to live with his family in Berlin.


Publication of  Romain Roland, Colas Breugnon (translations from the French),

Berlin: Slovo.


Publication of Grozd' (36 poems in Russian), Berlin: Gamaiun.


1923


Nabokov's mother (along with his sister Elena) moves to Prague, where she is offered a

government pension as the widow of V.D. Nabokov.


	Publication of Gornii put' (The Empyrean Path) (128 poems in Russian), Berlin: Grani.


	Publication of Skital'sy (The Wanderers) (Berlin, Grani), "a supposed translation of the first act of a

play by the nonexistent English author ‘Vivian Calmbrood' (anagram)" [DN]


	Publication of Ania v strane chudes (Translation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's

Adventures in Wonderland), Berlin: Gamaiun.


	May 8: VN meets his future wife, Vira Slonim, at a charity costume ball in Berlin.


	May 20: Publication in Rul' of Smert' (Death), verse drama in two acts.


	October 14: Publication in Rul' of Dedushka (The Grandad), verse drama in one act.


	December 2: Publication in Rul' of Agasfer, "a dramatic monologue written as a

prologue to a staged symphony" (VN's subtitle).




1924


	VN completes his first play, Tragediia Gospodina Morna (The Tragedy of Mister Morn), a verse drama in five

acts.


	April 6: Publication in Rul' of excerpts from the play.


	August 14 and 16: Publication in Rul' of Polyus (The Pole), verse drama in one act.


1925


	April 25: VN and Vira Slonim marry in Berlin.


	September: Publication of the story "Draka" in Rul'.


	VN writes Mashen'ka (Mary), his first novel.


1926


	February: Publication of the story "Britva" ("The Razor") in Rul'.


	Publication of Mashen'ka (Berlin: Slovo).


	VN's second play, Chelovek iz SSSR (The Man from the USSR), is produced in Berlin. 


1927


	January 1: Publication in Rul' of act one only of Chelovek iz SSSR.


1928


	September: Publication of one chapter of Korol', dama, valet (King, Queen, Knave) in Rul'


	Publication of Korol', dama, valet (Berlin: Slovo).


	December: Publication in Rul' of  "Rozhdestvenskii rasskaz" ("A Christmas Tale"), short story.


1929


	VN and his wife travel to Paris and then to the Eastern Pyrenees to hunt butterflies. VN begins work on Zashchita Luzhina (The Defense).


	Publication of Vozvrashchenie Chorba (The Return of Chorb) (15 stories and 24 poems in Russian),

Berlin: Slovo. Many of the stories had been previously published in Rul' from 1924-1927.


	September: Publication in Rul' of one chapter of Zashchita Luzhina


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski (Contemporary Annals) (2), nos. 40-42 of Zashchita Luzhina


	Publication in book form of Zashchita Luzhina (Berlin: Slovo).


1930


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski No. 44 of Sogliadatai (The Eye), novel.


1931


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski No. 45-48 of Podvig (Glory).


1932


	Publication in book form of Podvig (Paris: Sovremennye Zapiski).


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski no. 49-52 of Kamera obskura (Laughter in the Dark).


1933


	VN begins work on Dar (The Gift).


	Publication in book form of Kamera obskura (Paris: Sovremennye zapiski).


1934


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski no. 54-56 of Otchaianie.


	May 10: Dmitri, VN's only child, is born.


1936


	Publication in book form of Otchaianie (Despair). Berlin: Petropolis.


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski no. 58-60 of Priglashenie na kazn' (Invitation to a Beheading).


1937


	VN and Vira move to Paris to avoid the growing danger

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.


	March: Publication in Poslednie novosti of short story "Podarok."


1938


	VN writes two plays produced in Russian in Paris: Sobytia (The Event) and Izobretenie Wal'sa (The Waltz Invention).

Sobytia published in Russkie zapiski (Russian Annals) in April, Izobretenie Wal'sa in the same journal in

November.


	Publication in Sovremennye zapiski no. 63-67 of chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 of Dar.


	Publication in book form of Priglashenie na kazn'. Paris: Dom Knigi.


	Publication in book form of Sogliadatai (novel, with twelve stories in Russian).

Paris: Russkie zapiski.


	Begins writing The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (in English).


1939


	VN composes in French "Mademoiselle O."


	Composes Volshebnik (The Enchanter), "a first sketch on the Lolita theme."




1940-1960 -- America

1940


	Publication of the fragment Solus Rex (from an unfinished novel) in Sovremennye

zapiski no. 70.


	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


	Publication of VN's fist English novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (Norfolk,

CT, New Directions).


1942


	Named researcher at Harvard University's Musuem of Coparative Zoology.

Teaches Russian literature three days a week at Wellesley College.


	Second fragment from Solus Rex, titled Ultima Thule, published in Novyi zhurnal

no. 1, New York.


1944


	Publication of Nikolai Gogol (Norfolk, CT: New Directions).


	Publication of Three Russian Poets, translations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and

Tiutchev (Norfolk, CT: New Directions). (Follow this link for Nabokov's English translation of Tiutchev's poem "Silentium.")


1945


	VN and Vira become American citizens.


1947


	Publication of Bend Sinister (New York: Holt).


	Publication of Nine Stories, translations from the Russian and some composed in

English (Norfolk, Direction Two).


1948


	VN is named professor of Russian and European Literature at Cornell University in

Ithaca, New York.


1951


	Publication of Conclusive Evidence (New York: Harper).


1955


	Lolita, refused by four American publishers, is published in Paris by Olympia

Press. (For a brief overview of Lolita's legal troubles, follow this link.)


1956


	Publication of Vesna v Fial'te (14 stories in Russian), New York: Chekhov.


1957


	Publication of Pnin (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).


	An excerpt from Lolita published in the Anchor Review.


1958


	Publication of DN's and VN's translation of Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time

(Garden City, NY: Doubleday).


	Publication of Nabokov's Dozen (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).


	Publication of Lolita in the United States (New York: Putnam).


1959


	Publication of Poems (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).


1960-1977 -- Switzerland

1960


	VN and Vira leave the U.S. for Switzerland and settle in the Montreux Palace.


	Publication of VN's translation of The Song of Igor's Campaign (New York:

Random House).


1962


	Publication of Pale Fire (New York: Putnam).


	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 translation with commentary of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin

(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press/Bollingen Foundation).


1967


	Publication of Speak, Memory (New York: Putnam).


	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 (New York: McGraw-Hill).

Nabokov makes the cover of Time.


1971


	Publication of Poems and Problems (39 poems in Russian and English, 14 poems in

English, 18 chess problems) (New York: McGraw-Hill).


1972


	Publication of Transparent Things (New York: McGraw-Hill).


1973


	Publication of A Russian Beauty and Other Stories (13 stories, some translated

from the Russian, some written directly in English) (New York: McGraw-Hill).


	Publication of Strong Opinions (interviews, criticism, essays, letters) (New York:

McGraw-Hill). (Follow this link for an Index to Strong Opinions.)


1974


	Publication of Lolita: A Screenplay, not used by Kubrick for the film (New York:

McGraw-Hill).


	Publication of Look at the Harlequins (New York: McGraw-Hill).


1975


	Publication of Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories (14 stories, some from the

Russian, some written in English) (New York: McGraw-Hill).


1976


	Publication of Details of a Sunset and Other Stories (13 stories, translated from the

Russian) (New York: McGraw-Hill).


1977


	Nabokov dies July 2 in Lausanne. He is buried in Clarens, beneath a tombstone that

reads "Vladimir Nabokov, icrivain." (Follow this link for a photograph of his grave.)




Posthumously published works

1979


	The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940-1971, ed. Simon Karlinsky. New York: Harper

& Row. (Follow this link for an Index to the English and comprehensive German editions of the Nabokov-Wilson correspondence.)


	Stikhi (222 poems composed in Russian from 1917-1974). Ann Arbor: Ardis.


1980


	Lectures on Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers (10 courses and essays on European

writers). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark.


1981


	Lectures on Russian Literature, ed. Fredson Bowers (22 courses and essays on

Russian writers). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark.


1983


	Lectures on Don Quixote, ed. Fredson Bowers (22 courses on Cervantes). San

Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark.


1984


	The Man from the USSR and Other Plays, ed. Dmitri Nabokov (4 plays translated

from the Russian, 2 essays). Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark.


1985


	Perepiska s sestroi (correspondence with his sister dating from 1930-1974). Ann

Arbor: Ardis.


1986


               The Enchanter, translated by Dmitri Nabokov. New York: Putnam. (Original title: Volshebnik)


1989


	Selected Letters, 1940-1977, ed. Dmitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Bruccoli. San

Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark.


	Jugendwerke 1921-1924 (14 stories translated from the Russian) in Erzdhlungen I,

Gesammelte Werke, ed. Dieter E. Zimmer. Reinbek: Rowohlt. (Published in French in

1990 as La Vinitienne et autres nouvelles.)


1995


              The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. New York: Knopf.

Back to Zembla Home Page




Last-modified: Wed, 28 May 1997 06:50:25 GMT