Resourceful Mnemosyne: Archival materials to the Nabokov’s Autobiography

Abstract

This publication of Vladimir Nabokov’s archival materials presents annotated Russian translation of two discarded texts: the introduction to «Conclusive Evidence» (1951) when the title was «The House Was Here» and the last chapter of «Conclusive Evidence», written in the form of review on it. The article considers the history of the Nabokov’s autobiography from the early reminiscences of nineteen-thirties «It is Me» and till the last Russian novel «The Gift» (1938) and the last English one «Look at the Harlequins!» (1974), which is an artistic version of the continuation of his memoirs. The article justifies the idea that Nabokov’s refusal to include the last chapter in the book was his main decision regarding the entire project. Collected in the article, the numerous tentative titles of the book are also extremely important for its study.

Keywords

• vladimir nabokov’s memoires
• archival materials
• translation into russian
• autobiographic narration
• composition of the memoires
• «conclusive evidence»
• «speak
• memory»
• «other shores»
• «look at the harlequins!»