Podvig. Paris, 1932 (Glory, 1971)

The serialization of Podvig [Glory] began in Sovremennye zapiski in February 1931, and parts of it appeared in two other Parisian reviews, Poslednie novosti and Rossiia I Slavianstvo, as well as in Segodnia, in Riga. Nabokov had considered several titles: Voploshchenie ("the 'realization' of a plan, the 'embodiment' of a dream"); Zolotoy vek ("golden age"); and others, before settling on Podvig. In 1966 he described it as "the story of a Russian expatriate, a romantic young man of my set and time, a lover of adventure for adventure's sake, proud flaunter of peril, climber of unnecessary mountains, who merely for the pure thrill of it decides one day to cross illegally into Soviet Russia, and then cross back to exile. Its main theme is the overcoming of fear, the glory and rapture of that victory." Two characters - "Vadim" and "Teddy" - were, at least in part, based on close friends from Trinity College: Prince Nikita Romanov and Robert de Calry were two of Nabokov's most cherished companions at Cambridge, and merited inclusion also in Speak, Memory.

The 1971 translation of Glory into English was a family affair. Dmitri had undertaken the task in good faith, but after several months of continual disruptions from his operatic career, it was still unfinished. Véra translated the final third, and Nabokov revised the whole to make it "meticulously true to the [Russian] text." When he had nearly finished the final read-through, Nabokov wrote in his diary: "Two pages left! . . . the entire thing corrected by me, an excruciating task that took three months to complete with a few interruptions. Last Russian novel, thank God."

The items listed below pertain to Nabokov's life and career and are the contents of the exhibition at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, on view from April 23 through August 21, 1999. This checklist, primarily of items from the Library's Nabokov Archive, is included here to provide a sense of the rich holdings in this special collection.

V. Sirin [Vladimir Nabokov]
Podvig
Paris: Sovremennye zapiski, 1932
Berg Collection

Goalkeeper Nabokov with teammates, Russian Sporting Club soccer team, Berlin, 1932
Photographer unknown
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
"Glory"
Holograph title page to typescript draft, 1969
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
"Glory"
Typescript draft, translated by Dmitri Nabokov, with Vladimir Nabokov's holograph corrections, additions, and deletions, and dated and signed by him, Montreux, 1970
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
"Glory Chronology"
Holograph manuscript on index card, ca. 1970
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Glory
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1971
Berg Collection