Biography
Vladimir Nabokov — writer with roots in the Russian Empire
Vladimir Nabokov, born 1899 in St. Petersburg, fled the Bolshevik Revolution and became one of the 20th century's supreme prose stylists, first in Russian, then in English.
"Fled Russia in 1919 via Crimea after the Bolshevik seizure of the family estate."
Migration storyRussian Connection
Tracing the roots — St. Petersburg
Born into Russian aristocracy, Nabokov drew obsessively on his lost St. Petersburg childhood — its gardens, butterflies, and dissolving privilege — shaping Speak, Memory and Pnin.
Family Tree
Subject
Vladimir Nabokov🇺🇸 USA
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Self (Born there)
V. D. Nabokov
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Origin
St. Petersburg🇷🇺 Russian Empire
Historical context
Russian Empire · c. 1721–1917
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St. Petersburg. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
Map: Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA)
Key Achievements
A career defined by ambition
01
Author of Lolita (1955)
02
Speak, Memory memoir (1951)
03
Cornell University literature professor
04
Pioneering lepidopterist
05
Wrote masterworks in both Russian and English
""I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.""
Vladimir Nabokov
Sources