Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov

Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Дмитриевич Набоков) (15 July 1870 – 28 March 1922) was a Russian criminologist, journalist, and liberal politician. He was the father of Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabokov.

Life

Nabokov was born in Tsarskoe Selo, into a wealthy and aristocratic family. His father Dmitry Nabokov (1827–1904) was a Justice Minister in the reign of Alexander II from 1878 to 1885, and his mother Maria von Korff (1842–1926) was a Baroness from a prominent Baltic German family in Courland.

He studied criminal law at the University of St. Petersburg and taught criminology at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence.

V. D. Nabokov married Elena Ivanovna Rukavishnikova in 1897, with whom he had five children (Their eldest son was the major 20th century author Vladimir Nabokov, who portrayed his father in his memoirs ("Speak, Memory", 1967); also including in his novel "Pale Fire" an assassination scene that paralleled the death of his father. Other children were Sergey (1900– 1945), Olga (1903–1978), Kirill (1911–1964) and Elena (1906–2000).

Career

From 1904 until 1917 he was the editor of the liberal newspaper "Rech" ("The Speech").

A prominent member of the Constitutional Democratic Party (the "Kadets"), Nabokov was elected to Russia's parliament, the First Duma. In 1917, after the February Revolution, Nabokov helped draft the document for Grand Duke Michael's refusal of the throne. Nabokov was made secretary to the Provisional Government. However he was forced to leave St. Petersburg in December 1917 after the Provisional Government was overthrown by the Bolshevik revolution. In 1918 he served as minister of justice in the regional government of Crimea, where he and his family had taken refuge. In 1919 the Nabokovs fled to England and later settled in Berlin.

From 1920 until his death, Nabokov was the editor of the Russian émigré newspaper "Rul" ("The Rudder"), which continued to advocate a pro-Western democratic government in Russia.

Death

V. D. Nabokov attended a CD political conference in Berlin on 28 March 1922, attending when a Russian monarchist approached the stage singing the Tsarist National anthem and opened fire, at the politician and publisher Pavel Miliukov. In response Nabokov jumped off the stage and wrestled the gunman down to the floor. Another assassin came out and shot him twice; he died instantly. One of the assassins was none other than Piotr Shabelsky-Bork, prominent conspiracy theorist and promoter of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Shabelsky-Bork was subsequently convicted of the murder and received a sentence of fourteen years imprisonment, but only served a short period before being released – the judicial system of Germany being more lenient to right wing criminals than their leftist equivalents. Upon his release, Shabelsy-Bork befriended Alfred Rosenberg, the notorious Nazi ideologue. Nabokov's demise was an ironic death for a lifelong democrat: he died defending one of his political opponents. Although the assassins failed even to wound their intended target, they were pleased to learn that they had killed a prominent supporter of the Provisional Government. Nabokov is buried at the Russian-Orthodox Cemetery in Berlin-Tegel.

Literature

Brian Boyd: "Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years"

External links

* [http://dezimmer.net/NabokovFamilyWeb/nfw01/nfw01_003.htm Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov] at Dieter E. Zimmer's Nabokov Family Web