V. Nabokov about his status of “an American writer” (based on interviews of the 1950s- 1970s)

Abstract

Nabokov is known as one of the unique phenomena in 20th century world literary history not only because of the unconditional significance of his creative legacy, but also because everything he wrote belongs equally to the history of two national literatures, Russian and American. So, researchers’ discussions about which of the national-literary paradigms V. Nabokov belongs to a greater extent are completely justified. As for our study, its aim is to analyze V. Nabokov’s public statements concerning his personal perception of one of the sides of his creative self, namely the status of “an American writer”. The object of the study is V. Nabokov’s interviews given by him to various publications from the 1950s to the 1970s. The study is based on V. Nabokov’s interviews from the book “Nabokov about Nabokov and Other Things: Interviews, Reviews, Essays” compiled by N. Melnikov. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that until now Nabokov’s interviews have not been analyzed comprehensively for the presence of statements identifying him as “an American writer”. In the course of analyzing Nabokov’s public statements about his “American writer” status, we concluded that this Nabokov’s position was based on his pragmatic strategy of anticipating the audience’s expectations, when he demonstrated accuracy in his identifying formulations and formal “nostalgia” for his estranged second homeland called the United States.