Success is a Private Matter: Nabokov’s Christmas Stories

Leona Toker*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In the 1920s, during his émigré life in interbellum Berlin, Vladimir Nabokov wrote a number of Christmas stories. These stories—“Christmas,” “The Christmas Story,” and “A Reunion”—were all composed and published at Christmastime and set on the eve of Russian Christmas (first week of January). While involving the traditional motifs of the Christmas-story genre, such as the combination of joy and sorrow as well as the motifs of epiphany, gift, care, and forgiveness, these narratives expand the scope of the genre to represent not communal religious values but a private ethical stance. The purity of commitments emerges as a criterion for successful inner life. The gifts are usually the gifts of the memory, cherished in “Christmas” and “A Reunion,” and forfeited in “The Christmas Story,” as well as in a counter-story, “A Matter of Chance,” which was also written at Christmas time but set August and published with half a year’s delay.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)349-361
Number of pages13
JournalNeophilologus
Volume106
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.

Keywords

  • Christmas stories
  • Memory
  • Nabokov
  • Private ethical values
  • Émigré experience

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