“Другие берега” на “тех” берегах: о перестроечной публикации автобиографии В.В. Набокова

Abstract “Other shores” on “those” shores. On the perestroika publication of V.V. Nab- okov’s autobiography. The essay focuses on the publication of V.V. Nabokov's autobiography “Dru- gie berega” in the journal ‘Druzhba Narodov’ (1988, N. 5, 6) as an example of censorship practice in the perestroika period. On the one hand, the émigré writer was posthumously returned to a vast public; on the other hand, the edi- tors, by abridging and distorting his text, eliminated its most disturbing fragments, especially as the rootedness of Stalin’s totalitarian regime in Lenin’s politics is concerned. Interestingly, the author’s original was immediately re- stored by the Leningrad typewritten magazine ‘Sumerki’ (1988, N. 2), which published the censored excerpts on the basis of the Ardis's 1978 edition. This little-known case allows us to reconsider in a new light both the repatriation of disgraced Russian writers that began in 1986, and the role of underground publishing, which risked losing its importance after the liberalisation of the press promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev. Keywords: samizdat, tamizdat, gosizdat, émigré literature, perestroika