The first draft of Priglashenie na kazn´ [Invitation to a Beheading] was completed (by Nabokov, writing under the name of “V. Sirin”) in June 1934, in what its author described as a “fortnight of wonderful excitement and sustained inspiration”. The novel was a considerable departure for Nabokov, both in content and in style. Its political focus prefigured the English novel Bend Sinister (1947), and Russian stories such as Oblako, ozero, bashnia [Cloud, Castle, Lake, 1937] and Istreblenie tiranov [Tyrants Destroyed, 1938]. Critics have commented on its similarity to Kafka’s The Trial (1925), but it is also reminiscent of Zamiatin’s grim science-fiction fantasy, We (1920) in theme and form. Inspired by events in the Soviet Union and the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s, and by Nabokov’s research into the life of Chernyshevsky for...
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Citation: Wyllie, Barbara. "Priglashenie na kazn'". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 December 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2576, accessed 14 December 2025.]
