Vladimir Nabokov, Priglashenie na kazn' [Invitation to a Beheading]

Barbara Wyllie (University College London)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1936

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

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,

(1920) in theme and form. Inspired by events in the Soviet Union and the rise of fascism in Germany in the 1930s,…

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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 16 April 2024.]

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