At the end of his life, the celebrated novelist, poet, and translator, Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) settled here in Switzerland at the Montreux Palace which commemorates him with a statue, and is buried nearby in idyllic Clarens. A precocious and pampered child in his native Imperial ...
At the end of his life, the celebrated novelist, poet, and translator, Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) settled here in Switzerland at the Montreux Palace which commemorates him with a statue, and is buried nearby in idyllic Clarens. A precocious and pampered child in his native Imperial Russia, he received a multilingual education focused on arts and literature. Much like the last Tsar, a Swiss governess taught him French. Away from the tumult of both the Bolshevik Revolution and WWI, and having graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined his mother in Berlin where he met his future wife, and right hand, Véra (1902–1991). Shortly before the outbreak of WWII, the couple moved to Paris with their only child Dmitri (1934–2012) who would become his father’s literary executor. The family would then flee to safety in America, and remain there for two decades.
This summer an exhibit pays the man and his work homage in neighbouring Canton of Vaud’s Montricher at
The Jan Michalski Foundation
Fondation-JanMichalski.com
021 864 01 01
Profit from guided tours in English at 11AM on June 3, 24, 25, and July 15.
A wealth of photographs, drawings, manuscripts, original editions, and correspondence lent by collections, on both sides of the Atlantic, invite you to travel in time, across cultures as well as continents. The richly-illustrated exhibition catalogue sheds light on: his youth in Imperial Russia; exile in Western Europe post WWI; life stateside during and after WWII; and remaining lakeside twilight. Happily, this catalogue, in French, is available for purchase locally in Saanen at the Librairie des Alpages.
ALAN NAZAR IPEKIAN
