Vladimir Nabokov, Zashchita Luzhina [Luzhin's Defense / The Defense]

Emily Collins (University of Bristol)

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 1930

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Luzhin Defense [Zashchita Luzhina] was written in 1929, when Nabokov was thirty. Initially published in three long instalments in the Paris-based émigré journal Sovremennye zapiski [Contemporary Notes] between October 1929 and April 1930, The Luzhin Defense was the first of Nabokov's novels whose quality, in Brian Boyd's words, “made it impossible to ignore him any longer” (The Russian Years, 342). Concurring with Nabokov's own sense of the novel as a breakthrough, Ivan Bunin, the most established writer of the emigration, commented: “This kid has snatched a gun and done away with the whole older generation, myself included” (…

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1747 words

Citation: Collins, Emily. "Zashchita Luzhina". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 September 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8925, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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