V.V. Nabokov's novel Glory in the context of the problem of fantasy in the criticism of Russian emigration

The first third of the 20th century for the culture of Russian emigration was the time of reflection, when the deep differences between European and Russian cultures and literatures became evident. Writers, critics, readers of the emigration literature not only felt nostalgia, but also compared the two cultural traditions, rejected foreign experience, mastered new ideas. Fantasy was one of the ideas which provoked discussions. As is well known, fiction is based on fantasy. But the understanding of fantasy in Russian and European cultures is different. The tradition of Christian literature of Ancient Russia interprets fantasy as a way to express the absolute truth. In the middle of the 19th century fantasy was interpreted as a way to show the facts of objective reality. Literature played the role of the moral judge for society. Free fantasy, play of imagination, pleasure of reading was on the background. European literature interpreted fantasy as a way to have on effect on the imagination of reading. The free play of imagination creates a new picture of the world, and the horizon of reading comprehension became more extensive. Literature depicts the world as unknown, unfinished, with relative senses. Russian readers and critics comprehended the absence of clear evaluation of reality, the relativity of facts and the truth in the fiction as something suspicious. It was the reason why early novels by V.V. Nabokov had negative criticism. In critics' opinion the novels by V.V. Nabokov were the imitation of modern European novels. They were not comprehended as a continuation of the Russian literature tradition. One of these novels was Glory (Podvig), 1931. Critics (e.g., G. Adamovich) searched for the reflection of the real facts of emigration life in the plot of the novel. They thought that V.V. Nabokov wrote a novel about a young emigrant man who crossed the Soviet Russia border in order to become a spy or a campaigner. V.V. Nabokov used the plan of the plot of a classic Russian novel of the 19th century, but filled it with new content. In his understanding of fantasy Nabokov was close to the European literature of the 20th century. As the author of Glory Nabokov depicted the fate of the novel's hero in such a way that the reader was not able to comprehend completely the facts of Martin Edelweiss's biography. Any element of the plot can be interpreted in many ways. Martin sees many variants of reality. These variants may be cruel, parody or miraculous. Some of reality variants try to capture the hero's consciousness (the picture from Martin's nursery room, the fictitious country of Zoorlandya). Martin perceives other variants as a gag sequence (his life in the university). Miraculous variants of reality are more attractive for Martin. In the novel these variants are connected with the images of fire and, possibly, with the image of the Zhar-Ptitza (the Firebird, a Russian folklore image of shining fiery bird) from Nabokov's early poem "The Feather", 1921.

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