Tag: Alexandra Tolstoy

Roger W. Smith, Несколько Слов о Проф. П. А. Сорокине (A Few Words About Prof. P. A. Sorokin)

 

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Posted here (Word document above) is my article “A Few Words About Prof. P. A. Sorokin,” which I submitted to the Russian language journal (published in New York ) The New Review.

It was published in the current issue, in a Russian translation by the journal’s editor, Marina Adamovich.

The following are the details of the publication,. of both this article and correspondence between Sorokin and Tolstoy’s author Alexandra Tolstoy, which was also published with credit to me.

Роджер Смит

несколько слов о проф. П. А. Сорокине

перевод с английского — М. Адамович

Новый журнал

Но 308, Сентябрь 2022

стр. 189-191

 

Roger Smith, Neskol’ko Slov o Prof. P. A. Sorokin (A Few Words about Prof. P. A. Sorokin), translated from the English by Marina Adamovich, The New Review No. 308 (September 2022), pp. 189-191

 

Переписка Александры Толстой и Питирима Соркина

Публикация — Roger W. Smith

Новый журнал

Но 308, Сентябрь 2022

стр. 192-196

 

Perepiska Aleksandry Tolstoy i Pitirima Sorkina (Correspondence between Alexandra Tolstoy and Pitirim Sorkin), published by Roger W. Smith, The New Review No. 308 (September 2022), pp. 192-196

 

— Roger W. Smith

      September 2022

Sorokin, Nabokov

 

According to a Wikipedia entry, in 1936, Vladimir Nabokov, then living in Berlin, began seeking a job in the English-speaking world. In 1937, Nabokov left Germany for France. His family followed him to France; they eventually settled in Paris. In May 1940, the Nabokovs fled the advancing German troops to the United States on board the SS Champlain.

In Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years by Brian Boyd (Princeton University Press, 2016), pg. 514, it is stated:

By late October 1939 Nabokov had settled arrangements at Stanford [University, to teach a summer course there] with [Stamford faculty member Henry] Lanz. Now ready to apply for a visa, he sought affidavits from eminent Russians in America: the artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, the sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, and his friend the historian Mikhail Karpovich, who appears to have put him in touch with Alexandra Tolstoy, the novelist’s daughter. Head of the newly established Tolstoy Foundation, which looked after the interests of Russian émigrés in America, Alexandra Tolstoy secured an affidavit for Nabokov from Sergey Koussevitzky, the longtime conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945.

All of this is of interest, since Pitirim A. Sorokin had close, extensive contacts with the Russian émigré community. Sergey Koussevitzky was a lifelong friend of Sorokin and his wife Elena.

It would be interesting to know if there exists correspondence between Sorokin and Nabokov.

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

     February 2020