«AKSHARUMOV VARIATIONS» IN RUSSIAN LITERATURE:
IN THE GRIM CASTLE OF NABOKOV

In the final article of the research cycle «Akhsharumov’es Variations» in Russian Literature a
hypothetical field is introduced the ratio of two figures. «Implicative» and «explicative» links,
that unite the histories of two families (Nabokov and Ahsharumov) – are considered. Dmitry
Aksharumov is Fourierist and Socialist of the 1840s, he was convicted in the case of Petrashevtsy.
His brother was critic and writer Nikolai Akhsharumov, not participating in the political struggle
of his time, was an eyewitness and witness of events.
The article is based on a hypothesis involving the inclusion of certain biographical circumstances
of the Akhsharumovs family in the aesthetic consciousness of Vladimir Nabokov. Considering
the plot variations through the «history of reception» (in particular, «appropriation of the
hero» and «metalepsis»), we come to the conclusion about the obvious identities in the marginal
aesthetics of the fiction writer Akhsharumov and the poetics of Nabokov.
At the end of the article, a preliminary summary of the study of the Ahsharumov’es variations
is presented.
1. The history of the family becomes an integral part of the history of literature. A special role
in this story is played by so-called «semiotics of error», associated with the imposition of spaced
apart figures and subsequently determines the new plots. The arising onomastic contraction
demonstrates the influence on the plot of factors from the reality that is outside of it.
2. The «infelicities» of the literary reputation, found during diachronic analysis (that is, when
studying the reception history), determine the suggestive (not intertextual) field of variations that
have both a retrospective (Ivan Nabokov and Dmitry Akhsharumov), both And a prospective
meaning (Vladimir Nabokov and Nicolay Akhsharumov).
3. Despite some commonality of the literary career (both writers were aware of their belonging
to the nobility family, both were demonstratively non-partisan, both were witnesses to the
socio-political catastrophe affecting their families, both sought alternative ways in the artistic
prose of their time, without limiting their horizons to existing ones Concepts, both created novels-palimpsests (or metaromans), both chess players and authors of chess problems), literary destiny
and literary reputation of N. D. Akhsharumov and V. V. Nabokov are different. The untimely
nature of the proposed methods determined the epigone status of the writer of the nineteenth century,
while Nabokov's experiments both at the level of the aesthetic conception and at the level of
stylistics made him posthumous fame. That’s why Nicolay Aksharumov isn’t «Nabokov of 19th
century».