A professor’s legacy of letters

UW historian’s friendship with novelist added to exhibit at Allen Library.

Letters from Russian novelist Vladimir Nabokov to the late Marc Szeftel (above), a former University of Washington history professor, will be part of an exhibit at the University of Washington’s Allen Library.

Letters from novelist Vladimir Nabokov to the late University of Washington history professor Marc Szeftel was added Tuesday, Nov. 16, to an exhibit at the University of Washington’s Allen Library celebrating the centennial and bicentennial of two geniuses of Russian and American literary culture: Nabokov (born 1899) and Alexander Pushkin (born 1799).

“Black King, White Knight: A Centennial Celebration of Two Russian Writers” shows items from the UW Libraries’ collections that highlight Pushkin’s and Nabokov’s achievements - as well as their mutual struggles with censorship and exile. The exhibit is on display on the Allen’s mezzanine level until the end of fall quarter.

The exhibit features a facsimile edition of Pushkin’s sketchbooks, a number of 1920s Nabokov first editions, a collection of manuscript letters written and signed by Nabokov, and, courtesy of Burke Museum, specimens of the butterfly family Lycaenidae (also known as Blues), on which Nabokov was an expert.

As of Tuesday, the display includes correspondence between Nabokov and Szeftel that began in the 1940s, when Nabokov and Szeftel were colleagues at Cornell University. The letters continued after Szeftel, a specialist in medieval Russian legal history, joined the UW faculty in 1961. Literary legend has it that Szeftel was the model for the title character of Nabokov’s 1953 novel “Pnin,” an absent-minded Russian émigré intellectual.”

Two years later, Nabokov wrote his controversial masterpiece, “Lolita.” He died in 1977.

Szeftel died in 1985. His Nabokov letters are from the UW Manuscripts and University Archives, said Michael Biggins, a librarian in the Slavic and East European section. The Pushkin-Nabokov exhibit was created by graduate students and faculty in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, and received support from the UW’s Kenneth S. Allen Library Endowment. ¶

Steven Goldsmith, News & Information