THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA: THE CALENDAR IN THE VLADIMIR NABOKOV'S RUSSIAN NOVELS

The chronology of events in Vladimir Nabokov's novels Mashenka, Despair and The Gift creates three calendarical riddles. One particular day plays a key role in all three riddles-April 6, the day on which, according to the Canzoniere, Petrarch met Laura for the first time. This means that the heroine of Nabokov's last and unfinished novel The Original of Laura is present already in three of his Russian novels. In each of the three novels, the date of Petrarch's innamoramento is connected to further calendarical allusions. In Mashenka Nabokov recreates the genre of the hexameron, in The Gift he unfolds the topic of Pushkin's poem Vain Gift, Dhance Gift. (which Pushkin wrote on his 29th birthday), and in Despair he gives a variation of the theological theme of the Fortunate Fall.