‘Plainspoken about Jew and Gentile’: Vladimir Nabokov, the legacy of Russian liberalism, and the Jewish question

ABSTRACT Vladimir Nabokov modelled his moral and political values on those of his father, V. D. Nabokov, especially revering his defence of Russian Jewry. This paper attempts to clarify broad-brushstrokes accounts of V. D. Nabokov, demonstrating how his ambivalent approach to the ‘Jewish Question’ evolved as a result of his Russian liberalism. Using contemporary accounts and revisiting primary sources, this challenges the hagiographic legacy built by his son and critics. In turn, this allows for a more refined understanding of Vladimir Nabokov’s literary engagement with the ‘Jewish theme’, his sacred relationship with his father, and the limitations of inherited liberalism.


Introduction
The Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov (1899Nabokov ( -1977 was intimately connected with the 'Jewish Question' throughout his life: he was born into the St Petersburg liberal intelligentsia, married the Jewish Véra Slonim, and escaped from Nazi-occupied Paris. There has been limited scholarly debate exploring the extent of these biographical influences and the nature of Nabokov's literary approach to Jewish themes in his works, which include secondary Jewish characters, criticisms of European and American antisemitism, and reflections on the Holocaust. 1 Critics are keen to characterise Nabokov's approach to the 'Jewish Question' as shaped by his father's legacy. 2 Brian Boyd, in the first volume of his comprehensive biography, Vladimir Nabokov: the Russian Years (1983), asserts that 'Vladimir Nabokov cannot be understood except against the background of his family', identifying a 'strain' of liberalism, including defence of Russian Jewry, through his grandfather and father. 3 Nabokov's openness about this inheritance is encapsulated by the oft-referenced statement: 'My father was an old-fashioned liberal, and I do not mind being labeled an old-fashioned liberal too.' 4 This paper will attempt to define the conditions and limitations of such 'old-fashioned' liberalism, and how this is exposed in relation to the 'Jewish Question'. Nabokov's father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov (1870-1922, hereafter V. D.) was a jurist and politician in the Constitutional Democratic party during the late Imperial and pre-Revolutionary period. The minimal treatment of V. D. in historical scholarship includes two recent Russian-language sources: a trade biography, and a conference volume from 2015, which includes a paper on his approach to the Jewish Comparing his father to a 'professional divine' is just one feature of a wider hagiography of V. D., the subject of an entire chapter in Nabokov's memoir Speak, Memory, where he paints his father as a white-suited angel lifted into the air by grateful peasants, ascending to heaven like a 'paradisaic personage'. 8 This particular image portrays V. D.'s tragic and courageous death. He was killed in 1922 in Berlin, protecting the intended target (his political rival Pavel Miliukov) from a fatal bullet shot by farright Monarchists Petr Shabelskii-Bork and Sergei Taboritskii. 9 To his son, V. D. is a saint of liberalism, culturedness, and honour. Nabokov was only 22 when his father diedjust embarking on his literary career -but V. D.'s legacy permeated his life as both author and man. In Speak, Memory, Nabokov reflects on his time at the liberal gymnasium, the Tenishev School, chosen by his father, where he refused to participate in political extracurricular activities as the constant pressure 'led to a state of tension that was hardly alleviated by everybody harping upon the example set by my father . . . as often happens with the children of famous fathers, I viewed his activities through a prism of my own'. 10 Moreover, unable to compete with his father's public career, Nabokov proclaimed his apoliticism, and never voted or belonged to any political party. 11 This 'prism' grounds our understanding of how, whatever the contradictions or complexities found in V. D.'s liberalism, his son defended him and defined himself through him.

Inherited Liberalism
In Speak, Memory, Nabokov traces this lineage of liberalism even further back: his paternal grandfather Dmitri Nabokov (1862Nabokov ( -1904 as 'State Minister of Justice from 1878 to 1885, did what he could to protect, if not to strengthen, the liberal reforms of the sixties (trial by jury, for instance) against ferocious reactionary attacks.' 12 Boyd adds how Dmitri had 'strongly and successful opposed an anti-Semitic measure introduced in 1881', although his reasoning for refusing to expel Jews from rural villages in order to protect peasants was far from sympathetic. Dmitri was more concerned with the livelihoods of ethnic Russians, and their individual property rights, than the wider civil liberties and safety of Jews. He remarked that 'the deprivation of the above-mentioned rights of Jews will often put those persons with whom they have entered into mandatory or other property relations in a difficult situation'. 13 Following Dmitri's initial rejection, Minister of the Interior Nikolai Ignatev successfully proposed the 1882 May Laws, which forbade new Jewish settlement in the countryside, leading to a substantial exodus from the Russian Empire. Instead of originating a family legacy of defending Russian Jewry, Dmitri's response exposes the limitations of liberalism regarding the 'Jewish Question'. Although described by Lev Deich as 'one of the most broadminded men of that period', 14 there were other figures amongst the Russian intelligentsia at this time who responded to, and advocated for, Jewish rights, with considerably more conviction. For example, Lev Tolstoi and other Russian intellectuals published a series of letters expressing their 'disgust with the oppression of the Jewish nationality'. 15 Nabokov himself makes no mention of this facet of his grandfather's liberalism, but it contributes to our understanding of how Dmitri's conditional support of Russian Jewry may have shaped a family legacy of ambivalence.
Whereas Dmitri represented Western liberalism, his wife, the Baltic German Baroness Maria Von Korff, espoused reactionary antisemitism and unconditional loyalty to the Tsar. Their children were similarly divided, with V. D. following in his father's footsteps, and his five sisters influenced by their mother. Nabokov recalls growing up with his grandmother and aunts, who criticised V. D.'s 'insane experiments' in liberalism, decrying his activism as the 'whims of a wayward nobleman', and 'discussing with horror Lenski's origins', referencing the childrens' Jewish tutor. 16 Daniil Pasmanik, a Jewish politician and ideologist who worked alongside V. D. in Crimea, remarked that 'In his upbringing he was an antisemite, but his culture dictated his human attitude towards disenfranchised Jews. ' 17 This suggests that, despite Dmitri's liberalism and tacit opposition to antisemitism, the maternal line was dominant throughout V. D.'s childhood, but that he rejected this through self-cultivated moral conviction. Taro Tsurumi proposes that Pasmanik's use of the term 'culture' refers to 'something civilized and Westernized', a state of enlightenment which 'would change a barbaric human nature into a sophisticated one with a broad, statewide perspective'. 18 There is something familiar to this in Nabokov's own definition of poshlost, an untranslatable Russian term which is closest to vulgarity. He characterises it as 'such concepts as 'America is no better than Russia' or 'We all share in Germany's guilt'', and that 'Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging to a very secret club (which sports one Jewish name -that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost.' 19 Whilst framing poshlost through anti-Jewish sentiment, this is defined by a broader contempt for banality and ignorance rather than a specific sympathy for Jews -perhaps this approach is inherited from his father's brand of 'culture'.

The Kishinev Bloodbath
Activism peppered V. D.'s education and early career: he was arrested at university for joining protests demanding academic freedom; for his inaugural lecture at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, he expressed his commitment to a progressive interpretation of the law and belief in the rights of the individual; and as editor of the legal journal Pravo, he attacked the death penalty, following on from his father's views. It is important to note these other areas of concern for V. D., as contrary to the legacy created in scholarship, Norkina highlights how 'If we turn to the numerous publications of V. D. Nabokov's in the periodicals "Pravo" and "Rech" in which he worked for different years, the Jewish Question occupied far from the most important place in the sphere of his interests'. 20 In April 1903, Russian Jewry was struck by the worst violence since the wave of pogroms in 1881-2. In the small town of Kishinev, over a three-day period following Easter Sunday, Jews were murdered, raped, and had their houses plundered. This pogrom was a consequence of rising antisemitic feeling in Russia, exacerbated by the Judeophobic press and rumours of blood libel. The violence was seen as a justified reaction to rumoured 'Jewish exploitation' of the peasants, a view maintained by police officers present who either turned a blind eye, or even encouraged, the rioting. 21 The Kishinev pogrom was a turning point in the twentieth century, directing the world to look at the persecution of Russian Jewry, leading to a mass exodus of Jews to the United States and Palestine, and a reinvigoration of the Zionist cause.
Pravo published, on its first page, V. D.'s 'The Kishinev Bloodbath', a scathing attack on the Judeophobic press and government complicity, described by the lawyer Maksim Ganfman as 'one of the most brilliant works of Russian censored journalism'. 22 'The Kishinev Bloodbath' is a moving indictment of the pogrom and a sensitive portrayal of the plight of Russian Jewry, which begins 'Everyone in whom human sentiment is not dead has read the sad tale of the Kishinev pogroms with deep indignation and heartache'. 23 V. D. signalled a 'spiritual solidarity between some (fortunately, not many) representatives of the printed word and that unruly rabble', directly accusing the Judeophobic press who viewed the pogrom as a warning for Jews to become integrated and loyal citizens of Russia. 24 He directly exposes and attacks the government for their complicity in the pogrom as 'no attempt was made to suppress the disturbances'. 25 He blames the 'regime of oppression and lawlessness' which sees the 'Jew [as] a pariah, a creature of the lowest order, something malevolent in and of itself . . . he ought to be limited and bound by confinement within the narrow limits of the artificial pale.' 26 The administration's antisemitic policies of the Pale of Settlement and deprivation of the rights of Jews had created an environment in which pogroms were not only possible, but even encouraged. V. D. held in contempt the reactionary press and Tsarist regime, and the article demonstrates his compassion with Jewish victims of the pogrom and Russian Jewry as a whole.
In building V. D.'s legacy, some commentators have overstated his exceptional courage in publishing 'The Kishinev Bloodbath'. Gavriel Shapiro suggests that V. D.'s article was all the more impressive as 'defending Jews at that time was frowned upon even in liberal circles'. 27 He cites a memorial article by fellow Kadet Osip Buzhanskii, who stated that the 'fear of being accused of servility to Jews was so strong that an article on the Jewish question made editors of some democratic newspapers cringe.' 28 These remarks position V. D. as an exceptional defender of Jews, although he was not alone in his activism. Norkina identifies how his article appeared only once 'a significant number of the periodicals spoke about the Kishinev tragedy . . . almost all of them unanimously declare the preparation of the pogrom in advance and its strict organisation (Russkie Vedomosti, Novosti), the impotence, inaction and incompetence of local authorities (Kievlianin, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti), the inaction of the police (Russkie Vedomosti), about the significant role of the anti-Semitic press in inciting hatred towards the Jewish population (Kyrier)'. 29 Moreover, the pogrom strengthened existing sympathies between the Russian liberal groups and their Jewish counterparts, as can be seen in the writings of Vladimir (Volodimir) Korolenko and activism by Maksim Gorkii. 30 It also turned those who were previously indifferent to the 'Jewish Question' into active defenders, such as Prince Urusov, who was appointed Governor of Bessarabiia in the wake of the pogrom and detailed the evolution of his sympathies in a contemporary memoir. 31 Nabokov also magnifies his father's bravery in condemning the Kishinev pogrom by suggesting that he lost his teaching post at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence, his position as Junior Gentleman of the Chamber, and his position within the Chancellery, as punishment for not asking permission before 'performing [the] public act' of publishing 'The Kishinev Bloodbath'' in April 1903. 32 In fact, Boyd confirms that V. D.'s dismissal occurred in January 1905 following his censure of Bloody Sunday, a massacre of unarmed protestors and their families outside the Winter Palace, for which he demanded the government pay compensation. In a discreet footnote, Boyd states that 'VN implies that his father may have been dismissed because of the Kishinyov article nearly two years earlier . . . on this occasion VN . . . was wrong'. 33 This mistake bolsters the narrative that V. D. was more willing to put his career at risk for issues related to the Jewish Question than general criticism of the Tsarist regime, suggesting at how Nabokov was keen to emphasise his father's fight against antisemitism as part of his legacy.

The First Duma
The Constitutional Democratic Party, whose members were known as Kadets, was established in 1905 following the October Manifesto when the Tsar reluctantly agreed to basic civil rights and the formation of an elected Duma parliament. Nabokov described his father as 'one of the founders' of the Kadets, but although V. D. helped popularise the party in 1905, he was not directly involved in its formation, which was led by Pavel Miliukov. 34 The centrist, liberal party promoted Western constitutional monarchy and consisted mainly of intellectuals and professionals. They formed a majority in the First Duma in April 1906, but in later sessions only represented a minor opposition party once the Bolsheviks and Social-Democrats ended their boycott and stood for election.
Initial hopes for the Kadets amongst Jewish groups were high as they were the only nonsocialist party who supported the abolishment of the Pale of Settlement and full equality for Jews. 35 In addition to Jewish members such as Maksim Vinaver, Iosif Gessen and Solomon Krym, both V. D. and Miliukov were identified as supporting Russian Jewry, for which they were often attacked by the reactionary press. Having written 'The Kishinev Bloodbath', V. D. was chosen to prepare a draft law on the rights of nationalities, and attacked further pogroms in Vologda and Belostok in 1906. 36 He called for an urgent government inquiry, declaring that 'We know how such pogroms, which begin in one place, roll over to other cities and cause tremendous, nerve-wracking violence' and that 'We must immediately react to this phenomenon, must immediately take all measures to ensure that the possibilities of monstrous new crimes are immediately opposed by everything in our power.' 37 However, V. D.'s commitment to attacking pogroms, seen as violent and uncivilised outbursts, did not translate into a wider support for Jewish causes, and notably, following the 1906 Belostok pogrom, 'When discussing the problems of the legal status of Jews, V. D. Nabokov did not speak'. 38 Lenin directly attacked V. D.'s feeble acknowledgment that 'in many cases the administration has not succeeded in allaying the suspicion that the simultaneous outbreak of the pogroms is the result either of the Black-Hundred organisations operating with the knowledge of the local authorities, or, at best, of the latter's systematic inaction.' 39 Lenin declared: 'You see, gentlemen of the Duma, the reactionaries are more outspoken than you are. Their language is stronger than your Duma language.' 40 Indeed, V. D. moves from directly blaming central government for Judeophobia which led to Kishinev, to focussing on local government as partly responsible for Belostok and abandoning calls for Jewish emancipation, an indication of the equivocation and diplomacy required in his Duma role -and thus his waning courage and conviction in attacking the Tsarist regime.
By July 1906, the First Duma was dissolved by the Tsar having made very few changes. The Kadets were frustrated at their inability to push through reforms, compounded by the new Prime Minister Aleksandr Kerenskii, a strong monarchist who used repressive police measures to restore order. They signed the 'Vyborg Manifesto' calling on the Russian people to refuse to pay taxes or provide military recruits in protest to the government. It failed, and the signatories were stripped of their political rights, 'resulting in a full decade of parliamentary exclusion and political impotence.' 41 V. D. was imprisoned for three months and faced an additional fine due to his role editor-in-chief of the Herald, the Kadet party newspaper. 42 He retreated from politics, instead focussing on his editorial work in Pravo.

Mendel Beilis
In 1911, Mendel Beilis was falsely accused of killing twelve-year-old Ukrainian Andriy Yushchinskyi in what was described as a Jewish 'ritual murder'. The ensuing trial sparked the attention of international critics who deemed it the Russian equivalent of the 'Dreyfus Affair'. The Russian intelligentsia -including Gorkii, Korolenko, Aleksandr Blok, and Aleksandr Kuprinwrote or spoke in defence of the Jews, criticising the antisemitic press that disseminated accusations of blood libel. Korolenko authored an appeal during the initial investigation, signed by numerous politicians and intellectuals including V. D., titled 'To the Russian Society'. It was published in Rech, a liberal daily that acted as the Kadet central organ, coedited by Iosif Gessen and Pavel Miliukov. The appeal called blood libel a 'new outbreak of fanaticism and dark untruth', which threatens violence and pogroms, condemning the 'fairy tale of the use of child blood'. 43 The trial was held in 1913, where Beilis was defended by a group of prestigious Jewish lawyers including Oskar Gruzenberg and Vasilii Maklakov, and which attracted wide-ranging press coverage leading to an unprecedented level of government censorship: 'sometimes a mere hint of criticism was a signal for repression'. 44 Thus, V. D. was lucky to only receive a one hundred ruble fine for his series of articles published in Pravo. 45 In 'Delo Beilisa' (The Beilis Case) and 'Dva Obvinitek'nykh Akta' (Two Indictments on the Act), V. D. focuses on the judicial contradictions found within the trial. Unlike 'The Kishinev Bloodbath', he does not express his personal sympathies towards Russian Jewry, but he does argue that antisemitism is a dangerous social phenomenon, especially when appropriated in judicial practices. He suggests that this is the first time where a guilty verdict 'would be done not in the interests of a civil claim . . . but in the interests of militant anti-Semitism' and describes the prosecution's case as full of 'emptiness and vacuousness . . . an assumption, fantastic and absurd'. 46 Beilis is depicted as an unlucky victim, the unfortunate 'sought-after Jew' the prosecution found to blame for the murder of Yushchinskyi, rather than a specific target. 47 This represents a departure from V. D.'s previously emotive defence of Jews against pogroms -perhaps a consequence of the necessities of a political career -and he inhabits a more intellectual approach offering expert judicial commentary. However, the lack of expressive language and sympathy for Beilis' victimhood does not mean that he was not moved by the case. Gruzenberg recalled how he would look for V. D.'s 'eyes at particularly oppressive moments of the trial. I would see there a look of horror and pain . . . [he] tried with infinite patience to support and reassure me with valuable observations and reflections. Meanwhile, he became paler and gloomier'. 48 The prosecution was led by Minister of Justice Ivan Shcheglovitov, who 'had the ear of the Czar' and had instigated the case against Beilis, and the 'prominent anti-Semite and demagogic Duma deputy' Zamislovskii, who had connections to the ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds. 49 Shcheglovitov, in particular, may well have felt like a personal target for V. D., whose father, Dmitri, 'had played an important part in the judicial reforms that Shcheglovitov was bent on nullifying'. 50 Pasmanik suggests that 'It was not out of love for Beilis, but disgust towards the uncultured methods of Sheglovitovs and Zamislovskies that motivated [V. D.'s] inspired correspondence from Kiev in his analysis of the ritual process.' 51 As before, Pasmanik's use of 'uncultured' implies something uncivilised and barbaric, suggesting that V. D.'s reporting on the Beilis case was fuelled not by sympathy for the Jewish victim of blood libel accusation, but by contempt for the prosecution who acted against the ideals of Western liberal democracy. In this case, the nature of the prosecution's attack -its antisemitic scapegoating -is subordinated by their uncultured methods, for which V. D. had contempt above all else. This approach is inherited by his son, for whom, in his characterisation of poshlost, the act of comparing Auschwitz, Hiroshima and Vietnam is worse than the events themselves. It demonstrates how the parameters of such liberalism are malleable and open to compromise: V. D.'s defence of Russian Jewry is conditional on him defining the oppressors as 'uncultured'. This is confirmed by Pasmanik, who describes V. D. as a 'charming, impressive, refined, cultural person . . . a real spirited aristocrat, who was annoyed by the slightest manifestation of plebeianism and lack of culture', concluding that 'I think that he was a Cadet for cultural, rather than political reasons'. 52 V. D. viewed his role as a Kadet through the values of 'culture', where he can exist within a romantic realm of idealism, untainted by the robust but messy realism of 'politics'. As such, Nabokov modelled himself on his father's liberalism, without ever engaging in structural or organised politics.
The wider Kadet agenda reflects the fluidity of liberalism and its parameters. Their supposed commitment to Jewish emancipation meant they were attacked by the reactionary Right and denounced as 'kike-freemasons', recalling the recently disseminated accusations in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 53 Notably, during the Beilis Trial, a cartoon titled 'On the Scales of Themis' was printed in the antisemitic Novoe Vremia (Figure 1). Nabokov describes it as 'my father and Miliukov handing over Saint Russia on a plate to World Jewry and that sort of thing'. 54 The illustration depicts a fairly dignified V. D. sitting on a set of scales, Gessen on his lap, with Miliukov swaying the scales and turning to the approaching corpulent Rothschild, holding piles of money under his arms. The caption reads, 'That's not all! Here is Baron Rothschild carrying a piece of brilliant evidence!'. 55 Despite accusations of corrupted Jewish allegiances, V. D., Miliukov, and the Kadets as a whole, failed to achieve any equality for Jews during their time in the Duma. Miliukov, in particular, as leader, willingly compromised on the Kadets' manifesto for Jewish emancipation, attempting to subsume minority interests into those of the whole, perhaps influenced by his commitment to English-style parliamentary politics. 56 In the 1915 Fourth Duma, the 'Progressive Bloc' programme included a call to end restrictions on the rights of Jews and take further steps towards abolishing the Pale of Settlement, but the Kadets conceded on these points in order to retain the support of the Nationalist group led by Vasilii Shulgin. 57 Miliukov pointed to the difficulties of pushing minority issues in an already divided Duma, at a time of urgent national unrest and delicate political tensions with the Tsarist regime. This is just another example suggesting at how the Kadets' liberalism, especially in regard to the Jewish Question, was conditional and often rendered secondary to perceived higher priorities.

The Provisional Government
After four failed sessions of the State Duma (1905)(1906)(1907)(1908)(1909)(1910)(1911)(1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916)(1917), and the abdication of Tsar Nicholai II, the Russian Provisional Government was established in March 1917. 'Everything that generations of the Russian people had dreamed about during their century-long struggle for freedom, right and justice was given to Russia at one stroke', according to Kerensky, including the abolishment of all religious, national, and ethnic limitations. 58 The majority was held by the Kadets, with Miliukov acting as Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, having been out of politics since the Vyborg suspension and his service during the First World War, V. D. was given only a secretarial role as the Head of Chancellery of the Council of Ministers. Defending his father, Nabokov states that 'From the very start, History seems to have been anxious of depriving him of a full opportunity to reveal his great gifts of statesmanship', emphasising how circumstance thwarted V. D.'s potential. 59 In his role as Head of Chancellery, V. D. had no authority but could attend the closed daily sessions on which he based his predominately observational memoir, The Russian Provisional Government. Most striking is how he talks about his Jewish political opponents: gone are his emotive defences of pogrom victims, Jews are now emblematic of the unwanted and 'uncultured' revolution. Nabokov himself and critics have used varying approaches in order to excuse or justify the antisemitic language in the V. D.'s memoir. In his introduction to the 1976 edition, Robert Paul Browder addresses how 'Another facet of his commentary is more troublesome: the apparent evidences of anti-Semitism. At first glance, certain of his characterizations seem to bear that strain' but follows this by emphasising V. D.'s Jewish friends, his support of Russian Jewry after Kishinev, and defence of Mendel Beilis. 60 This conditional justification does nothing to address or contextualise the antisemitic features, simply to disavow any possible accusation that V. D. held discriminatory views. Similarly, Boyd defends V. D. by stating that he was 'steadfastly opposed to official anti-Semitism', inadvertently hinting at a discrepancy between his personal and political attitudes towards the Jewish Question. 61 V. D. found a vehicle for his anti-communism in the antisemitic canard of Judeo-Bolshevism, a belief that Jews were disproportionately represented amongst revolutionaries and thus responsible for the collapse of the Russian regime. At first, he is keen to note the ethnic identity of protestors in the February Revolution of 1917: 'at the entrance gates some Jewishlooking young men were interrogating those who were passing through', contributing to a narrative that Jews were the harbingers of the Revolution. 62 However, as the memoir progresses, V. D. shifts from generalised conspiracy about Jews and the Revolution, to racialised attacks on individuals. Of Iurii Steklov, a Bolshevik revolutionary who had joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, V. D. remarks: I first met him then, and I did not suspect that he was a Jew or that his euphonious pseudonym hid his far from euphonious real name. Even less, of course, was the story known-it was later uncovered by L. L'vov-that Nakhamkes had resorted to the most indignant and servile petitions to "legalize" his pseudonym and officially substitute it for his real surname . . . our very first encounter he produced in me a loathsome impression of his manner, thereby perfectly suiting his surname, which somehow inherently combined the words "impudent" (nakhal) and "boor" (kham). 63 V. D. participates in a virulent Judeophobic tradition of unmasking assimilated Jews and their pseudonyms, a tactic used by the far-right in Russia. 64 He engages in an antisemitic portrayal of the 'slippery' Jew, a sycophant willing to go beyond the law to reach his aims, which, in this instance, involves the deceit associated with using a pseudonym. He adds that Steklov 'believed that the Provisional Government existed only by his kindness and only as long as it was convenient to him', characterising the Jewish revolutionary as self-serving. 65 In analysing the name 'Nakhamkes', V. D. describes it as semantically unpleasant, disrespectful, and unrefined, suiting the personality of its owner. It is noticeable that his descriptions of Steklov relate more to earlier criticism of the 'uncultured' prosecution, than the Jewish victim Beilis. This demonstrates V. D.'s ideological shift, and how the parameters of 'civilised liberalism' are conditional to change.
Similarly discriminatory language is used to describe Moisie Uritskii, a revolutionary leader who joined the Bolshevik Central Committee in July 1917 and was instrumental in the October Revolution: 'After a while Uritskii arrived, I recall right now his impudent Jewish face and the repulsive figure of that seedy individual with a hat on his head. He ordered us to disperse and threatened the use of arms.' 66 V. D. employs racially antisemitic stereotypes to describe Uritskii as disgusting, untrustworthy, and aggressive. He suggests that there is something essentially disrespectful about his physical appearance. The portrayals of Steklov and Uritskii go beyond the justified insults that could be expected from political rivals, as he pointedly references their Jewish identities and employs language associated with antisemitic stereotypes. These depictions reiterate how V. D.'s values are defined by his own understanding of culture, and by this barometer can as equally condemn 'uncivilised' pogromists, and 'impudent' Jewish revolutionaries.
However, another comment goes beyond V. D.'s anti-Bolshevism, suggesting how his antisemitic feeling is more fundamental, and not just related to political contexts. He states that the Council of Elders, established as part of the Bolsheviks and Workers' Councils, 'could have frankly been called the Sanhedrin. The predominant portion of its membership were Jews . . . I remember that my attention was drawn to this circumstance by Mark Vishniak'. 67 V. D. no longer sees the Jews as victims of Russian state sponsored Judeophobia, but the harbingers of violent, uncultured, socialist chaos. He adds that the Jewish Vishniak suggested the idea, attempting to justify a remark he must know is derogatory. However, this does not prevent him applying the observation to his own party, too, demonstrating how his antisemitism is not isolated to his anti-Bolshevism. Pearson remarks that V. D. latched onto this observation: 'Just as Kerenskii offered Vinaver the portfolio of Minister of Justice in September 1917, Nabokov made his oft-repeated remark about the cabinet of the Provisional Government starting to resemble the Sanhedrin (a factor in Vinaver's deciding to decline the post)'. 68 It is clear that V. D. was anxious about Jews in power, whether they were Bolsheviks or his own fellow Kadets.
Tension between personal and public conduct has a long history in Russian liberalism. Iurii Lotman characterises how following the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725), Russian liberal nobility established their ability to select styles of behaviour, influenced by European ideals of private life. 69 This allowed for their personal beliefs to exist at odds with their public declarations of principle, and V. D.'s liberalism follows the same pattern. In print and in the Duma, he defended Russian Jewry from the Judeophobic press and antisemitic Tsarist regime, but, as evidenced in his memoir, published in exile, he held underlying racist assumptions about Jews. This suggests that V. D.'s ambivalence may well be a feature of Russian liberalism itself.
In addition to the racialised language used to describe Uritskii and Steklov, V. D. relies on ethnic markers to depict the Georgian politician Iraki Tseretelli: 'His oriental face is handsome and refined, and his big dark eyes now blaze, now grow dim in melancholy reverie.' 70 This demonstrates that, even without the derogatory undertones used for his antisemitic remarks, V. D. engaged in an 'othering' of racial groups through the use of indicative and sensational physical descriptions. We may use this comparison to establish a wider net of analysis in Nabokov's literature, looking to how he writes about other racial or ethnic identities. Alongside reductive markers for his Jewish 'types', such as thick eyebrows, formulaic names and vague European identities, Nabokov similarly produces a Black 'type' in his American fiction, often written as hired help, either plump maids or boyish gardeners. There is more to be said on this outside the scope of this article, but it gestures towards an understanding of how Nabokov inherits his father's tendency towards ethnicising, with similarities to be found between Jewish and Black 'types' written through this lens.

Nabokov's Defence
Proceeding to 1970, Andrew Field wrote the following letter to Nabokov when preparing the first edition of The Russian Provisional Government: Of the six people who have been working full-time on the production of the book, three have asked me rather tentatively 'whether V. D. Nabokov had anti-semitic inclinations.' I hadn't given much thought to the 'Jewish references' in the text, but then, of course, I know your father's official and actual attitude in this matter. Apparently, for those who know nothing of your father, these references (there are five places) are rather ambiguous. Here is one [he quotes the passage about Nakhamkes] . . . Well, you see the possibility of misunderstanding, don't you? This has begun to worry me a bit, especially since this sort of reference occurs with noticeable regularity. What should I do? Simply (my first impulse) ignore it? Add a footnote at some suitable place, when the Beilis case is mentioned, for example, explaining your father's active role in fighting antisemitism in Russia? But this might itself appear awkward and defensive. I shall act according to your instructions in this matter. 71 Indeed, attempts to justify V. D.'s antisemitic remarks by mentioning Kishinev or Beilis, do appear awkward and defensive. Nabokov responds: You may use the following note in any way you wish: My father felt so infinitely superior to any accusation of antisemitism (its official brand, or even the more disgusting household variety) that out of a kind of self-confidence and contempt for showcase philosemitism he used to make it a point-and go out of his way to make it-of being as plainspoken about Jew and Gentile as were his Jewish colleagues (such as Joseph Gessen and Grigory Landau) or the Christian but impeccably unprejudiced Milyukov. In the case of Nakhamkes, a well-known figure of fun and an impudent boor, the stress of the passage is obviously not on his race but on his portmanteau name so aptly blending kham (blackguard) and nakhal (jackanapes). I wish to point out that my father's publicistic style is marked by a certain bluntness and banality which he deplored himself when marvelling with me at say Aleksandr Hertsen's epithetic felicities; but the rugged phrasing in what you call the 'Jewish references' proceeds less from a hasty pen than that from familiarity with which some professional divine might permit himself to speak of a martyr's quirks. 72 This response has been taken at face value by critics, eager to brush V. D.'s inconsistencies under the carpet for the sake of hagiography. Not only is it an inadequate and sophistic defence of his father's antisemitism, but this letter also challenges Nabokov's own comprehension of the Jewish Question. How can readers praise his sympathetic description of the Holocaust in Pnin, or lucid attacks on antisemitism in The Gift and 'Conversation Piece, 1945', when he is willing to defend his father's racist language? It is inexplicable that V. D.'s antisemitic comments are somehow a demonstration of the strength of his pro-Jewish sentiments because he speaks as openly of his Jewish and Gentile friends. Moreover, the attempt at excusing the analysis of Nakhamkes' name as purely a linguistic game is weak, and Nabokov even parrots his father's phrase, 'impudent boor'. It is impossible to separate such a comment from its antisemitic associations.
Although it is unclear when Nabokov would have first read his father's memoir, he only responds to its antisemitic features when probed by Field in 1970, and clearly took no further issue with it when he read and made corrections to the 1976 edition, edited by Virgil Medlin and Steven Parsons. In his introduction to this later edition, Browder endorses Nabokov's letter, adding that 'this interpretation goes far toward reconciling latter-day attitudes with the somewhat academic rationale of a man of intellect, good-will and rigorous probity of an earlier era. All in all, [V. D.] Nabokov's assessment of personalities is an admirable example of plainspokenness tempered by compassion in circumstances that tempted most commentators to excesses.' 73 It is, of course, important to separate our current understanding of antisemitism when reading V. D.'s memoir, but there is nothing 'compassionate' or measured in his engaging with insidious ethnic stereotypes and language about Jews. It is an insult to both V. D.'s earlier defence of Jewish rights, and to other members of the Russian intelligentsia who displayed unequivocal sympathy with Russian Jewry, to suggest that the comments in The Russian Provisional Government display an 'admirable example of plainspokenness' about Jews, or that such language belongs to an 'earlier era'.
Gessen's memoir, V Dvukh Vekakh: zhiznennii otchyet, published in 1937, provides a contemporary perspective on antisemitism and philosemitism amongst liberal Kadets. Gessen describes Miliukov as having 'a rare feature among the Russian intelligentsia, which emphasised its benevolent attitude towards oppressed Jewry' and 'no sense of national differences at all', perhaps suggesting at a yearning by Russian Jewry to be seen as equals. 74 However, 'once did he prick me with the exclamation: "Oh, these Jews are for me," when, at some congress . . . I sent him a request to specifically note the difficult situation of Jewry in the resolutions.' 75 Miliukov's ambivalence towards Jews meant he saw them simultaneously as worthy of political equality, but nevertheless inferior, and that, in his role as granting liberty for Russian Jewry, he imagined himself as their saviour. This follows Lotman's characterisation of the private/public selected behaviour of Russian liberals and recalls V. D.'s behaviour: they were both politically engaged in opposing the government's anti-Jewish policies, but, in a personal capacity, blurred the line between 'plainspokenness' and outright antisemitism.
An example of what Nabokov calls 'showcase philosemitism' can be found in another anecdote from Gessen's memoir. At a Kadet meeting, Annenskii suggested they all go to the opera, and when someone asked what was being performed, he 'with a sly glance at Elpatyevskii . . . in front of whom it was dangerous to pronounce the word "zhid". Annenskii stammered and said confusedly: they are putting on the opera "evreika".' 76 This refers to Halevy's opera, La Juive, which was staged in St Petersburg in 1914, and known variously by its Russian translation of 'Jewess'. Annenskii's performative refusal to state the derogatory title, since he was in the company of a colleague known for his defence of Jews, is an instance of philosemitism which Gessen found 'as offensive as its antipode'. 77 It suggests at a division of views amongst the Kadets themselves, but also how Russian liberals misunderstood what support for their Jewish counterparts entailed.

Crimean Regional Government
Following the October Revolution, V. D fled to Crimea and joined the Regional Government as Minister of Justice, led by Solomon Krym and Maksim Vinaver as Foreign Minister. They united with General Denikin's White Volunteer Army, infamous for enacting pogroms against the Jews who they believed were representatives of the Bolshevik movement. This alliance highlights the level of desperation felt by the Kadets, and especially its Jewish members, who viewed the White Army as the only force ostensibly on their side against the Bolsheviks. They were ready to reconcile this political need with the antisemitic violence the White Army enacted, a far cry from the Kadets' previous commitment to Jewish emancipation. However, the union may also symbolise a wider trend amongst the Kadets, some of whom were poisoned by Judeo-Bolshevik rhetoric, not only turning a blind eye to pogroms -blaming the Bolsheviks instead of the Whites -but actively defending them. Oleg Budnitskii comments how 'Intellectual circles that earlier had been adamant in their belief in Jewish civil rights now recognized antisemitism as a valid worldview'. 78 V. D., who had hitherto openly and candidly condemned pogroms, declared now that such violence was only undertaken by the 'most unenlightened dregs of society', clearing himself of complicity and grounding himself to his political compass of 'culture'. 79 After the Civil War, at a Paris Kadet Conference in 1920, the only members who admitted any responsibility for pogroms were Jews themselves. The commitment to Jewish emancipation was expunged from the manifesto. Any sympathy for the Jewish cause withered away, suggesting that the Kadets' previous commitment to emancipate Russian Jewry was conditional and simply a feature of their liberalism at that time. Perhaps, even, the Jews were seen as easy scapegoats to blame for the Kadets' failure to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution.

Conclusion
Following the Russian Civil War, V. D. and his family moved to London, and then Berlin, where he and Gessen edited the liberal émigré daily newspaper Rul'. He attempted to revive the Kadet party, standing in opposition to Miliukov and the Paris émigrés who wanted to disassociate from the White Army and ally with anti-Bolshevik democratic socialists. In 1922, at a Kadet Party Congress, two far-right Monarchists, Petr Shabelskii-Bork and Sergey Taboritsky, attempted to assassinate Miliukov, and V. D. was killed in the crossfire. In the days following the murder, Rul' was filled with articles memorialising V. D., and for years after his friends and colleagues wrote memoirs pointing to his grace and honour, and his brave opposition to the tsarist regime, specifically mentioning 'The Kishinev Bloodbath' and his reporting on the Beilis case. 80 Vladimir Tatarinov recalls that: There were also those who accused V. D. of anti-Semitism (people have short memories, and articles about the Kishinev pogrom and Beilis trial were thoroughly forgotten), while from another camp there were cries that "Nabokov sold himself to the Yids", and in some . . . "Nabokov is almost Jewish by origin". 81 This encompasses the ambivalence of V. D.'s approach to Russia's Jewish Question. He found himself at the crossroads between Russia's revolutionary left and steadfast right, attempting to ground himself in his own political ideology defined through culturedness and liberalism. V. D. was committed to opposing the Tsarist regime's official antisemitism, a feature emblematic of their wider 'uncivilised' agenda, and he wrote emotively in defence of Russian Jewry. That he failed to enact any concrete change is likely more a consequence of political circumstance than lack of conviction. However, at the Revolutionary turn, his liberalism shifted, seeing Jewish Bolsheviks as the new objects of disdain. The ease with which he delivers racially antisemitic language suggests that these views had deeper foundations than just his anti-Bolshevism. In defining V. D.'s approach to the Jewish Question, the term 'ambivalence' is helpful, but we may find more clarity in characterising his liberalism, which was shaped by the shifting parameters of what he understood to be 'culture', through Lotman's understanding of selective private/public behaviour.