Invitation to a Beheading

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 22, 1899, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, into a family of intellectuals. The turbulent times surrounding the Russian Revolution forced the Nabokovs into exile in 1919, and they lived in various European cities before eventually settling in the United States in 1940. Nabokov’s multilingual upbringing and cosmopolitan experiences infused his works with a rich linguistic range and a profound sense of displacement. Nabokov’s early literary career in Europe was marked by novels written in Russian, such as The Defense (1929) and Despair (1936). However, his transition to English as his primary literary language occurred after his emigration to the United States, where he produced some of his most celebrated works, including Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962). This linguistic metamorphosis underscored Nabokov’s adaptability and linguistic virtuosity.

Nabokov’s literary influences were drawn from a number of the most prominent figures in Russian literary history, particularly Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and Nikolai Gogol’s “The Overcoat.” These Russian authors laid the groundwork for Nabokov’s exploration of the absurd and the existential in Il Principe, a novel written in Russian and published in 1930, which served as a precursor to Invitation to a Beheading.