Macaulay, T.B.: Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay (October 25, 1800 - December 28, 1859) was a famous British lawyer, politician, and historian. His greatest work was The History of England published in five volumes from 1848-61 (G273).

 

Image Source: http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/image/macaulay.jpg

 

 

Madam Mertz: Marianna (Zina’s Mother) Nikolavna’s name when she was married to her previous husband, Oscar Mertz (G187).

 

 

Magdalene, Mary: described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus Christ. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be a saint, with a feast day of July 22. She is also commemorated by the Lutheran Church with a festival on the same day. Her name means "Mary of Magdala", after a town on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. The life of the historical Mary is a subject of ongoing debate. (G223)

 

Magnolia: Deciduous tree with large simple leaves and showy yellow, white, pink or green flowers (G129).

 

Image Source: http://www.giardinaggio.it/Linguaggiodeifiori/singolifiori/magnolia.asp

 

Mallory, George:(18 June, 1886 – 8-9 June, 1924) British mountaineer who took part in the first three British Expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s. During the third expedition, in 1924, Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew Irvine both disappeared somewhere high on the North-East ridge during, or perhaps after completing, the first ascent of the world's highest mountain in June of that year. The pair's last known sighting was only a few hundred metres from the summit. Mallory's ultimate fate was unknown for 75 years, until 1999 when his body was finally discovered (G50).

 

Image Source: http://www.nndb.com/people/248/000032152/

 

Mandelshtam: Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (January 15, 1891 – December 27, 1938) was a Russian poet noted for his involvement in the Acmeist school of poetry with contemporaries such as Nikolai Gumilyov (G38).

 

Manet: Édouard Manet (January 23, 1832 – April 30, 1883) was a French painter. One of the first nineteenth century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Nabokov alludes here to a real picture (Dar 418 / G ?):

 

Edouard Manet. Mlle Victorine Meurent in the Costume of an Espada. 1862. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

Image source: http://www.abcgallery.com/M/manet/manet91.html

 

Maral: Also known as the Caspian Red Deer (cervus elaphus maral), or Noble Deer, the maral is the easternmost subspecies of red deer, native to the areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, such as Crimea, Asia Minor and the Caucasus Mountains and along th Caspian Sea region in Iran. There is another animal known as the Altai Maral which is found in the Altai Mountains and TianShan Mountains of Central Asia.

("...and suddenly a herd of marals dashed out of a black firwood onto a dazzling Alpine meadow and halted, quivering.") (G117)

 

Marco Polo: (1254-1324) A Venetian trader and explorer famous for his worldwide travels and one of the first Westerners to travel the Silk Road to China (G115, 124).

 

Image Source: http://www.assiah.net/science-and-mathematics/scientests/marco-polo/marco-polo-an-adventure-awaits.htm

 

Marianna Nikolavna: married to Shchogolev, with whom Fyodor boards. Her daughter is Zina Mertz with whom Fyodor falls in love (G155, 157).

 

Markovna, Lyubov: Friend of Alexander Yakovlevich Chernyshevski and Alexandra Yakovlevna Chernyshevsky (G51, 52, 64, 69 322).

 

Marx: Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a German revolutionary and philosopher most noted for his work The Communist Manifestio(1848). Marxism is a social theory and philosophy stemming from his works (G36, 244-245).

 

Image Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/types-of-socialism

 

Marxism: The philosophy of Karl Marx focusing on the principles of Socialism (G211).

 

Marxist: One who adheres to the tenants of Marxism (G230).

 

Maupassant: French writer Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) is considered to be one of the fathers of the modern short story. Maupassant wrote six short novels (including Une Vie mentioned in The Gift), but he is mostly famous for short stories characterized by their economy of style and efficient effortless dénouement. Maupassant was widely translated and enjoyed great popularity amongst Russian and Soviet readership (G104).

 

 

 

Max Lux – The name of the moving company who moves Fyodor in to his new apartment on 7 Tannenburg St. (G29).

 

mechty: (Russian) fancies (G 152).

 

Melitopol: A city in Zaporizhie Province of south-central Ukraine. One of Fyodor's cousins died in battle there (G87).

 

Memoirs of the Past: The memoirs of fictional character A. N. Suhoshchokov, most likely based on the real-life memoirs of Alexandr Ivanovich Herzen entitled My Past and Thoughts (G98).

 

Ménétries, Édouard: (October 2, 1802 - April 10, 1861) French entomologist. In 1829 he made an exploratory trip to the Caucasus. Most of his named species are from Russia and Siberia. His collection is in the Museum of the St. Petersburg Academy. He was described by Fyodor as one of his father’s lepidopterist contemporaries (G102)

 

Mertz, Oscar Grigorievich: Zina’s father who died four years previous, in Berlin, of angina pectoris.

 

Mertz, Zinaida (Zina) Oscarovna: Fyodor meets Zina when he moves into the Shchyogolevs’ house. They become lovers and together find solace in literature and poetry. She is one of the central characters in The Gift (G59, 155, 351-352, 355-56).

 

Messenger of Europe, The: A Russian magazine (Вестник Европы), political and literary.  Its following was mainly middle-class liberal Russians, and the magazine was published out of St. Petersburg from 1866 to 1918.  Until 1908, its editor and publisher was M.M. Stasyulevich, known for his mineralogy, and mentioned in conjunction with his paper in The Gift (see Empedocles) (G291).

 

Metamorphoses of Thought: Book authored by the fictitious author Herman Lande, published by the same company as Fyodor's biography of Chernyshevski.(G210).

 

Mihailov: Mikhail Mikhailov (1829-1865) a Russian poet and revolutionary. In The Gift he appears as one of 2 political prisoners who were the beneficiearies of financial aid that N. Chernyshevski collected in their honour under the pretext of raising money for needy students. (G266)

 

Mihailovski, Nikolay (1842-1904): A Russian publicist, sociologist and literary critic in the 19th century (G200).

 

 

 

 

 

Michelet: Jules Michelet (1798-1874) French Historian. He was above all a man of letters and an inquirer into the history of the past. His earliest works were school textbooks. Between 1825 and 1827 he produced diverse sketches, chronological tables, etc, of modern history. He held a deputy-professorship under Guizot. Soon afterwards he began his chief and monumental work, the Histoire de France that would take 30 years to complete (G224).

 

Mickiewicz, Adam Bernard: December 24, 1798 – November 26, 1855. Polish poet and writers, considered by some the greatest Polish Romantic poet of the 19th century. His name appears in a poem attributed to Pushkin mentioned by Suhoshchokov (G99).

 

Mill: Possibly a reference to John Stewart Mill a British philosopher and political economist (G242).

 

Image Source: http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/category/353/blogid/120

 

Miller-Melnitzki: Doctor who cares for Oleg Godunov-Cherdyntsev when he is dangerously wounded during the war (G130).

 

Milton: English poet and prose writer of the 17th century, John Milton (1608-1674) was best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. Milton was blind and composed most of his stories through oral dictation (G315).

 

Image Source: http://www.physics.hku.hk/~tboyce/ss/assignments/ascent/milton.html

 

Mironov: The name of a student in Chernyshevski’s The Prologue, who tells “a friend” “that Volgin’s wife is a widow[; t]his so upsets Mme. Volgin that she bursts into tears—and likewise the heroine of What to Do?, representing the same woman, pines among giddy clichés for her arrested husband.”  Mironov is thus part of Chernyshevski’s plan to “rehabilitate his wife [Olga Sokratovna]” (G236) in his novels.  Furthermore, Mironov’s role in Chernyshevski’s novel as “the student”—as a catalyst toward an idealization of the wife—ironically echoes the role of the “gang of Caucasian students” that attend “Mme. Chernyshevski’s parties” (G236) and constitute those “young men who surround[ ]” Olga Sokratovna “amorous[ly]” (for an idea of these parties, see Gogoberidze) (G235).

 

Mme. Tellier's Establishment: A short story by French author Guy de Maupassant published in 1881(G277).

 

Moika or Moyka (Russian: Мойка): a small (5 km long, 40 m wide) river which encircles St. Petersburg’s downtown, effectively making it an island (G100).

 

moiré: A fabric made of silk or, in the past, mohair. Fyodor’s French governess carries a moiré parasol. (G126, 151)

 

Montagnards: ‘Montagnards’ was a term used to refer to members of what was called ‘La Montaigne’ or ‘The Mountain,’ a Jacobin-sympathist group originating in the upper seats (or atmospheres) of the Legislative Assembly, the French body of government from October,1791, to September, 1792 (during the French Revolution).  Members included Georges Danton (1759-94) and Maximilien Robespierre (1758-94), and the group dissolved in 1794.  While Chernyshevski teaches at “the Second Cadet Corps” in St.Petersburg, the cadets are unruly, and “[Chernyshevski] couldn’t get very warmed up about Montagnards here!”  This student body contrasts with Fioletov junior’s feigned interest in the National Convention when Chernyshevski is teaching at a boys’ school in Saratov (G233).

 

Montaigne: Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was an influential essay writer of the French Renaissance. One of three authors Father reads on the eastern journey (G122).

Image Source: http://www.nndb.com/people/906/000096618/

 

Mother: See: Vezhina, Elizaveta Pavlovna.

 

Mortus, Christopher: pen name of a fictionalized influential Russian émigré critic in The Gift. His character is based upon two leading members of Russian émigré poets’ circles in Paris, Georgii Adamovich and Zinaida Gippius who were both personally hostile towards Nabokov and his works (G65, 72, 301).

 

Moscow: Capital city of Russia, also the former capital of the Soviet Union, Muscovite Russia and the pre-Imperial Russian state (G157, 315).

 

The Moscow Fire:The 1812 Fire of Moscow broke out on September 16, 1812 shortly after Napoleon's troops entered the city following the Battle of Borodino,the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. Fyodor mentions a painting depicting it by Vereshchagin (G13).

Image Source: http://100megsfree4.com/rusgeneral/kutuzov.htm

 

Moselle Valley: A well-known white-wine producing region occurring in the NE of France, NW Germany and E Luxembourg. It is a popular tourist destination and regarded as a “rural idyll”. In The Gift, it is suggested as the source for the “graceful origination of grandiose ideas” since it is where “Marx was led to acquaint himself with economic problems by the question of wine-making gnomes (“small peasants”)” (G247).

Image Source: http://www.cruisereviews.com/AmadeusWaterways/Symphony1.htm

 

'mug of modernism': the phrase Fyodor’s father uses to refer to the poetry of poets such as Igor Severyanin (G149).

 

Munich: Is the capital of Bavaria and has a metropolitan population of 2.7 million people. It is Germany’s third largest city and is one of the most expensive and prosperous cities in all of Europe. It is located in the south of Germany, just off the Isar river and just north of the Bavarian Alps (G181).

 

Image Source: http://www.in-munich.co.uk/

 

mujik: Mujiks was a term used to refer to Russian peasants as they were before 1917.  Fyodor (or Nabokov) implies that Chernyshevski's subversive “dabbling in propaganda by conversing with mujiks” (G226) is slightly performative.  Later, “wrapped in a towel against the mosquitoes,” Chernyshevski is said to “look like a Russian peasant woman” (G289) (G226).

 

Musa: in The Gift, it is the “unexpected name” of N. Chernyshevski’s cook: a tall red-cheeked woman who was apprently “bribed with no trouble—five roubles for coffee, to which she was much addicted”. She was also the wife of the house janitor. The name Musa is of Arabic origin. It is the Arabic name of Moses, as well as the name of such historic figures as: Musa of Parthia, queen of Parthia c. 2 BC-AD 4 (G263).

 

 

 

Musa coffee: Musa is a genera in the family Musaceae.  It encompasses banana and plantain species that are associated with the growth of coffee beans in that they may comprise the majority of a canopy that shades growing coffee bean crops.  There are other kinds of canopy which may shade the growing beans, allowing a coffee crop to be grown under various densities of shade or shade coverage.  The density of shade is essentially the biomass of the species comprising the canopy.  The taste produced by a coffee bean is affected by the shade coverage its crop received, or by the species of canopy (in this case, banana and plantain species) that provides shade. Thus, Nabokov alludes to “Musa coffee,” the expense of which is “somewhat” less than the “40 rubles and 88 kopeks” spent by “the government” on a room for Chernyshevski (G292).

 

mushchinki: “[A]n awful diminutive” (G236) nickname that Olga Sokratovna applies to men in general.  This general nickname recalls the “vulgar nickname” (G235) that Olga Sokratovna gives Chernyshevski, Raffy.  “[M]uschinki” is mentioned in relation to The Prologue, in which Chernyshevski attempts to “rehabilitate his wife” by omitting the “cheap coquetry [that] led men (whom she called mushchinki . . .) to think her even more accessible than she really was” (G236).  A possible irony is that “Raffy” himself may be attempting to make Olga Sokratovna “more accessible” to him through his novel than she is in real life (supposedly the subject of Chernyshevski’s art and aesthetic): “respect for her battling husband [in the novel] . . . is made to dominate all her other feelings” where the real Olga Sokratovna in fact distances herself from her husband and other men with such nicknames as “mushchinki” (G236).

 

Myrtle: An evergreen with white or pink flowers and edible fruit, native to the Mediterranean and western Asia (G129).