ON THE CONCEPT OF “THE LITERARY DUEL” (“duel” between G. Gazdanov and V. Nabokov)

Abstract

The article puts forward the concept of “literary duel”. What is at issue is an exchange of personal attacks - usually partly open, partly hidden - on the part of two writers, in which a kind of “exchange of shots” takes place. Sometimes after that the exchange of shots continues. As an example, the article describes a kind of “literary duel”, which, to a certain extent, is based on a hidden intertextual polemic between Gazdanov and Nabokov. In particular, in the character of Vladimir Volf in Gazdanov’s novel “The Ghost of Alexander Volf”, there are features of Nabokov, and a parody of Gazdanov can be found in one of the minor characters of Nabokov’s sensational novel “Lolita”.