Vladimir Nabokov, Tyrants Destroyed

William Norman (University of Kent at Canterbury)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1938

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story

Resources

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The short story

Istreblenie tiranov

[

Tyrants Destroyed

] was written in May and June of 1938, while Nabokov was staying in Menton in the south of France. It was first published in the Parisian émigré journal

Russkie zapiski

in August of 1938, and later collected in

Vesna v Fialte

[

Spring in Fialta

] in 1956. The story appeared in English translation in the collection

Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories

(1975), and was then included in

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

(Knopf, 1995, reprinted as

Collected Stories

, Penguin, 1997).

Tyrants Destroyed is narrated in the first person by a poor art teacher living under a totalitarian regime directed by an unnamed dictator. As the story opens, we are told in the first line that “the growth of his power and fame were matched, in my imagination, by

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1654 words

Citation: Norman, William. "Tyrants Destroyed". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 September 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21506, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Vladimir Nabokov, Tyrants Destroyed

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