Sergey Nabokov
He developed a strong passion for music around the age of ten, playing fragments of piano operas and going to concerts with his father.
[2][3] Sergey spent the first years of his life at the Nabokov house on Bolshaya Morskaya Street in Saint Petersburg, and at the family's suburban estate in Vyra, near Siversky.
The family reacted relatively calmly to this fact, partly because Sergey's uncles Konstantin Nabokov and Vasiliy Rukavishnikov were homosexuals.
1917, Sergey and Vladimir Nabokov left Saint Petersburg forever in the sleeping car of the train to Simferopol.
In April 1919, before the beginning of Bolshevik rule, the Nabokov family left Russia forever and settled in Berlin.
Given the atmosphere of tolerance in Germany at the time, Sergey behaved freely, participating actively in the gay community and meeting Magnus Hirschfeld.
[5] According to contemporaries, Sergey Nabokov was a nice, intelligent young man who spoke four languages fluently, knew French and Russian poetry, and loved music and theater, which made him very different from his brother.
In May 1940, the family left Paris and came to the United States on the last New York voyage of the ocean liner SS Champlain.
Despite precautionary measures, Sergey was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 on charges of having homosexual contacts forbidden by paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code.
After five months in prison, he was released due to lack of evidence, thanks to the efforts of his cousin Oni[1] (Sofia Dmitrievna Fazold, née Nabokova, 1899–1982, elder sister of the composer Nicolas Nabokov[7]) and was put under observation.
[8] On 24 November 1943, Sergey Nabokov was arrested again on charges of "statements hostile to the state" and "Anglo-Saxon sympathies"[9] and on 15 December was sent to KL Neuengamme,[10] where he was given the number 28631.
For example, in a letter of December 21, 1945, he informs the pastor of Christ Church, Cambridge—Gardiner M. Day—that his 11-year-old son Dmitry would not participate in the collection of clothes for German children.
According to Brian Boyd, Vladimir was tormented by the thought that he did not love his brother enough, and there was a long history of inattentiveness, mindless ridicule, and neglect.
This message struck me because in my opinion Sergey was the last person who, in my opinion, could have been arrested (for his "Anglo-Saxon sympathies"): a harmless, idle, touching person..." Some literary scholars point to the possibility of Sergey Nabokov's character informing the main characters of the novels The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Bend Sinister,[3] and Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.
The death of his brother and other war tragedies led Nabokov to reflect deeply on the nature of evil in the world, while also attempting to distance himself from terrible events.
[3] In the film Mademoiselle O (1993), based on the autobiographical works of Vladimir Nabokov, the role of Sergey is played by Grigory Klalov.
