On one ‘coterie’ and its close-minded selectivity. The problem of Nabokov and Pasternak

Abstract

This polemic paper by L. Katsis deals with the recent NLO press publication of the collected reviews of international conferences (1993–2018), prepared by V. Milchina and, according to the author, limited to the works produced by the academic community close to Milchina, while completely ignoring discoveries by perceived outsiders. V. Milchina’s collection reproduces the print versions of the reports, mentions the unpublished materials, and includes appropriate references to the impressive bibliography. It is especially astonishing, therefore, that despite such diligence a blunder should have emerged that illustrates Milchina’s treatment of the knowledge with origins outside the editor’s affiliated set, namely, the error related to N. Nabokov, the writer’s cousin, mistaken for V. Nabokov by several contributors (even though abundant Russian and foreign research has established that V. Nabokov had nothing to do with the whole story). The critic argues that the reading list of the academic ‘coterie’ represented in V. Milchina’s collection is scandalously curtailed, focusing only on the works from within the set, which leads to factual errors and unfounded ambitions.