‘Lolita’ author Nabokov’s museum vandalised

St. Petersburg, Jan 29 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Vandals have spray-painted the word “paedophile” on the wall of a museum dedicated to famous writer Vladimir Nabokov in St. Petersburg.

The Fontanka.ru news website said the wall was spray-painted by the same group that calls itself “St. Petersburg Cossacks” who broke the museum’s window Jan 9 and have been sending ominous letters to the museum, accusing the writer of propagating paedophilia and threatening “God’s wrath”.

The Nabokov Museum is located in a mansion on Bolshaya Morskaya street where the celebrated writer and poet was born in 1899 and lived until November 1917.

Nabokov is best known for “Lolita” (1995), a story with paedophilic connotations, but was never accused of child abuse himself.

A one-man show based on “Lolita” was cancelled in St. Petersburg in October 2012, after the play’s author received threatening letters from the anonymous “Cossacks”.

However, the performance took place in December and January, and its organiser was beaten by three unidentified attackers.

—IANS/RIA Novosti

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IANS 2013-01-29 22:44:15