Кто обругал Достоевского за Христа — Бунин или Набоков?
Who Reproached Dostoevsky for Christ — Bunin or Nabokov?

Summary/Abstract: The article studies the problem of attribution of the known quotation that is considered to belong to I. A. Bunin: “By Dostoevsky Christ has a finger in every pie”. It is thought that V. V. Nabokov came up with the quotation in his American lectures on Russian literature referring to Bunin. The analysis of sources allows specifying the circumstances of the origins of that spontaneous hoax that became a result of inevitable distortions and errors while interpreting the text and translating it from Russian into English and from English into Russian. In his lectures Nabokov attributed the main character’s words to Bunin and gave their free interpretation in English. The idiomatic expression “spilling Jesus all over the place”, used by Nabokov in its turn, caused certain difficulties in translation into the Russian language and had two variants one of which created the hoax. Neither Bunin nor Nabokov said the words attributed to them now. They criticized Dostoevsky but with other words and expressions. The so called “shocking” translation of the idiom of V. V. Nabokov, which was later corrected, did the trick in the creation of the hoax. It is advisable to reject the citation of that doubtful statement.

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