Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was an expatriate Russian and Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland.
Nabokov in Montreux, Switzerland, 1973
Nabokov's grandfather Dmitry Nabokov, who was Justice Minister under Tsar Alexander II
Nabokov's father, V. D. Nabokov, in his World War I officer's uniform, 1914
The Nabokov family mansion in Saint Petersburg; today it is the site of the Nabokov museum.
Russian Americans are Americans of full or partial Russian ancestry. The term can apply to recent Russian immigrants to the United States, as well as to those who settled in the 19th century Russian possessions in northwestern America. Russian Americans comprise the largest Eastern European and East Slavic population in the U.S., the second-largest Slavic population generally, the nineteenth-largest ancestry group overall, and the eleventh-largest from Europe.
"Little Russia" in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. The New York metropolitan area is home to the largest Russian American population.
Fort Ross, est. in 1812 in present-day Sonoma County, California.
St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Cleveland, est. in 1896.
Russian immigrant home, New York City, 1910s.