Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, was born on or about April 23, 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The eldest of five children, he grew up in a wealthy family, moving between two homes (one in St. Petersburg, and an estate in the countryside). He enjoyed playing tennis and soccer in his youth, but also spent many hours chasing and collecting butterflies, a passion he learned from his father.
This childhood of privilege ended with the Bolshevik revolution and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Political unrest forced the Nabokov family to leave Russia for England in 1919. Nabokov and his brother subsequently enrolled at Cambridge University, where Nabokov majored in French and Russian...
