Nabokov later claimed he had "an English childhood."
Nabokov's fondest memories, however, were not of the large family house in St. Petersburg, but of their summer house in the country. There Nabokov learned to play tennis and caught butterflies and moths, beginning a lifelong passion for the capture and classification of lepidoptera. Later it would be the location of his first love affair.
In 1913 Nabokov began attending the Tenishev School in St. Petersburg, probably the best preparatory school in Russia, where he was not entirely comfortable but where he played soccer and developed a deep appreciation for Russian poetry. After the beginning of World War I, Russia headed toward revolution, and in spite of Nabokov's stated indifference toward politics, his family was deeply involved in the history of the times. His father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, was a professor of criminology, a member of the liberal Kadet party, and a member of parliament (the Duma); at one time he had been imprisoned for protesting the actions of the Czar. When the Czar was overthrown, V. D. Nabokov became an important member of the democratic Kerensky government (July- November 1917), itself overthrown by Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
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