Editing Vladimir Nabokov (section)

=== American politics ===
In the 1940s, as an émigré in America, Nabokov stressed the connection between American and English liberal democracy and the aspirations of the short-lived Russian provisional government. In 1942, he declared: "Democracy is humanity at its best ... it is the natural condition of every man ever since the human mind became conscious not only of the world but of itself."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Boyd |first1=Brian |title=Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years |date=2016 |publisher=Princeton University Press |page=41}}</ref> During the 1960s, in both letters and interviews, he reveals a profound contempt for the [[New Left]] movements, calling the protesters "conformists" and "goofy hoodlums".<ref name= StrongO />{{rp|139}}<ref name="larmour17">{{cite book| first= David Henry James |last= Larmour| title= Discourse and ideology in Nabokov's prose| url= https://archive.org/details/discourseideolog00larm | url-access= limited | publisher= Routledge| year= 2002| page= [https://archive.org/details/discourseideolog00larm/page/n20 17]|isbn= 9780415286589}}</ref> In a 1967 interview, Nabokov said that he refused to associate with supporters of Bolshevism or Tsarist autocracy but that he had "friends among intellectual constitutional monarchists as well as among intellectual [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|social revolutionaries]]".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pifer |first1=Ellen |title=Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita: A Casebook |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=195–199}}</ref> Nabokov supported the [[Vietnam War]] effort and voiced admiration for both Presidents [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] and [[Richard Nixon]].<ref name="larmour17" /><ref name="pitzer secret1">{{cite book |last1=Pitzer |first1=Andrea |title=The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov |date=2013 |publisher=Open Road Media}}{{page needed|date=July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| first= Stacy |last= Schiff| title= Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)| publisher= Random House Digital| year= 2000}}{{page needed|date=July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| first= Jacob |last= Epstein| title= Book business: publishing past, present, and future| url= https://archive.org/details/bookbusinesspubl00epst | url-access= registration | publisher= W. W. Norton| year= 2002| pages = [https://archive.org/details/bookbusinesspubl00epst/page/76 76–77]|isbn= 9780393322347}}</ref> Racism against African-Americans appalled Nabokov, who touted [[Alexander Pushkin]]'s multiracial background as an argument against segregation.<ref name="pitzer secret1"/>