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A Nabokov family photograph

taken at the wedding of Vladimir Nabokov's cousin Sophia (Onya)

on September 8, 1920 in the noble Kaisersaal of Berlin's Hotel Esplanade on Potsdamer Platz

 

Wedding Photo 1920

 

Many of persons on this photo have been kindly identified for me by the bride's daughter, Marina Ledkovsky née Fasolt (born 1924), New York.  She had a page full of handwritten notes by her mother to go by.  The bride is Sophia (Onya) Nabokov (1899-1982), the bridegroom Victor Fasolt (1891-1944) of the Bavarian Uhlans.  Next to Sophia: Nabokov's grandmother Maria Ferdinandovna Nabokov née Baroness Korff (1842-1925), to the right of her Nabokov's mother Elena Nabokov née Rukavishnikov (1876-1939).  To the left of the bridegroom: Onya's mother Lydia von Peucker née Falz-Fein (1870-1937), div. from Dimitri Dimitrievich Nabokov (1867-1949).  Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov is the tallest man in the back row, in front of a painting of Emperor Wilhelm II still to be seen at the Sony Center in Berlin.  The fifth face from the left in the second row from the top is that of Vladimir's younger brother Sergei Vladimirovich Nabokov (1900-1945).  In the same row, the ninth person from the left is the bride's younger brother and Vladimir's cousin, the composer Nicolas Nabokov (1903-1978).  Lydia von Peucker's (née Falz-Fein) elder brother Friedrich Falz-Fein (not present on the picture) had turned his vast sheep farm Askania Nova in the southern Ukraine into a world-famous animal park ; he had fled to Germany in 1919, died a few weeks before in Bad Kissingen out of grief and was just being buried in Berlin.  That explains the presence of Lutz Heck, the son of Ludwig Heck, director of the Berlin zoo from 1888-1932, who was to succeed his father in 1932 (fourth row, extreme right).  Other wedding guests also touched upon in the Nabokov Family Web : Eugène Baron Rausch von Traubenberg, ex-husband of Nina Dimitrievna Nabokov (first row, extreme left, sitting) ; Nina Falz-Fein née Buka, wife of Vladimir Falz-Fein (second row, extreme left) ; Charlotte Fasolt, the bridegroom's mother (second row, second from left) ; Paul Falz-Fein, son of Karl Falz-Fein (third row, second from left) ; Dimitri Dimitrievich Nabokov (1900-1982), the bride's younger brother (fourth row, seventh from left) ; Woldemar von Falz-Fein, youngest brother of Lidia von Peucker née Falz-Fein (fourth row, eight from left).  The left girl in the front row is Lydia de Peucker, Lydia von Peucker's daughter from her second marriage, the boy in the middle Friedrich's extra-marital son Eduard (Edja) v. Falz-Fein.  The persons to the right of Vladimir Nabokov are Karl Fürst Wrede, a regiment friend of Victor Fasolt, and Fyodor Vladimirovich Schlippe, a relative of the Falz-Feins. The man sitting next to Vladimir Nabokov's mother is Pastor Ney.