ABSTRACT
In contrast to many depictions from the 1920s, which highlighted the illusory nature of Berlin, in the 1930s the Berlin is reconstructed as a real, solid unity. Neighbourhoods, streets, parks, buildings, and apartments are often described with great attention and care. Each detail acquires its significance in the larger scheme of things. What this image lacks, however, is 'fragrant tenderness': seen retrospectively from the 1930s, Weimar Berlin is very far from Nabokov's melancholic notion of the writer as a kind and tender antiquarian who lovingly recreates the past in its minute details. The peaceful melancholic mood of Nabokov's reflection, written when the worst times of post-war political and economic upheaval and disastrous hyperinflation had already been left behind. And Berlin was apparently becoming a 'normal' European city, stands in stark contrast to the images of Weimar Berlin in the Yiddish novels written after 1933.
