Death
V. D. Nabokov attended a CD political conference in Berlin on 28 March 1922. During the proceedings, a far-right Russian activist from Biskupsky's circle approached the stage singing the Tsarist national anthem and then opened fire on liberal politician and publisher Pavel Miliukov. In response, Nabokov jumped off the stage and wrestled the gunman down to the floor. Another assassin then shot Nabokov twice, killing him instantly. One of the assassins was Piotr Shabelsky-Bork, who was subsequently convicted of the murder and sentenced to a fourteen-year prison term, but who served only a small part of that sentence — the judicial system of Germany at the time being more lenient with right-wing criminals than with their leftist equivalents. Upon his release, Shabelsy-Bork befriended Alfred Rosenberg, the notorious Nazi ideologue. Nabokov's demise was in keeping with his career as a democrat: he died defending Pavel Miliukov, who was one of his own political rivals. After the shooting, the assassins realized that they had failed even to wound their intended target. Nabokov is buried at the Berlin-Tegel Russian Orthodox Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov
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“To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)