I thought that they were both in America -- that was what came to mind when you said a 7-letter country which ends in an "A."

There're not that many other potential countries though. Austria, maybe? But why would you say "commonly known as" though?

Country has undergone some significant border changes - A very large chunk of the country now is known by what the whole country used to be commonly called.

Not Austria - much, much bigger - there is a clue to the country in the original posting

Hm....

Russia? But this doesn't have seven letters?

Romania?

I'm looking at my European map and I don't see anything else. :-)

I am not only geographically challenged but also numerically challenged - the country is indeed Russia - must have been thinking Russian when I came up with 7 letters - I am going to get booted off this game!

Now, I still don't get it. And you're sure the first name has 8 letters and the third is an "A"? Not sure if I can trust you anymore. :-)

I know it doesn't fit the clue but i was thinking

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Nabokov

I thought about this too, DT.

But I couldn't find any connection between Nabokov and Lenin.

By the way, Nabokov did use the pen name Sirin.

So he could potentially be the 5-letter lastname writer, but I couldn't figure out who the politician might be. It seems like Nabokov wrote nothing on deaths of politician -- the book "Invitation to a Beheading" is fictional.

And the number of first names with "A" in the third position isn't huge.

Vladimir is an obvious one for the Russian connection. Clarence. Franklin. Francois. I can't even think of much else.

Oh, by the way, the father of Nabokov was assassinated in Germany. So he could be the politician, but I couldn't find anything that the son had written on the father's assassination. And Sirin is not exactly a well known name either....

Both born in same country - same first name.

Cause of death for Lenin was s*philis (sorry was not sure if that would pass the Fodors police) - the act of catching which made Nabokov famous when he wrote about it in Lolita.

rather an obscure clue I know and somewhat garbled by my errors - still it did cause some debate!

So it was Nabokov and Lenin?

But well, the number of letters was all wrong -- the politician's last name is supposed to have seven letters....

I'm so confused between the back & forth posts! #-O
Does that mean DT win?

Well, DT, I guess you can give the next clue. I'm not sure if I can take another clue from wombat. :-)

By the way, whether Lenin died of syphilis is debatable, right? There was some recent article on it in the Times, I think.

I guess DT wins. At this point I'm not sure if I even care -- even though after poring through various lists of names I also figured that only Nabokov and Lenin could have been possibilities.

By the way, you can read about Lenin's condition here. The NYT article is now a premium article but has been reprinted here:

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2004/06/23/201.html

DT?

Clue: This artist was born, on the boundary of east and west, in this town from which he took his pseudonym. One of his most widely recognized subjects was referenced indirectly in this 1997 Blockbuster film.

Name the artist: 2 words - 1st word is 5 letters, 2nd word is 5 letters. The
2nd letter of the 2nd word is an "A" from Nabokov.

Name the town: 1 word, 6 letters. 3rd letter is an "A" from Vladimir.

Name the subject: 1 word, 6 letters. 2nd letter is an "I" from Vladimir.

I need a hint for this one as well....

He gained fame in Paris in the 30s and 40s for working in a modern medium.

No clue.