10 May 2025

Teffi - beloved Russian writer, sad exile.

My maternal side of the family was very proud of the Russian arts, with one cousin becoming a professional writer, one a composer and two became music teachers. My late mother studied literature at uni­ver­sity then joined a number of book clubs. Her goal was to read every Russian novel and play (in English) from Alexander Pushkin 1799-1837 on. Of the early writers, she loved Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1821-81, Leo Tolstoy 1828-1910, Anton Chekhov 1860–1904 and Maxim Gorky 1868-1936. Of the modern writers, no-one quite matched up to Boris Pasternak 1890–1960.

I quite believe that Russians are indeed "the world's most reading nation", even decades after their writers and readers perman­ent­ly moved abroad. So I was very lucky my mother didn’t keep her memories alive by calling me Lyudmila at birth, and my brothers Igor and Grigor. 

Teffi arrived in France in 1920, 
planning to go home to Russia when she could. She never did.
Wiki

Imagine the surprise when a Russian writer’s book called Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea was reviewed by Judith Armstrong in the Weekend Australian (12th-13th Nov 2016). Written by Teffi, the book was published by Pushkin Press in 2016. Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya aka Teffi (1872-1952) was one of Tsar Nicholas II’s favourite writers, a woman born into a well educated professional St Petersburg family. Early in her career she wrote short stories and satirical articles for newspapers and magazines. In the heady excitement and radical passion after the 1905 Revolution, Teffi turned increasingly to political issues and published in the Satiricon magazine and the Russian Word newspaper. Life was going very well indeed.

Even then there was a price to pay. Teffi left her noble husband and three children on their country estate and returned to St Petersburg alone.

But when Lenin returned to Russia in 1917, he apparently had no feel­ing for beauty whatsoever. He overhauled New Life magazine, saying “Nowadays we don’t need theatre. Nor do we need music. We don’t need any articles about art or culture of any sort.” Like every Russian whose soul was fed by Russian culture, Teffi was devastated. She resigned with the rest of the literary section, not long before the paper was shut down by the authorities.

In 1918 Teffi moved to Moscow, Kiev and then Odessa, but she was never going to find a happy place to settle. The miseries brought by WW1 and the difficulties of the Russian Revolution suggested to her that the time had come to look for a new life. Her book was “her blackly funny and heart­breaking account of her final, frantic journey into exile across Russia - travelling by cart, freight train and rickety steamer - and the ordinary and unheroic people she met. From refugees setting up camp on a dockside to a singer desperately buying a few last scraps of fabric to make a dress, all were caught up in the whirlwind; all were immortalised by Teffi's penetrating gaze. Her sadness at leaving home and her horror of never seeing the family again will resonate with every person across the planet who has EVER gone into exile.

How does one describe the state of being a no-one nowhere, with no place on the map, or in society, to claim as one’s own? Teffi did not pretend to know what she did not know at the time. The brief stories of her journey through Russia contained almost no generalis­at­ions. On only a couple of occasions did the writer insert a fact that she learned some months after the events she was describing. She succeeded in conveying the sense of claustrophobia and disorientation that typified the refugee condition. [I lived overseas for 5 years and although I spoke the language fluently and was not a refugee, there was always the fear of stuffing up, of accidentally offending, of not finding my way around].

Readers believed that a trademark of Teffi’s writing had always been her ability to describe the absurd as though it were the ordinary. In the second half of this book, follow a harrowing train journey through Russia and Ukraine (with stays in German-occupied Kiev and French-occupied Odessa, which she fled as the Reds approach). Teffi ended up aboard a ship to Istanbul, commandeered by an ad hoc group of refug­ees. She ­had to scrub the decks on the ship to prove that she too was a proper worker.

 
Memories was first published as a serial, Dec 1928-Jan 1930.
It was republished in Russia by Pushkin Press in 2016

The book ended mid-journey, in the uncertainty that was the hallmark of the refugee state. The author was saying her goodbye to Russia, but she could not know where she was going next, when or how. I agreed with the comparison that was drawn with the works of Stefan Zweig, the Austrian author who wrote about the end of a grand epoch of European civilisation just before WW2. But everyone’s sadness is personal; everyone’s tragedy is individual. Perhaps it is just as well I did not even recognise Nadezhda Lokh­vits­kaya aka Teffi’s name before Judith Armstrong’s review. Teffi’s experiences would have broken my heart.

It worked out well in the end. After years of wanderings, Teffi settled in Paris in 1920, where she lived and wrote succ­ess­fully. Like so many other Russian intell­ectuals, Teffi began publishing her works in the Russian newspapers in Paris and had an eager and large Russian-reading public. Her book Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea was first published as a serial between Dec 1928 and Jan 1930.

The final years in Paris were financially strapped but friends looked after her until her death in 1952. Appropriately Teffi was buried in the Russian Orthodox cemetery called Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, just south of Paris.

Not until the late 1980s was Teffi’s work seriously reconsidered in Russia. In 1990, an important publisher in Moscow brought out a two-volume edition of her humorous stories and in 1997, the Gorky Institute of World Literature held a Teffi conference to honour her oeuvre.

In recent years Pushkin Press has done English readers a service by releasing Rasputin and Other Ironies (2010), a selection of Teffi’s old journalism and non-fiction: politics, society, art, literature and family life. And Subtly Worded (2014), a collection of her short stor­ies. The publications are in elegant packaging and have scholarly notes attached.

Teffi: A Life of Letters and of Laughter
by Edythe Haber, 2018

Her most popular works: A Modest Talent; Diamond Dust; All about Love; Love and a Family Journey; When the Crayfish Whistled; Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others and Me; and Memories. For short stories, see Shoshi's Book Blog.




36 comments:

roentare said...

This reflection highlights Teffi’s poignant exile and the enduring power of Russian literature, showing how her voice—once nearly lost—still resonates with timeless clarity and emotional depth.

Deb said...

Helen, I am not surprised you didn't know about Teffi's works until a few years ago. Do you know of any other Russian women writers?

My name is Erika. said...

I haven't heard of Teffi.. It must have been hard to leave her family behind, especially her children. I wonder if she was ever able to reconnect with them. And I'm also curious if your mother ever managed to read all of Pushkin's works. Happy weekend. Hels.

Katerinas Blog said...

I didn't know Teffi, she is presented very interesting.
I love Russian classics and I read many of their books at a young age,
when we didn't have computers.
Thank you very much for this interesting article!

Fun60 said...

She sounds an incredibly resilient and resourceful woman. I cannot imagine leaving your children behind. I wonder if she connected with them again.

Margaret D said...

Interesting women I'm sure, with her journey through life.

jabblog said...

An extraordinary life.

Hels said...

roentare
Just from the later half of the 19th century, we know Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gorky etc etc. but how many famous women writers do we know from the same era? Thus I would agree with you that her enduring power emerged, but only WAY after her death in 1952.

Hels said...

Deb
not from school or home.
Years ago I chose to read Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Sofia Tolstoy, but they were not nearly as famous as the males. Read "10 must-read books by Russian female writers" and see if any of the names are familiar to you.

Hels said...

Erika
I know that after Teffi left her husband and 3 children, she _never_ saw them again. Husbands come and go, but I cannot imagine a sadder life than a mother not seeing her own babies.
My own mother, a working journalist until retirement, spoke English and Yiddish well, and German less well. So she read any Russian material that had been translated.

Hels said...

Katerina
Pre-computers? Certainly I remember that era, when we readers used to hold proper books in their hands :) Or we visited the library to borrow books we didn't own ourselves.
After my father retired from the normal work force at 60, he bought into a travel agency and they visited Russia and Eastern Europe each year. It was a fantastic time in their lives.

Hels said...

Fun60
As I told Erika, never ever seeing her children again must have been a life long nightmare. But you are right... she MUST have been resilient because, although the pain informed her books, it never destroyed her.

Hels said...

Margaret
Teffi had two very important skills:
Her great writing that never faded during her long career, dying in 1952, and
Her amazing social group of Russian & French writers, translators and artists.

Hels said...

jabblog
her writing and travelling talents were indeed extraordinary. But there was an element of luck as well, at least for me in The Australian Newspaper.
"Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea...makes a brilliant feature of lacing hard facts with delightful, even frivolous, observations" by Judith Armstrong

Andrew said...

That was an intriguing read. Paris really was her place to be. Brothers Igor and Grigor might have done very well on Only Fans.
Satire in society is so important but I guess Lenin killed that.
Before selfies, Teffi had a fine look for a photo.
A good post, Lyudmila.

Hels said...

Andrew
I am very ambivalent about Lenin's views on Russian art, literature, theatre and music. On one hand he absolutely understood the need for quality arts that served Russian ideologies. And he particularly understood that cinema could promote societal change. But clearly he was not happy with avant-garde art forms that might be harmful to socialism.

Teffi was a committed socialist of course, but Lenin didn't attract Teffi to his lack of passion for culture.

MELODY JACOB said...

What a fascinating family history and connection to Russian literature! Your mother’s dedication to reading and immersing herself in the works of great Russian authors paints a beautiful picture of cultural pride. The story of Teffi’s exile and her poignant reflections on displacement and the absurdity of life during such tumultuous times is both heartbreaking and incredibly powerful. Her ability to capture the human experience in the midst of chaos and uncertainty is a testament to the depth of her writing. It's clear that her story, like those of many Russian exiles, resonates deeply with anyone who has ever experienced displacement. What a treasure to have access to such a rich literary tradition in your family!
melodyjacob.com

Luiz Gomes said...

Bom dia. Um excelente domingo. Eu só tiro fotos dos lugares que eu conheci. Não sou o responsável, por pinturas e etc. Não moro nos lugares. Fui só um viajante. Por isso o nome do Blogger: viagenspelobrasilerio.blogspot.com

Jo-Anne's Ramblings said...

I have never heard of her, but what a woman, the only Russian writers I have heard of are Pushkin and Tolstoy

Ирина Полещенко said...

I am familiar with the works of Nadezhda Teffi, but she has never been popular in our country.

hels said...

Irina
I wonder if that was because she was a woman in an era when men were more honoured? Or because she lived half her career in Paris and never returned to the motherland.

hels said...

Being a Russian exile in a French speaking country with NO family must have been heartbreaking "nod". But when her cultural world moved to Paris, she took all her memories, notes and writing skills with her.

hels said...

Jo-Anne,
Me too. I knew about the famous males, even those whose books I had not read. But I never ever heard Teffi mentioned at school or at the family dinner table.

Hels said...

Thanks for the information. I had great friends from Brazil, but after they migrated to the northern hemisphere, I lost all connections with your grand nation.

Parnassus said...

Hello Hels, Teffi is new to me, but sounds fascinating with all of her life experiences. You are right that female writers have often been ignored, but lately more and more are being discovered and printed. I will be on the lookout for some of her works in English.

Her story of having to leave her children has an extra poignancy today, which is Mother's Day in the U.S.

Happy American Mother's Day to you, Hels.

--Jim

mem said...

I wonder if she has descendants living now ? probably she is a GG grandmother . Wouldn't it be wonderful to find out that you had such a person in your family history? No doubt the family would not have known anything of her as I imagine the freeze of the cold war would have included a total embargo on letters etc. I think it to the Nicholas credit that he found her work so congenial . I will have a look for her work . So interesting Thanks Hels.

Hels said...

Parnassus
everyone in my year at school was born in Eastern Europe or born in Australia to Eastern European migrants in 1947 or 1948. Now I wonder why we were largely taught 19th century novelists from Britain, Australia, France and Russia, but precious little from first half of the 20th century women authors.
Thank goodness for English translators.

Hels said...

mem
I know this is not about Teffi's grandchildren, but this week I was reading about one of my favourite East European-British painting, Alfred Wolmark. I knew he had children, but I had no idea whatsoever that his grandchildren live in Australia and organised the biggest auction of his works in Sydney. Family is important.

Luiz Gomes said...

Boa noitevcom muita paz e saúde. Uma excelente segunda-feira. E também, uma excelente terça-feira, nossos fusos horários são diferentes. Obrigado por cada comentário.

Handmade in Israel said...

Teffi's story is fascinating. I too am glad that you were not named Lyudmila!

Hels said...

Luiz
did you ever read Eastern European novels, presumably in their translated version?
Now I have retired from the workforce, it is probably a good time for me to go back catching up with the reading I would like to have done in the 1966-1975 era.

Hels said...

Handmade
I was named after grandma Hinde Raizel which was quite pleasant. My poor brother was named after Uncle Alter Mayer, which he hated.

Mandy said...

I think I would enjoy Memories from Moscow to the Black Sea. So many of that generation lost so much, in Teffi's case, the country and life she had known.

mem said...

actually I did some reading about her thanks to your great post and she did see her daughters again but her relationship was interrupted by the second war and she had a closer relationship with the daughter who ended up in London and who came to see her as she aged in Paris . They developed a close and loving relationship . The other daughter lived with her father in Warsaw and while having a relationship with her mother wasn't able to sustain it as well because of the cold war . Her son died in the first war . There is a book which is a collection of her letters between mother and daughter . . I couldn't see if she had any grandchildren .

Hels said...

Mandy
I would love to hear what you think about Memories from Moscow, whenever some wonderful relative or friend buys you a copy :)

Hels said...

mem
I am not sure if these are the same letters you referred to, but the book shown in the blog post sounds helpful:
Teffi: A Life of Letters and of Laughter by Edythe Haber, London, 2018

Have a look at Literary Review, February 2019,
https://catherinebrown.org/review-of-teffi-a-life-of-letters-and-of-laughter/