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Rasputin and Other Ironies
A new collection of Teffi's best autobiographical non-fiction writings
Ranging from portraits of Rasputin and Lenin to observations on the Russian Revolution, and from profiles of cultural figures to moving domestic scenes, this short collection includes writings by the inimitable Teffi never before published in English. Everything is here - politics, society, art and literature, love and family life - and all is told in Teffi's multifaceted style: amusing, sincerely moving, ironic and always honest, pervaded by an intensely felt understanding of humanity's simultaneous tragedy and absurdity.
Teffi (1872-1952) wrote poems, plays, stories, satires and feuilletons, and was renowned in Russia for her wit and powers of observation. Following her emigration in 1919 she settled in Paris, where she became a leading figure in the émigré literary scene. Now her genius has been rediscovered by a new generation of readers, and she once again enjoys huge acclaim in Russia and across the world. Her short-story collectionSubtly Wordedis also published by Pushkin Press, and>em>Memories - From Moscow to the Black Sea, her account of her final journey across Russia and into exile, will also be published in May 2016.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 3, 2016
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About the author
Teffi
112 books72 followersTeffi (Тэффи) was a Russian humorist writer. Teffi is a pseudonym. Her real name was Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya (Надежда Александровна Лoхвицкая); after her marriage Buchinskaya (Бучинская). Together with Arkady Averchenko she was one of the most prominent authors of the Satiricon magazine.
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November 30, 2019What can I say that I have not already written about Subtly Worded ?
If Teffi was writing for the newspaper I can imagine turning the pages to read her column first. She is a good writer of magazine pieces, light in tone, sometimes beautifully observed - particularly those about little girls and teenaged mam'selles, she can be humorous, she can be sharp, she can manage at times a fine twist but she rarely gets above that to write a great story. She has had the luck to be rediscovered in English at least - in truth in English to be discovered, had she been translated already during her career I guess only a couple of her stories would have remained in print as anthology pieces.
Again the Rasputin memoir - the same one as in Subtly Worded is the stand out star of the collection, and in part because Rasputin was a curious character, however her story New Life about her work on a left-wing newspaper linked to Lenin via the Social Democrats in the period before the first World War I felt matched the Rasputin story for interest and sly social and political commentary. I laughed at the ending of the story Valya which has a fine opening contrasting the fraught first time mother with her steady and sticky fingered four year old daughter.
Quiue a few of her stories play upon her literary character - she was writing for a readership who already knew her, which is to say they knew her literary identity, that playfulness is a stylistic characteristic of hers, but naturally this falls flat when as a new reader you are completely unfamiliar with this woman, or if that persona does not attract you. However I did find that I enjoyed on the whole this collection more than Subtly Worded, I doubt that the stories here are substantially better, so I assume she is rather like that cheap bottle of wine which by the second glass begins to taste far better than it did at first, in her case familiarity breeds contentment.
This is an example of her shtick:
"I remember falling ill and spending nearly a month in bed. The Merezhkovskys visited regularly, and once, to the astonishment of everyone in the room, Dmitry Sergeyevich brought a paper cornet of cherries. He had brought them all the way. We all exchanged glances, our faces all saying the same thing: 'And there we were, thinking he has no heart.'
Merezhkovsky asked sternly fir a dish and said the cherries should be washed.
'Dmitry Sergeyevich,' I said sweetly. 'It's all right, I'm not frightened. There's no cholera now'
'I know' he said grimly. 'But I'm still frightened.'
He sat in the corner and, noisily spitting out the stones, ate every last cherry. It was so funny that those present were afraid to look at one another lest they burst out laughing." (pp186-7)
She can let the air out of her own pretensions too - in one story she says that she only write short stories because her Paris accommodation is so cosy that there is only room for a small table in it.
I was pleased that a minor mystery was solved for me in this book - it seems that in Paris she continued to write only in Russian publishing in the ex-patriot press - occasionally in the USA as well, and never transitioned to writing in French, I guess unlike Vladimir Nabokov she didn't develop a sense of her own style or voice in another language, which is a pity I imagine it must have been a struggle living off earnings from the Russian ex-patriot press.
If Teffi was writing for the newspaper I can imagine turning the pages to read her column first. She is a good writer of magazine pieces, light in tone, sometimes beautifully observed - particularly those about little girls and teenaged mam'selles, she can be humorous, she can be sharp, she can manage at times a fine twist but she rarely gets above that to write a great story. She has had the luck to be rediscovered in English at least - in truth in English to be discovered, had she been translated already during her career I guess only a couple of her stories would have remained in print as anthology pieces.
Again the Rasputin memoir - the same one as in Subtly Worded is the stand out star of the collection, and in part because Rasputin was a curious character, however her story New Life about her work on a left-wing newspaper linked to Lenin via the Social Democrats in the period before the first World War I felt matched the Rasputin story for interest and sly social and political commentary. I laughed at the ending of the story Valya which has a fine opening contrasting the fraught first time mother with her steady and sticky fingered four year old daughter.
Quiue a few of her stories play upon her literary character - she was writing for a readership who already knew her, which is to say they knew her literary identity, that playfulness is a stylistic characteristic of hers, but naturally this falls flat when as a new reader you are completely unfamiliar with this woman, or if that persona does not attract you. However I did find that I enjoyed on the whole this collection more than Subtly Worded, I doubt that the stories here are substantially better, so I assume she is rather like that cheap bottle of wine which by the second glass begins to taste far better than it did at first, in her case familiarity breeds contentment.
This is an example of her shtick:
"I remember falling ill and spending nearly a month in bed. The Merezhkovskys visited regularly, and once, to the astonishment of everyone in the room, Dmitry Sergeyevich brought a paper cornet of cherries. He had brought them all the way. We all exchanged glances, our faces all saying the same thing: 'And there we were, thinking he has no heart.'
Merezhkovsky asked sternly fir a dish and said the cherries should be washed.
'Dmitry Sergeyevich,' I said sweetly. 'It's all right, I'm not frightened. There's no cholera now'
'I know' he said grimly. 'But I'm still frightened.'
He sat in the corner and, noisily spitting out the stones, ate every last cherry. It was so funny that those present were afraid to look at one another lest they burst out laughing." (pp186-7)
She can let the air out of her own pretensions too - in one story she says that she only write short stories because her Paris accommodation is so cosy that there is only room for a small table in it.
I was pleased that a minor mystery was solved for me in this book - it seems that in Paris she continued to write only in Russian publishing in the ex-patriot press - occasionally in the USA as well, and never transitioned to writing in French, I guess unlike Vladimir Nabokov she didn't develop a sense of her own style or voice in another language, which is a pity I imagine it must have been a struggle living off earnings from the Russian ex-patriot press.
November 7, 2018
I don't know whether to call this short stories or essays. Is it autobiographical fiction or is it true? Opinions seem mixed. The person who ranted about autobiographical fiction on my Instagram review of another book is going to really hate this one!
This is not quite as shimmering and memorable as Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea, which I think is a must-read. But there are places in this collection that really shine. The first is the overall humor. I am impressed at the way this has been translated in order to make me, a 21st century American reader, snicker at something intended to be funny at the turn of the last century by a Russian elite! Second is the casual, direct way of writing that makes it feel much more contemporary than the period it comes from.
Some of the smaller pieces are silly at times, serious at others, but to me this entire book is worth it for two pieces - the one about Rasputin (and multiple personal encounters with him! you will not believe that story!) and the one where she knocks on Tolstoy's door to ask him to change the ending of War and Peace, but as a shy teenager can't ever get the words out... (I mean, okay, that doesn't sound real, but Teffi had social access we can't quite fathom... it could be real?)
This is not quite as shimmering and memorable as Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea, which I think is a must-read. But there are places in this collection that really shine. The first is the overall humor. I am impressed at the way this has been translated in order to make me, a 21st century American reader, snicker at something intended to be funny at the turn of the last century by a Russian elite! Second is the casual, direct way of writing that makes it feel much more contemporary than the period it comes from.
Some of the smaller pieces are silly at times, serious at others, but to me this entire book is worth it for two pieces - the one about Rasputin (and multiple personal encounters with him! you will not believe that story!) and the one where she knocks on Tolstoy's door to ask him to change the ending of War and Peace, but as a shy teenager can't ever get the words out... (I mean, okay, that doesn't sound real, but Teffi had social access we can't quite fathom... it could be real?)
June 20, 2017
Introduction: Teffi the Fool, by Robert Chandler
A Note on the Texts
Part I: How I Live and Work
--How I Live and Work
--My Pseudonym
--My First Visit to an Editorial Office
Part II: Staging Posts
--Liza
--Love
--The Green Devil
--Valya
--Staging Posts
--The White Flower
Part III: Heady Days: Revolutions and Civil War
--New Life
--Rasputin
--We Are Still Living
--The Gadarene Swine
Part IV: Artists and Writers Remembered
--My First Tolstoy
--The Merezhkovskys
--Ilya Repin
List of Historical Figures
Acknowledgements
Notes
A Note on the Texts
Part I: How I Live and Work
--How I Live and Work
--My Pseudonym
--My First Visit to an Editorial Office
Part II: Staging Posts
--Liza
--Love
--The Green Devil
--Valya
--Staging Posts
--The White Flower
Part III: Heady Days: Revolutions and Civil War
--New Life
--Rasputin
--We Are Still Living
--The Gadarene Swine
Part IV: Artists and Writers Remembered
--My First Tolstoy
--The Merezhkovskys
--Ilya Repin
List of Historical Figures
Acknowledgements
Notes
May 10, 2016
This book is a collection of autobiographical essays from the renowned, female Russian author Teffi. The essays were all written during the early part of the twentieth century and reflect Teffi’s own struggles with having to flee a turbulent and oppressive Russia. The collection is divided into four parts, the first of which is entitled “How I Live and Work.” These first few essays in the book capture her inner thoughts and self-doubts as she becomes Teffi “The Author.”
The second part of the book, “Staging Posts” deals with various aspects of Teffi’s personal life from her upbringing in a wealthy Russian family to her emigration to Paris during the Russian Civil War to her time in France during the German Occupation. Teffi is well-known for her wit, but these essays show us an emotionally tender and serious woman. She begins her essay entitled “Valya” on a sad and brutally honest note: “I was in my twenty-first year. She, my daughter, was in her fourth. We were not well matched.” In this essay Teffi has a difficult time connecting with her daughter and I was not surprised to find out that her marriage was dreadfully unhappy and she eventually leaves her family in order to pursue her writing career.
My favorite essay in the third section of the book “Heady Days: Revolutions and Civil War” is the one that describes Teffi’s bizarre encounters with Rasputin. This essay is a perfect example of Teffi’s ability to write a humorous essay but also to display her serious and emotional side. When Teffi meets Rasputin, he is smitten with her and he tries to seduce her. But Teffi sees right through his act; although many women have fallen for his smooth words and intimate gestures, Teffi finds his behavior strange and a little pathetic. Rasputin comes across as a buffoon and we do laugh at his antics, but at the same time we also feel sorry for this ridiculous man who is finally killed by one of the many assassins who are after him.
The fourth and final part of the book is dedicated to some of the famous authors and artists that Teffi has come in contact with. At the age of thirteen Teffi is enthralled with Tolstoy’s War and Peace. She is so distraught by the death of Prince Andrei in this novel that she is determined to meet the author and ask him to change the story. Teffi shows up at Tolstoy’s home but is so flabbergasted to meet him that all she can do is ask for his autograph and slink away in embarrassment.
The quality that comes through in every one of these essays is Teffi’s innate ability to read and truly understand people. When she meets Lenin she senses a man who is crafty and cunning. She meets many famous people throughout her life, from the Russian poet and novelist Merezhkovsky to the artist Repin to various other writers, journalists and politicians. She is never fooled by the façade of their importance but instead she sees the true humanity beyond the exterior.
I have to admit that I am smitten with Teffi after reading this one volume from NYRB classics. I ordered three more of Teffi’s books after I finished this one. I don’t think I’ve done Teffi’s writing justice in this brief review and so everyone must read a least one of her essays to experience her brilliant writing.
The second part of the book, “Staging Posts” deals with various aspects of Teffi’s personal life from her upbringing in a wealthy Russian family to her emigration to Paris during the Russian Civil War to her time in France during the German Occupation. Teffi is well-known for her wit, but these essays show us an emotionally tender and serious woman. She begins her essay entitled “Valya” on a sad and brutally honest note: “I was in my twenty-first year. She, my daughter, was in her fourth. We were not well matched.” In this essay Teffi has a difficult time connecting with her daughter and I was not surprised to find out that her marriage was dreadfully unhappy and she eventually leaves her family in order to pursue her writing career.
My favorite essay in the third section of the book “Heady Days: Revolutions and Civil War” is the one that describes Teffi’s bizarre encounters with Rasputin. This essay is a perfect example of Teffi’s ability to write a humorous essay but also to display her serious and emotional side. When Teffi meets Rasputin, he is smitten with her and he tries to seduce her. But Teffi sees right through his act; although many women have fallen for his smooth words and intimate gestures, Teffi finds his behavior strange and a little pathetic. Rasputin comes across as a buffoon and we do laugh at his antics, but at the same time we also feel sorry for this ridiculous man who is finally killed by one of the many assassins who are after him.
The fourth and final part of the book is dedicated to some of the famous authors and artists that Teffi has come in contact with. At the age of thirteen Teffi is enthralled with Tolstoy’s War and Peace. She is so distraught by the death of Prince Andrei in this novel that she is determined to meet the author and ask him to change the story. Teffi shows up at Tolstoy’s home but is so flabbergasted to meet him that all she can do is ask for his autograph and slink away in embarrassment.
The quality that comes through in every one of these essays is Teffi’s innate ability to read and truly understand people. When she meets Lenin she senses a man who is crafty and cunning. She meets many famous people throughout her life, from the Russian poet and novelist Merezhkovsky to the artist Repin to various other writers, journalists and politicians. She is never fooled by the façade of their importance but instead she sees the true humanity beyond the exterior.
I have to admit that I am smitten with Teffi after reading this one volume from NYRB classics. I ordered three more of Teffi’s books after I finished this one. I don’t think I’ve done Teffi’s writing justice in this brief review and so everyone must read a least one of her essays to experience her brilliant writing.
December 26, 2019
"Yes, they want to kill me. Well, so what! ... But there's one thing they don't understand: if they kill me, it will be the end of Russia. Remember, my clever girl: if they kill Rasputin, it will be the end of Russia. They'll bury us together."
From "Rasputin", in Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi. By Teffi (nee Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya), 1924. Translated from the Russian by Anne Marie Jackson. This compilation edition by NYRB, 2016.
Gathered from the generous introduction to this work, and some other sources online, Teffi's short-form prose and satirical works were so well-known and loved in pre-Revolutionary Russia that she managed to have both Tsar Nicholas II AND Vladimir Lenin as admirers of her work. With that kind of praise, it is interesting that so few non-Russians know of her now.
This NYRB edition collects memoirs, articles, and short stories published over decades of her life, from pre-Revolution to her exile / emigre life in Paris. Many of the stories blend this tragic/comic element that was her signature style. Bourgeoisie life, society foibles and gossip, and then a well-placed statement to foreshadow or bring the reader back with gravitas.
However, it is TWO specific stories in this collection that I will never forget now that I've read them, and both of them concern Teffi's interaction with two figures that indelibly changed modern Russia...
From the quote above, you can guess that one is Grigori Rasputin, in the eponymous story. Teffi, invited to a dinner party, has some *very* close encounters with the "Mad Monk". She is both revolted by him, and digging for a story, true to her journalist ways. He is apparently enamoured with her, keeps calling her "clever girl", touching her arms, and keeps inviting her to "come to him" (he even says one time so they "can pray" together.) That is just the tip of the iceberg... there's much more. This story left me wide-eyed and mouth agape.
The other story, entitled "New Life" is not as creeptastic, but still unsettling as to what it foreshadows. Teffi describes her work on the short-lived St. Petersburg newspaper, New Life, and the frequent editorial visits by Vladimir Lenin. While not directed specifically at Teffi, who he seemed to like and conversed with on several occasions, he attempts to make the newspaper a Bolshevik party rag, and the writers fear him and his influence.
Other stories include childhood memories, one particular interlude with Lev Tolstoy when she was a young teen, asking him to please change parts of War and Peace to keep her favorite character alive.
Teffi gives us a brief glimpse of a country - a whole way of life - on the cusp of a dramatic change. Her Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea also comes highly recommended from Jenny @readingenvy and others.
From "Rasputin", in Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi. By Teffi (nee Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya), 1924. Translated from the Russian by Anne Marie Jackson. This compilation edition by NYRB, 2016.
Gathered from the generous introduction to this work, and some other sources online, Teffi's short-form prose and satirical works were so well-known and loved in pre-Revolutionary Russia that she managed to have both Tsar Nicholas II AND Vladimir Lenin as admirers of her work. With that kind of praise, it is interesting that so few non-Russians know of her now.
This NYRB edition collects memoirs, articles, and short stories published over decades of her life, from pre-Revolution to her exile / emigre life in Paris. Many of the stories blend this tragic/comic element that was her signature style. Bourgeoisie life, society foibles and gossip, and then a well-placed statement to foreshadow or bring the reader back with gravitas.
However, it is TWO specific stories in this collection that I will never forget now that I've read them, and both of them concern Teffi's interaction with two figures that indelibly changed modern Russia...
From the quote above, you can guess that one is Grigori Rasputin, in the eponymous story. Teffi, invited to a dinner party, has some *very* close encounters with the "Mad Monk". She is both revolted by him, and digging for a story, true to her journalist ways. He is apparently enamoured with her, keeps calling her "clever girl", touching her arms, and keeps inviting her to "come to him" (he even says one time so they "can pray" together.) That is just the tip of the iceberg... there's much more. This story left me wide-eyed and mouth agape.
The other story, entitled "New Life" is not as creeptastic, but still unsettling as to what it foreshadows. Teffi describes her work on the short-lived St. Petersburg newspaper, New Life, and the frequent editorial visits by Vladimir Lenin. While not directed specifically at Teffi, who he seemed to like and conversed with on several occasions, he attempts to make the newspaper a Bolshevik party rag, and the writers fear him and his influence.
Other stories include childhood memories, one particular interlude with Lev Tolstoy when she was a young teen, asking him to please change parts of War and Peace to keep her favorite character alive.
Teffi gives us a brief glimpse of a country - a whole way of life - on the cusp of a dramatic change. Her Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea also comes highly recommended from Jenny @readingenvy and others.
December 6, 2016
Such a joy, such a treasure! Can’t believed they’ve kept Teffi from us (wretched people who can’t read Russian, that is) this long. I love her, and I now also want an “In this house, we do not talk about Rasputin” sign for my dining room.
January 16, 2025
Insightful, witty, funny, sad, in short, utterly brilliant, the writings of Teffi is a look inside the singular mindset of an author who was as equally admired by Nicholas II as by Lenin himself, in Russia as much as by the expat community, in one of Russia’s most turbulent moments in history. Particularly memorable is Teffi’s humorous account of her memories of several dinner parties with Rasputin.
January 10, 2017
This book of essays and journalistic sketches is one of the best sources of information on what life was like in the last days of the Empire and the first days after the 1917 Revolution. It is fortunate for us that Teffi, the pseudonym of Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, was able to make her escape from Russia before Stalin started his purges of everyone who remembered the old days.
Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi is a miscellany of personal, literary, and historical essays -- with a touch of fiction here and there. Probably best is the essay on Rasputin and the two essays of life in the early days of the October Revolution.
Teffi managed to live until 1952, so she also had to put up with the Nazis in Biarritz toward the end of her life.
Not a single one of her essays, from the most childish reminiscence to "The Gadarene Swine," about the panic of living in the early days after the Bolsheviks took power, is less than a small masterpiece. Anyone who can find funny things to say about Rasputin has reinforced concrete in her spine.
Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me: The Best of Teffi is a miscellany of personal, literary, and historical essays -- with a touch of fiction here and there. Probably best is the essay on Rasputin and the two essays of life in the early days of the October Revolution.
Teffi managed to live until 1952, so she also had to put up with the Nazis in Biarritz toward the end of her life.
Not a single one of her essays, from the most childish reminiscence to "The Gadarene Swine," about the panic of living in the early days after the Bolsheviks took power, is less than a small masterpiece. Anyone who can find funny things to say about Rasputin has reinforced concrete in her spine.
November 28, 2021
A collection of what reads like autobiographical stories, it is an interesting ensemble. The stories interweave many of Russian elites and give the impression of the fantastic. There is a piece on how Rasputin wooed Teffi, trying to mesmerise her with a touch. The mysterious man who wielded power over Russian aristocracy comes out looking like a buffoon in Teffi’s encounter. Her memories of childhood, her fascination with Tolstoy, her getting caught between two varied loves - those were my favourite parts. The days of the Bolsheviks were not that interesting - even Lenin was a dry character you could not like or hate from Teffi’s account.
Towards the end, she writes about a painter doing her portrait and selling it away - it is a strange and yet beautiful story. “Palmists told me that with those hands I could hold onto nothing” This line sums up the hint of longing and loss that colors the collection very subtly.
Towards the end, she writes about a painter doing her portrait and selling it away - it is a strange and yet beautiful story. “Palmists told me that with those hands I could hold onto nothing” This line sums up the hint of longing and loss that colors the collection very subtly.
August 13, 2025
NYRB has done a nice job with this book & divides Teffi's works into four sections: How I Live & Work (her life as a writer); Staging Posts (personal life spanning childhood to adulthood, living in Russia as well as emigrating); Heady Days: Revolutions & Civil War; and Artists & Writers Remembered.
Teffi's writing seems to be an assemblage of true stories, fiction, semi-autobiographical pieces, essays, & even a kind of humorous columnist persona. As with any book that has a compilation of works, it's a mixed bag. I enjoyed almost all of it. I did keep multiple bookmarks in place so as I read each item, I could flip to the list of historical figures, the acknowledgements (which indicated when a particular piece was first published & where), & the notes (which I found invaluable). As others have mentioned in reviews, the section of Teffi's writing about meeting Rasputin is quite fascinating & funny in parts, giving a glimpse at this charismatic yet unappealing & strange character.
Separately, this book is visually appealing for the choice of cover art (Natalia Goncharova's Landscape, Spring, 1926-27) and a vibrant yellow on the inside covers. Kudos to NYRB for such a lovely & thoughtful design. (Goncharova was a female avant-garde Russian artist working during the same time period as Teffi.)
Pleased to have read this one for WiT month. (WiT 2025.)
Teffi's writing seems to be an assemblage of true stories, fiction, semi-autobiographical pieces, essays, & even a kind of humorous columnist persona. As with any book that has a compilation of works, it's a mixed bag. I enjoyed almost all of it. I did keep multiple bookmarks in place so as I read each item, I could flip to the list of historical figures, the acknowledgements (which indicated when a particular piece was first published & where), & the notes (which I found invaluable). As others have mentioned in reviews, the section of Teffi's writing about meeting Rasputin is quite fascinating & funny in parts, giving a glimpse at this charismatic yet unappealing & strange character.
Separately, this book is visually appealing for the choice of cover art (Natalia Goncharova's Landscape, Spring, 1926-27) and a vibrant yellow on the inside covers. Kudos to NYRB for such a lovely & thoughtful design. (Goncharova was a female avant-garde Russian artist working during the same time period as Teffi.)
Pleased to have read this one for WiT month. (WiT 2025.)
October 1, 2020
These are pretty humorous for something written in Russian so long ago, they are short little essays or stories it’s hard to know exactly how much is true. But they are enjoyable easy reads especially as I just finished the Romanovs so the history was still in my head.
April 7, 2024
my new mission to read everything by teffi
April 17, 2024
One of the best to ever do it. Teffi is the perfect mixture of history, humor and artistry. This book is an intimate depiction of her experience around the Russian Revolution. However her writing isn’t “historical” in the typical sense. Even when the most of the story is accurate, she intentionally deceived her readers by fabricating little details. This idea of integrating lies with personal historical experiences is something very moving to me. Teffi’s writing brings forth questions of authenticity that I can’t shake.
100 years later, thank you Teffi <3
100 years later, thank you Teffi <3
December 13, 2018
This book is great. The book I guess contains her autobiographical stories, covering a wide range of subjects.
She's such a clever writer. And funny too. Love her sarcasm. Though she is from Russia, her writing isn't anything like other Russian writing I have read. She has a unique voice.
I really wish more people will start reading her work. I look forward to reading her collection, Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea.
She's such a clever writer. And funny too. Love her sarcasm. Though she is from Russia, her writing isn't anything like other Russian writing I have read. She has a unique voice.
I really wish more people will start reading her work. I look forward to reading her collection, Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea.
Read
September 30, 2018A rather scattershot collection of stories and recollections from Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, a highlight of the pre-Revolution literary scene in St. Petersburg. The writing was lovely, her stories about the eponymous interesting, this was a pleasant way to kill a subway ride to Santa Monica.
May 1, 2022
Always interesting, but as always, Teffi offers light treatments of serious topics.
July 15, 2016
This was, obviously, not my kind of book. Review forthcoming.
November 7, 2022
3.5
Loved the writing, and it was interesting to learn more about Teffi's life. Now I really want to read her memoir!
Loved the writing, and it was interesting to learn more about Teffi's life. Now I really want to read her memoir!
October 2, 2025
More Teffi! Very enjoyable wit, irony and a lightness of touch.
March 18, 2024
Please I want everyone I know to read the essay about her insane encounters with Rasputin that’s included in this book
August 20, 2023
In celebration of international women’s day, I read this collection of stories written under the pen name Teffi. The author was a Russian woman who wanted the author to appear non-binary. I have never met a person named Teffi, and the stories are obviously written by a young woman as they are a bit frivolous.
September 4, 2022
Teffi is an incredibly gifted writer. Many of these are autobiographical accounts of moments in her life and getting to see them through her observant, witty, and deeply honest eye, is a gift. I loved her story about meeting Rasputin, and her story describing Repin. It's such a pleasure to her that Repin's character was so kind and lovely. I'd highly recommend to people interested in early 20th century Russian history. She saw quite a bit.
January 10, 2022
Teffi left one world and entered another gracefully and tells us about it and the people she knew and met along the way beautifully and with great wit. Her memoirs are all worth reading.
August 11, 2025
Expertly written, keen observations, great storytelling, fantastic yet true name dropping.
Teffi is now in my favourite writers list and I need more of her work!
If you want great humour and writing without waffle and to the point, it’s all here. Plus her meetings with Lenin, Rasputin, Tolstoy and Repin. I’ve already bought another of her books.
Teffi is now in my favourite writers list and I need more of her work!
If you want great humour and writing without waffle and to the point, it’s all here. Plus her meetings with Lenin, Rasputin, Tolstoy and Repin. I’ve already bought another of her books.
August 31, 2018
I love Teffi! I only wish some of these essays had been longer. She's somehow so relatable (100 years later) but also casually drops little tidbits like the time Tsar Nicholas read one of her stories, like its nothing.
August 16, 2016
I thought I was going to enjoy this book more than I did. I think I was expecting something else, it's more like a diary, than stories. The narrator, always in the first person, seems too important to everyone around her, although maybe it was like that, its annoying that everyone wanted something from her, and had read her stories, its an ego problem maybe. She is just too important, so much that she makes others less interesting, since they seem to be revolving around her.
I did like the last phrase though,
"It's sad to wonder about the graveyard of my tired memory, where all hurts have been forgiven, where every sin has been more that atoned for, every riddle unriddeled and twilight quietly cloaks the crosses, now no longer upright, of graves I once wept over."
I did like the last phrase though,
"It's sad to wonder about the graveyard of my tired memory, where all hurts have been forgiven, where every sin has been more that atoned for, every riddle unriddeled and twilight quietly cloaks the crosses, now no longer upright, of graves I once wept over."
October 16, 2016
I'm kind of in love here. What an overdue find. She's a master and draws no attention to the mechanics. Chekhovian deftness, subtlely tragicomic, but also just uncomplicatedly funny. Felt sometimes like Twain or Parker or Saunders. But with a shrewd talent for characterful mimesis: her Merezhkovskys jumped right off the page and engaged like the Verdurins or Norpois or de Charlus. Absolutely adored both this and 'Memories,' and eager for Chandler et al to please hurry and translate more, much more. Subtitle the next collection 'The Rest of Teffi.'
February 9, 2019
Interesting memoirs, yet not-quite-memoirs of sorts, recalling time during Teffi's childhood, early years and later years. They aren't quite autobiographical as she sometimes writes herself as one of her sisters in the stories, but other times provides quite poignant memoirs of meeting Rasputin + others.
She does keep it interesting. Quick read and often humorous read, but never with any great action or gripping scenes. A strange little book.
She does keep it interesting. Quick read and often humorous read, but never with any great action or gripping scenes. A strange little book.
October 21, 2016
I love memoirs. I don't care how true-to-life they are. I love other people's emotional snapshots of times, places, friends, etc. This one is now one of my new favorites, and some of the early chapters actually made me laugh out loud. Highly recommended if you like memoirs and/or Russian literature.
April 19, 2020
My husband gave me the paperback not the Kindle edition but there's no edit feature for that.
He gave me this book for Christmas because I love Anna Karenina and Chekov and Russian history and old Hollywood gossip magazines--what are the odds of finding such an amalgamation of genres in one non-fiction account of the last days of the White Russians in their own country. I don't have much time to read books other than the classics I teach at my school. He said I could read this one in bits, and I have found that very compelling. Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, or Teffi, was a famous literary figure in the last decades of the Russian monarchy. She eventually emigrated to Paris around the beginning or during (I think--I can't find my copy now) the Russian Civil war. I pick it up and put it down. I have returned to it again because this strange interlude as I call the corona virus panic has put me in mind of Teffi's descriptions of the numbness and dumbfounding strangeness of losing a way of life that had been her family's for a hundred or more years. I can only peek through the shadow of a curtain to view the duress that the Russian upper classes suffered as they were stripped of their titles and their possessions, living in a few rooms of their formerly grand homes and seeking staples and food from one store to the next. I am an alarmist, so I read almost to enure myself to the prospect of greater paucity here in America. Surprised by Teffi's almost lightheartedness about her circumstances, I entered into her accounts of parties before and after with the absorption that I read about their flailing and hopeless contemporary doppelgangers in Royalty magazine online or view on YouTube. I have to say that her portraits of various social circles in which she moves does satisfy my gossip columnist fetish, especially her avoidance of the, in my 20th century pejorative, "creepy," Rasputin, who keeps trying to insinuate himself into her set. She appears breezy but conveys a subdued sorrow in capturing the trials of her former aristocrat and artist friends, who must sweep streets and scrounge a living. She reflects upon their stricken resignation to the party members (extremely unflattering depiction needless to say) whom they had spurned in earlier days. That vision makes me a bit despondent. Teffi presents party apparatchiks as base manipulators and liars. Rather how I feel about some former friends who've become American Bolsheviks. I have droned on but it is quite a different view of the Russian literati and the end of the White Russian splendor, as I see myself rather as Cinderella's looking in at the ball now upended and the palace ransacked.
He gave me this book for Christmas because I love Anna Karenina and Chekov and Russian history and old Hollywood gossip magazines--what are the odds of finding such an amalgamation of genres in one non-fiction account of the last days of the White Russians in their own country. I don't have much time to read books other than the classics I teach at my school. He said I could read this one in bits, and I have found that very compelling. Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, or Teffi, was a famous literary figure in the last decades of the Russian monarchy. She eventually emigrated to Paris around the beginning or during (I think--I can't find my copy now) the Russian Civil war. I pick it up and put it down. I have returned to it again because this strange interlude as I call the corona virus panic has put me in mind of Teffi's descriptions of the numbness and dumbfounding strangeness of losing a way of life that had been her family's for a hundred or more years. I can only peek through the shadow of a curtain to view the duress that the Russian upper classes suffered as they were stripped of their titles and their possessions, living in a few rooms of their formerly grand homes and seeking staples and food from one store to the next. I am an alarmist, so I read almost to enure myself to the prospect of greater paucity here in America. Surprised by Teffi's almost lightheartedness about her circumstances, I entered into her accounts of parties before and after with the absorption that I read about their flailing and hopeless contemporary doppelgangers in Royalty magazine online or view on YouTube. I have to say that her portraits of various social circles in which she moves does satisfy my gossip columnist fetish, especially her avoidance of the, in my 20th century pejorative, "creepy," Rasputin, who keeps trying to insinuate himself into her set. She appears breezy but conveys a subdued sorrow in capturing the trials of her former aristocrat and artist friends, who must sweep streets and scrounge a living. She reflects upon their stricken resignation to the party members (extremely unflattering depiction needless to say) whom they had spurned in earlier days. That vision makes me a bit despondent. Teffi presents party apparatchiks as base manipulators and liars. Rather how I feel about some former friends who've become American Bolsheviks. I have droned on but it is quite a different view of the Russian literati and the end of the White Russian splendor, as I see myself rather as Cinderella's looking in at the ball now upended and the palace ransacked.
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