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Nadezhda lokhvitskaya taffy. Nadezhda Teffi biography and creativity

Nadezhda lokhvitskaya taffy. Nadezhda Teffi biography and creativity

16.07.2019

Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya was born on May 9 (21), 1872 in St. Petersburg (according to other sources in the Volyn province) in the family of a lawyer Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky (-). She studied at the gymnasium on Liteiny Prospekt.

She was called the first Russian comedian of the beginning of the 20th century, "the queen of Russian humor." However, she has never been a supporter of banal humor, taking readers into the realm of pure humor, where it is refined with sadness and witty observations of the surrounding life. After emigration, satire and other useless purposes of humor gradually cease to dominate her work; observation of the intention of humor gave her texts a philosophical character.

Nickname

There are several options for the origin of the pseudonym Teffi.

The first version is stated by the writer herself in the story "Alias". She did not want to sign her texts with a male name, as contemporary writers often did: “I didn’t want to hide behind a male pseudonym. Cowardly and cowardly. It is better to choose something incomprehensible, neither this nor that. But what? You need a name that would bring happiness. The best name is some fool - fools are always happy ". To her "remembered<…>one fool, really excellent and, in addition, one who was lucky, which means he was recognized by fate itself as an ideal fool. His name was Stepan, and his family called him Steffi. Rejecting the first letter from delicacy (so that the fool does not become arrogant) ", writer “I decided to sign my little play “Teffi””. After the successful premiere of this play, in an interview with a journalist, when asked about the pseudonym, Teffi replied that “this is ... the name of one fool ..., that is, such a surname”. The journalist noticed that he "they said it was from Kipling". Taffy remembering Kipling's song Taffy was a walshman / Taffy was a thief…(rus. Taffy was from Wales, Taffy was a thief ), agreed with this version.

The same version is voiced by the researcher of creativity Teffi E. Nitraur, indicating the name of the acquaintance of the writer as Stefan and specifying the title of the play - "Women's Question", and a group of authors under the general supervision of A. I. Smirnova, who attribute the name Stepan to a servant in the Lokhvitsky house.

Another version of the origin of the pseudonym is offered by the researchers of Teffi's work E. M. Trubilova and D. D. Nikolaev, according to whom the pseudonym for Nadezhda Alexandrovna, who loved hoaxes and jokes, and was also the author of literary parodies, feuilletons, became part of a literary game aimed at creation of an appropriate image of the author.

There is also a version that Teffi took her pseudonym because her sister was printed under her real name - the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who was called "Russian Sappho".

Creation

In Russia

Since childhood, she was fond of classical Russian literature. Her idols were A. S. Pushkin and L. N. Tolstoy, she was interested in modern literature and painting, she was friends with the artist Alexander Benois. Also, Teffi was greatly influenced by N. V. Gogol, F. M. Dostoevsky and her contemporaries F. Sologub and A. Averchenko.

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya began writing as a child, but her literary debut took place almost at the age of thirty. The first publication of Teffi took place on September 2, 1901 in the weekly "North" - it was a poem "I had a dream, crazy and beautiful..."

Taffy herself spoke of her debut like this: “They took my poem and took it to an illustrated magazine without telling me a word about it. And then they brought the issue of the magazine where the poem was printed, which made me very angry. I did not want to publish then, because one of my older sisters, Mirra Lokhvitskaya, had been publishing her poems for a long time and with success. It seemed to me something funny if we all got into literature. By the way, that's how it happened ... So - I was unhappy. But when they sent me a fee from the editorial office, it made the most gratifying impression on me. .

In exile

In exile, Teffi wrote stories depicting pre-revolutionary Russia, all the same philistine life that she described in collections published at home. melancholy header "That's how they lived" unites these stories, reflecting the collapse of the emigration's hopes for the return of the past, the complete futility of an unattractive life in a foreign country. In the first issue of the Latest News newspaper (April 27, 1920), Teffi's story was printed "Kefer?"(French "What to do?"), and the phrase of his hero, the old general, who, looking around in confusion at the Parisian square, mutters: “All this is good… but que faire? Fer something ke?, has become a kind of password for those in exile.

The writer has published in many prominent periodicals of the Russian emigration (“Common Cause”, “Renaissance”, “Rul”, “Today”, “Link”, “Modern Notes”, “Firebird”). Taffy has released a number of story books - "Lynx" (), "Book June" (), "About tenderness"() - showing new facets of her talent, like the plays of this period - "Moment of Destiny" , "Nothing like this"() - and the only experience of the novel - "Adventurous Romance"(1931). But she considered her best book to be a collection of short stories. "Witch". The genre affiliation of the novel, indicated in the title, raised doubts among the first reviewers: a discrepancy between the “soul” of the novel (B. Zaitsev) and the title was noted. Modern researchers point to similarities with adventurous, picaresque, courtly, detective novels, as well as myth novels.

In the works of Teffi of this time, sad, even tragic motifs are noticeably intensified. “They were afraid of Bolshevik death - and died a death here. We only think about what is there now. We are only interested in what comes from there.”, - said in one of her first Parisian miniatures "Nostalgia" () .

Teffi planned to write about the heroes of L. N. Tolstoy and M. Cervantes, ignored by critics, but these plans were not destined to come true. On September 30, 1952, Teffi celebrated her name day in Paris, and died just a week later.

Bibliography

Editions prepared by Teffi

Seven lights. - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1910
Humorous stories. Book. 1. - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1910
Humorous stories. Book. 2 (Humanoid). - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1911
And it became so. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1912
Carousel. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1913
Miniatures and monologues. T. 1. - St. Petersburg: ed. M. G. Kornfeld, 1913
Eight miniatures. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1913
Smoke without fire. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1914
Nothing of the kind, Pg.: New Satyricon, 1915
Miniatures and monologues. T. 2. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1915
Inanimate animal. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1916
And it became so. 7th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1917
Yesterday. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
Smoke without fire. 9th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
Carousel. 4th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
So they lived. - Paris, 1920
Black iris. - Stockholm, 1921
Treasures of the earth. - Berlin, 1921
Quiet backwater. - Paris, 1921
Lynx. - Berlin, 1923
Passiflora. - Berlin, 1923
Shamran. Songs of the East. - Berlin, 1923
Evening day. - Prague, 1924
Town. - Paris, 1927
June book. - Paris, 1931
Adventure romance. - Paris, 1931
Witch . - Paris, 1936
About tenderness. - Paris, 1938
Zigzag. - Paris, 1939
All about love. - Paris, 1946
Earth rainbow. - New York, 1952
Life and Collar
Mitenka
inspiration
Own and others

Pirated editions

Instead of politics. Stories. - M.-L.: ZiF, 1926
Yesterday. Humorous. stories. - Kyiv: Cosmos, 1927
Tango of death. - M.: ZiF, 1927
Sweet memories. -M.-L.: ZiF, 1927

Collected works

Collected works [in 7 vols.]. Comp. and prep. texts by D. D. Nikolaev and E. M. Trubilova. - M.: Lakom, 1998-2005.
Sobr. cit.: In 5 volumes - M.: TERRA Book Club, 2008

Other

Ancient history / . - 1909
Ancient history / General history, processed by the "Satyricon". - St. Petersburg: ed. M. G. Kornfeld, 1912

Criticism

Teffi's works were treated extremely positively in literary circles. Writer and contemporary Teffi Mikhail Osorgin considered her "one of the most intelligent and sighted modern writers."

The literary encyclopedia of 1929-1939 reports the poetess extremely vaguely and negatively:

The cult of love, voluptuousness, a thick touch of oriental exoticism and symbolism, the chanting of various ecstatic states of the soul - the main content of T.'s poetry. Occasionally and by chance, the motives for the fight against "autocracy" sounded here, but T.'s social ideals were extremely vague. From the beginning of the 10s. T. switched to prose, giving a number of collections of humorous stories. In them, T. superficially criticizes some philistine prejudices and habits, in satirical scenes depicts the life of the St. Petersburg "half world." Sometimes representatives of the working people come into the author's field of vision, with whom the main characters come into contact; they are mostly cooks, maids, painters, represented by stupid and senseless creatures. In addition to poems and stories, T. wrote and translated a number of plays. The first play "Women's Question" was staged by the St. Petersburg Maly Theater; several others ran at different times in metropolitan and provincial theaters. In emigration, T. wrote stories that depict pre-revolutionary Russia, all the same petty-bourgeois life. The melancholy heading "Thus they lived" unites these stories, reflecting the collapse of the white emigration's hopes for the return of the past, the complete hopelessness of the unsightly emigrant life. Talking about the "sweet memories" of emigrants, T. comes to an ironic image of pre-revolutionary Russia, shows the stupidity and worthlessness of philistine existence. These works testify to the cruel disappointment of the emigrant writer in the people with whom she tied her fate.

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Notes

O. N. MIKHAILOV Taffy // Ch. ed. A. A. Surkov Brief literary encyclopedia. - M., 1972. - T. 7. - pp. 708-709.
Nitraur E."Life laughs and cries ..." About the fate and work of Teffi // Teffi. Nostalgia: Stories; Memories / Comp. B. Averina; Intro. Art. E. Nitraur. - L .: Artist. lit., 1989. - S. 4-5. - ISBN 5-280-00930-X.
The women's gymnasium, opened in 1864, was located on Basseynaya Street (now Nekrasov Street), at number 15. In her Nadezhda Alexandrovna noted: “I saw my work in print for the first time when I was thirteen years old. It was an ode I wrote for the anniversary of the gymnasium.
(Russian). Literary Encyclopedia. Fundamental Electronic Library (1939). Retrieved January 30, 2010. .
Taffy. Memories // Taffy. Nostalgia: Stories; Memories / Comp. B. Averina; Intro. Art. E. Nitraur. - L .: Artist. lit., 1989. - S. 267-446. - ISBN 5-280-00930-X.
Don Aminado. Train on the third track. - New York, 1954. - S. 256-267.
Taffy. Pseudonym // Renaissance (Paris). - 1931. - December 20.
Taffy.(Russian). Small prose of the Silver Age of Russian literature. Retrieved May 29, 2011. .
Literature of the Russian Diaspora (“the first wave” of emigration: 1920-1940): Textbook: At 2 hours, Part 2 / A. I. Smirnova, A. V. Mlechko, S. V. Baranov and others; Under total ed. Dr. Philol. sciences, prof. A. I. Smirnova. - Volgograd: VolGU Publishing House, 2004. - 232 p.
Poetry of the Silver Age: an anthology // Foreword, articles and notes by B. S. Akimov. - M.: Rodionov Publishing House, Literature, 2005. - 560 p. - (Series "Classics at school"). - S. 420.

An excerpt characterizing Teffi

“But this, brothers, is another fire,” said the batman.
Everyone turned their attention to the glow.
- Why, they said, Mamonov Cossacks lit Maly Mytishchi.
- They! No, this is not Mytishchi, it is far away.
“Look, it’s definitely in Moscow.
Two of the men stepped off the porch, went behind the carriage, and sat down on the footboard.
- It's left! Well, Mytishchi is over there, and this is completely on the other side.
Several people joined the first.
- Look, it's blazing, - said one, - this, gentlemen, is a fire in Moscow: either in Sushchevskaya or in Rogozhskaya.
Nobody responded to this remark. And for a long time all these people silently looked at the distant flames of a new fire.
The old man, the count's valet (as he was called), Danilo Terentyich, went up to the crowd and called out to Mishka.
- You didn’t see anything, slut ... The count will ask, but there is no one; go get your dress.
- Yes, I just ran for water, - said Mishka.
- And what do you think, Danilo Terentyich, it's like a glow in Moscow? one of the footmen said.
Danilo Terentyich made no answer, and again everyone was silent for a long time. The glow spread and swayed further and further.
“God have mercy! .. wind and dry land ...” the voice said again.
- Look how it went. Oh my God! you can see the jackdaws. Lord, have mercy on us sinners!
- They'll put it out.
- Who to put out then? came the voice of Danila Terentyich, who had been silent until now. His voice was calm and slow. “Moscow is indeed, brothers,” he said, “she is the mother of the squirrel…” His voice broke off, and he suddenly let out an old sob. And as if everyone was just waiting for this in order to understand the meaning that this visible glow had for them. There were sighs, words of prayer, and the sobbing of the old count's valet.

The valet, returning, reported to the count that Moscow was on fire. The count put on his dressing-gown and went out to have a look. Sonya, who had not yet undressed, and Madame Schoss came out with him. Natasha and the countess were alone in the room. (Petya was no longer with the family; he went ahead with his regiment, marching to Trinity.)
The Countess wept when she heard the news of the fire in Moscow. Natasha, pale, with fixed eyes, sitting under the icons on the bench (in the very place where she sat down when she arrived), did not pay any attention to her father's words. She listened to the incessant groan of the adjutant, heard through three houses.
- Oh, what a horror! - said, come back from the yard, cold and frightened Sonya. - I think all of Moscow will burn, a terrible glow! Natasha, look now, you can see it from the window from here, ”she said to her sister, apparently wanting to entertain her with something. But Natasha looked at her, as if not understanding what she was being asked, and again stared with her eyes at the corner of the stove. Natasha has been in this state of tetanus since this morning, from the very time that Sonya, to the surprise and annoyance of the countess, for no reason at all, found it necessary to announce to Natasha about the wound of Prince Andrei and about his presence with them on the train. The countess was angry with Sonya, as she rarely got angry. Sonya cried and asked for forgiveness, and now, as if trying to make amends for her guilt, she did not stop caring for her sister.
“Look, Natasha, how terribly it burns,” said Sonya.
- What is on fire? Natasha asked. – Oh, yes, Moscow.
And as if in order not to offend Sonya by her refusal and to get rid of her, she moved her head to the window, looked so that she obviously could not see anything, and again sat down in her former position.
- Didn't you see it?
“No, really, I saw it,” she said in a pleading voice.
Both the countess and Sonya understood that Moscow, the fire of Moscow, whatever it was, of course, could not matter to Natasha.
The count again went behind the partition and lay down. The countess went up to Natasha, touched her head with her upturned hand, as she did when her daughter was sick, then touched her forehead with her lips, as if to find out if there was a fever, and kissed her.
- You are cold. You're all trembling. You should go to bed,” she said.
- Lie down? Yes, okay, I'll go to bed. I'm going to bed now, - said Natasha.
Since Natasha was told this morning that Prince Andrei was seriously wounded and was traveling with them, she only in the first minute asked a lot about where? How? is he dangerously injured? and can she see him? But after she was told that she was not allowed to see him, that he was seriously injured, but that his life was not in danger, she obviously did not believe what she was told, but convinced that no matter how much she said, she would be answer the same thing, stopped asking and talking. All the way, with big eyes, which the countess knew so well and whose expression the countess was so afraid of, Natasha sat motionless in the corner of the carriage and was now sitting in the same way on the bench on which she sat down. She was thinking about something, something she was deciding or had already decided in her mind now - the countess knew this, but what it was, she did not know, and this frightened and tormented her.
- Natasha, undress, my dear, lie down on my bed. (Only the countess alone was made a bed on the bed; m me Schoss and both young ladies had to sleep on the floor in the hay.)
“No, mom, I’ll lie down here on the floor,” Natasha said angrily, went to the window and opened it. The groan of the adjutant was heard more distinctly from the open window. She stuck her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her thin shoulders tremble with sobs and beat against the frame. Natasha knew that it was not Prince Andrei who was moaning. She knew that Prince Andrei was lying in the same connection where they were, in another hut across the passage; but this terrible unceasing groan made her sob. The Countess exchanged glances with Sonya.
"Lie down, my dear, lie down, my friend," said the countess, lightly touching Natasha's shoulder with her hand. - Well, go to bed.
“Ah, yes ... I’ll lie down now, now,” said Natasha, hastily undressing and tearing off the strings of her skirts. Throwing off her dress and putting on a jacket, she tucked her legs up, sat down on the bed prepared on the floor and, throwing her short, thin braid over her shoulder, began to weave it. Thin long habitual fingers quickly, deftly took apart, weaved, tied a braid. Natasha's head, with a habitual gesture, turned first to one side, then to the other, but her eyes, feverishly open, fixedly stared straight ahead. When the night costume was over, Natasha quietly sank down on a sheet spread on hay from the edge of the door.
“Natasha, lie down in the middle,” said Sonya.
“No, I’m here,” Natasha said. "Go to bed," she added with annoyance. And she buried her face in the pillow.
The countess, m me Schoss, and Sonya hurriedly undressed and lay down. One lamp was left in the room. But in the yard it was bright from the fire of Maly Mytishchi, two miles away, and the drunken cries of the people were buzzing in the tavern, which was broken by the Mamon Cossacks, on the warp, in the street, and the incessant groan of the adjutant was heard all the time.
For a long time Natasha listened to the internal and external sounds that reached her, and did not move. At first she heard her mother's prayer and sighs, the creaking of her bed under her, the familiar whistling snore of m me Schoss, Sonya's quiet breathing. Then the Countess called Natasha. Natasha did not answer her.
“He seems to be sleeping, mother,” Sonya answered quietly. The Countess, after a pause, called again, but no one answered her.
Soon after, Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did not move, despite the fact that her small bare foot, knocked out from under the covers, shivered on the bare floor.
As if celebrating the victory over everyone, a cricket screamed in the crack. The rooster crowed far away, relatives responded. In the tavern, the screams died down, only the same stand of the adjutant was heard. Natasha got up.
- Sonya? are you sleeping? Mother? she whispered. No one answered. Natasha slowly and cautiously got up, crossed herself and carefully stepped with her narrow and flexible bare foot on the dirty cold floor. The floorboard creaked. She, quickly moving her feet, ran like a kitten a few steps and took hold of the cold bracket of the door.
It seemed to her that something heavy, evenly striking, was knocking on all the walls of the hut: it was beating her heart, which was dying from fear, from horror and love, bursting.
She opened the door, stepped over the threshold and stepped onto the damp, cold earth of the porch. The chill that gripped her refreshed her. She felt the sleeping man with her bare foot, stepped over him and opened the door to the hut where Prince Andrei lay. It was dark in this hut. In the back corner, by the bed, on which something was lying, on a bench stood a tallow candle burnt with a large mushroom.
In the morning, Natasha, when she was told about the wound and the presence of Prince Andrei, decided that she should see him. She didn't know what it was for, but she knew that the date would be painful, and she was even more convinced that it was necessary.
All day she lived only in the hope that at night she would see him. But now that the moment had come, she was terrified of what she would see. How was he mutilated? What was left of him? Was he like that, what was that unceasing groan of the adjutant? Yes, he was. He was in her imagination the personification of that terrible moan. When she saw an indistinct mass in the corner and took his knees raised under the covers by his shoulders, she imagined some kind of terrible body and stopped in horror. But an irresistible force pulled her forward. She cautiously took one step, then another, and found herself in the middle of a small cluttered hut. In the hut, under the images, another person was lying on benches (it was Timokhin), and two more people were lying on the floor (they were a doctor and a valet).
The valet got up and whispered something. Timokhin, suffering from pain in his wounded leg, did not sleep and looked with all his eyes at the strange appearance of a girl in a poor shirt, jacket and eternal cap. The sleepy and frightened words of the valet; "What do you want, why?" - they only made Natasha come up to the one that lay in the corner as soon as possible. As terrifying as this body was, it must have been visible to her. She passed the valet: the burning mushroom of the candle fell off, and she clearly saw Prince Andrei lying on the blanket with outstretched arms, just as she had always seen him.
He was the same as always; but the inflamed complexion of his face, the brilliant eyes fixed enthusiastically on her, and especially the tender childish neck protruding from the laid back collar of his shirt, gave him a special, innocent, childish look, which, however, she had never seen in Prince Andrei. She walked over to him and, with a quick, lithe, youthful movement, knelt down.
He smiled and extended his hand to her.

For Prince Andrei, seven days have passed since he woke up at the dressing station in the Borodino field. All this time he was almost in constant unconsciousness. The fever and inflammation of the intestines, which were damaged, in the opinion of the doctor who was traveling with the wounded, must have carried him away. But on the seventh day he ate with pleasure a piece of bread with tea, and the doctor noticed that the general fever had decreased. Prince Andrei regained consciousness in the morning. The first night after leaving Moscow was quite warm, and Prince Andrei was left to sleep in a carriage; but in Mytishchi the wounded man himself demanded to be carried out and to be given tea. The pain inflicted on him by being carried to the hut made Prince Andrei moan loudly and lose consciousness again. When they laid him down on the camp bed, he lay with his eyes closed for a long time without moving. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “What about tea?” This memory for the small details of life struck the doctor. He felt his pulse and, to his surprise and displeasure, noticed that the pulse was better. To his displeasure, the doctor noticed this because, from his experience, he was convinced that Prince Andrei could not live, and that if he did not die now, he would only die with great suffering some time later. With Prince Andrei they carried the major of his regiment Timokhin, who had joined them in Moscow, with a red nose, wounded in the leg in the same Battle of Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, the prince's valet, his coachman and two batmen.
Prince Andrei was given tea. He drank greedily, looking ahead at the door with feverish eyes, as if trying to understand and remember something.
- I don't want any more. Timokhin here? - he asked. Timokhin crawled up to him along the bench.
“I'm here, Your Excellency.
- How is the wound?
– My then with? Nothing. Here you are? - Prince Andrei again thought, as if remembering something.
- Could you get a book? - he said.
- Which book?
– Gospel! I have no.
The doctor promised to get it and began to question the prince about how he felt. Prince Andrei reluctantly but reasonably answered all the doctor's questions and then said that he should have put a roller on him, otherwise it would be awkward and very painful. The doctor and the valet raised the overcoat with which he was covered, and, wincing at the heavy smell of rotten meat spreading from the wound, began to examine this terrible place. The doctor was very dissatisfied with something, he altered something differently, turned the wounded man over so that he again groaned and, from pain during the turning, again lost consciousness and began to rave. He kept talking about getting this book as soon as possible and putting it there.
- And what does it cost you! he said. “I don’t have it, please take it out, put it in for a minute,” he said in a pitiful voice.
The doctor went out into the hallway to wash his hands.
“Ah, shameless, really,” said the doctor to the valet, who was pouring water on his hands. I just didn't watch it for a minute. After all, you put it right on the wound. It's such a pain that I wonder how he endures.
“We seem to have planted, Lord Jesus Christ,” said the valet.
For the first time, Prince Andrei understood where he was and what had happened to him, and remembered that he had been wounded and that at the moment when the carriage stopped in Mytishchi, he asked to go to the hut. Confused again from pain, he came to his senses another time in the hut, when he was drinking tea, and then again, repeating in his recollection everything that had happened to him, he most vividly imagined that moment at the dressing station when, at the sight of the suffering of a person he did not love , these new thoughts that promised him happiness came to him. And these thoughts, although vague and indefinite, now again took possession of his soul. He remembered that he now had a new happiness and that this happiness had something in common with the Gospel. That's why he asked for the gospel. But the bad position that had been given to his wound, the new turning over again confused his thoughts, and for the third time he woke up to life in the perfect stillness of the night. Everyone was sleeping around him. The cricket was shouting across the entryway, someone was shouting and singing in the street, cockroaches rustled on the table and icons, in autumn a thick fly beat on his headboard and near a tallow candle that was burning with a large mushroom and stood beside him.
His soul was not in a normal state. A healthy person usually thinks, feels and remembers at the same time about an innumerable number of objects, but has the power and strength, having chosen one series of thoughts or phenomena, to stop all his attention on this series of phenomena. A healthy person, in a moment of deepest reflection, breaks away to say a courteous word to the person who has entered, and again returns to his thoughts. The soul of Prince Andrei was not in a normal state in this regard. All the forces of his soul were more active, clearer than ever, but they acted outside of his will. The most diverse thoughts and ideas simultaneously owned him. Sometimes his thought suddenly began to work, and with such force, clarity and depth, with which it had never been able to act in a healthy state; but suddenly, in the middle of her work, she broke off, was replaced by some unexpected performance, and there was no strength to return to her.
“Yes, a new happiness has opened up to me, inalienable from a person,” he thought, lying in a half-dark, quiet hut and looking ahead with feverishly open, stopped eyes. Happiness that is outside of material forces, outside of material external influences on a person, the happiness of one soul, the happiness of love! Any person can understand it, but only God alone can recognize and prescribe its motif. But how did God ordain this law? Why a son? .. And suddenly the train of these thoughts was interrupted, and Prince Andrei heard (not knowing whether he was delirious or really hears this), heard some kind of quiet, whispering voice, incessantly repeating to the beat: “And drink, drink, drink,” then “and ti ti” again “and drink ti ti” again “and ti ti”. At the same time, to the sound of this whispering music, Prince Andrei felt that some strange airy building of thin needles or splinters was being erected above his face, above the very middle. He felt (although it was hard for him) that he had to diligently keep his balance so that the building that was being erected would not collapse; but all the same it collapsed and again slowly rose to the sounds of evenly whispering music. "It's pulling! stretches! stretches and everything stretches, ”Prince Andrei said to himself. Together with listening to the whisper and with the feeling of this stretching and rising building of needles, Prince Andrei saw in fits and starts the red light of a candle surrounded by a circle and heard the rustling of cockroaches and the rustling of a fly beating on the pillow and on his face. And every time a fly touched his face, it produced a burning sensation; but at the same time he was surprised that, striking in the very region of the building erected on the face of his face, the fly did not destroy it. But besides that, there was one more important thing. It was white at the door, it was a statue of a sphinx that crushed him too.
“But maybe this is my shirt on the table,” thought Prince Andrei, “and these are my legs, and this is the door; but why is everything stretching and moving forward and drink, drink, drink, and drink - and drink, drink, drink ... - Enough, stop it, please leave it, - Prince Andrei heavily asked someone. And suddenly the thought and feeling came up again with unusual clarity and force.
“Yes, love,” he thought again with perfect clarity), but not the love that loves for something, for something or for some reason, but the love that I experienced for the first time when, dying, I saw my enemy and still loved him. I experienced that feeling of love, which is the very essence of the soul and for which no object is needed. I still have that blissful feeling. Love your neighbors, love your enemies. To love everything is to love God in all manifestations. You can love a dear person with human love; but only the enemy can be loved with divine love. And from this I experienced such joy when I felt that I love that person. What about him? Is he alive... Loving with human love, one can move from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not death, nothing can destroy it. She is the essence of the soul. And how many people I hated in my life. And of all people, I did not love or hate anyone else like her. And he vividly imagined Natasha, not in the way he had imagined her before, with only her charm, joyful for himself; but for the first time imagined her soul. And he understood her feeling, her suffering, shame, repentance. He now for the first time understood the cruelty of his refusal, saw the cruelty of his break with her. “If only it were possible for me to see her one more time. Once, looking into those eyes, say ... "
And drink, drink, drink, and drink, and drink, drink - boom, a fly hit ... And his attention was suddenly transferred to another world of reality and delirium, in which something special was happening. Everything in this world was still being erected, without collapsing, the building, something was still stretching, the same candle was burning with a red circle, the same Sphinx shirt was lying at the door; but besides all this, something creaked, smelled of fresh wind, and a new white sphinx, standing, appeared before the door. And in the head of this sphinx there was a pale face and shining eyes of that same Natasha, of whom he was now thinking.
“Oh, how heavy is this incessant nonsense!” thought Prince Andrei, trying to drive this face out of his imagination. But this face stood before him with the force of reality, and this face drew nearer. Prince Andrei wanted to return to the former world of pure thought, but he could not, and delirium drew him into his own realm. A quiet whispering voice continued its measured babble, something pressed, stretched, and a strange face stood before him. Prince Andrei gathered all his strength to come to his senses; he stirred, and suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, his eyes became dim, and he, like a man who has plunged into water, lost consciousness. When he woke up, Natasha, that very living Natasha, whom, of all the people in the world, he most of all wanted to love with that new, pure divine love that was now revealed to him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was a living, real Natasha, and was not surprised, but quietly delighted. Natasha, on her knees, frightened, but chained (she could not move), looked at him, holding back her sobs. Her face was pale and motionless. Only in the lower part of it fluttered something.
Prince Andrei breathed a sigh of relief, smiled and held out his hand.
- You? - he said. - How happy!
Natasha with a quick but careful movement moved towards him on her knees and, carefully taking his hand, bent over her face and began to kiss her, slightly touching her lips.
- Sorry! she said in a whisper, raising her head and looking at him. - Excuse me!
“I love you,” said Prince Andrei.
- Sorry…
- Forgive what? asked Prince Andrew.
“Forgive me for what I did,” Natasha said in a barely audible, interrupted whisper and began to kiss her hand more often, slightly touching her lips.
“I love you more, better than before,” said Prince Andrei, raising her face with his hand so that he could look into her eyes.
Those eyes, filled with happy tears, looked at him timidly, compassionately and joyfully with love. Natasha's thin and pale face with swollen lips was more than ugly, it was terrible. But Prince Andrei did not see this face, he saw shining eyes that were beautiful. Behind them, a voice was heard.
Pyotr the valet, now completely awake from sleep, woke the doctor. Timokhin, who could not sleep all the time because of the pain in his leg, had long seen everything that was being done, and, diligently covering his undressed body with a sheet, huddled on the bench.
- What is it? said the doctor, rising from his bed. “Let me go, sir.”
At the same time, a girl knocked on the door, sent by the countess, missing her daughter.
Like a somnambulist who was awakened in the middle of her sleep, Natasha left the room and, returning to her hut, fell on her bed sobbing.

From that day on, during the entire further journey of the Rostovs, at all rests and overnight stays, Natasha did not leave the wounded Bolkonsky, and the doctor had to admit that he did not expect from the girl either such firmness or such skill in walking after the wounded.
No matter how terrible the idea seemed to the countess that Prince Andrei could (very likely, according to the doctor) die during the journey in the arms of her daughter, she could not resist Natasha. Although, as a result of the now established rapprochement between the wounded Prince Andrei and Natasha, it occurred to me that in the event of recovery, the former relations between the bride and groom would be resumed, no one, still less Natasha and Prince Andrei, spoke about this: the unresolved, hanging question of life or death was not only over Bolkonsky, but over Russia obscured all other assumptions.

Pierre woke up late on September 3rd. His head ached, the dress in which he slept without undressing weighed heavily on his body, and in his soul there was a vague consciousness of something shameful that had been committed the day before; it was shameful yesterday's conversation with Captain Rambal.
The clock showed eleven, but it seemed especially overcast outside. Pierre got up, rubbed his eyes, and, seeing a pistol with a carved stock, which Gerasim put back on the desk, Pierre remembered where he was and what was coming to him that very day.

taffy(real name - Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya, in marriage - Buchinskaya; May 09 (21), 1872, St. Petersburg - October 6, 1952, Paris) - Russian writer and poetess, memoirist, translator, author of such famous stories as "Demonic Woman" and "Kefer". After the revolution, she emigrated. Sister of the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya and military figure Nikolai Alexandrovich Lokhvitsky.

Biography

Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya was born on May 9 (21), 1872 in St. Petersburg (according to other sources, in the Volyn province) in the family of a lawyer Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky (1830-1884). She studied at the gymnasium on Liteiny Prospekt.

In 1892, after the birth of her first daughter, she settled with her first husband Vladislav Buchinsky in his estate near Mogilev. In 1900, after the birth of her second daughter Elena and son Janek, she separated from her husband and moved to St. Petersburg, where she began her literary career.

Published since 1901. In 1910, the publishing house "Shipovnik" published the first book of poems "Seven Lights" and the collection "Humorous Stories".

She was known for satirical poems and feuilletons, she was a member of the permanent staff of the Satyricon magazine. Taffy's satire often had a very original character; Thus, the poem "From Mickiewicz" of 1905 is based on the parallel between Adam Mickiewicz's well-known ballad "The Voyevoda" and a specific topical event that took place recently. Teffi's stories were systematically printed by such authoritative Parisian newspapers and magazines as "The Coming Russia", "Link", "Russian Notes", "Modern Notes". Teffi's admirer was Nicholas II, sweets were named after Teffi. At the suggestion of Lenin, the stories of the 1920s, which described the negative aspects of emigre life, were published in the USSR in the form of pirated collections until the writer made a public accusation.

After the closure of the Russian Word newspaper in 1918, where she worked, Teffi went to Kyiv and Odessa with literary performances. This trip took her to Novorossiysk, from where she went to Turkey in the summer of 1919. In the autumn of 1919 she was already in Paris, and in February 1920 two of her poems appeared in a Parisian literary magazine, and in April she organized a literary salon. In 1922-1923 she lived in Germany.

From the mid-1920s, she lived in a de facto marriage with Pavel Andreevich Tikston (d. 1935).

She died on October 6, 1952 in Paris, two days later she was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris and buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

Nickname

There are several options for the origin of the pseudonym Teffi.

The history of the pseudonym "Teffi" is unknown. She herself pointed out that he goes back to the household nickname of the servant of the Lokhvitsky Stepan-Steffi. The same goes for R. Kipling's poems.

The first version is presented by the writer herself in the story "Pseudonym". She did not want to sign her texts with a male name, as contemporary writers often did: “I didn’t want to hide behind a male pseudonym. Cowardly and cowardly. It is better to choose something incomprehensible, neither this nor that. But what? You need a name that would bring happiness. Best of all is the name of some fool - fools are always happy. She "remembered<…>one fool, really excellent and, in addition, one who was lucky, which means he was recognized by fate itself as an ideal fool. His name was Stepan, and his family called him Steffi. Having discarded the first letter out of delicacy (so that the fool would not become arrogant), "the writer "decided to sign her play" Teffi "". After the successful premiere of this play, in an interview with a journalist, when asked about her pseudonym, Teffi replied that "this is ... the name of one fool ... that is, such a surname." The journalist remarked that he was "told it was from Kipling." Taffy, who remembered Kipling's song "Taffy was a walshman / Taffy was a thief ..." (Russian Taffy was from Wales, Taffy was a thief), agreed with this version.

Composition

Teffi is the pseudonym of Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Lokhvitskaya, who was born in 1872 in the family of a well-known lawyer. Alexander Vladimirovich, the father of the writer, was engaged in journalism and is the author of many scientific works. This family is truly unique. Two sisters of Nadezhda Alexandrovna became, like her, writers. The eldest, the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya, was even called the "Russian Sappho". The elder brother Nikolai became a general of the Izmailovsky regiment.
Despite an early passion for literature, Teffi began publishing quite late. In 1901, her first poem was published for the first time. Subsequently, in her memoirs, Nadezhda Ateksandrovna will write that she was very ashamed of this work, and she hoped that no one would read it. Since 1904, Teffi began to publish in the capital's "Birzhevye Vedomosti" as the author of feuilletons. It was here that the writer honed her skills. In the process of work in this publication, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna's talent was fully manifested in finding an original interpretation of a long-used topic, as well as achieving maximum expressiveness with the help of minimal means. In the future, in the stories of Teffi, the echoes of her work as a feuilletonist will remain: a small number of characters, a “short line”, a peculiar speech of the author that makes readers smile. The writer gained many admirers, among whom was Tsar Nikolai I himself. In 1910, the first book of her stories was published in two volumes, which was successfully sold out in a matter of days. In 1919, Teffi emigrated abroad, but until the end of her days she did not forget her homeland. Most of the collections published in Paris, Prague, Berlin, Belgrade, New York are dedicated to the Russian people.
Many contemporaries considered Teffi to be exclusively a satirist writer, although she goes far beyond just a satirist. In her stories, there is neither denunciation of specific high-ranking persons, nor "obligatory" love for the junior janitor. The writer seeks to show the reader such ordinary situations, where he himself often acts ridiculously and ridiculously. Nadezhda Alexandrovna practically does not resort to sharp exaggeration or outright caricature in her works. Without deliberately inventing a comic situation, she knows how to find the funny in an ordinary, outwardly serious one.
You can recall the story "Love", where the little heroine really liked the new worker. Taffy very comically told a seemingly simple situation. Ganka simultaneously attracts the girl to her and frightens her with her simple folk manners: “Ganka ... took out a loaf of bread and a head of garlic, rubbed the crust with garlic and began to eat ... This garlic definitely moved her away from me ... It would be better if the fish with a knife..." The main character learns that in addition to the fact that her secret love eats garlic, she is also "familiar with a simple uneducated soldier ... horror." However, the cheerful disposition of the worker attracts the girl like a magnet. The main character even decides to steal an orange for Ganka. However, the uneducated worker, who had never seen overseas fruit, did not appreciate the unexpected gift: “she bit off a piece right with the skin, and suddenly opened her mouth, and, all wrinkled ugly, spat out and threw the orange far into the bushes.” Everything is over. The girl is offended in her best feelings: "I became a thief in order to give her the best that I only knew in the world ... But she did not understand and spat." This story involuntarily evokes a smile at the naivety and childish spontaneity of the main character, but it also makes you wonder if adults sometimes act in the same way in an effort to draw someone's attention not to themselves?
Teffi's colleagues in writing, the authors of the Satyricon, often built their works on the character's violation of the "norm". The writer refused this reception. She seeks to show the comedy of the "norm" itself. A slight sharpening, a deformation hardly noticeable at first glance, and the reader suddenly notices the absurdity of the generally accepted. So, for example, the heroine of the story, Katenka, thinks about marriage with childish spontaneity: “You can get married with anyone, this is nonsense, as long as there is a brilliant party. For example, there are engineers who steal... Then, you can marry a general... But that's not what's interesting at all. I wonder with whom you will cheat on your husband. At the heart of the dreams of the main character are quite natural and pure, and their cynicism is explained only by time and circumstances. The writer in her works skillfully intertwines the "temporary" and "eternal". The first, as a rule, immediately catches the eye, and the second - only barely shines through.
Of course, Teffi's stories are fascinatingly naive and funny, but bitterness and pain are noticeable behind the subtle irony. The writer realistically reveals the vulgarity of everyday life. Sometimes the real tragedies of little people are hidden behind laughter. One can recall the story "The Agility of Hands", where all the magician's thoughts were concentrated on the fact that he had "in the morning one kopeck bun and tea without sugar." In later stories, many Teffi heroes are distinguished by their childishly infantile perception of life. Not the last role in this is played by emigration - an unsettled state, the loss of something unshakable and real, dependence on the benefits of patrons, often the lack of the ability to somehow earn money. These themes are presented most vividly in the writer's book "Gorodok". There already sounds harsh irony, somewhat reminiscent of the sharp language of Saltykov-Shchedrin. This is a description of the life and life of a small town. Its prototype was Paris, where Russian emigrants organized their state within a state: “the inhabitants of the town loved it when one of their tribe turned out to be a thief, a crook or a traitor. They also loved cottage cheese and long conversations on the phone...”. - According to Aldanov, in relation to people, Teffi is complacent and unfriendly. However, this does not prevent the reader from loving and honoring the talented writer for many years. Nadezhda Alexandrovna has many stories about children. All of them perfectly reveal the artless and entertaining world of the child. Moreover, they make adults think about their educational opportunities and claims.

16.05.2010 - 15:42

The famous writer Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Teffi spoke of herself as follows: “I was born in St. Petersburg in the spring, and, as you know, our St. Petersburg spring is very changeable: sometimes the sun shines, sometimes it rains. Therefore, I, like on the pediment of an ancient Greek theater, have two faces : laughing and crying. This is true: all the works of Teffi are funny on the one hand, and very tragic on the other ...

The family of poets

Nadezhda Aleksandrovna was born in April 1972. Her father, A. V. Lokhvitsky, was a very famous person - a professor of criminology, a wealthy person. The numerous Lokhvitsky family was distinguished by a variety of talents, the main of which was literary. All the children wrote, especially being fond of poetry.

Teffi herself said about it this way: “For some reason, this occupation was considered very shameful for us, and as soon as someone catches a brother or sister with a pencil, a notebook and an inspired face, they immediately begin to shout: “Write! He writes!" The one caught justifies himself, and the accusers mock him and jump around him on one leg: "Writes! Writes! Writer!"

Out of suspicion was only the oldest brother, a creature full of dark irony. But one day, when, after the summer holidays, he left for the Lyceum, fragments of papers were found in his room with some kind of poetic exclamations and several times repeated line: "Oh, Mirra, pale moon!" Alas! And he wrote poetry! This discovery made a strong impression on us, and who knows, maybe my older sister, Masha, having become a famous poetess, took the pseudonym Mirra Lokhvitskaya precisely because of this impression "

The poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya was very popular in Russia at the turn of the century. It was she who introduced her younger sister to the literary world, introducing her to many famous writers.

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya also started with poetry. Her first poem was published already in 1901, still under her real name. Then there are plays and the mysterious pseudonym Teffi.

Nadezhda Alexandrovna herself spoke about its origin as follows: “I wrote a one-act play, but I didn’t know at all how to make this play get on stage. Everyone around said that it was absolutely impossible, that you need to have connections in the theater world and you need to have a major literary name, otherwise the play will not only not be staged, but will never be read. That's where I became thoughtful. I didn't want to hide behind a male pseudonym. Cowardly and cowardly. Better to choose something incomprehensible, neither this nor that. But what? You need a name that will bring happiness.The best thing is the name of some fool - fools are always happy.

For fools, of course, it was not. I knew a lot of them. But if you choose, then something excellent. And then I remembered one fool, really excellent, and in addition one who was lucky. His name was Stepan, and his family called him Steffi. Having discarded the first letter out of delicacy (so that the fool would not be arrogant), I decided to sign my piece "Teffi" and sent it directly to the directorate of the Suvorinsky Theater "...

Sick of fame

And soon the name Teffi becomes one of the most popular in Russia. Her stories, plays, feuilletons are read without exaggeration by the whole country. Even the Russian emperor becomes a fan of the young and talented writer.

When a jubilee collection was compiled for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, Nicholas II was asked which of the Russian writers he would like to see in it, he resolutely replied: "Teffi! Only her. Nobody but her is needed. One Teffi!".

Interestingly, even with such a powerful fan, Teffi did not suffer from "star disease" at all, she was ironic not only in relation to her characters, but also to herself. On this occasion, Teffi, in her usual joking manner, said: “I felt like an All-Russian celebrity on the day when the messenger brought me a large box tied with a red silk ribbon. I untied the ribbon and gasped. It was full of sweets wrapped in colorful And on these pieces of paper was my portrait in paints and the signature: "Teffi!".

I immediately rushed to the phone and brag to my friends, inviting them to try the Taffy sweets. I called and called on the phone, calling guests, in a fit of pride, pissing sweets. I came to my senses only when I had emptied almost the entire three-pound box. And then I got confused. I gorged myself on my fame to the point of nausea and immediately recognized the other side of her medal."

The most cheerful magazine in Russia

Teffi in general, unlike many comedians, was a cheerful, open, cheerful person in life. Just like - a witty person both in life and in his works. Naturally, soon Averchenko and Teffi begin a close friendship and fruitful cooperation.

Averchenko was the chief editor and creator of the famous Satyricon, with which the most famous people of that time dealt. The illustrations were drawn by the artists Re-mi, Radakov, Junger, Benois, Sasha Cherny, S. Gorodetsky, O. Mandelstam and Mayakovsky delighted with their poems, L. Andreev, A. Tolstoy, A. Green placed their works. Teffi, surrounded by such brilliant names, remains a star - her stories, very funny, but with a touch of sadness, always find a warm response from readers.

Teffi, Averchenko and Osip Dymov wrote a wonderful, surprisingly funny book "World History, processed by the Satyricon", illustrated by Remi and Radakov .. It was written as a parody of textbooks, and all historical events turned upside down in it. Here an excerpt from a chapter on Ancient Greece written by Taffy: "Laconia was the southeastern part of the Peloponnese and got its name from the manner of the local inhabitants to express themselves succinctly. " Modern readers are struck in this book not so much by the humor itself, but by the level of education and extensive knowledge of the authors - so you can only joke about what you know very well ...

Nostalgia

About the events associated with the revolution, Teffi told in her book "Memoirs". This is a very scary work, despite the fact that Taffy tries to hold on and look at the most monstrous things with humor. It is impossible to read this book without shuddering...

Here, for example, is an episode of a meeting with a commissar nicknamed the Beast, who became famous for her cruelty in reprisals against "foreign elements." When looking at her, Teffi is horrified to recognize a dishwasher woman from the village where Teffi rented a summer house.

This person always volunteered to help the cook herself when it was necessary to cut chickens: “Your life was boring, ugly boredom. You wouldn’t go anywhere on your short legs. And what a luxurious feast fate has prepared for you! ", drunk. She poured her voluptuousness, sick, black. And not from around the corner, secretly, lustfully and timidly, but with all her throat, with all her madness. Those comrades of yours in leather jackets, with revolvers, are simple murderers-robbers You contemptuously threw handouts to them - fur coats, rings, money. Perhaps they obey and respect you precisely for this disinterestedness, for your "ideological commitment". But I know that for all the treasures of the world you will not yield you give them your black, your "black" work. You left it to yourself .. "...

Fleeing in horror from Soviet Russia, Teffi finds himself in Paris. Here she quickly becomes as popular as in her homeland. Her phrases, jokes, witticisms are repeated by all Russian emigrants. But one feels heavy sadness, nostalgia in them - "The town was Russian, and a river flowed through it, which was called the Seine. Therefore, the inhabitants of the town said so:" We live badly, like dogs on the Seine "".

Or the famous phrase about the Russian refugee general from the story "Ke fer?" (What to do?). “Going out to the Place de la Concorde, he looked around, looked at the sky, at the square, at the houses, at the motley, talkative crowd, scratched the bridge of his nose and said with feeling:

All this, of course, is good, gentlemen! It's even very good. But ... ke fer? Fer something ke?" But before Teffi herself, the eternal Russian question - what to do? Did not stand. She continued to work, feuilletons and Teffi's stories were constantly published in Parisian publications.

During the occupation of Paris by the Nazi troops, Teffi was unable to leave the city due to illness. She had to endure the pangs of cold, hunger, lack of money. But at the same time, she always tried to maintain her courage, not burdening her friends with her problems, on the contrary, helping them with her participation, with a kind word.

In October 1952, Nadezhda Alexandrovna was buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve de Bois near Paris. Very few people came to see her on her last journey - almost all of her friends had already died by that time ...

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Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya was born on April 24 (May 6), 1872 in St. Petersburg (according to other sources in the Volyn province) in the family of a lawyer Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky (1830-1884). She studied at the gymnasium on Liteiny Prospekt.

Published since 1901. In 1910, the publishing house "Shipovnik" published the first book of poems "Seven Lights" and the collection "Humorous Stories".

From the mid-1920s she lived in a civil marriage with Pavel Andreevich Tikston (d. 1935).

She died on October 6, 1952 in Paris, two days later she was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Paris and buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

She was called the first Russian comedian of the beginning of the 20th century, "the queen of Russian humor", but she was never a supporter of pure humor, she always combined it with sadness and witty observations of life around her. After emigration, satire and humor gradually cease to dominate in her work, observations of life acquire a philosophical character.

Nickname

There are several options for the origin of the pseudonym Teffi.

The first version is presented by the writer herself in the story "Pseudonym". She did not want to sign her texts with a male name, as contemporary writers often did: “I didn’t want to hide behind a male pseudonym. Cowardly and cowardly. It is better to choose something incomprehensible, neither this nor that. But what? You need a name that would bring happiness. Best of all is the name of some fool - fools are always happy. She "remembered<…>one fool, really excellent and, in addition, one who was lucky, which means he was recognized by fate itself as an ideal fool. His name was Stepan, and his family called him Steffi. Having discarded the first letter out of delicacy (so that the fool would not become arrogant), "the writer "decided to sign her play" Teffi "". After the successful premiere of this play, in an interview with a journalist, when asked about the pseudonym, Teffi replied that "this is ... the name of one fool ... that is, such a surname." The journalist remarked that he was "told it was from Kipling." Taffy, who remembered Kipling's song "Taffy was a walshman / Taffy was a thief ..." (Russian Taffy from Wales, Taffy was a thief), agreed with this version ..

The same version is voiced by the researcher of creativity Teffi E. Nitraur, indicating the name of a friend of the writer as Stefan and specifying the name of the play - “Women's Question”, and a group of authors under the general supervision of A. I. Smirnova, who attribute the name Stepan to a servant in the Lokhvitsky house.

There is also a version that Teffi took her pseudonym because her sister, the poetess Mirra Lokhvitskaya, who was called the "Russian Sappho", was printed under her real name.

Creation

Before emigration

Since childhood, Teffi has been fond of classical Russian literature. Her idols were A. S. Pushkin and L. N. Tolstoy, she was interested in modern literature and painting, she was friends with the artist Alexander Benois. Also, Teffi was greatly influenced by N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky and her contemporaries F. Sologub and A. Averchenko.

Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya began writing as a child, but her literary debut took place only at the age of thirty. The first publication of Teffi took place on September 2, 1901 in the journal "North" - it was a poem "I had a dream, crazy and beautiful ...".

Teffi herself spoke of her debut as follows: “They took my poem and took it to an illustrated magazine without telling me a word about it. And then they brought the issue of the magazine where the poem was printed, which made me very angry. I did not want to publish then, because one of my older sisters, Mirra Lokhvitskaya, had been publishing her poems for a long time and with success. It seemed to me something funny if we all got into literature. By the way, that's how it happened ... So - I was unhappy. But when they sent me a fee from the editorial office, it made the most gratifying impression on me.

In 1905, her stories were published in the supplement to the Niva magazine.

During the years of the First Russian Revolution (1905-1907), Teffi composed acutely topical poems for satirical magazines (parodies, feuilletons, epigrams). At the same time, the main genre of all her work was determined - a humorous story. First, in the newspaper Rech, then in Exchange News, Teffi's literary feuilletons are published in every Sunday issue, which soon brought her all-Russian love.

In the pre-revolutionary years, Teffi was very popular. She was a permanent contributor to the magazines "Satyricon" (1908-1913) and "New Satyricon" (1913-1918), which were led by her friend A. Averchenko.

The poetry collection "Seven Lights" was published in 1910. The book went almost unnoticed against the background of the resounding success of Teffi's prose. In total, before emigration, the writer published 16 collections, and in her entire life - more than 30. In addition, Teffi wrote and translated several plays. Her first play, The Women's Question, was staged by the Maly Theater in St. Petersburg.

Her next step was the creation in 1911 of the two-volume "Humorous Stories", where she criticizes philistine prejudices, and also depicts the life of the St. Petersburg "half world" and the working people, in a word, petty everyday "nonsense". Sometimes representatives of the working people come into the author's field of vision, with whom the main characters come into contact, these are mostly cooks, maids, painters, represented by stupid and senseless creatures. Everyday life and everyday life are noticed by Teffi evil and aptly. She sent an epigraph from Benedict Spinoza's Ethics to her two-volume edition, which accurately defines the tone of many of her works: "For laughter is joy, and therefore in itself is good."

In 1912, the writer created the collection “And it became so”, where she does not describe the social type of the tradesman, but shows the everyday life of gray everyday life, in 1913 - the collection “Carousel” (here we have the image of a simple man crushed by life) and “Eight miniatures”, in 1914 - “Smoke without Fire”, in 1916 - “Life-Being”, “Inanimate Beast” (where the writer describes a feeling of tragedy and trouble in life; children, nature, people are a positive ideal for Teffi here).

The events of 1917 are reflected in the essays and stories "Petrograd Life", "Heads of Panic" (1917), "Trading Russia", "Reason on a String", "Street Aesthetics", "In the Market" (1918), feuilletons "Dog Time ”,“ A little about Lenin ”,“ We believe ”,“ We waited ”,“ Deserters ”(1917),“ Seeds ”(1918).

At the end of 1918, together with A. Averchenko, Teffi left for Kiev, where their public performances were to take place, and after a year and a half of wandering around the Russian south (Odessa, Novorossiysk, Yekaterinodar), she reached Paris through Constantinople. Judging by the book "Memoirs", Teffi was not going to leave Russia. The decision was taken spontaneously, unexpectedly for herself: “The trickle of blood seen in the morning at the gates of the commissariat, slowly creeping trickle across the sidewalk cuts the road of life forever. You can't get over it. You can't go any further. You can turn around and run."

Teffi recalls that she did not leave the hope of a speedy return to Moscow, although she determined her attitude to the October Revolution long ago: “Of course, I was not afraid of death. I was afraid of angry mugs with a lantern aimed directly at my face, stupid idiotic malice. Cold, hunger, darkness, the clatter of rifle butts on the parquet floor, screams, crying, shots and someone else's death. I'm so tired of all this. I didn't want it anymore. I couldn't take it anymore."

In exile

Teffi's books continued to be published in Berlin and Paris, and exceptional success accompanied her until the end of her long life. In exile, she published more than a dozen books of prose and only two poetry collections: Shamram (Berlin, 1923) and Passiflora (Berlin, 1923). Depression, melancholy and confusion in these collections are symbolized by the images of a dwarf, a hunchback, a weeping swan, a silver ship of death, a yearning crane. .

In exile, Teffi wrote stories depicting pre-revolutionary Russia, all the same philistine life that she described in collections published at home. The melancholy heading "So they lived" unites these stories, reflecting the collapse of the emigration's hopes for the return of the past, the complete futility of an unattractive life in a foreign country. In the first issue of the Latest News newspaper (April 27, 1920), Teffi's story "Ke fer?" (French “What to do?”), And the phrase of his hero, the old general, who, looking around in confusion at the Parisian square, mutters: “All this is good ... but que faire? Fer-to ke?”, has become a kind of password for those in exile.

The writer has been published in many prominent periodicals of the Russian emigration ("Common Cause", "Renaissance", "Rul", "Today", "Link", "Modern Notes", "Firebird"). Teffi published a number of books of short stories - "Lynx" (1923), "Book of June" (1931), "On Tenderness" (1938) - which showed new facets of her talent, as well as plays of this period - "Moment of Fate" 1937, "Nothing like (1939) - and the only experience of the novel - "Adventure Romance" (1931). But she considered her best book to be the collection of short stories The Witch. The genre affiliation of the novel, indicated in the title, raised doubts among the first reviewers: a discrepancy between the “soul” of the novel (B. Zaitsev) and the title was noted. Modern researchers point to similarities with adventurous, picaresque, courtly, detective novels, as well as a mythical novel.

In the works of Teffi of this time, sad, even tragic motifs are noticeably intensified. “They were afraid of Bolshevik death - and died a death here. We only think about what is there now. We are only interested in what comes from there,” says one of her first Parisian miniatures “Nostalgia” (1920). Teffi's optimistic outlook on life will change only in old age. Previously, she called 13 years her metaphysical age, but in one of her last Parisian letters a bitter slip will slip: “All my peers die, but I still live for something ...”.

The Second World War found Teffi in Paris, where she remained due to illness. She did not collaborate in any publications of collaborators, although she was starving and in poverty. From time to time, she agreed to read her works in front of an émigré audience, which each time became less and less.

In the 1930s, Teffi turned to the memoir genre. She creates the autobiographical stories The First Visit to the Editorial Office (1929), Pseudonym (1931), How I Became a Writer (1934), 45 Years (1950), as well as artistic essays - literary portraits of famous people with whom she happened to meet. Among them are G. Rasputin, V. Lenin, A. Kerensky, A. Kollontai, F. Sologub, K. Balmont, I. Repin, A. Averchenko, Z. Gippius, D. Merezhkovsky, L. Andreev, A. Remizov, A. Kuprin, I. Bunin, I. Severyanin, M. Kuzmin, V. Meyerhold. Creating images of famous people, Teffi highlights any feature or quality that seems to her the most striking, emphasizing the individuality of a person. The originality of literary portraits is due to the author's attitude “to tell ... simply as about living people, to show how I saw them when our paths intertwined. They are all gone already, and the wind sweeps their earthly traces with snow and dust. About the work of each of them, they wrote and will write more and more, but not many will show them simply as living people. I want to tell about my meetings with them, about their characters, quirks, friendship and enmity. Contemporaries perceived the book as "almost the best that this talented and intelligent writer has given us so far" (I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov), as "an epilogue of a past and irrevocable life" (M. Tsetlin).

Teffi planned to write about the heroes of L. N. Tolstoy and M. Cervantes, ignored by critics, but these plans were not destined to come true. September 30, 1952 in Paris, Teffi celebrated a name day, and died just a week later.

In the USSR, Teffi began to be reprinted only in 1966.

Bibliography

Editions prepared by Teffi

Seven lights - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1910
Humorous stories. Book. 1. - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1910
Humorous stories. Book. 2 (Humanoid). - St. Petersburg: Rosehip, 1911
And it became so. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1912
Carousel. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1913
Miniatures and monologues. T. 1. - St. Petersburg: ed. M. G. Kornfeld, 1913
Eight miniatures. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1913
Smoke without fire. - St. Petersburg: New Satyricon, 1914
Nothing of the kind, Pg.: New Satyricon, 1915
Miniatures and monologues. T. 2. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1915
And it became so. 7th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1916
Inanimate animal. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1916
Yesterday. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
Smoke without fire. 9th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
Carousel. 4th ed. - Pg.: New Satyricon, 1918
Black iris. - Stockholm, 1921
Treasures of the earth. - Berlin, 1921
Quiet backwater. - Paris, 1921
So they lived. - Paris, 1921
Lynx. - Paris, 1923
Passiflora. - Berlin, 1923
Shamran. Songs of the East. - Berlin, 1923
Town. - Paris, 1927
June book. - Paris, 1931
Adventure romance. - Paris, 1931
Witch. - Paris, 1936
About tenderness. - Paris, 1938
Zigzag. - Paris, 1939
All about love. - Paris, 1946
Earth rainbow. - New York, 1952
Life and Collar

Pirated editions

Instead of politics. Stories. - M.-L.: ZiF, 1926
Yesterday. Humorous. stories. - Kyiv: Cosmos, 1927
Tango of death. - M.: ZiF, 1927
Sweet memories. -M.-L.: ZiF, 1927

Collected works

Collected works [in 7 vols.]. Comp. and prep. texts by D. D. Nikolaev and E. M. Trubilova. - M.: Lakom, 1998-2005.
Sobr. cit.: In 5 volumes - M.: TERRA Book Club, 2008

Other

Ancient history / General history, processed by the "Satyricon". - St. Petersburg: ed. M. G. Kornfeld, 1912

Criticism

Teffi's works were treated extremely positively in literary circles. The writer and contemporary of Teffi, Mikhail Osorgin, considered her "one of the most intelligent and sighted modern writers." Ivan Bunin, stingy with praise, called her "clever-witted" and said that her stories, truthfully reflecting life, were written "greatly, simply, with great wit, observation and wonderful mockery."

Although Teffi’s poems were scolded by Valery Bryusov, considering them too “literary”, Nikolai Gumilyov noted on this occasion: “The poetess does not speak about herself and not about what she loves, but about what she could be, and about that she could love. Hence the mask she wears with solemn grace and, it seems, irony. In addition, Alexander Kuprin, Dmitry Merezhkovsky and Fyodor Sologub highly appreciated her work.

The literary encyclopedia of 1929-1939 reports the poetess extremely vaguely and negatively:

Culturologist N. Ya. Berkovsky: “Her stories are similar to her contemporaries, Bunin and Sologub, the same ugly, sick, terrible life, but Teffi’s life is also additionally funny, which does not destroy the overall aching impression. Unpleasant are the stories about children, who in Teffin's stories always have to endure the suffering of adults (the abominations of adults): children are hangovers in someone else's feast. What speaks of the small stature of this writer with all her talents is the painful feeling caused by her writings. I firmly believe that there is no art without optimism.”