Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea

1

A longer version of “Before a Map of Russia” was published in Vozrozhdenie (Oct. 2, 1925). This shorter version was published in the almanac Na zapade (New York, 1953). The present translation first appeared in The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin, 2015), ed. Chandler, Dralyuk, and Mashinski.

1

“Retrospektivnyi vzgliad i udivlenie,” Novyi Satirikon, no. 6, (Mar), 1918: 13. Rep. in Teffi, V strane vospominanii. Rasskazy i fel’etony 1917–1919, ed. S. I. Kniazev & M. A. Rybakov (Kiev: LP Media, 2011), 164.

2

M[ark] A[ldanov], “Teffi. Passiflora,” Sovremennye zapiski, 1923, no. 17: 485.

3

“Nadezhda Teffi,” in F. F. Fidler, ed., Pervye literaturnye shagi: Avtobiografii sovremennykh russkikh pisatelei (Moscow: I. D. Sytin, 1911), 203.

4

Teffi, “Chuchelo,” Vozrozhdenie, Jan. 11, 1931 (no. 2049): 2.

5

“Mne snilsia son…,” Sever, 1901 (no. 35): 1101; Fidler, 204–5.

6

Teffi, “Pokaiannyi den’,” Teatr i iskusstvo, 1901, no. 51 (Dec. 16): 955; “Novyi god u pisatelei,” Zvezda, 1901, no. 52 (Dec. 29): 14–16, 18.

7

The play, “Zhenskii vopros,” has been translated by Elizabeth Neatrour as “The Woman Question: A Fantastical Farce in One Act,” in An Anthology of Russian Women’s Writing, 1777–1992, ed. Catriona Kelly (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994): 174–92.

8

Aldanov.

9

“Znamia svobody,” Vpered, Mar. 2 (15), 1905. Pub. as “Pchelki” in Novaia zhizn’, no. 2 (1905) and in Teffi’s collection of poetry, Sem’ ognei (Spb.: Shipovnik, 1910), 57–58.

10

I. Gukovskii, “Iz vospominanii I. E. Gukovskogo,” Novaia zhizn’: Pervaia legal’naia S.-D. bol’shevistskaia gazeta, 27 oktiabria—3 dekabria 1905 goda, ed. M. Ol’minskii, vyp 1, no. 1–7 (Leningrad: Rabochee izd. “Priboi”, 1925), x.

11

“18 oktiabria,” Novaia zhizn’, Oct. 27, 1905 (no. 1): 7.

12

For Teffi’s retrospective view of Novaia zhizn’ and the Bolsheviks, see “45 let,” Novoe russkoe slovo, June 25, 1950 (no. 13939): 2; “ ’Novaia zhizn’’,” NRS, July 9, 1950 (no. 13953): 2. For an English translation, see Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me (NYRB, 2016).

13

“Smekh,” Russkoe slovo, Nov. 18 (Dec. 1), 1910: 2.

14

Iumoristicheskie rasskazy (SPb: Shipovnik, 1910).

15

M. Kuzmin, “Zametki o russkoi belletristiki, Apollon, no. 9 (Jul.–Aug., 1910): 34.

16

N. Lerner, “N. Teffi. ‘Dym bez ognia’,” Literat. i popul.-nauchn. prilozhenie ‘Nivy’, no. 2 (July, 1914): 459.

17

Anastas’ia Chebotarevskaia, “Teffi. ‘I stalo tak…’,” Novaia zhizn’, July, 1912 (no. 7): 255.

18

I. V[asilev]ski, “ ’Nichego podobnogo’. Novaia kniga Teffi,” Zhurnal zhurnalov, 1915, no. 10: 20; Ark[adii] Bukhov, “Teffi,” Zhurnal zhurnalov, 1915, no. 14: 17.

19

“Srednii,” Novyi Satirikon, Apr. 2, 1917 (no. 13): 6.

20

“Dezertiry!” Russkoe slovo, June 15 (28), 1917 (no. 135?): 2; V strane, 22.

21

V strane, 24–25.

22

“Nemnozhko o Lenine,” Russkoe slovo, June 23, 1917 (no. 141): 1; V strane, 47, 48. For an English translation, see Tolstoy, Rasputin, Others, and Me (NYRB, 2016).

23

“Iz mertvogo goroda,” V strane, 149. Orig. pub. in Novoe slovo, Mar. 8 (21), 1918, no. 34.

24

Ibid., 151.

25

“Peterburg,” V strane, 171. Orig. pub. in Kievskaia mysl’, Oct. 4 (17), 1918, no. 188.

26

“Letuchaia mysh’,” Rampa i zhizn’, May 6 (19), 1918 (no. 20): 11.

27

“Khronika,” Teatr i iskusstvo, Jan. 7, 1918 (no. 1): 5.

28

“Peterburg,” 170.

29

“Gorodok (Khronika),” in Gorodok (Paris: Izd. N.P. Karbasnikova, 1927), 5.

30

Ibid., 6.

31

“Ot avtora,” Vospominaniia (Paris: Vozrozhdenie, 1931, 5. Memories was first serialized in the newspaper, Vozrozhdenie between 1928 and 1930.

32

M. Tsetlin, “N. A. Teffi. Vospominaniia,” Sovremennye zapiski, 1932, no. 48: 482.

33

“Baba–Yaga,” Novosel’e, June 1947 (no. 33–34): 29–37. Repr. in Teffi’s last book, Zemnaya raduga (NY: Chekhov Press, 1952), 264–68. Translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler in Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov, ed. Robert Chandler (Penguin, 2012), 213–17.

34

“Tot svet,” “N. A. Teffi v gazete ‘Russkie novosti’ (1945–1947),” ed. E. G. Domogatskaia, in Tvorchestvo N. A. Teffi i russkii literaturnyi protsess pervoi poloviny XX veka, ed. O. N. Mikhailov, D. D. Nikolaev, E. M. Trubilova (Moscow: Nasledie, 1999): 214. Orig. pub. in Russkie novosti, Aug. 3, 1945 (no. 12): 4.

1

The Russian Word was a liberal Moscow daily newspaper, eventually closed down by the Bolsheviks. See Introduction, p. x.

2

Arkady Averchenko (1881–1925), a comic writer and playwright, founded two journals, Satirikon (1908–1913) and New Satirikon (1913–1918), to which Teffi contributed regularly.

3

Fatback (salo)—the layer of hard fat under the skin of a pig’s back—is considered a delicacy in many parts of eastern Europe. Fatback, onion, and horilka (the Ukrainian equivalent of vodka) is a classic Ukrainian dish.

4

Some of these names sound Russian, some Jewish, some German, but none sound Ukrainian. All sound funny. “Koka” is a vulgar form of “krestnaya” (godmother); “Pupin” evokes the Russian word for the belly button; “Fik” and “Shpruk,” especially in the plural, sound equally odd.

5

The Bat was a theater-cabaret in Moscow, founded in 1908 by actors from the Moscow Arts Theatre. It closed in 1920 but later reopened in Paris.

6

Cléo de Mérode (1875–1966) was a French dancer of the Belle Époque. Born to a Belgian family of nobility, she made her professional debut at the age of eleven. Postcards and playing cards bore pictures of her, and one of her hairstyles became hugely popular.

7

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) was an Italian poet.

8

Lolo was the nickname of Leonid Munstein (1866–1947), a poet, satirist, critic, and editor. A friend of Teffi, he too emigrated to France via Kiev, Odessa, and Constantinople. The operetta, with music borrowed from Offenbach, was produced in Moscow in August 1918.

9

The Ancient Theatre, co-founded by Nikolay Yevreinov (1879–1953) and Baron Drizen (1868–1935), with the philosophy of “artistic historic reconstruction,” played just two seasons, 1907–1908 and 1911–1912. The singer Bella Kaza-Roza (1885–1929) was a friend of Teffi; her repertoire included settings of poems by Teffi.

10

Silva (known in English as The Riviera Girl or The Gipsy Princess), an operetta by the Hungarian composer Emmerich Kalman (1882–1953), was premiered in Vienna in November 1915. It remains popular in Hungary, Austria, and Germany and was made into a successful film in the Soviet Union.

11

Valery Bryusov was one of the founders of Russian Symbolism. Always an influential figure, he joined the Communist Party in 1920. There are several accounts of his abusing his position in the Soviet cultural apparatus to attack more gifted colleagues.

12

This three-headed dragon appears in one of the most famous Russian byliny or heroic songs.

13

The Soviet security services were originally called the “Extraordinary Committee” or Cherezvychainy komitet, usually shortened to Cherezvychaika or Cheka. Later acronyms were the OGPU, the NKVD, and the KGB.

14

“Vova” is an affectionate form of the name “Vladimir.” The intentionally ludicrous implication is that Fedosya received this shawl and portrait as a gift from Lenin himself.

15

Savely Schleifer (1881–1943). Born in Odessa, Schleifer studied there and in Petersburg. After living in Paris from 1905 to 1907, he returned to Petersburg. He taught there after the revolution but emigrated to Paris in 1927. Arrested by the Nazis soon after the outbreak of World War II, he died in Auschwitz.

16

Lydia Yavorskaya (1871–1921) was a well-known actress.

17

From “The Tryst” (1841) by Mikhail Lermontov.

18

After the October Revolution, Moisey Uritsky (1873–1918) was appointed head of the Petrograd Cheka (i.e. security police). On 17 August 1918 he was assassinated by Leonid Kannegisser, a poet and former military cadet. Soon after this, and after an attempt on Lenin’s life, the Bolsheviks initiated the wave of arrests and executions known as the Red Terror. Kannegisser was executed in October 1918. Ironically, Uritsky had been one of the few important Bolsheviks to disagree with Lenin about the need to resort to terror. See Ivan Bunin, Cursed Days, ed. Thomas Gaiton Marullo (Phoenix Press, 2000), p. 216, note 9.

19

This conversation is condensed from “Repentant Fate,” first published in 1913 and included in the collection Smoke without Fire (1914). In the story the actress assures Teffi that she would gladly help Teffi’s unfortunate protagonist by giving him money of her own, if only she could. Teffi returns to this theme—the artist as an “imitator of God”—in the last pages of Memories.

20

The Russian word mestechko (literally “little place”) was used for settlements too large to be classed as villages but too small to be classed as cities. From 1791, Jews were generally only permitted to live within “the Pale of Settlement” (a region roughly corresponding to present-day Belarus, western Ukraine, eastern Poland, and the Baltic republics). Even within the Pale, Jews were generally prohibited from living in either large cities or small villages. Most Jews, therefore, lived in shtetls. In April 1917, the Pale of Settlement was abolished.

21

Maximilien de Robespierre (1758–1794) was one of the most important figures of the French Revolution. Accused of being the “soul” of the Reign of Terror, he was arrested and executed in July 1794.

22

The shtetl Teffi and her companions have just reached is Unechka, in Bryansk province. For a few months this unremarkable town assumed great importance, as the frontier station on the main route between Moscow and Kiev. The Cheka was exceptionally active there, not only seizing valuables from those trying to leave Soviet Russia but also guarding against infiltration from the Ukraine, which, from March until December 1918, was under German occupation.

23

Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874–1940) was an influential and innovative theater director. In an article written after his death, Teffi explains that the three corners of his “magic triangle” were the actor, the author, and the director and that Meyerhold believed that the author and the actors should communicate with one another via the director (i.e. along the two short sides of the triangle), rather than directly (i.e. along the hypotenuse). Teffi clearly disagreed with all this, observing sarcastically, “The director always sees the author as the enemy of the play. The author’s observations only mess things up. The author wrote the play, but it is the director, of course, who best understands just what the author wanted to say (Moya letopis’ [Vagrius, 2004!], p. 187). As for the young actress, she blends Meyerhold’s terminology with the political jargon of the time; Trotsky, Bukharin, and others often spoke of “parallelograms of forces.” Teffi knew Nikolay Yevreinov well (see note 9); a theater director associated with Russian Symbolism, he spent most of his last thirty years in Paris. Commedia dell’Arte developed in Italy in the sixteenth century; it emerged from Carnival and is characterized by the use of masks and the central role played by such stock characters as Arlecchino (Harlequin) and Pulcinella (Punch). “Theater as collective ritual” alludes to the theories of the Symbolist poet Vyacheslav Ivanov (1866–1949). He dreamed of a new type of mass theater—a “collective action,” modeled on ancient religious rituals, Athenian tragedy, and medieval mystery plays.

24

A reference to zaum, the “transrational” or “beyond-mind” language advocated by the Futurist poets Alexey Kruchonykh and Velimir Khlebnikov. It was Kruchonykh who coined this word, brilliantly translated by the late Paul Schmidt as “beyonsense.”

25

This commissar was, in reality, Fruma Khaikina (1897–1977), who adopted the surname “Rostova,” after Natasha Rostova in War and Peace. She was head of the local Cheka and a member of the town’s “RevKom”—that is, Revolutionary Committee. In late 1918 she married Mykola Shchors (1895–1919), a Ukrainian Red Army commander elevated after his death to almost legendary status. She was notorious for her brutality.

26

One of the banknotes issued by the Provisional Government whose last prime minister, in the summer and early autumn of 1917, had been Alexandr Kerensky. The Soviet government continued to print these notes until 1919, so the general was doing nothing illegal.

27

The poem Olyonushka recites is “Angelika” (included in Passiflora, 1923). Fedosya dies alone in a ditch and is taken up by angels into the presence of Christ and the Virgin Mary.

28

In Gogol’s story “Christmas Eve” (1832), the blacksmith makes the sign of the cross over the devil. This forces the devil to let the blacksmith ride on his back.

29

A song written in 1906, to honor those who had died in the Russo-Japanese war of the previous year. During and after the Civil War the song was sung by both Whites and Reds.

30

The Imperial Petersburg Institute of Technology, founded in 1828.

31

A popular satirical magazine. See note 2.

32

A Polish form of address, once the equivalent of the English “Sir.” Since the late nineteenth century, it has been closer to “Mr.”

33

“Where is Moscow?” (Yiddish)

34

“What a little scholar he is!” (Yiddish, probably meant ironically)

35

“The crazy head!” (Yiddish, colloquial)

36

George Boreman was the owner of a successful Petersburg chocolate factory, nationalized in 1918.

37

In an article published in Kiev in January 1919, Teffi is more critical of Russian condescension towards the Ukrainian language. Many of the Ukrainian words that Russians find so risible, she points out, are in fact more Slavonic than their Russian equivalents, which are often borrowings from French or German. She continues, “I cannot understand why they are so irritated by the free existence of the Ukrainian language. […] What has happened? Is it really so terrible to have to learn the couple of dozen words one needs to get by in the Ukraine? Far more terrible are all these mindless ‘orientations,’ ‘evacuations,’ ‘demobilizations,’ and ‘democratizations’ that now litter our Slav speech.” (Teffi v strane vospominanii: LP Media 2011, p. 215)

38

The actress Vera Ilnarskaya (1880–1946) was married to Lolo, a writer with whom Teffi sometimes collaborated. She published the journal The Spotlights and Life (Rampa i zhizn’). See note 8.

39

A salty East European dish made from minced meat, anchovies, or herring, together with onions.

40

Teffi’s train did indeed pass through Gomel, which lies about 300 kilometers to the north of Kiev, in what is now Belarus. Shavli (or Siauliai), however, lies in present-day Lithuania, not far from the Baltic; it could not possibly have been on their route. Gooskin’s geography is confused.

41

“Out!” (German).

42

Olyonushka’s first two words mean, “The exceptions are…” She then comes up with a number of verbs that are exceptions to some grammatical rule.

43

“This was in Schöneberg” (a part of Berlin).

44

Schon means “already”; nun means “now.”

45

At the end of the nineteenth century Jews constituted nearly forty percent of the population of Odessa. The ever-alert Gooskin, with his colorful way of speech, answers perfectly to the Russian stereotype of a Jewish Odessan businessman. The quintessential Russianness of his first name and patronymic is therefore unexpected. It is this that makes everyone laugh.

46

Anatoly Durov (1865–1916) and his elder brother Vladimir (1863–1936) were famous trainers of circus dogs. Unlike most trainers before them, who had relied on pain and fear, they used mainly positive encouragement—the carrot rather than the stick.

47

From April until November 1918, the Ukrainian Head of State was titled “the Hetman.”

48

Bolshevik propaganda during these years often pictured capitalism and counterrevolution as a hydra—a monster with many heads.

49

The main street in Kiev, used as a promenade.

50

Leonid Sobinov (1872–1934) was a well-known tenor; he remained in the Soviet Union. Fyodor Kurikhin (1881–1951) was a well-known actor; he too remained in the Soviet Union. Yury Ozarovsky (1869–1924) was an actor, director, theater critic and drama teacher; he died in Paris. Vlas Doroshevich (1864–1922) was a journalist and writer of short stories; after living in the Crimea from autumn 1918, he returned to Petrograd in May 1921 and died there in February 1922. According to the literary historian Yury Kaplan, as many as eighty newspapers, magazines, and almanacs opened in Kiev at this time (Haber, chapter 6). It was widely felt that the realistic theater had had its day, and there was a vogue for cabarets, sketches, and short plays of all kinds. Teffi’s graceful witty playlets—the best-known of which was The Woman Question (1907)—were very popular. Teffi’s daughter Valeria writes: “She personally worked on the staging of her plays, giving the actors very valuable directions and often sketching the designs for the costumes with her own hands.” (Edythe Haber, chapter 3)

51

The Stray Dog was a café in Petersburg, a famous meeting place for writers and poets. Between January 1, 1912, and its closure on March 3, 1915, nearly all the main poets of the time—regardless of their political or artistic affiliations—gave readings there. Part of Teffi’s story “The Dog” (included in Subtly Worded [Pushkin Press, 2014!]) is set there.

52

Most likely, this was the actress Maria Zan’kovetska (1854–1934), a key figure in the revival of a Ukrainian national theater.

53

During her three months in Kiev, from October 7, 1918, until January 1919, Teffi published at least twenty articles and sketches, gave public readings, and helped to arrange for the production of several of her plays, as well as writing a new one-act play for the opening night of a new theater (Teffi v strane vospominanii, pp. 11–13). Many thoughts, images and anecdotes from these articles—and from the three or four articles she published in Odessa between January and April 1919—reappear in Memories, in most cases treated with greater sophistication.

54

Symon Petlyura (1879–1926), a writer, journalist and socialist politician, was the leading figure in Ukraine’s unsuccessful struggle for independence. After the February 1917 revolution, he joined the Ukrainian Central Rada (“council”), which in June 1917 proclaimed Ukraine an autonomous republic. Soon after this, however, the Germans occupied Ukraine and established a puppet government led by Pavlo Skoropadsky, who was officially known as “the Hetman” (a historic title that had not been used since the seventeenth century). When the Germans withdrew, Petlyura, now heading the five-member directorate of the Rada, seized power. Petlyura then had to confront both the Reds and the Whites. When the White armies, which had occupied Ukraine and replaced Petlyura’s government at the end of 1918, withdrew in the autumn of 1919, Ukraine fell under Soviet authority. During the Russo-Polish War of 1919–20 Petlyura allied with the Poles. The Poles repelled the Red Army from Poland itself but failed to secure independence for Ukraine.

55

Mikhail Milrud (1883–1942) had previously, like Teffi, worked for the Russian Word. He was on the editorial board of Kiev Thought. From 1924 he edited a Russian-language newspaper in Latvia. Arrested in 1941, he died in the Gulag.

56

Ilya Vasilevsky (1883–1938) was a prominent journalist. Together with his wife, he left Kiev for Odessa and then Constantinople. Vasilevsky later returned to the Soviet Union in 1923. He was shot in the purges: http://www.bulgakov.ru/b/belozerskaya/.

57

In Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment Sonya Marmeladova is driven by poverty to prostitute herself. After going out onto the streets for the first time, she comes back home, wraps herself in a drap de dames (a very fine kind of fabric) shawl, and lies down on the bed with her face to the wall.

58

Count Alessandro di Cagliostro (1743–1795) was a famous Italian fraudster, Freemason, and occultist, supposedly gifted with magical powers.

59

Lenin’s biographer, Robert Service, thinks it unlikely that Lenin ever had any contact with Duclos (personal email, April 2015).

60

In November 1918, Teffi published an article titled “Armand Duclos” (Teffi v strane vospominanii, pp. 188–91). Much of it is about the arguments between those who believed in Duclos’s clairvoyant powers and those who saw him as a trickster. In the last fifteen lines, however, Teffi strikes a different note. After emphasizing how everyone, no matter what their social position or political allegiance, asks Duclos essentially the same simple questions about love and happiness, she continues:

61

Vladimir Vinnichenko (1880–1951) was a leading Ukrainian writer and nationalist politician. He was the chairman of the council of five, “the Directorate,” that ruled much of Ukraine in late 1918 and early 1919. Petlyura was a member of this Directorate, as well as commander of its army.

62

The Hetman, Skoropadsky, had been supported by the Germans. When the Germans withdrew, many of his officers and soldiers deserted and went over to Petlyura and the Directorate. See note 54.

63

The Kiev Pechersk Lavra. This cave monastery, founded in 1051 by Orthodox monks from Mount Athos, is believed to contain the uncorrupted bodies of saints from the days of Kievan Rus, the medieval Slav kingdom that embraced Christianity in 988. Present-day Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are all descended from this first important kingdom of eastern Slavs.

64

In “Slain Servants of the Lord,” an article published in Kiev in December 1918, Teffi wrote:

65

A woman’s perfume, created by Jacques Guerlain in 1908.

66

Alexey Grishin-Almazov (1880–1919) was, during much of 1918, in command of the White armies in western Siberia. He then moved to the south of Russia. In December 1918, the French, then in control of Odessa, appointed him military governor.

67

Vladimir Burtsev (1862–1942) was a historian and journalist who served time in prison under both the tsarist and Soviet regimes. His newspaper The Common Cause went through several different incarnations: in 1909–10, 1917, 1918–22 and 1928–33.

68

A once-famous novel by Semyon Yushkevich (1868–1927). It is set largely in Odessa.

69

An infamous Odessa gangster, Jewish revolutionary, and Soviet military leader.

70

The Moldavanka was a poor part of Odessa, with a reputation for criminality. The writer Isaak Babel was born there, and it provides the setting for his “Odessa Tales,” a cycle of stories about the life of Jewish gangsters.

71

This paragraph is, in effect, a condensed version of “The Last Breakfast,” the last article Teffi published in Odessa. See appendix, p. 231.

72

Fyodor Blagov (1886–1934), the last editor of the Russian Word, emigrated to China, where he worked for Russian newspapers in Harbin and Shanghai.

73

Maximilian Voloshin (1877–1932) was a leading figure among the Russian Symbolist poets of the early twentieth century. For over a decade his large house in Koktebel, where he both wrote and painted, was a refuge for writers and artists of all political and artistic persuasions. Among his hundreds of guests were Maxim Gorky, Nikolay Gumilyov, Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam, and Marina Tsvetaeva. In 1924 the house became a “House of Creativity” for Soviet writers, the first of the many such closed-access hotels that were a central part of the Soviet cultural world. In spite of a number of facile professions of faith in Russia’s purification through suffering, Voloshin’s poems about the Civil War and the subsequent Red Terror in the Crimea are courageous and incisive. Voloshin was steadfast in his refusal to accept any ideology as absolute truth. A poem titled “Civil War” ends:

Voloshin’s belief in the power of his words—what Marianna Landa refers to as “his Dostoevskian faith in the divine spark in the soul of the abominable criminal, and his Symbolist belief in the magic of the poetic word”—seems to have been unshakeable; his personal appeals to Red and White officials and commanders, on behalf of individuals in trouble, and his verse-prayers addressed to God, on behalf of his country, have much in common. Voloshin believed he could affect the course of events—and sometimes he did. That he escaped arrest and execution is astonishing. See The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin Classics, 2015, ed. Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk, and Irina Mashinski), pp. 175–180. For a somewhat more critical view of Voloshin, see Ivan Bunin, Cursed Days, pp. 82, 112. Much about Voloshin evidently enraged Bunin. In a diary entry for April 16, 1919, he writes, “Voloshin visited us […] It was monstrous! He said he had spent all day with Severny, the head of the local Cheka, who has a ‘soul like crystal.’ That’s just what he said: ‘like crystal.’”(ibid. p. 85) Nevertheless, Bunin’s wife writes in her own diary, September 6, 1919, “Valya [Kataev] lashed out at Voloshin. For some reason he can’t stand him. [Bunin] defended Voloshin, saying that though his verse is wordy, something genuine and personal shines forth from it. ‘There are too few Voloshins around for you to be negative toward him. How well Voloshin has sung of his country. How very good are his portraits.’” (Thomas Gaitan Marullo, Ivan Bunin: Russian Requiem [Ivan Dee, 1993!], p. 346.)

74

Grigory (or Grishka) Otrepyev, popularly known as “The False Dmitry,” was a monk who claimed to be Dmitry, the murdered son of Ivan the Terrible. He reigned for eleven months during 1605–6.

75

Yelizaveta Kuzmina-Karavayeva (1891–1945) was elected deputy mayor of the southern Russian town of Anapa in 1918. When the Whites captured the town, she was put on trial as a Bolshevik but acquitted. Her judge, Daniil Skobtsov, who had once been her teacher, then married her; their marriage (her second) fell apart in the late 1920s, but her writings are often published under her married name of Skobtsova. In 1932, in Paris, she took monastic vows, assuming the name of Mother Maria. During World War II she helped many Jews to escape the Nazis, often by providing them with baptismal certificates, but she was eventually sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. In March 1945, a week before the camp was liberated by the Red Army, she was sent to the gas chamber; according to one testimony, she voluntarily took the place of a Jewish woman. In 2004 she was canonized as a saint by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople. See also The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry, pp. 188–89 and p. 547, note 22.

76

In the Russian Orthodox Church a metropolitan is a high-ranking clergyman, senior to an archbishop and second only to a patriarch.

77

Admiral Alexander Kolchak (1874–1920) established a right-wing government in Siberia in late 1918 and was recognized as Supreme Commander by the other leaders of the White forces, not only in Siberia but also in the south of Russia.

78

In June 1917, mutinous sailors of the Black Sea Fleet decided to confiscate their officers’ weapons. Rather than surrender his ceremonial cutlass, Kolchak threw it into the sea. It was later returned to him, with a respectful message.

79

Teffi’s first books, both in fact published several years before the beginning of the War, were two volumes titled Humorous Stories, in prose, and Seven Fires, in verse. The latter is divided into seven sections: “Sapphire,” “Amethyst,” “Alexandrite,” “Ruby,” “Emerald,” “Diamond,” and “Topaz.” The poet Nikolay Gumilyov reviewed Seven Fires enthusiastically, describing the poems as “literary in the best sense of the word” and referring to the “mask that Teffi wears with a solemn grace and, it seems, with a barely noticeable smile.” Quoted in Nadezhda Teffi, Almaznaya Pyl’, (Moscow, 2011) p. 8.

80

This stone was first discovered in April 1834, on the sixteenth birthday of the future Tsar Alexander II. Green or bluish-green in daylight, it turns a soft shade of red under incandescent light. “The bloody sunset” refers to the tsar’s assassination in 1881.

81

Alexander Yakovlev (1887–1938) was a painter and graphic artist. Like Teffi, he worked for both Satirikon and New Satirikon, as well as many other journals. In the summer of 1917, he went to study in the Far East. After traveling through Mongolia, China, and Japan, he settled in Paris. Teffi mentions his wife Bella Kaza-Roza in the first chapter of Memories (p. 9 and also note 9).

82

Friedrich Martens (1845–1909) was a Russian diplomat and lawyer who made important contributions to the field of international law. Valerie Sollohub, the widow of Martens’s grandson Count Nicholas Sollohub, writes, “I fear this story must be apocryphal. Professor Martens died in the daytime, in Livonia, on the railway station platform, unbeknown to his wife who was at their country house, Waldensee, with the telephone out of order. From the depths of the country she would not have been sending servants out with opals nor, indeed, was she inclined to buy precious stones; she left all that kind of thing to her husband.” (Personal email, May 2014. There is no knowing whether Konoplyov’s story is his own invention or Teffi’s.)

83

Mikhail Kuzmin (1872–1936) was one of the finest poets of his time. He also wrote plays and composed music. In 1906, he published Wings, the first Russian novel with an overtly homosexual theme; two large editions sold out at once.

84

The Triple Entente was the alliance that, from 1907 until the end of World War I, linked France, Russia, and Great Britain—a counter-weight to the “Triple Alliance” of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. There were French forces in Odessa in early 1919, but the French intervention in Crimea and southern Ukraine was brief, badly planned, and unsuccessful (See Ivan Bunin, Cursed Days, p. 77–78, notes 2 & 3). Teffi’s characters are vainly hoping to see British or French ships bringing reinforcements to protect them from the advancing Red Army. In an article she published while still in Kiev, in December 1918, Teffi makes fun of the way people all of a sudden began excitedly talking about “pennants.” The Russian equivalent, vympel, is rarely used, and Teffi professes not to know whether it means “a rag,” “some kind of stick or pole,” or “an assistant to a ship’s captain” (Teffi, V strane vospominanii, pp. 203–06).

85

Ivan Bunin (1870–1953) remained in Odessa after it fell to the Bolsheviks in April 1919. The Whites, however, recaptured the city in August and Bunin was able to leave Russia in January 1920. He settled in France, where he and Teffi became close friends. In 1933 he became the first Russian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was married to Vera Muromtseva (1881–1961). Alexey Tolstoy (1883–1945), nicknamed the Comrade Count, was a gifted but opportunistic writer, best known for his science fiction and historical novels. He settled in Paris in 1920 but returned to the Soviet Union three years later; he was awarded a Stalin Prize three times. His wife Natalya Krandievskaya (1888–1963) was a poet and memoirist; the couple separated in 1935. Sergey Gorny (the pen name of Alexander Otsup [1882–1948]) was a poet and satirist; during the Civil War he served as an engineer in the White navy. Pyotr Nilus (1869–1943) was a Russian Impressionist painter. From 1920 he lived in Paris, initially sharing a house with Ivan Bunin. Alexander Pankratov (1871–1922) was a journalist; like Teffi, he had worked for the Russian Word.

86

“The Last Breakfast” is included in the appendix. And see note 71.

87

The soldiers’ strange words are probably derived from the Arabic Hamdullah (“Praise Allah”). As for their “fierce teeth,” Teffi uses the word kannibal’skie, which can mean “cannibalistic” but which was also used more generally in the sense of “brutish” or “savage.” People at this time tended to think of cannibalism as more widespread than it was. Russians, most of whom had little contact with sub-Saharan Africa, may have been particularly prone to this misapprehension. Our thanks to Boris Dralyuk for his help with this note.

88

“Your tongue will lead you to Kiev” is the Russian equivalent of the English “He who has a tongue goes to Rome.” That is, if you ask enough questions, you will receive an answer.

89

On April 3, 1919 the French government decided to evacuate all French troops and the city’s civilian administration. This caused widespread panic. The evacuation was largely completed by April 6, though there was probably no military necessity for such speed.

90

Here we are translating khlopotat’, a common Russian word for which there is no English equivalent. Elsewhere, in passages where Teffi draws less attention to this verb, we have translated it in different ways: “apply for,” “try to obtain,” “procure,” etc. In “Moscow: the Last Days,” an article she published in Kiev in October 1918, Teffi explains the word: “Incidentally, there is no equivalent to this idiotic term khlopotat’ in any other language in the world. A foreigner will say, ‘I’ll go and get the documents.’ A Russian, ‘I must hurry and start to khlopotat’ with regard to the documents.’ The foreigner will go to the appropriate institution and obtain what he needs. The Russian will go to three people he knows for advice, to two more who can ‘pull strings’, then to the institution—but it’ll be the wrong one—then to the right institution—but he’ll keep on knocking at the wrong doors until it’s too late. Then he’ll start everything all over again and, when he’s finally brought everything to a conclusion, he’ll leave the documents in a cab. This whole process is what is described by the word khlopotat’. Such work, if carried out on behalf of a third party, is highly valued and well paid” (Teffi v strane vospominanii, pp. 167–70).

91

Alexander Kugel (1864–1928) was a critic. In 1908 he co-founded The Crooked Mirror, a Petersburg theater that specialized in parodies and put on two of Teffi’s plays. He remained in the Soviet Union, still directing this theater, till his death.

92

Not as nonsensical as one might think. Some French units did indeed refuse to fight the Bolsheviks and there were revolutionary movements on board some of the ships: http://militera.lib.ru/h/civilwar_black-sea/02.html.

93

Founded in 1436 on an archipelago in the White Sea, the Solovetsky monastery was for many centuries the most important monastery in northern Russia. In 1923 the Soviet authorities turned it into a special prison and labor camp—the prototype for the vast system later known as the Gulag. Teffi visited the monastery in summer 1916 (Haber, chapter 6).

94

Known as the Angel of Blessings, Barachiel is often portrayed holding a white rose against his chest, or with rose petals scattered on his cloak; the petals symbolize the blessings he bestows.

95

Prayer belts are wide belts with the words of prayers woven into them, intended to be worn or to be hung on the wall.

96

The True Cross was thought to have been made of pine, cedar, and cypress; more generally, cypress is one of the oldest symbols of mourning. The Solovki monastery and the Pechersk Lavra, the cave monastery in Kiev to which Teffi says goodbye in chapter 12, were the two most important of all Russian Orthodox pilgrimage sites. That Teffi tells us about devotional objects from each site is significant; the tiny icon in a bottle from the Lavra and this cypress cross are almost the only personal possessions she describes in Memories—an embodiment of the Holy Russia she would never see again. Her story “Solovki” (first published in émigré journals in 1921 and republished in the 1924 volume Evening Day) was important to her; she considered it one of her best (See N.A Teffi, Nezhivoy Zver’ (Moscow: Lakom, 1999), p. 9).

97

The engineer “V” was in reality Alexander Otsup, see note 85. He and Teffi remained close friends until his death. In a letter to Teffi (February 5, 1948) he refers to their meetings in Kiev in late 1918—in particular to Teffi’s bout of Spanish influenza—and to this last day in Odessa. For the most part, his account tallies with Teffi’s. http://kfinkelshteyn.narod.ru/Literat/O_Sergee_Gornom.htm#prim30.

98

Lermontov, “The Ghost Ship.”

99

“Ataman” Nikifor Grigoriev (1885–1919) had earlier fought on the side of Petlyura and the Directorate, but by 1919 he had allied with the Bolsheviks. He captured Odessa only a few days after the French evacuation.

100

Venedikt Myakotin (1867–1937) was a Populist politician; expelled from Soviet Russia in 1922, he became a professor of history in Sofia in 1928, then lived his last years in Prague. Fyodor Volkenstein (1874–1937) was a lawyer, writer, and journalist; he remained in the Soviet Union. Alexey Ksyunin (1882–1938) was also a journalist, at one time head of the Russian press bureau in Constantinople. Alexey Titov (dates unknown) was a chemical engineer and Populist politician; he emigrated to Paris. Ilya Ilyashenko (1859–1920), deputy minister of justice from 1913 to 1917, was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1920.

101

These lines by Vladimir Mayakovsky were well known. Mayakovsky recalled reports of sailors singing them as they marched on the Winter Palace in 1917 (“Tol’ko ne vospominanii”, in V.V. Maiakovskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, IMLI, 1955–61) v 12: Stat’i, zametki i vystupleniia, p. 149–59).

102

This song became popular among soldiers and sailors, both Red and White, during the Civil War. Like many traditional songs, it proved remarkably adaptable to varying political requirements.

103

Nikolay Yevreinov (see notes 9 and 23) wrote about how art should take its inspiration from life. Haber comments on this scene, “Teffi compares the sight to theatrical experiments of the recent past, except in this case it was not a performance; life itself forced the actors to play the role, as it would compel them again and again to reinvent themselves in emigration.”

104

Stenka Razin, a Russian folk hero, was the Cossack leader of a major revolt in 1670–71.

105

A quote from “The Reaper” by Alexey Koltsov (1809–42).

106

A quote from “Dubinushka” (“The Club”). Originally written by V. I. Bogdanov, this was refashioned to make its sentiments more revolutionary. The famous bass Fyodor Chaliapin included it in his repertory.

107

Fyodor Volkenstein (see note 100) had separated from his wife, Natalya Krandievskaya (see note 85), in 1914. Krandievskaya subsequently married Alexey Tolstoy and emigrated with him and her son by Volkenstein—the little boy referred to here—only to return to the Soviet Union in 1923. This boy, who became a physicist, is the anonymous friend to whom Stalin’s daughter, Svetlana Allilluyeva, addressed her “Twenty Letters to a Friend.”

108

An allusion to a famous “gypsy song” by the poet Apollon Grigoriev. It begins: “O speak to me, you at least, my seven-stringed friend!”

109

Albert Zabel (1834–1910) was a teacher, a composer, and the main harpist at the Mariinsky Theater.

110

Both the Hebrew and Church Slavonic bibles, unlike the King James Bible, include instructions of this kind before the main text of each psalm.

111

Novoe Vremya, a Petersburg daily newspaper, published 1868–1917. Under its last editor, A. S. Suvorin, it was considered extremely reactionary. The Bolsheviks closed it down the day after the October revolution.

112

A cold soup made from kvas (a slightly alcoholic drink made from fermented bread) and the leafy tops of various root vegetables, often with the addition of some kind of sturgeon.

113

Like many of Teffi’s poems, this poem, written on the Shilka, was set to music by the émigré singer, Alexander Vertinsky (1889–1957), who titled it “Song about the Motherland.” Vertinsky returned to the Soviet Union in 1943 but remained the object of official disapproval until long after his death.

114

The most likely meaning of these words is “Beautiful woman!” Guzel means “beauty” in Persian and in many Turkic languages. Kari is a Turkish word for “spouse,” but it is also used, somewhat disrespectfully, to mean “woman.” The soldiers are, of course, African, not Turkish—but much of northern Africa had once been a part of the Ottoman Empire.

115

Where are you, old man? (French)

116

The soldiers’ song from Les Huguenots, a once extremely popular and successful grand opera by Giacomo Meyerbeer.

117

Tsarist Russia in many ways followed the German educational system. A gymnasium is a secondary school with a strong emphasis on academic learning, similar to a British grammar school or a prep school in the US.

118

Teffi’s younger sister Elena Lokhvitskaya (1874–1919) was the closest to her of her many siblings. She too wrote both poetry and plays. In 1922, soon after receiving the news of Elena’s death, Teffi wrote in a letter to Vera Bunina, “I feel complete emptiness. It’s as if, because of this news, a wind has passed over my earth and swept everything away. I haven’t spoken, I’ve grown thin and black in four days.” Diaspora, 1 (Paris–SPb, 2001), 365.

119

The Greens were armed bands of peasants who, at one time or another, fought both Whites and Reds as they tried to protect their villages from reprisals and requisitioning. After the defeat of the Whites, they constituted the last remaining military challenge to the Bolshevik regime. In late 1920 a Green army under the leadership of the Socialist Revolutionary Alexander Antonov numbered as many as 50,000 and controlled a large part of the province of Tambov.

120

A small town, now a holiday resort, about fifteen miles from Novorossiisk.

121

Now known as Trabzon, this town in northeastern Turkey was occupied by the Russians at the end of World War I.

122

To this day, there is a large cement factory in Novorossiisk, one of the oldest such factories in Russia, founded in 1882.

123

This is inconsistent with Akyn’s earlier account on page 171: “He had once got so very angry… that he had ‘torn his throat.’” Teffi may have intended the reader to understand that she herself heard different stories about this cook—or, more likely, this is simply a mistake on her part.

124

Fyodor Batkin (1892–1923) fought in World War I, first as a volunteer in the Belgian army, then in the Russian Army. During the summer of 1917, as the leader of the “Black Sea Delegation” set up by Admiral Kolchak to combat defeatism, he gave impassioned patriotic speeches in Moscow and Petrograd.

125

The flag of the Russian navy.

126

The evening edition of The Stock Exchange Gazette, an important Petersburg daily newspaper, published 1861–1879 and 1880–1917. Teffi was a regular contributor.

127

After fighting for the Whites, Batkin emigrated to Turkey. There, in 1920, he was recruited by the Cheka. In 1922, however, after returning to Russia without authorization, he was arrested and shot.

128

Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are comic characters in Gogol’s play The Government Inspector. Like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, they are inseparable, always appearing on stage at the same time.

129

A private school in Petersburg.

130

Leonid Andreyev (1871–1919) wrote plays, novels, and short stories. Konstantin Arabazhin (1866–1929) was a literary critic and editor. Akim Volynsky (1861–1926) was a critic and art historian. For Meyerhold, see note 23.

131

A comedy first performed, to considerable acclaim, in 1909.

132

In an article published in 1950 about her participation in a benefit evening for the poet Konstantin Balmont (1867–1942), Teffi describes this train journey a second time:

133

Osip Runich (1889–1947) left Russia in 1919; he then lived in Italy, Germany, Latvia, and South Africa. Alexander Koshevsky (1873–1931) was a famous singer in musicals; he remained in the Soviet Union.

134

Anton Denikin (1872–1947) was the commander-in-chief of the White forces in southern Russia from December 1918 until April 1920.

135

Pavel Novgorodtsev (1866–1924) was a liberal political philosopher and lawyer; he emigrated in 1921 and died in Prague. For Myakotin see note 100, for Volkenstein note 100 and 107. Pyotr Ouspensky (1878–1947) was a follower of the spiritual philosopher George Gurdjieff (1866–1949).

136

In the Song of Solomon 4:1, Solomon says to a woman referred to as the Shulamite, “Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.”

137

Ksenya Mikhailovna G (1892–1919) was an anarchist who, after the October Revolution, joined the Bolshevik Party. Her independence of mind led to her being sent out of the way, to Kislovodsk, where she worked as an investigator for the Cheka. After the Whites captured Kislovodsk, she was arrested, sentenced and hanged. “G” was the pseudonym adopted by her husband, whose surname was Golberg.

138

Mamont Dalsky (1865–1918) was a tragic actor, famous for his interpretation of the lead role in Edmund Kean or The Genius and the Libertine by Alexandre Dumas. In his novel The Road to Calvary, Alexey Tolstoy writes, “When the Revolution began, Dalsky saw in it an enormous stage for tragic drama…. He brought together isolated groups of anarchists, took over the Merchants’ Club and declared it the House of Anarchy.”

139

The steamer is named after Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich (1866–1933), the brother-in-law of Tsar Nicholas II.