by Teffi
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 w
all.
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:
I was traveling at night, in a coach packed with men who were only half alive. They were sitting on one another, standing, swaying, lying side by side on the floor; they were like corpses. A terrifying old man was leaning heavily on my shoulder. His mouth was wide open, and I could see only the whites of his eyes. He was crushing me. The carriage was airless and stinking. My heart was pounding violently, then missing a beat. I felt I was going to suffocate, that I would not last until morning, and I closed my eyes.
And then, deep in my soul, I heard the music of a sweet, naïve, childish poem:
There was dancing in the castle
and the sound of music . . .
Balmont!
And the stinking, wheezing coach disappeared. There was only music, the circling of moths and, from the castle pond, the flash of a magic goldfish.
From the goldfish in the pond
came a sweeter music . . .
I recited the poem and began again. Like an incantation.
Dear, sweet Balmont!
We reached our destination early in the morning. Blue and motionless, the old man was carried out. It seemed he had died. As for me, I had been saved by the magic of verse.
I told the audience about this miracle, looking all the time at the corner of the hall where Yelena [Balmont’s most loyal devotee] was still quietly weeping (Moya letopis’, p. 242).
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.