Надежда Тэффи: Жизнь и творчество русской писательницы.

Russian writer (1872–1952)

Nadezhda Alexandrovna Teffi (Наде́жда Алекса́ндровна Тэ́ффи; 21 May 1872 [O. S. 9 May 1872] – 6 October 1952) was a Russian humorist writer. Together with Arkady Averchenko she was one of the prominent authors of the magazine Novyi Satirikon.

Teffi was born as Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya into a family of gentry. Her year of birth is variously reported in the range 1871–1876. Her father, Alexander Vladimirovich Lokhvitsky, a lawyer and scholar, was prominent in Saint Petersburg society. Her mother, Varvara Alexandrovna Goyer, was of French descent, a lover of poetry, and familiar with Russian and European literature. Teffi was first introduced to literature when, as a young girl, she read Childhood and Boyhood by Leo Tolstoy, and the fiction of Alexander Pushkin. Her own first published poetry appeared in the journal The North in 1901 under her full name. In 1905 her first story, The Day Has Passed, was published in the journal The Fields, also under her full name. It had been written in 1904 and first submitted to the journal God's World, which had turned it down. In an answer to a questionnaire given to writers in 1911, Teffi said the following about her early literary work: In 1918 she left St Petersburg, and on the pretext of a theatrical tour, travelled with a group of actors across Russia and Ukraine, eventually reaching Istanbul. In 1920, she settled in Paris and began publishing her works in the Russian newspapers there. the first such work in any language.