“My First Visit to an Editorial Office” was first published in the journal Segodnya (Riga), 29th September 1929; included in the collection of memoirs Moya Letopis’ (Moscow: Vagrius, 2004).
“Liza” was first published in the short story collection Gorodok, (Paris, 1927); reprinted in Izbrannye proizvedeniya (Moscow: Lakom, 1999), vol. 3.
“Love” was first published in Illyustrirovannaya Rossiya, 15th November 1924, then in Gorodok; reprinted in Izbrannye proizvedeniya, vol. 3.
“The Green Devil” was first published in Segodnya (Riga), 25th December 1925, then in Gorodok; reprinted in Izbrannye proizvedeniya, vol. 3.
“Valya” was first published in Vozrozhdenie (Paris), 7th January 1926, then in Gorodok; reprinted in Izbrannye proizvedeniya, vol. 3.
“Staging Posts” was first published in Poslednie novosti (Paris), 28th April 1940, then in Zemnaya Raduga (New York: Chekhov Publishing House, 1952); reprinted in Izbrannye proizvedeniya, vol. 3.
“The White Flower” was first published in Zveno (Paris), 3rd March 1924, then in Gorodok; reprinted in Izbrannye proizvedeniya, vol. 3.
“New Life”: The first part, up to “And so I began waiting for Lenin”, was published in the newspaper Novoe russkoe slovo (New York), 25th June 1950, under the title “45 Years”. The entire article was later republished in Vozrozhdenie (Paris), January and February 1956, nos. 49 and 50. Teffi almost certainly intended this as a single article, titled “New Life”, though recent Russian editions, including Moya Letopis’, still publish it as two separate articles: “45 Years” and “New Life”. Reprinted in Moya Letopis’.
“Rasputin” was first published in Segodnya on 10th, 13th and 14th August 1924, then in Vospominaniya (Paris, 1932); reprinted in Moya Letopis’.
“We Are Still Living” may not have been published in Teffi’s lifetime. Included in Kontrrevolyutsionnaya bukva (St Petersburg: Azbuka, 2006) and Teffi v strane vospominanii (Kiev: LP Media, 2011).
“The Gadarene Swine” was first published in Gryadushchy Den’ (Odessa), March 1919; reprinted in Kontrrevolyutsionnaya bukva and Teffi v strane vospominanii.
“My First Tolstoy” was first published in Poslednie novosti (Paris), 21st November 1920.
“The Merezhkovskys” was first published in Novoe russkoe slovo (New York), 29 January 1950; reprinted in Moya Letopis’.
“Ilya Repin” was first published in Moya Letopis’ from a manuscript in RGALI (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art).
Earlier versions of these translations have been published as follows: “Rasputin” and “My First Tolstoy” in Subtly Worded (London: Pushkin Press, 2014); “Love” in Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida (London: Penguin Classics, 2005).
Thank you to the following, who have all either helped check the English texts or answer questions about the originaclass="underline"
Tamara Alexandrova, Maria Bloshteyn, Ilona Chavasse, Olive Classe, Jane Costlow, Kathryn Davies, Boris Dralyuk, Alexandra Fleming, Paul Gallagher, Anna Gunin, Anne Gutt, Edythe Haber, Nicky Harman, Rosalind Harvey, Sara Jolly, Elena Malysheva, Steve Marder, Melanie Mauthner, Olga Meerson, Melanie Moore, Alexander Nakhimovsky, Natasha Perova, Anna Pilkington, Joseph Prestwich, Donald Rayfield, Richard Shaw, Yevgeny Slivkin, Irina Steinberg, Elena Trubilova, Elena Volkova, Maria Wiltshire, Christine Worobec, and many other members of two invaluable mail groups—the Emerging Translators’ Network and SEELANGS.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
TEFFI (1872–1952) was the pen name of Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya, born in St. Petersburg into a distinguished family that treasured literature. She and her three sisters all became writers. Teffi wrote in a variety of styles and genres: political feuilletons published in a Bolshevik newspaper during her brief period of radical fervor after the 1905 Revolution; Symbolist poems that she declaimed or sang in Petersburg literary salons; popular one-act plays, mostly humorous or satirical—one was entitled The Woman Question; and a novel titled simply Adventure Novel. Her finest works are her short stories and Memories, a witty, tragic, and deeply perceptive account of her last journey across Russia and what is now Ukraine, before going by boat to Istanbul in the summer of 1919. Teffi was widely read; her admirers included not only such writers as Bunin, Bulgakov, and Zoshchenko, but also both Lenin and the last tsar. In pre-Revolutionary Russia, candies and perfumes were named after her; after the Revolution, her stories were published and her plays performed throughout the Russian diaspora. She died in Paris.
ROBERT CHANDLER’s translations from Russian include Alexander Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter (an NYRB classic); Nikolay Leskov’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; Vasily Grossman’s An Armenian Sketchbook, Everything Flows, Life and Fate, and The Road (all NYRB classics); and Hamid Ismailov’s Central Asian novel, The Railway. His co-translations of Andrey Platonov have won prizes both in the UK and in the US. He is the editor and main translator of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida and Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov. Together with Boris Dralyuk and Irina Mashinski he has co-edited The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry. He has also translated selections of Sappho and Apollinaire. As well as running regular translation workshops in London and teaching the annual Translate in the City literary translation course, he works as a mentor for the British Centre for Literary Translation.
ELIZABETH CHANDLER is a co-translator, with Robert Chandler, of Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter and of several titles by Andrey Platonov and Vasily Grossman.
ROSE FRANCE has translated poems by Lermontov for the collection After Lermontov: Verses for the Centenary (2014) and a number of stories and sketches by Teffi and Zoshchenko for two forthcoming anthologies. She teaches Russian language, literature, and translation at the University of Edinburgh and translation at the University of Stirling.
ANNE MARIE JACKSON has lived for extended periods in Russia and Moldova. She is a co-translator, with Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, and Irina Steinberg, of Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea (available as an NYRB classic). Her previous translations include works by Alexei Nikitin, Maxim Osipov, and Olga Slavnikova.
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