Nadezhda Teffi

Nadezhda Alexandrovna Teffi (Russian: Наде́жда Алекса́ндровна Тэ́ффи; 21 May [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. Her style is distinguished by two 'faces' of writing- the serious and the satirical, which she alternated between and often fused together to create a unique output of personal and political commentaries. Teffi's gift for humour was considered anomalous for a woman of her time, particularly due to well-known thinkers such as Henri Bergson and Arthur Schopenhauer who had declared that women were not capable of a sense of humour. Teffi would prove such thinkers wrong by skyrocketing to fame throughout Russia with her satirical writings, so much so that she had candies and perfume named after her.

Biography

Teffi was born Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya into a family of gentry, at her family's estate in Volhynia Governorate; she was the second youngest of six or seven children. 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.