Subtle Psychology: Humorous Stories

Nadezhda Alexandrovna Lokhvitskaya, the “Queen of Laughter,” known to readers by the name Teffi, is a prominent figure in Russian literature of the first half of the 20th century. She is the author of brilliant humorous stories that were immediately loved by both general readers and critics. “She is considered the most entertaining and ‘funny’ writer. And they invariably take a volume of her stories on a long journey…” wrote Mikhail Zoshchenko. Teffi’s works, in which gentle laughter and subtle irony sometimes combine with poignant sadness and pity for her characters, were highly valued by her contemporaries: Alexander Kuprin, Ivan Bunin, Mark Aldanov, and Sasha Cherny. Extremely popular in her homeland, and later among emigrants, Teffi returned to Russian readers in the early 1990s. Since then, collections of her stories and memoirs have been published one after another.