On Nostalgia and Courage: Russian Émigré Experience in Interwar Paris through the Eyes of Nadezhda Teffi

Abstract

In the aftermath of the October Revolution and the civil war, many Russians immigrated to France. When they arrived in France, such newcomers brought with them a profound and deep sense of loss and nostalgia. Their universe crumbled with the Russian old regime, and the memories of pre-1917 Russia came to dominate the themes of the Russian émigré literature in the 1920s. Despite numerous material difficulties, the Russian émigrés produced a great deal of writing that included memoirs, diaries, accounts of the Great War, and fiction. This paper will analyse the discourse of nostalgia in the works produced by these émigrés; the novels and short stories written by four writers, Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), Nadezhda Teffi (1872-1952), Romain Gary (1914-1980), and Elsa Triolet (1896-1970) will be in the focus of the paper. This article will compare the different nuances and shades of interwar nostalgia. It will also suggest that through the writings of the second generation of Russian immigrants, the themes of nostalgia and mythmaking penetrated French literature and helped to create the mythology of French Belle Époque as a joyful moment.