‘Bсе так ненавидели друг друга, что нельзя было соединить двадцать человек, из которых десять не были бы врагами десяти остальных. А если не были, то немедленно делались.’ (Teffi – Gorodok)
The last few months have seen growing rifts in the already divided ranks of oppositionist Russian émigrés. On the one hand are the Navalnyites – one-time supporters of the late Aleksei Navalny. On the other hand is what I call the ‘defeatist’ faction, whose most prominent members are Gary Kasparov, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Leonid Nevzlin. I may do a deeper dive into all this in the weeks to come. For now, though, I offer you something else. For whenever I read of these émigré shenanigans, it reminds me of a (very) short story by interwar Russian émigré author Teffi (Nadezhda Lokhvitskaya) titled A Little Town (Gorodok). I can’t find a copy of this in English on the internet, so I thought that I would do a small public service by publishing my own very crude translation here. I always enjoy reading this. I hope that you do too.
IRRUSSIANALITY 