|
The
Soviet famous "12 chairs" novel and movie
The 12
chairs story, the inspiration behind the chair monument
in Deribasovskaya park/ Gor-saud (Горсад) is a modern
Russian classic, known fondly by all of the former
Soviet people.
Ilya
Ilf (1897-1937) and Yevgeny
Petrov's (1903-42) Dvenadtsat' stul'ev
("12 Chairs" translated as "Diamonds
to Sit On") is a classic treasure hunt adventure
with a Soviet twist. In the opening scene, Ippolit
Matveevich learns that in 1917, just before the Bolsheviks
came to throw his aristocratic family out of their
house, his mother-in-law hid her diamonds in one of
the living room chairs.
Ippolit
Matveevich decides to try to find the diamonds. He
is your typical bumbling aristocrat (working as an
insignificant office clerk), so he teams up with Ostap
Bender, a cynical con artist who knows his way around
Soviet Russia. The unlikely pair travels all over
the country, usually penniless and only one step away
from trouble, but always hopeful. One of the most
hilarious chapters in the book is "Interplanetary
Chess Congress", still perhaps the greatest piece
of chess humor ever written. (Available at www.sovlit.com/chess.html)
The book
barely squeaked by Stalinist censorship and was dutifully
ignored by critics, but it became an enormous popular
success. The Twelve Chairs entered into the popular
consciousness in a way that is hard for Americans
to envision. People memorized this novel, and held
trivia contests based on it; quotes from the books
entered the language as satirical one-liners.
That popularity
has not diminished. On the contrary, as the Russia
of today increasingly resembles the era of the novel,
with its chaos, homeless waifs, and con artists, references
to the novel in daily life are on the rise: restaurants
are being named for the novel's characters, and newspapers
name regular columns after them. The novel is a touchstone
of Russian society, and anyone who studies the language
and culture must become familiar with it.
Leonid
Gajdaj's film, Twelve Chairs, was made in the 1960s.
Mel Brooks's film version from 1970 received mixed
reviews.
The duo
also wrote "The Little Golden Calf ", in
1930 (translated in 1931).(See
Golden Calf) It is the sequel to Twelve Chairs,
and the rogue in this novel Ostap Bender is the same
hero.
On an automobile
trip across the United States the duo met Ernest Hemingway
and Henry Ford, and after seeing over one hundred
movies the two committed communists preferred their
own country. This book inspired them to write "One-Storied
America" (translated as Little Golden America
in 1937). In large part this was an expose of the
materialistic and uncultured character of American
life, the work nevertheless indicates that many aspects
of capitalist society appealed to the authors.
A quasi-sequel
to One-Storied America work was the long story Tonya
(1937), which portrays with satirical touches the
life of Soviet people compelled to live in a capitalist
society.
In 1937
Ilf died
of tuberculosis which he had contracted on his journey
in the United States. During World War II Petrov
served as a war correspondent. He died in an airplane
crash returning from besieged Sevastopol to Moscow
on July 2, 1942.
--partially
adapted from Lexiconbridge.com
The video
may be ordered from the Lexiconbridge.com web site.
Yevgeny
Petrov's and Ilya
Ilf is a pen name. Petrov's
real name was Yevgeny
Petrovich Katayev, he was the younger brother
of Valentin Katayev author of "A White Sail Gleams"
(See Peter
and Gavrik Monument) Ilf's
real name was Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg.
(Yevgeny
Petrov's was born at Bazarnaya 4, today there is a
memorial plaque)
(Ilya
Ilf was born at Staroportofrankovskaya 19 (Старопортофранковская),
today there is a memorial plaque)
|
000