Ilya Ilf: the life and tragic fate of the creator of “12 Chairs. Miracles, or the familiar word “we” What Ilf and Petrov wrote

Ilf I. and Petrov E.- Russian Soviet satirical writers; co-authors who worked together. In the novels “The Twelve Chairs” (1928) and “The Golden Calf” (1931), they created the adventures of a talented swindler and adventurer, showing satirical types and Soviet morals of the 20s. Feuilletons, book “One-Storey America” (1936).

In Russian literature of the 20th century, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov occupy the place of the most beloved satirical writers among the people. You can read their books, re-read them, you can even talk with phrases from them all your life. Many people do just that.

Ilya Ilf(pseudonym; real name and surname Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg) was born on October 15 (October 3, old style) 1897 in Odessa, in the family of a bank employee. Libra. He was an employee of Yugrost and the newspaper “Sailor”. In 1923, having moved to Moscow, he became a professional writer. In Ilya’s early essays, stories and feuilletons, it is not difficult to find thoughts, observations and details that were later used in the joint writings of Ilf and Petrov.

Evgeniy Petrov(pseudonym; real name and surname Evgeny Petrovich Kataev) was born on December 13 (November 30, old style) 1902 in Odessa, in the family of a history teacher. Zodiac sign - Sagittarius. He was a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency, then an inspector of the criminal investigation department. In 1923, Zhenya moved to Moscow and became a journalist.

In 1925, the future co-authors met, and in 1926 their joint work began, which at first consisted of composing themes for drawings and feuilletons in the magazine “Smekhach” and processing materials for the newspaper “Gudok”. The first significant collaboration between Ilf and Petrov was the novel “The Twelve Chairs,” published in 1928 in the magazine “30 Days” and published as a separate book in the same year. The novel was a great success. It is notable for its many brilliantly executed satirical episodes, characteristics and details, which were the result of topical life observations.

The novel was followed by several short stories and novellas (“Bright Personality”, 1928, “1001 Days, or New Scheherazade”, 1929); At the same time, systematic work by writers began on feuilletons for Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta. In 1931, the second novel by Ilf and Petrov was published - “The Golden Calf”, the story of the further adventures of the hero of “The Twelve Chairs” Ostap Bender. The novel presents a whole gallery of small people, overwhelmed by acquisitive impulses and passions and existing “parallel to the big world in which big people and big things live.”

In 1935 - 1936, the writers traveled around the United States, which resulted in the book “One-Storey America” (1936). In 1937, Ilf died, and the Notebooks published after his death were unanimously praised by critics as an outstanding literary work. After the death of his co-author, Petrov wrote a number of film scripts (together with G. Moonblit), the play “Island of Peace” (published in 1947), “Front-line Diary” (1942). In 1940 he joined the Communist Party and from the first days of the war became a war correspondent for Pravda and Informburo. Awarded the Order of Lenin and a medal.

The books of Ilf and Petrov were repeatedly dramatized and filmed, republished in the USSR and translated into many foreign languages. (G.N. Moonblit)

Essays:

• Collected Works, vol. 1 - 4, M., 1938;
• Collection soch., vol. 1 - 5, M., 1961.

Literature:

• Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov, Preface, in the books: Ilf I. and Petrov E., Twelve Chairs. Golden Calf, M., 1956;
• Sintsova T. N., I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Materials for bibliography, L., 1958;
• Abram Zinovievich Vulis, I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Essay on creativity, M., 1960;
• Boris Galanov, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, M., 1961;
• Memories of I. Ilf and E. Petrov, M., 1963;
• Yanovskaya L., Why do you write funny?, M., 1969;
• Russian Soviet writers, prose writers. Biobibliographic index, volume 2; L., 1964.

Books:

• I. Ilf. E. Petrov. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 1, I. Ilf, E. Petrov.
• I. Ilf. E. Petrov. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 2, I. Ilf, E. Petrov.
• I. Ilf. E. Petrov. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 4, I. Ilf, E. Petrov.

• Ilf and Petrov were traveling on a tram, USSR, 1971.

Film adaptations works:

• 1933 - Twelve chairs;
• 1936 - Circus;
• 1936 - One day in the summer;
• 1938 - 13 chairs;
• 1961 - Quite seriously (essay on How Robinson was created);
• 1968 - Golden Calf;
• 1970 - The Twelve Chairs (Twelve chairs);
• 1971 - Twelve chairs;
• 1972 - Ilf and Petrov rode on a tram (based on stories and feuilletons);
• 1976 - Twelve chairs;
• 1989 - Bright personality;
• 1993 - Dreams of an idiot;
• 2004 - Twelve Chairs (Zwölf Stühle);
• 2006 - Golden Calf.

Ilf I. and Petrov E. - Russian Soviet satirists; co-authors who worked together. In the novels “The Twelve Chairs” (1928) and “The Golden Calf” (1931), they created the adventures of a talented swindler and adventurer, showing satirical types and Soviet morals of the 20s. Feuilletons, book “One-Storey America” (1936).

Ilya Ilf (pseudonym; real name and surname Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg) was born on October 15 (October 3, old style) 1897, in Odessa, in the family of a bank employee. He was an employee of Yugrost and the newspaper “Sailor”. In 1923, having moved to Moscow, he became a professional writer. In Ilya’s early essays, stories and feuilletons, it is not difficult to find thoughts, observations and details that were later used in the joint writings of Ilf and Petrov.
Evgeniy Petrov (pseudonym; real name and surname Evgeniy Petrovich Kataev) was born on December 13 (November 30, old style) 1903, in Odessa, in the family of a history teacher. He was a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency, then an inspector of the criminal investigation department. In 1923, Zhenya moved to Moscow and became a journalist.

In 1925, the future co-authors met, and in 1926 their joint work began, which at first consisted of composing themes for drawings and feuilletons in the magazine “Smekhach” and processing materials for the newspaper “Gudok”. The first significant collaboration between Ilf and Petrov was the novel “The Twelve Chairs,” published in 1928 in the magazine “30 Days” and published as a separate book in the same year. The novel was a great success. It is notable for its many brilliantly executed satirical episodes, characteristics and details, which were the result of topical life observations.

The novel was followed by several short stories and novellas (“Bright Personality”, 1928, “1001 Days, or New Scheherazade”, 1929); At the same time, systematic work by writers began on feuilletons for Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta. In 1931, the second novel by Ilf and Petrov was published - “The Golden Calf”, the story of the further adventures of the hero of “The Twelve Chairs” Ostap Bender. The novel presents a whole gallery of small people, overwhelmed by acquisitive impulses and passions and existing “parallel to the big world in which big people and big things live.”

In 1935 - 1936, the writers traveled around the United States, the result of which was the book “One-Storey America” (1936). In 1937, Ilf died, and the Notebooks published after his death were unanimously praised by critics as an outstanding literary work. After the death of his co-author, Petrov wrote a number of film scripts (together with G. Moonblit), the play “Island of Peace” (published in 1947), “Front-line Diary” (1942). In 1940 he joined the Communist Party and from the first days of the war became a war correspondent for Pravda and Informburo. Awarded the Order of Lenin and a medal.

Biography of I. Ilf

Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf (Ehiel-Leib Fainzilberg; the pseudonym “Ilf” may be an abbreviation of his name Ilya? Fainzilberg. (October 3 (15), 1897, Odessa - April 13, 1937, Moscow) - Soviet writer and journalist. Biography of Ilya (Iehiel- Leib) Fainzilberg was born on October 4 (16), 1897 in Odessa, the third of four sons in the family of a bank employee Arie Benyaminovich Fainzilberg (1863-1933) and his wife Mindl Aronovna (nee Kotlova; 1868-1922), originally from the town of Boguslav, Kiev province (the family moved to Odessa between 1893 and 1895) He graduated from technical school in 1913, after which he worked in a drawing office, at a telephone exchange, at a military factory.After the revolution, he was an accountant, a journalist, and then an editor in humorous magazines.

Essays

The twelve Chairs
Golden calf
Extraordinary stories from the life of the city of Kolokolamsk
One thousand and one days, or
New Scheherazade
Bright personality
One-story America
A day in Athens
Travel Stories
Start of the hike
Tonya
Vaudeville and film scripts
Stories
Past of the Civil Registry Office Registrar
Under the circus big top
He was a member of the Odessa Union of Poets. In 1923 he came to Moscow and became an employee of the Gudok newspaper. Ilf wrote materials of a humorous and satirical nature - mainly feuilletons. In 1927, the creative collaboration of Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov (who also worked for the newspaper Gudok) began with joint work on the novel “The Twelve Chairs”.

In 1928, Idya Ilf was fired from the newspaper due to a reduction in the staff of the satirical department, followed by Yevgeny Petrov. Soon they became employees of the new weekly magazine “Eccentric.” Subsequently, in co-authorship with Evgeny Petrov they wrote (see Ilf and Petrov):

fantastic story “Bright Personality” (filmed)
documentary story “One-Storey America” (1937).

In 1932 - 1937, Ilf and Petrov wrote feuilletons for the newspaper Pravda. In the 1930s, Ilya Ilf was interested in photography. Many years after his death, photographs of Ilya Arnoldovich were accidentally found by Alexandra Ilyinichna’s daughter Ilf. She prepared the book “Ilya Ilf – Photographer” for publication. Photo album. About 200 photographs taken by Ilf and his contemporaries. Articles by A.I. Ilf, A.V. Loginova and L.M. Yanovskaya in Russian and English - Moscow, 2002.. While traveling by car in the American states, Ilf developed long-standing tuberculosis, which soon led to his death in Moscow on April 13, 1937.

I. Ilf's older brothers are the French cubist artist and photographer Sandro Fasini, also known as Alexander Fasini (Srul Arievich Fainzilberg (Saul Arnoldovich Fainzilberg), December 23, 1892, Kiev - 1942, Auschwitz concentration camp, deported July 22, 1942 from Paris with his wife) and the Soviet graphic artist and photographer Mikhail (Moishe-Arn) Arievich Fainzilberg, who used the pseudonyms MAF and Mi-fa (December 30, 1895, Odessa - 1942, Tashkent). The younger brother - Benjamin Arievich Fainzilberg (January 10, 1905, Odessa - 1988, Moscow) - was a topographical engineer.

Biography of E. Petrov

Evgeny Petrov (pseudonym of Evgeny Petrovich Kataev, 1903-1942) - Russian Soviet writer, co-author of Ilya Ilf.

Brother of the writer Valentin Kataev. Father of cinematographer Pyotr Kataev and composer Ilya Kataev. Wife - Valentina Leontyevna Grunzaid, from the Russified Germans.

Worked as a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency. For three years he served as an inspector of the Odessa criminal investigation department (in the autobiography of Ilf and Petrov (1929) it is said about this period of his life: “His first literary work was a protocol for examining the corpse of an unknown man”). In 1922, during a chase with a shootout, he personally detained his friend Alexander Kozachinsky, who led a gang of raiders. Subsequently, he achieved a review of his criminal case and the replacement of A. Kozachinsky with the highest measure of social protection - execution - to imprisonment in a camp. In 1923, Petrov came to Moscow, where he became an employee of the Red Pepper magazine. In 1926, he came to work at the newspaper “Gudok”, where he hired A. Kozachinsky, who had been released by that time under an amnesty, as a journalist. His brother Valentin Kataev had a significant influence on Evgeny Petrov. Valentin Kataev’s wife recalled: I have never seen such affection between brothers as Valya and Zhenya have. Actually, Valya forced his brother to write. Every morning he started by calling him - Zhenya got up late, started swearing that they woke him up... “Okay, keep swearing,” Valya said and hung up. In 1927, the creative collaboration of Evgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf (who also worked for the newspaper Gudok) began with the joint work on the novel “The Twelve Chairs”. Subsequently, in collaboration with Ilya Ilf, the following were written:

The novel “The Twelve Chairs” (1928);
novel “The Golden Calf” (1931);
short stories “Extraordinary stories from the life of the city of Kolokolamsk” (1928);
fantasy story “Bright Personality” (filmed);
short story “1001 days, or New Scheherazade” (1929);
story “One-Storey America” (1937).

In 1932-1937, Ilf and Petrov wrote feuilletons for the newspaper Pravda. In 1935-1936, they traveled around the United States, which resulted in the book “One-Storey America” (1937). The books of Ilf and Petrov have been repeatedly dramatized and filmed. The creative collaboration of the writers was interrupted by the death of Ilf in Moscow on April 13, 1937. In 1938, he persuaded his friend A. Kozachinsky to write the story “The Green Van”. In 1939 he joined the CPSU(b).

Petrov made a lot of efforts to publish Ilf’s notebooks and conceived a large work, “My Friend Ilf.” In 1939-1942, Petrov worked on the novel “Journey to the Land of Communism,” in which he described the USSR in 1963 (excerpts were published posthumously in 1965). During the Great Patriotic War, Petrov became a front-line correspondent. He died on July 2, 1942 - the plane on which he was returning to Moscow from Sevastopol was shot down by a German fighter over the territory of the Rostov region, near the village of Mankovo. A monument has been erected at the site of the plane crash.

Compositions (solo)

The Joys of Megas, 1926
Without report, 1927
Front diary, 1942
Air carrier. Film scripts, 1943
Island of peace. Play, 1947
Unfinished novel “Journey to the Land of Communism” // “Literary Heritage”, vol. 74, 1965

Today we will talk about two more writers from the “Southwest”, two writers from Odessa who lived and worked in Moscow and were truly Soviet writers. One can just say about them that they were not writers of the Soviet era, but Soviet writers. This is Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov.

Petrov was the brother of Valentin Petrovich Kataev. At the time he started, Kataev was already a famous writer, so Petrov took a pseudonym for himself, choosing his patronymic as his new surname. Various writers have often done this quite well. And Kataev, in fact, dragged Petrov to Moscow.

Petrov worked in the criminal investigation department at first, and then switched to writing short funny stories and feuilletons. And Ilf, who came from Odessa, worked together with Kataev in the famous railway newspaper “Gudok”, which we have already talked about when we touched on the work of Yuri Karlovich Olesha.

And so Kataev, Valentin Petrovich Kataev, and he plays an important role for our conversation today, he read in a book about Dumas the Elder that Dumas typed for himself - I apologize for the political incorrectness, but this will need to be said, formulated exactly that way - he typed for himself “ literary blacks,” that is, he took young writers, gave them an idea, gave them a plot, and these writers developed it, then Dumas went through the hand of a master, and then these novels were published under three names.

By this time Kataev was already a fairly famous writer. He wrote the story “The Embezzlers,” funny and humorous too, which he turned into a play and was shown at the Moscow Art Theater. Stanislavski praised him.

In general, he was already a fairly well-known writer, and so he was fired up by this idea, he liked this idea. He felt like Dumas the peer, Dumas the father, and he decided to take two people for testing. It was he, it was he who combined these two names: he took his brother, took Ilf and offered them a plot about how diamonds are placed in twelve chairs, and then, in fact, that plot of “The Twelve Chairs”, which we know, was partly invented Kataev, because Kataev did not have any Ostap Bender there yet. Ilf and Petrov have already come up with this.

And so he gave them this plot, promising to later go through the master’s hand, and went to rest, and Ilf and Petrov began to write. And when Kataev returned from vacation, they read to him what they had done, Bender was already there, and Kataev, to give him credit, said no, you’ve already developed it so much, it’s so different, it’s so much better I don’t want the fact that I assumed that I would not be the third in this tandem of yours, and I give you this novel, write it together.

But he only had two conditions. The first condition is that all editions of the novel must contain a dedication to Valentin Petrovich Kataev. This condition was fulfilled, and now, when you open this novel, you will see this dedication there. The second condition was more difficult for Ilf and Petrov. He demanded a gold cigarette case for giving this idea. The co-authors grunted, but in the end, this cigarette case, after the novel was published, was given to Kataev, albeit a woman’s one, because it was lighter in weight.

New life for an old story

But, however, Kataev himself, in coming up with this plot, relied on an already known plot. Let's remember this. This will be useful to us, perhaps, in our lecture today. Conan Doyle has a famous story about Sherlock Holmes, “The Six Napoleons,” where the situation is partly similar.

A certain young man who stole a diamond runs away from the police, runs into a sculpture workshop and quickly embeds this diamond in one of the busts of Napoleon, of which there are several standard ones, then runs away and then begins to look for these busts and break them.

But Ilf and Petrov took advantage of the opportunity not 50 or 80, not even 100, but 120 percent. They turned a potentially humorous story into a wonderful, if you are not afraid of such lofty words, into a great work. They used the opportunity to search for chairs in order to give a panorama of life in the Soviet country, because two heroes, Ostap Bender and Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, nicknamed Kisa, they travel around the Soviet Union, and a picture is given, such a rather large-scale picture of life in general in the Soviet country .

And the question that seems important to me and in answering which we will try to analyze this text and the text of the novel “The Golden Calf” is the question of the attitude of writers to Soviet reality. You and I have already raised it in a lecture about Yuri Olesha. And it is no coincidence that it arises again among us, because Ilf and Petrov were Moscow writers, that is, Muscovites of the Odessa flood, and they completely sincerely believed in building socialism, and then communism in a single country, in the Soviet Union. But at the same time, they wanted - this was the type of their talent - they wanted to write a satirical novel, that is, a novel in which life in the Soviet Union and certain aspects of life in the Soviet Union were ridiculed.

And they were faced with a rather difficult alternative: what to do? How to write a novel that glorifies socialism, and at the same time a novel that would ridicule not only the shortcomings of the past (actually, this is not a very rewarding task, right, to ridicule the tsarist regime? Everyone did this), in which there would be a critical look at life would have been present in the Soviet Union too. Ilf and Petrov came out of this difficult situation with honor, and they came up with - this is, unfortunately, not my observation, this is the observation of the wonderful philologist Yuri Konstantinovich Shcheglov, which I will develop in the first part of the lecture, in the second something of my own I’ll try to do it - they came up with the so-called, Shcheglov calls it, a two-tier structure of the Soviet world.

What does this mean, a two-tier building? And this means that the Soviet world, as it is presented in the novels “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf,” consists of two tiers. One of the tiers is the far tier of space. This is the socialism that is being built. This is the socialism that looms on the horizon. This is the socialism that Ilf and Petrov wrote in “The Twelve Chairs”, and especially in the novel “The Golden Calf”... Let me remind you that the novel “The Twelve Chairs” dates back to 1928, and “The Golden Calf” - 1931. So, this socialism is glorified in novels. We will also provide quotes. Ilf and Petrov find the highest words to describe this socialism, which will only be built. So, long shot, long tier.

And there is a nearby tier, that is, the tier where the events of today, modernity, take place, and here Ilf and Petrov allow themselves to be very ironic, allow themselves to laugh, mock, and laugh and mock not only at the relics of the past, at those, for example , characters, and there are many of them in “The Twelve Chairs” and in “The Golden Calf,” who dream of returning and restoring the past. They allow themselves to laugh at some Soviet processes. I will give only a few examples, which seem to me to be very expressive.

Something to laugh about

For example, in “The Golden Calf” they allow themselves to write very ironically about the so-called purge. This is such a Soviet phenomenon. This did not happen before the revolution. That is, people who had some kind of dubious past, from the point of view of the new Soviet government, they were nobles or were landowners of some kind, and so on and so forth, they were purged from Soviet institutions. If you remember, there is this rather big story about the accountant Berlaga and other people working at Hercules. Ilf and Petrov laugh at them, they laugh at them, and at the same time the process itself is also described quite ironically.

Or, for example, another, it seems to me, expressive case. As always, we have already talked about this in lectures, that very important things are often concentrated on the periphery, not in the main plot line of the novel, but, as it were, a little to the side of this plot line. So, there is a plot, also in “The Golden Calf,” when the swindlers, they ride in the lead column in the “Antelope-Wildebeest” car, skimming the cream, as it were, from this automobile rally, and then they are exposed, they need to repaint the car, and they they need to rest somewhere, they need to spend some time somewhere.

And so they stop at a man’s last name - it’s funny anyway, unfortunately, the letter “e” is not there, and it’s not clear whether it’s Khvorobyov or Khvorobyov. And this man is a monarchist. He was a Soviet employee, but he had to earn a living, and he always dreamed of how he would stop working when he retired, and then he would finally live his own life, in which the state would not interfere in any way. , he will think about the Emperor, he will think about Purishkevich, and so on and so forth - in general, there will be happiness.

Not so. As soon as he retired, all sorts of thoughts began to painfully come into his head about what they were doing now in our trust, whether they had laid off someone or not. Then he decided: “Okay, okay, if the Soviet Union has already made its way into this life of mine, the Soviet stuff has made its way, but there are dreams, dreams - this is my sacred, this is inviolable, and there I will see the tsar and the people around him who are dear to me.” . No, that was not the case, and here his dreams are full of Soviet realities, demonstrations, and so on and so on. And, in general, this topic is quite serious, it is important: the topic of the penetration of the state at all levels into the life of the average person. It's almost such an Orwellian theme. Of course, Ilf and Petrov solved it in a unique, satirical, easy way, because these novels are such easy, enjoyable reading. But, nevertheless, this topic arises.

Or I’ll give you another example. This is the father of Zosya Sinitskaya, the girl with whom Ostap, who works as a rebus specialist, is in love in the novel “The Golden Calf”. That is, he composes puzzles and charades for all kinds of publications, and now his puzzles...

Ilf Ilya & Petrov Evgeniy

Collection of memories of Ilf and E Petrov

COLLECTION OF MEMORIES

about I. Ilf and E. Petrov

COMPILERS G. MOONBLIT, A. RASKIN

Evgeny Petrov. From memories of Ilf

Yuri Olesha. About Ilf.

In memory of Ilf

Lev Slavin. I knew them

Sergei Bondarin. Dear old years

T. Lishina. Cheerful, naked, thin

Konstantin Paustovsky. Fourth stripe

Mikhail Shtikh (M. Lvov). In the old "Gudok"

S. Hecht. Seven steps

A. Ehrlich. The beginning of the way

B. Belyaev. Letter

G. Ryklin. Episodes from different years

Igor Ilyinsky. "One summer"

Bor. Efimov. Moscow, Paris, Vesuvius crater

Ilya Erenburg. From book

V. Ardov. Wizards

G. Moonblit. Ilya Ilf. Evgeniy Petrov

Evgeny Shatrov. For consultation

A. Raskin. Our strict teacher

Evgeny Krieger. During the days of war

Rud. Bershadsky. Editor

Konstantin Simonov. War correspondent

I. Isakov. Last hours

Evgeny Petrov. On the fifth anniversary of Ilf's death

In 1962, it was twenty-five years since the death of Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf and twenty years since the death of Evgeny Petrovich Petrov.

A lot of people all over the world read and love their books and, as always happens, would like to know about the authors - what they were like, how they worked, who they were friends with, how they began their writing journey.

We tried to answer these questions to the best of our ability, telling everything we knew about Ilf and Petrov.

We dedicate this book to the blessed memory of our friends.

EVGENY PETROV

FROM MEMORIES OF ILF

Once, while traveling across America, Ilf and I had a fight.

This happened in the state of New Mexico, in the small town of Gallop, on the evening of that very day, the chapter about which in our book “One-Storey America” is called “The Day of Misfortune.”

We crossed the Rocky Mountains and were very tired. And then I still had to sit down at the typewriter and write a feuilleton for Pravda.

We sat in a boring hotel room, dissatisfiedly listening to the whistles and bells of shunting locomotives (in America, train tracks often pass through the city, and bells are attached to locomotives). We were silent. Only occasionally did one of us say, “Well?”

The machine was opened, a sheet of paper was inserted into the carriage, but the thing did not move.

As a matter of fact, this happened regularly throughout our ten-year literary work - the most difficult thing was to write the first line. These were painful days. We would get nervous, angry, push each other, then fall silent for hours, unable to squeeze out a word, then suddenly start chatting animatedly about something that had nothing to do with our topic - for example, about the League of Nations or the poor performance of the Union writers. Then they fell silent again. We seemed to ourselves to be the most disgusting lazy people that could exist in the world. We seemed to ourselves infinitely mediocre and stupid. We were disgusted to look at each other.

And usually, when such a painful state reached its limit, the first line suddenly appeared - the most ordinary, unremarkable line. It was pronounced by one of us rather hesitantly. The other corrected her a little with a sour look. The line was written down. And immediately all the torment ended. We knew from experience that if the first phrase is there, things will work out.

But in the city of Gallop, New Mexico, things were not moving forward. The first line was not born. And we quarreled.

Generally speaking, we quarreled very rarely, and then for purely literary reasons - because of some turn of phrase or epithet. And then a terrible quarrel happened - with shouting, curses and terrible accusations. Either we were too nervous and overtired, or Ilf’s fatal illness took its toll, which neither he nor I knew about at that time, but we quarreled for a long time - about two hours. And suddenly, without saying a word, we began to laugh. It was strange, wild, incredible, but we laughed. And not some hysterical, shrill, so-called alien laughter, after which you need to take valerian, but the most ordinary, so-called healthy laughter. Then we admitted to each other that we were thinking the same thing at the same time - we shouldn’t quarrel, it’s pointless. After all, we still can’t break up. After all, a writer who lived a ten-year life and wrote half a dozen books cannot disappear just because his constituent parts quarreled, like two housewives in a communal kitchen over a primus stove.

And the evening in the city of Gallop, which began so horribly, ended with the most intimate conversation.

This was the most frank conversation in many years of our friendship, which has never been overshadowed by anything. Each of us told the other all our most secret thoughts and feelings.

For a very long time, around the end of work on “The Twelve Chairs,” we began to notice that we sometimes uttered a word or phrase at the same time. Usually we abandoned such a word and began to look for another.

If a word came into the minds of two people at the same time, Ilf said, then it could come to the minds of three or four, it means it was too close. Don’t be lazy, Zhenya, let’s look for something else. It's difficult. But who said that writing fiction is easy?

Once, at the request of one editor, we composed a humorous autobiography that contained a lot of truth. Here she is:

"It is very difficult to write together. One must think that it was easier for the Goncourts. After all, they were brothers. And we are not even relatives. And not even the same age. And even different nationalities: while one is Russian (a mysterious Slavic soul), the other is a Jew (mysterious Jewish soul).

So, it’s difficult for us to work.

The most difficult thing to achieve is that harmonious moment when both authors finally sit down at the desk.

It would seem that everything is fine: the table is covered with newspaper so as not to stain the tablecloth, the inkwell is full to the brim, behind the wall they are tapping “Oh, those black ones” on the piano with one finger, a dove is looking out the window, agendas for various meetings are torn up and thrown away. In a word, everything is in order, sit and write.

But here it begins.

While one of the authors is full of creative vigor and eager to give humanity a new work of art, as they say, a broad canvas, the other (oh, mysterious Slavic soul!) lies on the sofa, legs up, and reads the history of naval battles. At the same time, he declares that he is seriously (in all likelihood, fatally) ill.

It also happens differently.

The Slavic soul suddenly rises from his sick bed and says that he has never felt such a creative upsurge in himself. She's ready to work all night long. Let the phone ring - don’t answer, let guests knock on the door - get out! Write, just write. Let us be diligent and ardent, let us treat the subject with care, let us cherish the predicate, let us be gentle towards people and strict towards ourselves.

As soon as “12 Chairs” was published, Ilf got new trousers, fame, money, and a separate apartment with antique furniture decorated with heraldic lions.

On April 13, 1937, the popular Soviet writer Ilya Ilf died in Moscow. Born in 1897 in Odessa, Ilya Arnoldovich worked for a long time as an accountant, journalist and editor in a humor magazine. In 1923, Ilf moved to Moscow, where he became an employee of the Gudok newspaper. During work, the creative collaboration between Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, who also worked at Gudok, began. In 1928, Ilf and Petrov published the novel “The Twelve Chairs,” which became incredibly popular among readers, was filmed a huge number of times in different countries, and the main character of the work, operator Ostap Bender, became a people's favorite. Three years later, Ilf and Petrov released a sequel to the novel about Bender’s adventures, “The Golden Calf,” which also became a domestic hit. In the material in the “Idols of the Past” section, we will talk about the career, life and love of the popular writer Ilya Ilf.

In the first edition of “12 Chairs,” the illustrator gave Ostap Bender the features of the famous writer Valentin Kataev, a merry fellow and lover of adventures. However, Ilya Ilf had one acquaintance who was much more suitable for the role of the Great Schemer...

From his eventful biography, Mitya Schirmacher willingly reported only one thing: “I am the illegitimate son of a Turkish subject.” To the question: “What is your profession?” - answered proudly: “Combinator!” In all of Odessa there was no second jacket and riding breeches like Mitya’s: bright yellow, shiny (he sewed them from restaurant curtains). At the same time, Mitya limped badly, wore an orthopedic boot, and his eyes were different: one green, the other yellow.

Ilf met this colorful person, whom literary scholars would later write down as a prototype of Ostap Bender, in 1920 at the Odessa “Collective of Poets.” Mitya had a very distant relationship with poetry, but he was active in literary activities. For example, he extorted space and money from the Odessa City Council to open a literary cafe, which for some reason was called “Paeon the Fourth.” For a free dinner, Eduard Bagritsky, Valentin Kataev, Yuri Olesha read their works there. The cafe was quite popular. And it’s not hard to guess whose pocket the income went into. Mitya Schirmacher knew how to handle things! While the whole of Odessa was undergoing “densification” and getting a room of 10 meters for a family of five was considered lucky, Mitya alone managed to occupy a spacious three-room apartment, furnished with antique furniture, with Kuznetsov porcelain, silverware and a Becker piano.

The entire “Collective of Poets” spent cheerful evenings in this apartment. Ilf loved to sit on the windowsill, smiling ironically with his Negro lips. From time to time he uttered something profound: “I papered the room of my life with thoughts about her” or “Here are the girls, tall and shiny, like hussar boots.” Young, elegant, significant. Even the most ordinary cap from the market on his head took on an aristocratic look. What can we say about the long narrow coat and the inevitable colorful silk scarf, tied with elegant carelessness! Friends called Ilf “our lord.” The similarity was aggravated by the eternal meerschaum pipe and God knows where I got the English pince-nez.

Once, a friend who was planning to move from Odessa needed to sell her things at a flea market. Ilf volunteered to help. He walked up to her with a bored look and began to ask the price, deliberately distorting his words. The resellers perked up: since a foreigner is ready to buy, it means the things are good! Having pushed Ilf aside, they sold out everything in a matter of minutes. “And this son is an artist,” Ilf’s father sighed sadly when he learned about this story.

10-year-old Jehiel-Leib (right) with his family. 1907 Photo: RGBI

The Unlucky Sons of Arie Fainsilberg

Father, Arie Fainzilberg, was a minor employee at the Siberian Trade Bank. He had four sons (Ilya, or rather Jehiel-Leib, was the third). Arie did not even dream of giving a decent education to everyone, but in his dreams he saw the eldest, Saul, as a respectable accountant. How much money was spent on studying at a gymnasium, then at a commercial school - all in vain! Saul became an artist, renaming himself Sandro Fasini (he painted in a cubist style, eventually went to France, exhibited there in fashion salons. And in 1944, he and his family died in Auschwitz). Old Fainzilberg, barely recovering from disappointment, set to work on his second son, Moishe-Aron: and again the gymnasium, and again the commercial school, and again the expenses that were exorbitant for the family... And again the same story.

Taking the pseudonym Mi-Fa, the young man also became an artist. With his third son, Arie, Fainzilberg acted smarter - instead of a commercial one, he sent him to a craft school, where they did not teach anything unnecessary and “seductive”, such as drawing. And for some time Yechiel-Leib pleased his old man: having quickly changed many professions from a turner to a clay head maker in a doll workshop, the young man in 1919 finally became an accountant.

He was taken to the financial accounting department of the Oprodkomguba - the Special Provincial Food Commission for the supply of the Red Army. In “The Golden Calf” Oprodkomgub will be described as “Hercules”. It was there in the offices that oddly combined office desks with nickel-plated beds and gilded washbasins, left over from the hotel that had previously been located in the building. And people spent hours pretending to be useful, quietly carrying out small and large frauds.

And at the age of twenty-three, the third son suddenly stunned his father with a confession: they say, his calling is literature, he has already joined the “Collective of Poets,” and he is leaving the service. For most of the day, Jehiel-Leib now lay on the bed and thought about something, fiddling with the coarse curl of hair on his forehead. I didn’t write anything, except that I came up with a pseudonym for myself: Ilya Ilf. But for some reason, everyone around them was sure: someone, someone, and over time he would become a really great writer! And, as you know, they were only half wrong. In the sense that Ilf became “half” of the great writer. The second “half” was Petrov.

Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov Photo: TASS

For a golden cigarette case

“I have doubts: will Zhenya and I be counted as one person?” - Ilf joked. They dreamed of dying together in a disaster. It was scary to think that one of them would have to be left alone with a typewriter.

Future co-authors met in 1926 in Moscow. Ilf moved there in the hope of finding some literary work. Valentin Kataev, a comrade in the Odessa “Collective of Poets”, who by that time had managed to make a great writing career in Moscow, brought him to the editorial office of the newspaper “Gudok”. “What can he do?” - asked the editor. - “Everything and nothing.” - “Not enough.” In general, Ilf was hired as a proofreader to prepare workers’ letters for printing. But instead of simply correcting mistakes, he began to remake the letters into small feuilletons. Soon his column became a favorite among readers. And then the same Kataev introduced Ilf to his brother Evgeniy, who bore the pseudonym Petrov.

When he was just a boy, Evgeniy went to work in the Ukrainian criminal investigation department. He personally conducted an investigation into seventeen murders. Eliminated two dashing gangs. And he went hungry along with all of Ukraine. They say that the author of the story “The Green Van” wrote his investigator from him. It is clear that Kataev, living in a calm and relatively well-fed Moscow, was going crazy with anxiety, at night he had terrible dreams about his brother, killed by a bandit’s sawn-off shotgun, and tried his best to persuade him to come. In the end, he persuaded me, promising to help with joining the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department. However, instead, Valentin cunningly forced his brother to write a humorous story, got it published and, through incredible intrigue, achieved a very high fee. So Evgeniy fell for the “literary bait”. He handed over his government revolver, got dressed, gained weight and made some decent acquaintances. The only thing he lacked was confidence in his abilities. It was then that Kataev came up with a great idea - to unite two aspiring writers so that they could work together as “literary blacks.” It was assumed that they would develop stories for Kataev, and he himself would then, after editing what was written, put his name first on the title page. The first plot that Kataev proposed to Ilf and Petrov was the search for diamonds hidden in a chair.

However, the “literary blacks” very quickly rebelled and told Kataev that they would not give him the novel. As compensation they promised a gold cigarette case from the fee. “Be careful, brothers, don’t cheat,” said Kataev. They didn’t cheat me, but due to inexperience they bought a women’s cigarette case - small, elegant, with a turquoise button. Kataev tried to be indignant, but Ilf defeated him with an argument: “There was no agreement that the cigarette case must necessarily be for men. Eat what they give you."

...Ilf is 29 years old, Petrov is 23. Previously, they lived completely differently, had different tastes and characters. But for some reason they were able to write together much better than separately. If a word occurred to both at the same time, it was discarded, recognizing it as banal. Not a single phrase could remain in the text if one of the two was dissatisfied with it. The disagreements resulted in furious arguments and shouting. “Zhenya, you are shaking over what is written, like a merchant over gold! - Ilf accused Petrova. - Don't be afraid to cross out! Who said composing is easy?” The matter turned out to be not only difficult, but also unpredictable. Ostap Bender, for example, was conceived as a minor character, but as things progressed, his role grew and grew, so that the authors could no longer cope with him. They treated him like a living person and were even irritated by his impudence - that’s why they decided to “kill” him in the finale.

Meanwhile, the final was far away, and the deadlines agreed with the magazine “30 Days” (Kataev agreed to publish the novel in seven issues) were running out. Petrov was nervous, and Ilf seemed to be on his guard. It happened that in the midst of work he would glance out the window and certainly become interested. His attention could be attracted by a coloratura soprano coming from a neighboring apartment, or an airplane flying in the sky, or boys playing volleyball, or just an acquaintance crossing the road. Petrov swore: “Ilya, Ilya, you’re being lazy again!” However, he knew: the scenes of life that Ilf spied, when he was lying on his stomach on the windowsill like this and, it seemed, simply idle, would sooner or later be useful for literature.

Everything was used: the name of the butcher, whose shop once overlooked the windows of Ilf’s apartment on Malaya Arnautskaya - Bender, memories of a trip along the Volga on the Herzen steamship to distribute bonds of the state peasant winning loan (in “12 chairs” Herzen " turned into " Scriabin "). Or the printing house dormitory in Chernyshevsky Lane (in the novel this anthill was named after the monk Bertold Schwartz), in which Ilf, as a hopelessly homeless journalist, was given a “pencil box” fenced off with plywood. The Tatars lived nearby in the outer corridor; one day they brought a horse there, and at night its hooves clattered mercilessly. Ilf had half a window, a mattress on four bricks and a stool. When he got married, a primus stove and some dishes were added to this.

Ilya Ilf with his wife Maria

Love or housing issue

He met seventeen-year-old Marusya Tarasenko back in Odessa. His artist brother Mi-Fa (his name was also Red Misha), before moving to Petrograd, taught at the Odessa girls' art school, and Marusya was one of his students. And, as happens, she burned with secret love for the teacher. At first, the girl perceived Ilf only as Mi-Fa’s brother. But over time, his loving glances and wonderful, touching letters (especially letters!) had an effect. “I saw only you, looked into your big eyes and talked nonsense. ...My girl with a big heart, we can see each other every day, but the morning is far away, and so I write. Tomorrow morning I will come to you to give you the letters and take a look at you.” In a word, Marusya forgot Red Misha, who did not pay the slightest attention to her, and fell in love with Ilya.

They loved to sit on the windowsill at night, look out the window, read poetry, smoke and kiss. They dreamed about how they would live when they got married. And then Ilya left for Moscow, because there were no prospects in Odessa. And a two-year, painfully tender romance began in letters... He: “My girl, in a dream you kiss me on the lips, and I wake up from a feverish fever. When will I see you? There are no letters, it was me, the fool, who thought that they remembered me... I love you so much that it hurts me. If you allow me, I’ll kiss your hand.” She: “I love trees, rain, dirt and sun. I love Ilya. I am here alone, and you are there... Ilya, my dear, Lord! You are in Moscow, where there are so many people, it is not difficult for you to forget me. I don’t believe you when you’re far away.” She wrote that she was afraid that when she met, she might seem boring and disgusting to him. He: “You’re not boring or disgusting. Or boring, but I love you. I love the hands, and the voice, and the nose, the nose in particular, the terrible, even disgusting nose. It's nothing you can do. I love this nose. And your eyes are gray and blue." She: “Ilya, my eyes are not at all gray and blue. I really wish they were gray and blue, but what can I do! Maybe my hair is blue and black? Or not? Don't be angry, dear. I suddenly felt very happy.”

Once every six months Marusya came to see Ilya in Moscow, and on one of these visits they got married, almost by accident. It’s just that train tickets were expensive, and by becoming the wife of an employee of a railway newspaper, she received the right to free travel. Soon Ilf persuaded his wife, while waiting for the “housing issue” to be resolved, to move to Petrograd, to Mi-Fe. He himself wrote to Marusya: “My rooms, my attic, my knowledge, my bald head, I am all at your service. Come. The game is worth the candle." But these two could not get along: Mi-Fa, who kept calling his daughter-in-law “golden-haired clarity”, “moon girl”, suddenly spoke rude things to her: they say that there is no life in Marus, there is no gaiety, she is dead. Maybe he was just jealous of her brother?..

Fortunately, Ilf was soon able to take his wife with him - he received a room in Sretensky Lane. His roommate was Yuri Olesha, also a newlywed. In order to somehow get by, the young writers sold almost all their clothes at a flea market, leaving only decent trousers between them. How much grief there was when the wives, while putting things in order in the apartment, accidentally washed the floor with these trousers!

However, as soon as “12 Chairs” was published, Ilf got new trousers, fame, money, and a separate apartment with antique furniture decorated with heraldic lions. And also - the opportunity to pamper Marusya. Since then, the only household duties she had left were to manage a housekeeper and also a nanny, when her daughter Sashenka was born. Marusya herself played the piano, painted and ordered gifts for her husband. “Bracelet, veils, shoes, suit, hat, bag, perfume, lipstick, powder compact, scarf, cigarettes, gloves, paints, brushes, belt, buttons, jewelry” - this is the list that she gave him on one of his business trips abroad. And Ilf and Petrov had many such business trips! After all, “12 Chairs” and “The Golden Calf” were stolen for quotes not only in their homeland, but also in a good dozen countries...

Ilya Ilf with his daughter Sasha. 1936 Photo: GLM

Ich sterbe

Ilf almost failed to work on The Golden Calf. It’s just that in 1930, having borrowed 800 rubles from Petrov, he bought a Leika camera and got carried away like a boy. Petrov complained that now he had neither money nor a co-author. All day long Ilf clicked the shutter, developed, and printed. Friends joked that he now even opens canned food in a red light so as not to expose himself to the light. What was he photographing? Yes, everything in a row: his wife, Olesha, the destruction of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, felt boots... “Ilya, Ilya, let’s go to work!” - Petrov cried in vain. The publishing house almost broke the contract with the writers, but then Ilf finally came to his senses.

After “Calf” their popularity increased tenfold! Now they had to perform a lot in front of the public. This bothered Ilf, and out of excitement he always drank a carafe of water. People joked: “Petrov is reading, and Ilf is drinking water and coughing, as if his throat is dry from reading.” They still couldn't imagine life without each other. But they still couldn’t find the plot of the new novel. In the meantime, we wrote the script “Under the Circus Big Top.” Based on it, Grigory Alexandrov made the film “Circus,” which Ilf and Petrov were extremely dissatisfied with, so much so that they even demanded that their names be removed from the credits. Then, having visited the USA, we started working on “One-Storey America”. Ilf was not destined to finish it...

The first attack of the disease happened to him in New Orleans. Petrov recalled: “Ilf was pale and thoughtful. He went alone into the alleys and returned even more thoughtful. In the evening he said that his chest had been hurting for 10 days, day and night, and today, when he coughed, he saw blood on his handkerchief.” It was tuberculosis.

He lived for another two years without stopping to work. At some point, he and Petrov tried to write separately: Ilf rented a dacha in Kraskovo, on sandy soil, among pine trees, where he could breathe easier. But Petrov could not escape from Moscow. As a result, each wrote several chapters, and both were nervous that the other wouldn't like it. And when they read it, they realized: it turned out as if they wrote it together. And yet they decided not to carry out such experiments anymore: “If we go our separate ways, the great writer will die!”

One day, picking up a bottle of champagne, Ilf sadly joked: “Champagne brand “Ich Sterbe” (“I’m dying”),” referring to Chekhov’s last words spoken over a glass of champagne. Then he walked Petrov to the elevator, saying: “Tomorrow at eleven.” At that moment, Petrov thought: “What a strange friendship we have... We never have men’s conversations, nothing personal, and always on “you”... The next day, Ilya didn’t get up. He was only 39 years old...

When Ilf was buried in April 1937, Petrov said that this was his funeral too. He alone did not do anything particularly outstanding in literature - except that he wrote the script for the films “A Musical Story” and “Anton Ivanovich is Angry.” During the war, Petrov went to the front as a military correspondent and in 1942, at the age of 38, crashed on a plane near Sevastopol. All other passengers survived.

Then they said that Ilf and Petrov were lucky that they both left so early. In 1948, in a special resolution of the Secretariat of the Writers' Union, their work was called slanderous and anathematized. However, eight years later “12 Chairs” was rehabilitated and republished. Who knows what could have happened to the writers and their families over these eight years if Ilf and Petrov had lived a little longer...