Ilya Ilf: the life and tragic fate of the creator of “12 Chairs. Ilf and Petrov biography of writers Ilf and Petrov years of creativity

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 Ehrenburg. 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 around 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 to be 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 to the minds of two people at the same time, Ilf said, it means 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 with people and strict with ourselves.

Essays

novel “The Twelve Chairs” (1928);
novel “The Golden Calf” (1931);
short stories “Extraordinary stories from the life of the city of Kolokolamsk” (1928);
fantastic story “Bright Personality”;
short story “A Thousand and One Days, or New Scheherazade” (1929);
script for the film “Once Upon a Summer” (1936);
story “One-Storey America” (1937).

The collected works of Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov in five volumes were re-published (after 1939) in 1961 by the State Publishing House of Fiction. In the introductory article to this collection of works, D. I. Zaslavsky wrote:

The fate of the literary partnership of Ilf and Petrov is unusual. She touches and excites. They did not work together for long, only ten years, but they left a deep, indelible mark on the history of Soviet literature. The memory of them does not fade, and the love of readers for their books does not weaken. The novels “The Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf” are widely known.

Film adaptations of works

- One summer
- Quite seriously (essay on How Robinson was created)
- Ilf and Petrov rode on a tram (based on stories and feuilletons)

Interesting facts from the biography of writers

A few years after the start of their joint creative activity, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov wrote (in 1929) a kind of “double autobiography” (the text can be read: Ilf I., Petrov E., Collected Works in 6 volumes. T.1, Moscow , 1961, p.236), in which, with their characteristic wonderful humor, they talked about how the two “halves” of the author of “The Twelve Chairs”, the satirical story “Bright Personality”, were born, grew up, matured and finally united (in 1925), grotesque short stories “Extraordinary stories from the life of the city of Kolokolamsk” and so on.

Ilya Ilf was born into the family of a bank employee and in 1913. graduated from technical school. He worked in a drawing office, at a telephone exchange, at an aircraft factory and at a hand grenade factory. After which he became a statistician, then an editor of the humorous magazine Syndetikon, in which he wrote poetry under a female pseudonym, an accountant and a member of the Presidium of the Odessa Union of Poets.

Evgeniy Petrov was born into the family of a teacher and in 1920. He graduated from a classical gymnasium, after which he became a student at the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency. Afterwards, for three years he served as a criminal investigation inspector. His first literary work was a protocol for examining the corpse of an unknown man. In 1923 Evgeny Petrov moved to Moscow, where he continued his education while working in humorous newspapers and magazines. He wrote several books of humorous stories.

Evgeny Petrov was the younger brother of the famous Soviet writer Valentin Kataev.

Memory

Monuments to writers have been unveiled in Odessa. The monument shown at the end of the film The Twelve Chairs (1971) never actually existed.
Promotes his works "two fathers" Ilf's daughter Alexandra, who works as an editor at a publishing house where she translates texts into English. For example, thanks to her work, the complete author’s version of The Twelve Chairs was published, without censorship and with a chapter not included in the earlier texts.

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 article under the heading “Idols of the Past” 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 deepened 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 vocation 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 self-confidence. 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, it was far from the final, 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 problem

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. Yuri Olesha, also a newlywed, became his roommate. 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 off 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 manly 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...

"(1928) and "The Golden Calf" (1931). The dilogy about the adventures of the great schemer Ostap Bender has gone through many reprints, not only in Russian.

Essays

Editions

Collected works in four volumes. - M.: Soviet writer, 1938-1939.
How Robinson was created. L.-M., “Young Guard”, 1933.
The twelve Chairs. Golden calf. - M.: Soviet writer, 1936
The twelve Chairs. - M.-L., ZiF, 1928.
Golden calf. - M.: Federation, 1933

Film adaptations of works

- Twelve chairs (Poland-Czechoslovakia)
- Circus
- One summer
- 13 chairs
- Quite seriously (essay on How Robinson was created)
- Golden calf
- The Twelve Chairs
- The twelve Chairs
- Ilf and Petrov rode on a tram (based on stories and feuilletons)
- The twelve Chairs
- Bright personality
- Dreams of an idiot
- Twelve chairs (Zwölf Stühle)
- Golden calf

Memory

Monuments to writers have been unveiled in Odessa. The monument shown at the end of the film The Twelve Chairs (1971) never actually existed.
Promoted the works of her "two fathers" Ilf's daughter Alexandra (1935-2013), who worked as an editor at a publishing house, where she translated texts into English. For example, thanks to her work, the full author’s version of “The Twelve Chairs” was published, without censorship and with a chapter not included in the earlier texts. The last book written by her is “Home, sweet home... How Ilf and Petrov lived in Moscow.” It came out after the author's death.
In memory of the writers Ilf and Petrov, the astronomer of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory Lyudmila Karachkina named the asteroid 3668 Ilfpetrov, discovered by her on October 21, 1982.

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Notes

Excerpt characterizing Ilf and Petrov

- Good! - without timidity and without moving away, the little officer shouted, - to rob, so I tell you...
“To chog” that march at a fast pace, while he’s still intact.” And Denisov turned his horse towards the officer.
“Okay, okay,” the officer said with a threat, and, turning his horse, he rode away at a trot, shaking in the saddle.
“A dog is in trouble, a living dog is in trouble,” Denisov said after him - the highest mockery of a cavalryman at a mounted infantryman, and, approaching Rostov, he burst out laughing.
– He recaptured the infantry, recaptured the transport by force! - he said. - Well, shouldn’t people die of hunger?
The carts that approached the hussars were assigned to an infantry regiment, but, having been informed through Lavrushka that this transport was coming alone, Denisov and the hussars repulsed it by force. The soldiers were given plenty of crackers, even shared with other squadrons.
The next day, the regimental commander called Denisov to him and told him, covering his eyes with open fingers: “I look at it like this, I don’t know anything and I won’t start anything; but I advise you to go to headquarters and there, in the provisions department, settle this matter, and, if possible, sign that you received so much food; otherwise, the demand is written down on the infantry regiment: the matter will arise and may end badly.”
Denisov went directly from the regimental commander to headquarters, with a sincere desire to carry out his advice. In the evening he returned to his dugout in a position in which Rostov had never seen his friend before. Denisov could not speak and was choking. When Rostov asked him what was wrong with him, he only uttered incomprehensible curses and threats in a hoarse and weak voice...
Frightened by Denisov's situation, Rostov asked him to undress, drink water and sent for a doctor.
- Try me for crime - oh! Give me some more water - let them judge, but I will, I will always beat the scoundrels, and I will tell the sovereign. Give me some ice,” he said.
The regimental doctor who came said that it was necessary to bleed. A deep plate of black blood came out of Denisov’s shaggy hand, and then only he was able to tell everything that happened to him.
“I’m coming,” Denisov said. - “Well, where is your boss here?” Shown. Would you like to wait? “I have work, I came 30 miles away, I don’t have time to wait, report.” Okay, this chief thief comes out: he also decided to teach me: This is robbery! - “Robbery, I say, is committed not by the one who takes provisions to feed his soldiers, but by the one who takes it to put it in his pocket!” So would you like to remain silent? "Fine". Sign, he says, with the commission agent, and your case will be handed over to the command. I come to the commission agent. I enter - at the table... Who?! No, just think!...Who is starving us,” Denisov shouted, hitting the table with the fist of his sore hand, so hard that the table almost fell and the glasses jumped on it, “Telyanin!” “What, are you starving us?!” Once, once in the face, deftly it was necessary... “Ah... with this and that and... began to roll. But I was amused, I can say,” Denisov shouted, baring his white teeth joyfully and angrily from under his black mustache. “I would have killed him if they hadn’t taken him away.”
“Why are you shouting, calm down,” Rostov said: “here the blood is starting again.” Wait, I need to bandage it. Denisov was bandaged and put to bed. The next day he woke up cheerful and calm. But at noon, the regimental adjutant with a serious and sad face came to the common dugout of Denisov and Rostov and with regret showed a uniform paper to Major Denisov from the regimental commander, in which inquiries were made about yesterday's incident. The adjutant reported that the matter was about to take a very bad turn, that a military court commission had been appointed, and that with the real severity regarding the looting and high-handedness of the troops, in a happy case, the matter could end in demotion.
The case was presented by those offended in such a way that, after the transport was recaptured, Major Denisov, without any summons, came to the chief of provisions in a drunken state, called him a thief, threatened him with beatings, and when he was taken out, he rushed into the office and beat up two officials and one of them sprained his arm.
Denisov, in response to Rostov’s new questions, laughingly said that it seemed like someone else had turned up here, but that it was all nonsense, nonsense, that he didn’t even think of being afraid of any courts, and that if these scoundrels dare to bully him, he would answer them so that they will remember.
Denisov spoke disparagingly about this whole matter; but Rostov knew him too well not to notice that in his soul (hiding it from others) he was afraid of the trial and was tormented by this matter, which, obviously, was supposed to have bad consequences. Every day, papers began to arrive, requests to the court, and on the first of May Denisov was ordered to hand over the squadron to his senior man and appear at the division headquarters for explanations in the case of rioting in the provisions commission. On the eve of this day, Platov made reconnaissance of the enemy with two Cossack regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as always, rode ahead of the line, flaunting his courage. One of the bullets fired by the French riflemen hit him in the flesh of his upper leg. Maybe at another time Denisov would not have left the regiment with such a light wound, but now he took advantage of this opportunity, refused to report to the division and went to the hospital.

In June, the Battle of Friedland took place, in which the Pavlograd residents did not participate, and after it a truce was declared. Rostov, who deeply felt the absence of his friend, having had no news about him since his departure and worrying about the progress of his case and his wounds, took advantage of the truce and asked to go to the hospital to visit Denisov.
The hospital was located in a small Prussian town, twice devastated by Russian and French troops. Precisely because it was in the summer, when it was so nice in the field, this place, with its broken roofs and fences and its dirty streets, ragged inhabitants and drunken and sick soldiers wandering around it, presented a particularly gloomy sight.
In a stone house, in a courtyard with the remains of a dismantled fence, some broken frames and glass, there was a hospital. Several bandaged, pale and swollen soldiers walked and sat in the courtyard in the sun.
As soon as Rostov entered the door of the house, he was overwhelmed by the smell of a rotting body and a hospital. On the stairs he met a Russian military doctor with a cigar in his mouth. A Russian paramedic followed the doctor.

“Imagine,” Petrov’s elder brother Valentin Kataev once said, entering the editorial office of Gudok, “that there are treasures hidden in the chair. And then a certain person finds out about this and decides to find these treasures...” In fact, these words marked the beginning of the adventures of the energetic and enterprising young man Ostap Bender.

Possessing exceptional observation and a sharp mind, the writers depicted life of that time with bright humor. For example, the famous eulogy for a mattress in the novel was an expression of the authors’ ironic attitude towards the subject of praise - at first in Moscow, Ilf lived on a Pravda newspaper spread on the floor, and the mattress was a real dream. The adventurous novel “The Twelve Chairs,” which took six months of intense painstaking work to write, brought its creators incredible fame and success. Thus began the joint creative journey of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, which grew into a strong friendship between two wonderful people, endowed with a great sense of humor, sincerity, deep decency and nobility - qualities that constitute their very essence. Those who are lucky enough to know the writers speak of them with constant warmth and deep respect.

Before working in the editorial office of Gudok, both were engaged in various activities: Petrov (real name Kataev) was a columnist at a telegraph agency, previously served in the criminal investigation department for three years; Ilf (real name Yechiel-Leib Fainzilberg) worked as a draftsman, accountant, journalist, and editor of a humor magazine. Possessing completely different temperaments, over ten years of creative activity they became so close that they became, as it were, a single literary being - so much so that in the only work that they wrote separately - the story "One-Storey America", written alternately - it is impossible to determine whose pen each belongs to separate part.

During a trip to America, when the writers were working on the story, Ilf was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In April 1937, a year and three months after that, Ilf died. Petrov took the death of his friend seriously. He was depressed and did not write anything for a long time. Later, mutual acquaintances began to notice that the nature of the construction of phrases, intonation and even some of Ilf’s habits suddenly began to appear very clearly in Petrov. “It was as if Ilf continued to live in Zhenya,” Lev Slavin wrote in his memoirs. During World War II, Petrov worked as a war correspondent, writing notes from the fronts for the Soviet and foreign press. He was never able to recover from Ilf’s death. In the summer of 1942, Yevgeny Petrov died during a fascist air raid.

Cover of the novel “12 Chairs”

Peruvian writers own several wonderful books and short stories. The adventures of Ostap Bender have been translated into 35 languages, and the novels have been filmed several times, including abroad. The work of Ilf and Petrov attracts not only with its well-aimed, lively humor. It is permeated with the spirit of goodness, love for the highest human values and uncompromising mercilessness towards stupidity, anger, vulgarity and absurdity.