Who are Ilf and Petrov? Ilf and Petrov about the Soviet era. Love or housing problem

05.03.2020

Have you heard about the short film "Envelope"?

I’ve been telling you about Ilf for two days now, it’s time to add some color about my co-author.

Petrov was actually Kataev. Younger brother. The elder Kataev is a famous writer, the author of the lonely sail, successful under Soviet rule and favored by critics.

When the elder Kataev was already happy, satisfied and understood in what way to write for Soviet publishing houses so that he would always be published, and with whom to be friends, the younger Kataev worked in the police of the city of Odessa, where life was completely sad. And since the elder Kataev was accustomed to achieving whatever he wanted, he insisted that his “unlucky and too honest” younger brother come to Moscow. Senior Kataev knocked out job for the younger one in the railway corporate newspaper "Gudok" and introduced him to Ilya Fainzilberg (under the pseudonym Ilf). The younger Kataev decided that he would achieve everything himself, without his brother’s shadow, and took the pseudonym Petrov. The elder Kataev, from his master's side, told his future co-authors the idea of 12 chairs in embryo and sent them as literary blacks to prepare drafts, which he then wanted to go through “with the hand of a master” and almost pass off as his own book. It was framed humorously, but for some reason there is no doubt about the elder Kataev’s ability to use everything that can be taken in the world for his own purposes.

Below the cut is an excerpt from “Memories of Ilf and Petrov” about this incident:

How did it happen that Ilf and I started writing together? To call this an accident would be too simple. Ilf is gone, and I will never know what he was thinking when we started working together. I felt a feeling of great respect for him, and sometimes even admiration. I was five years younger than him, and although he was very shy, wrote little and never showed what he wrote, I was ready to recognize him as my meter. His literary taste seemed to me at that time impeccable, and the boldness of his opinions delighted me. But we had one more meter, so to speak, a professional meter. It was my brother, Valentin Kataev. At that time, he also worked at Gudok as a feuilletonist and signed the pseudonym “Old Man Sobakin.” And in this capacity he often appeared in the room of the fourth page.
One day he entered there with the words:
- I want to become the Soviet Dumas father.
This arrogant statement did not arouse much enthusiasm in the department. And it was not with such statements that people entered the room of the fourth page.
- Why, Valyun, did you suddenly want to become a Dumas-per? - Ilf asked.
“Because, Ilyusha, it’s high time to open a workshop of the Soviet novel,” answered Old Man Sobakin, “I will be Dumas the father, and you will be my blacks.” I will give you topics, you will write novels, and then I will edit them. I’ll go over your manuscripts a couple of times with a master’s hand - and it’s done. Like Dumas-per. Well? Who wants? Just remember, I'm going to keep you in a black body.
We joked a little more about how Old Man Sobakin would be Dumas the father, and we would be his blacks. Then they started talking seriously.
“There is an excellent topic,” said Kataev, “chairs.” Imagine money hidden in one of the chairs. They need to be found. Why not an adventure novel? There are still topics... Eh? Agree. Seriously. Let Ilya write one novel, and Zhenya write the other.
He quickly wrote a poetic feuilleton about a goat, which was being carried by the head of some road in a second-class compartment, signed himself “Old Man Dog” and ran away somewhere. And Ilf and I left the room and began to walk along the longest corridor of the Palace of Labor.
- Well, shall we write? - I asked.
“Well, we can try,” Ilf answered.
“Let’s do this,” I said, “let’s start right away.” You are one novel, and I am another. Let's first make plans for both novels.
Ilf thought.
- Maybe we can write together? - Like this?
- Well, we’ll just write one novel together. I liked about these chairs. Well done Sobakin.
- How about together? By chapters, or what?
“No,” said Ilf, “let’s try to write together, every line at the same time.” Do you understand? one will write, the other will sit nearby at this time. In general, write together.
That day we had lunch in the dining room of the Palace of Labor and returned to the editorial office to compose an outline for the novel. Soon we were alone in a huge empty building. We are also night watchmen. There was a weak light bulb burning under the ceiling. Pink desktop paper, which covered the connected tables, was stained with blots and completely covered with desperate witticisms of the fourth page. The menacing “Snot and Screams” hung on the wall.
How many chairs should there be? Obviously, the complete set is twelve pieces. We liked the name. "The twelve Chairs". We started improvising. We quickly agreed that the plot with the chairs should not be the basis of the novel, but only the reason, the reason for showing life. We drew up a rough plan one evening and showed it to Kataev the next day. Dumas the father approved the plan, said that he was leaving for the south, and demanded that the first part be ready for his return in a month.
“And then I’ll go through the master’s hand,” he promised.
We whined.
“Valyun, go through the master’s hand now,” said Ilf, “according to this plan.”
- Nothing, nothing, you are blacks and have to work.
And he left. And we stayed. This was in August or September 1927.
And our evenings began in the empty editorial office. Now I absolutely cannot remember who said what phrase, who corrected it and how. In fact, there was not a single phrase that was not discussed and changed in one way or another, there was not a single thought or idea that was not immediately picked up. But the first sentence of the novel was spoken by Ilf. I remember this well.
After a short argument, it was decided that I would write; Ilf convinced me that my handwriting was better.
I sat down at the table. How do we start? The contents of the chapter were known. The hero's surname was known - Vorobyaninov. It had already been decided to give him the features of my cousin - the chairman of the district zemstvo government. The surname for the mother-in-law had already been invented - Madame Petukhova and the name funeral home- "Welcome". Only the first sentence was missing. An hour has passed. The phrase was not born. That is, there were a lot of phrases, but neither Ilf nor I liked them. The prolonged pause weighed heavily on us. Suddenly I saw that Ilf’s face became even harder than always, he stopped (before that he had been walking around the room) and said:
- Let's start simple and old-fashioned - “In county town N". In the end, it doesn't matter how you start, as long as you start.
That's how we started.
And on that first day we experienced a feeling that never left us later. Feeling of difficulty. It was very difficult for us to write. We worked at the newspaper and humor magazines very conscientiously. We knew from childhood what work was. But we never realized how difficult it is to write a novel. If I weren't afraid of sounding banal, I would say that we wrote in blood. We left the Palace of Labor at two or three in the morning, stunned, almost suffocated by cigarette smoke. We returned home through the wet and empty Moscow alleys, illuminated by greenish gas lamps, unable to utter a word.
Sometimes we were overcome with despair.
- Will the moment really come when the manuscript will finally be written and we will carry it in a sleigh? It will snow. What a wonderful feeling it must be - the work is finished, nothing more needs to be done.
Still, we finished the first part on time. Seven printed sheets were written per month. It wasn’t a novel yet, but there was already a manuscript in front of us, a rather thick stack of large, densely written sheets. We've never had such a plump pack before. We happily went through it, numbered it and endlessly calculated the number of printed characters in a line, multiplied these characters by the number of lines in the page, then multiplied by the number of pages. Yes. We were not mistaken. The first part had seven sheets. And each sheet contained forty thousand wonderful little characters, including commas and colons.
We solemnly took the manuscript to Dumas the Father, who had already returned by that time. We couldn't imagine whether we wrote well or badly. If Dumas the Father, aka Old Man Sobakin, aka Valentin Kataev, had told us that we had brought nonsense, we would not have been at all surprised. We were preparing for the worst. But he read the manuscript, read all seven pages in front of us, and said very seriously:
- You know, I liked what you wrote. In my opinion, you are completely accomplished writers.
- What about the master’s hand? - Ilf asked.
- Don’t be too humble, Ilyusha. You can do without Dumas-per. Keep writing yourself. I think the book will be a success.
We continued to write.

Everything went well. Ilf and Petrov painted 12 chairs, so well that the elder Kataev could not add anything and fell out of the picture. And they wrote more, and more, and more.

And then everything went wrong again. Ilf died of tuberculosis, and Petrov was left alone. That’s when an amazing story began, taken by Alexei Nuzhny as a script for Kevin Spacey’s competition and winning, as a result of which Kevin Spacey himself starred in this short film.

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 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 in history Soviet literature left a deep, indelible mark. 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 the 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”, and the grotesque short stories “Extraordinary Stories from the Life of the City” were born, grew up, matured and finally united (in 1925) 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. After, during three years, served as a criminal investigation inspector. His first literary work there 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 language. 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.

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, in no way remarkable 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 I've ever had. long years our friendship that 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, 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 works easy case?

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 (mysterious Slavic soul), the other is Jewish (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 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 is eager to give humanity something new piece of art, as they say, a wide 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.

It’s amazing what fascinating stories you can learn by accidentally reading just one almost unremarkable phrase and following “her trail”!

Just imagine that you came across information that On November 23, 1928, the Palace of Culture of Railway Workers opened in Moscow. How would you perceive it?

Most likely, they would have indifferently turned a deaf ear (no offense to the railway workers!).

I also read the beginning of the line with a bored expression on my face, but the continuation involuntarily made me perk up and smile.

«… According to Ilf and Petrov, it was built thanks to the jewelry of Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov’s mother-in-law, which was hidden in the 12th chair from Master Gambs’s set. In reality this is not true». (http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/November 23 ).

You love this book too, right?

Remember?..

« There is, Kisa, there is, and if you want, I can demonstrate it right now. He’s in the railway workers’ club, a new club... Yesterday there was an opening...».

An inimitable, hilariously funny adventurous pursuit of Madame Petukhova’s diamonds hidden in a chair from Master Gumbs’s set. Favorite characters created by talent Ilya Ilf And Evgenia Petrova. Novel " The twelve Chairs"- hero of the year 2013 (celebrated the 85th anniversary of its publication).

So, the famous railway workers' club actually existed, although real story its construction is quite ordinary and has nothing to do with bourgeois treasures.

But what an interesting story of life and creativity turned out to be Ilfaipetrova(or more Ilfapetrova, as they were called and called by many)!

Caricature of Kukryniksy

Let’s now try to list the writers who created their works together. Memory immediately helpfully suggests: the Grimm brothers, the Strugatsky brothers, the Weiner brothers... There were also the Goncourt brothers.

But, as Ilf and Petrov themselves wrote in their humorous “autobiography”: “ It is very difficult to write together. Presumably, it was easier for the Goncourts. After all, they were brothers. And we're not even relatives. And not even the same year. And even different nationalities: while one is Russian (mysterious Slavic soul), the other is Jewish (mysterious Jewish soul)».

Perceived by us as a single whole, but really two such different, talented souls met and for ten years they created with pleasure what even today people read and re-read avidly.

Ilf and Petrov meet

at the Belorussky station I. Ehrenburg,

returned from Paris.

Photo by S. Shingarev

Writer Ilya Ehrenburg noted: “ In my memories, two names merge: there was “Ilfpetrov”. And they didn't resemble each other. Ilya Arnoldovich was shy, silent, rarely joked, but evilly, and like many writers who made millions of people laugh - from Gogol to Zoshchenko - he was rather sad. (...) And Petrov... easily got along with different people; at meetings he spoke for himself and for Ilf; could make people laugh for hours and laugh at the same time.

(...) No, Ilf and Petrov were not Siamese twins, but they wrote together, wandered around the world together, lived in perfect harmony, they seemed to complement each other - Ilf’s caustic satire was a good seasoning for Petrov’s humor.” (“People, years, life”).

As the joke says, you will laugh, but both future co-authors were born in Odessa to meet in Moscow.

Ilya Ilf(15.10.1897 –13.04. 1937) (his real name isIlya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg, and the pseudonym is made up of the first letters of the first and last name)- third son of four bornin a more than modest family of an employee (from Ilf’s notebook: “ They will still write about me: “He was born into a poor Jewish family.”.).

How the father dreamed that his boys would get real solid professions, in today’s language, prestigious ones (like a banker or at least an accountant), and live comfortably! But three of the four were stunned: the two eldest became artists (El Elohim!), and Ilya (after first lulling his father’s vigilance and spending some time as a draftsman, fitter, turner and statistician) became a writer.

But judge for yourself. Probably, a draftsman or a turner requires a keen eye, erudition and an incredible sense of humor, but not to the same extent!

“Evidence of Ilf’s extraordinary powers of observation runs through all the memoirs of his contemporaries. Thus, G. Moonblit recalls: “Wandering around the city with Ilf was a pleasure incomparable to anything. His remarks about the architecture of houses, about the clothes of passers-by, about the text of signs and advertisements, and about everything else that can be seen on a city street, were such a magnificent combination of irony and efficiency that time and distance completely ceased to exist in such walks.” T. Lishina notes: “He (Ilf. - E.A.) saw funny things where we did not notice anything. Passing the gateways where boards with the names of the residents hung, he always read them and laughed silently. I remember the names Benges-Emes, Leibedev, Pound, which I later met in the books of Ilf and Petrov.” (from the article by E. E. Anisimova “When the moon rose and its minty light illuminated Zhukovsky’s miniature bust...”).

This observation and brilliant mind helped Ilya Ilf keep notebooks from 1925 until his death, which are a particular pleasure to read.

I came to you as entity to a legal entity.

Styutuettes.

Bananas are stolen from monkeys and supplied to Moscow.

He said “listening” into the phone, always in a voice that was not his own. I was afraid.

Beware of the Danaans who lay eggs.

You are ordered to be brave.

Ivanov decides to pay a visit to the king. Upon learning of this, the king abdicated the throne.

The inscription on the store glass in a narrow iron frame reads: “No pants.”

You need to show him some paper, otherwise he won't believe that you exist.

What are you yelling about? polar bear in warm weather?

...She is four years old, but she says she is two. Rare coquetry.

My neighbor was a young, full of energy idiot.

The evening newspaper wrote about the eclipse of the sun with such pride, as if it had caused it herself.

Trying to describe the character of Ilya Ilf is not easy.

« He was shy and hated to show off himself" (E. Petrov. “From the memories of Ilf”).

Writer Lev Slavin: “ People who knew Ilf agree that he was kind and gentle. That's how it is. He is kind, kind, soft, soft, but suddenly he bites you - you will lick the wound for a long time and whine pitifully in the corner. Nothing could be worse than sugaring the appearance of the deceased with polite obituaries... Yes, Ilf was gentle, but also adamant, kind, but also merciless.”(“I knew them”).

Taya Lishina, Ilf’s acquaintance since his Odessa youth, confirms: “ It wasn't easy to make friends with him. It was necessary to go through a gauntlet of tests - to withstand sometimes very caustic remarks and mocking questions. It was as if Ilf was testing you with his laughter - your taste, sense of humor, ability to make friends - and all this was done as if by chance, and at the end of such a test he could delicately ask: “Did I offend you?”"("Cheerful, naked, thin").

Or the testimony of the writer Yuri Olesha, a close friend of Ilf:

« Ilf was an artist who was surprised by the world. They are surprised in different ways: how strange! how unclear! And Ilf was surprised: how beautiful! This is the purest surprise and it makes an artist"("In Memory of Ilf").

And further. Also Yu. Olesha:

« Not once did this man say anything vulgar or general. There was something he didn’t say, something else most remarkable. And, seeing Ilf, I thought that much more important than that What a person can talk about is what a person is silent about. In it (in silence) he embraced the world very widely..." (“In Memory of Ilf”).

At the very beginning of the 1930s, Ilya Ilf became seriously involved in photography. Evgeny Petrov then noted with humor:

– I had eight hundred rubles in my savings book and had a wonderful co-author. And now Ilya became interested in photography. I lent him my eight hundred rubles to buy a camera. And what? I no longer have any money or a co-author... My former co-author only films, develops and prints. Prints, develops and shoots...

Now we can only rejoice, because Ilf, “who embraces the world wide,” left many not only good, but also often unique photographs.

A Evgeniy Petrov(12/13/1903–07/02/1942)! He also has a real surname - Kataev.

Yes, yes, he is the younger brother of the writer who gave us the book “The Lonely Sail Whitens” (in which, guess who, the characters of Petya Bachey and his younger brother Pavlik are based on).

Evgeniy did not confuse readers, nobly deciding that literature needed only Kataev - Valentin. (We will definitely say something else important about the older brother).

Evgeniy Petrov

By the way, everything was going to the point that the only writer would come from the intelligent family of a history teacher, because Evgeniy was going to remain an inspector of the Odessa criminal investigation department. This path, although incredibly dangerous, he not only liked, but was successful. The guy was not the timid one!

It is enough to announce a fact recorded in strict archival document: out of twelve (that’s a number!) distinguished employees of the criminal investigation department and encouraged for the 5th anniversary of its existence in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, only two received personalized awards wrist watch. The name of one of the two is Evgeny Petrov (then, of course, Kataev). This will say something about the character of the future writer.

I wonder if the following plot points sound familiar to you.

1920s. A very young police officer, a football fan who played in the Odessa team during his high school years, one day detains a bandit, no less an ardent fan of this game...

But there is a film in which the then young actors Dmitry Kharatyan and Alexander Solovyov starred. The first of them played Volodya Patrikeev, a recent high school student who became the head of the police department in the village of Severinovka, and the second played the charming horse thief Handsome. Remember how at the end, to the sounds of the romantic song “Where are you, July?”, they run across the field, rolling a soccer ball.

The film (1983) was based on the story by Alexander Kozachinsky “ Green van"(1938). The history and background of the creation of the work is very interesting and directly related to one of our today's heroes. As they say, you can’t make this up on purpose!

The fact is that Kozachinsky studied with Evgeny Petrov at the Odessa gymnasium, was friends with him, also became a criminal investigation inspector, but then his life turned 180 degrees, and he turned into a raider and gang leader. It was Evgeniy Petrov who had the opportunity to arrest his former colleague (believe it or not!). This meeting not only saved Kozachinsky’s life (Alexander was threatened with execution), but served as the reason for a new round of his fate. He became a writer and it was at the insistence of a friend that he created his adventure story “The Green Van”.

Thus, the prototype of the literary Volodya Patrikeev was Evgeniy Petrov, and the prototype of Handsome was Alexander Kozachinsky.

But the story and the film would appear later, and then – in 1923 – the brave Odessa resident Petrov finally arrived in Moscow.

The fact is that Valentin Kataev, who decided on the writing profession quite early, had already settled in the capital by that time. He repeatedly called Evgeniy to his place, worried about his brother’s life in the hectic whirlwind of the Odessa criminal investigation department.

Evgeny Petrov: “ Until now, I lived like this: I thought that I had three, four, or at most a week left to live. I got used to this idea and never made any plans. I had no doubt that I must die at all costs for the happiness of future generations. I survived a war, a civil war, many coups, famine"(E. Petrov. “My friend Ilf”).

Among other things, Kataev believed in the literary gift of the “youngest” and persistently tried to turn him into his colleague.

Finally the move took place. However, Evgeny, having settled with Valentin, was not eager to become a writer and got a job as a warden in a Moscow prison - the famous Butyrka.

Valentin Kataev wrote: “ I was horrified... My brother, a boy from an intelligent family, the son of a teacher, silver medalist of Novorossiysk University, grandson of a major general and Vyatka cathedral archpriest, great-grandson of a hero Patriotic War twelfth year, who served in the troops of Kutuzov, Bagration, Lanzheron, Ataman Platov, who received fourteen wounds during the capture of Dresden and Hamburg - this young man, almost still a boy, will have to serve in Butyrki for twenty rubles a month, opening hospital cells with keys, and wear on the chest there is a metal plaque with a number!"(V. Kataev. “My Diamond Crown”).

This only pushed Valentin to a decisive attack, and one day (under strong pressure from his older brother, who effectively played the scene: “ What are you? Do you expect to sit on my neck with your meager salary?") Evgeniy wrote a feuilleton, received decent money for its publication (30 rubles) and changed his opinion about writing.

« My brother turned out to be a smart and diligent boy, so two months later, having visited the editorial offices of all the humorous magazines in Moscow, cheerful, sociable and charming, he began to earn very decent money, without giving up any genres: he wrote feuilletons in prose and, to my surprise, even in verse, gave themes for cartoons, wrote signatures under them, made friends with all the comedians in the capital, visited Gudok, handed over a government revolver to the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department, dressed well, gained a little weight, shaved and had his hair cut in a hairdresser with cologne, owned several Pleasant acquaintances, I found myself a separate room..."(V. Kataev. “My Diamond Crown”).

Evgeny Petrov began working first in the magazine “Red Pepper”, and then in the newspaper “Gudok” (by the way, the printed organ of Soviet railway workers), where he wrote articles and feuilletons.

It was there that his historic meeting with Ilya Ilf took place. They had no idea about her epoch-making character at the time, so they didn’t remember the moment they met. At least, this is what Petrov reports in his memoirs, written after the death of his co-author. Obviously, this is how it should be when people meet who are destined to become so creatively close. It's like they've always been together. Despite the fact that their characters were completely different; despite the fact that all the years they called each other “you”; despite the fact that everyone had a beloved family. Nothing stopped the writer Ilfipetrov! “He” brilliantly knew how to extract material for his works from everything.

Here's an example.

« Ilf was lucky. He joined the Gudok newspaper and received a room in the dormitory of the printing house on Chernyshevsky Lane. But you had to have a great imagination and a lot of experience in spending the night in the corridor with friends to call this insignificant amount of square centimeters, limited by half a window and three partitions made of pure plywood, a room. There was a mattress on four bricks and a chair. Then, when Ilf got married, a primus stove was added to all this. Four years later, we described this housing in the novel “The Twelve Chairs”, in the chapter “The hostel named after monk Berthold Schwartz" (E. Petrov. “From the memories of Ilf”).

And for the fact that such an alliance appeared at all, we must forever thank Valentin Kataev. At least, without his participation, the birth of the writer Ilfaipetrov (theoretically) could have happened much later and it is still unknown with what result...

So, the editorial office of Gudok is located in the Palace of Labor, on the embankment of the Moscow River. Ilf and Petrov already know each other; they work in the same legendary editorial room.

Let's give the floor to Evgeniy Petrov again.

« I can clearly see the room where the fourth page of the Gudok newspaper, the so-called fourth page, was made. Here the slave correspondent's notes were processed in the most furious manner. There were two tables joined together by the window. Four employees worked here. Ilf sat on the left. He was an extremely mocking twenty-six-year-old man wearing pince-nez with small bare thick glasses. He had a slightly asymmetrical, hard face with blush on his cheekbones. He sat with his legs stretched out in front of him in pointed red shoes, and wrote quickly. Having finished the next note, he thought for a minute, then wrote in the title and rather casually threw the piece of paper to the head of the department, who was sitting opposite. (...)

A very pleasant atmosphere of wit was created in the room of the fourth strip. They made jokes here all the time. A person who found himself in this atmosphere began to make jokes himself, but was mainly a victim of ridicule. Employees of other departments of the newspaper were afraid of these desperate wits.

There were many reasons for fear. In the room of the fourth stripe hung on the wall large leaf papers on which all sorts of newspaper blunders were pasted - mediocre headlines, illiterate phrases, unsuccessful photographs and drawings.

And then one day Valentin Kataev, who also worked at Gudok at that time and wrote feuilletons under the pseudonym Old Man Sobakin (Sabbakin), came to this “killer” room of unstoppable wits.

He calmly announced that he wanted to become... the Soviet Dumas Father. There is a version that the incredible literary productivity of Alexandre Dumas the Father was partly explained by the fact that he used the work of “literary blacks,” that is, people who, for a certain fee and without mentioning their names on the cover, wrote texts for famous person. This idea pushed Valentin to decisive action.

- Why is it, Valyun, that you suddenly wanted to become a Dumas-per? [lane– pere - father French. – A.K.] ? – Ilf asked.

“Because, Ilyusha, it’s high time to open a workshop of the Soviet novel,” answered Old Man Sobakin, “I will be Dumas the father, and you will be my blacks.” I will give you topics, you will write novels, and then I will edit them. I’ll go over your manuscripts a couple of times with a master’s hand – and it’s done. Like Dumas-per. Well? Who wants? Just remember, I'm going to keep you in a black body.

We joked a little more about how Old Man Sobakin would be Dumas the father, and we would be his blacks. Then they started talking seriously.

“There is an excellent topic,” said Kataev, “chairs.” Imagine money hidden in one of the chairs. They need to be found. Why not an adventure novel? There are still topics... Eh? Agree. Seriously. Let Ilya write one novel, and Zhenya write the other.

He quickly wrote a poetic feuilleton (...), signed himself “Old Man Sobakin” and ran away somewhere. And Ilf and I left the room and began to walk along the longest corridor of the Palace of Labor.

- Well, shall we write? – I asked.

“Well, we can try,” Ilf answered.

“Let’s do this,” I said, “let’s start right away.” You are one novel, and I am another. Let's first make plans for both novels.

Ilf thought.

- Maybe we can write together?

- Like this?

- Well, we’ll just write one novel together. I liked about these chairs. Well done Sobakin . (E. Petrov. “From the memories of Ilf”).

Thus, almost routinely, the countdown of the new life of two young writers began. Needless to say, how carried away they were, how much time they devoted to their “brainchild”, during the day doing the usual “feuilleton-article” work, and in the evenings and nights, sitting in the editorial office over the plan for the future work, and then on the work itself.

Gradually, heroes were born and “emerged”, acquiring their own characters.

For example, Ostap Bender, whom they invented, showed miracles of independence, “forcing” the authors to follow their lead and filling more and more space in the narrative with his persona. And thank God! It’s scary to think what would have happened if he had been just a little more modest!

Ostap Bender.
Artist Kukryniksy

Meanwhile, the “master’s hand” was in no hurry to go through either the plan or the text already begun by the “blacks”. Moreover, she and her owner went south for a whole month. Debut novelists, gradually coming to terms with this, plunged headlong into independent work.

It was very difficult for us to write. We worked at the newspaper and humor magazines very conscientiously. We knew from childhood what work was. But we never realized how difficult it is to write a novel. If I weren't afraid of sounding banal, I would say that we wrote in blood. We left the Palace of Labor at two or three in the morning, stunned, almost suffocated by cigarette smoke. We returned home through the wet and empty Moscow alleys, illuminated by greenish gas lamps, unable to utter a word.

Sometimes we were overcome with despair.

- Will the moment really come when the manuscript will finally be written and we will carry it in a sleigh? It will snow. What a wonderful feeling it must be - the work is finished, nothing more needs to be done . (E. Petrov. “From the memories of Ilf”).

By the way, the “master’s hand” who returned from the south can only humbly state that she has nothing to do on the pages of this nascent novel, that the “blacks” do without her services, because they are absolutely established writers and undoubted success awaits them. But still... let them put on the novel forever and ever: “Dedicated to Valentin Petrovich Kataev,” and give her a gold cigarette case...

Let’s say right away: what Ilf and Petrov dreamed of happened. The happiest moment when the precious manuscript of a novel (in a folder with a piece of paper pinned to it “ The finder is asked to return it to such and such an address."in case of possible loss), was ready to be sent to the editor. And there was snow, and there were sleds. But they were wrong about that feeling of not having to do anything else. It was all just beginning!

The novel, completed in January 1928, was published in the monthly Thirty Days from January to July. Thus began his journey to readers. And not only domestic ones.

Writers, inspired by their first experience, continued working together. In addition to the novel “The Golden Calf” (1931), they then wrote the magnificent, but slightly less known today (completely undeservedly!) book “One-Storey America” (1937). And earlier they published the short stories “Extraordinary Stories from the Life of the City of Kolokolamsk” (1928) and “1001 Days, or the New Scheherazade” (1929), the fantastic story “Bright Personality”, many short stories, feuilletons, essays, and articles.

From their pen came and dramatic works. For example, the script for the famous film by Grigory Alexandrov “Circus” (1936) is based on the play “Under the Circus Dome” by I. Ilf, E. Petrov and V. Kataev. True, the authors were so dissatisfied with the way the film director embodied their work that they did not want to see their names in the credits...

The phenomenal ability of Ilf and Petrov to work together can be amazing. How did so many different people manage not to quarrel, not to disperse, slamming the door?

I hope that one of the episodes that happened to them during their American trip to the town of Gallop will help us uncover their secret.

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. (...) We quarreled for a long time - 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.

I don’t want to mention it, but for some reason a frightening thought came to them, such young people who had tasted fame and traveled a lot.

I don’t remember which of us said this phrase:

- It would be good if we ever died together, during some plane or car accident. Then neither of us would have to attend our own funeral.

I think Ilf said it. I'm sure at that moment we were thinking the same thing. Is there ever going to be a time when one of us is left alone with a typewriter? The room will be quiet and empty, and you will have to write (E. Petrov. “From the memories of Ilf”).

An inherently scary thought for any person, but for the creative organism that they were, it is logical.

However, there was no general catastrophe. One day it fell to Petrov to remain “eye to eye with a typewriter.”

Ilya Ilf fell seriously ill. Tuberculosis took him to the grave at the age of 39. Their famous trip to the USA, after which they wrote their “One-Storey America”, became fatal for Ilf, who had never before sparkled with great health. He already felt that he was hopelessly ill, but those around him could not and did not want to believe it.

Ilf then wrote down a heartbreakingly sad phrase (one of two that he dedicated to himself in his own notebooks): « Such a menacing, icy spring evening that it makes your soul feel cold and scary. It's terrible how unlucky I am».

Petrov.

Photo by E. Langman. 1932

Evgeny Petrov: “And here I am sitting alone in front of the typewriter on which Ilf Last year printed amazing notes throughout his life. The room is quiet and empty, and I need to write. And for the first time after common word“we” I write the empty and cold word “I”...(“From memories of Ilf”)

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. Born in 1897 in Odessa, Ilya Arnoldovich worked for a long time as an accountant, journalist and editor in 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 and was filmed great amount once every different countries, A main character works - schemer 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 of the “Idols of the Past” section we will talk about career, life and love popular writer Ilya Ilf.

In the first edition of “12 Chairs” the illustrator gave Ostap Bender the features famous writer Valentina Kataeva is a fun-loving and adventurous person. 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 illegitimate son 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.” Eduard Bagritsky, Valentin Kataev, Yuri Olesha read their works there for a free dinner. 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 of mine, who was planning to move from Odessa, needed to sell 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 in the Siberian merchant 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 died with his family 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 Yehiel-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 useful activity, 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, went crazy with anxiety, at night he saw scary 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 tricked his brother into writing humorous story, got it into print 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 get their teeth together as “literary blacks.” It was assumed that they would develop stories for Kataev, and then he himself, having edited what he had written, title page will put his name first. The first plot that Kataev proposed to Ilf and Petrov was the search for diamonds hidden in a chair.

However, " literary blacks“They quickly rebelled and told Kataev that they would not give him the novel. They promised a gold cigarette case from the fee as compensation. “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 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 steamer Herzen 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 the 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’m 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 be exposed. 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”),” meaning last words Chekhov, said 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 nothing particularly outstanding in literature - except that he wrote the script for the films " Musical history" 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...

Who are Ilf and Petrov? Ilf and Petrov about the Soviet era. Love or housing problem

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