ILF AND PETROV, Russian satirical writers.
Ilf Ilya (pseudonym; real name and surname Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg), born into the family of a bank employee. Graduated from Odessa Technical School (1913). Entered literary circle“Collective of Poets” (among its participants are E. G. Bagritsky, Yu. K. Olesha). In 1923 he moved to Moscow. He worked in the newspaper “Gudok”, where M. A. Bulgakov, V. P. Kataev, L. I. Slavin, Yu. K. Olesha and others collaborated; wrote mainly stories and essays that reflected the experience of the revolution and Civil War 1917-22. He first signed the pseudonym Ilf in 1923.
Petrov Evgeniy (pseudonym; real name and surname Evgeniy Petrovich Kataev), born into the family of a history teacher. Brother of V.P. Kataev. He changed several professions: he worked as a correspondent, was a criminal investigation agent, etc. He moved to Moscow in 1923. He made his debut with the story “The Goose and the Stolen Boards” (1924); published feuilletons (under the pseudonyms Shilo in the Bag, E. Petrov, etc.) in the humorous magazines “Red Pepper” and “Red Wasp”. No later than 1925 he met Ilf; in 1926 he went to work at Gudok. He published collections of stories “The Joys of Megas” (1926), “Without a Report” (1927), “The Comprehensive Bunny” (1928), etc.
In 1926, Ilf and Petrov began working together; published under the pseudonyms F. Tolstoevsky, Cold Philosopher, Vitaly Pseldonimov, Copernicus, A. Nemalovazhny, Sobakevich and others in satirical magazines (Smekhach, Ogonyok, Chudak, etc.). Brought wide popularity to Ilf and Petrov satirical novel“The Twelve Chairs” (1928), in the center of which is the witty adventurer Ostap Bender, acting against the backdrop of a wide-ranging panorama of Soviet life in the 1920s. The style of classical Russian prose coexists in the novel with newspaper cliches, slogans, and ideological clichés, which are subject to ironic rethinking and ridicule. Criticism accused the authors of “jeering” and the absence of real satire; only a year after publication, condescending reviews appeared. Other works of this period include numerous feuilletons, the satirical story “Bright Personality” (1928), and the cycle of satirical short stories “1001 Days, or the New Scheherazade” (1929). In the stories of this time, Ilf and Petrov addressed topical issues: political purge (“The Phantom Lover,” 1929), bureaucracy (“On the Verge of Death,” 1930), opportunism in literature (“Pale Child of the Century,” 1929), etc. Bender’s story was continued in the novel “The Golden Calf” (1931), where the image of the hero became more complex: he ironically observes the life of Soviet citizens, notes the ugliness of modern life (mismanagement, ideologization of culture, etc.). The satirical plan is balanced by an idealized image of the socialist world, which gives the novel optimistic pathos (episodes of the construction of Turksib, the motor rally, etc.). The novel was highly appreciated by A.V. Lunacharsky and favorably received by critics (V.B. Shklovsky, G.N. Moonblit, etc.).
In the 1930s, when it became increasingly difficult to print satirical stories, Ilf and Petrov tried to write feuilletons in the genre of “positive satire”, with optimistic endings (“Literary Tram”, 1932, “Cold of a Dog”, 1935, etc.). The main theme of the feuilletons of the 1st half of the 1930s was the fight against bureaucracy (“The Bone Leg,” 1934), indifference (“The Serene Stand,” 1934), and lawlessness (“The Case of Student Sveranovsky,” 1935). In 1935-36, Ilf and Petrov made a car trip around the United States, the result of which was a series of travel essays (on which the authors worked separately) “One-story America” (1936) - an attempt to objectively comprehend the life of Americans, their achievements and shortcomings.
After Ilf’s death from tuberculosis, Petrov prepared and published his notebooks (1939). In the late 1930s, Petrov wrote mainly essays, as well as film scripts in collaboration with G. N. Moonblit (“ Musical history", "Anton Ivanovich is angry", etc.). During the Great Patriotic War worked as a front-line correspondent for the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia. Died in a plane crash while flying from Sevastopol to Moscow. Awarded the Order of Lenin.
The works of Ilf and Petrov were repeatedly staged and filmed (directed by L. I. Gaidai, M. A. Schweitzer, M. A. Zakharov), and translated into many languages of the world.
Works: Collection. cit.: In 5 vols. M., 1994-1996; Twelve Chairs: The first complete version of the novel / Comment. M. Odessky, D. Feldman. M., 1997; Ilf I. Notebooks. 1925-1937. M., 2000 [first complete ed.]; Petrov E. My friend Ilf. M., 2001; Ilf I. One-story America: [Author's edition]. M., 2003.
Lit.: Galanov B. E. I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Life. Creation. M., 1961; Memories of I. Ilf and E. Petrov. M., 1963; Préchac A. Il'f et Petrov, témoins de leur temps. R., 2000. Vol. 1-3; Milne L. Zoshchenko and the Ilf-Petrov partnership: how they laughed. Birmingham, 2003; Lurie Y. S. In the land of unafraid idiots: a book about Ilf and Petrov. 3rd ed. St. Petersburg, 2005.
ILF AND PETROV– Ilf, Ilya Arnoldovich (1897–1937) (real name Fainzilberg), Petrov Evgeniy Petrovia (1903–1942) (real name Kataev), Russian prose writers.
Ilf was born on October 4 (16), 1897 in Odessa in the family of a bank employee. In 1913 he graduated from technical school, after which he worked in a drawing office, at a telephone exchange, at an aircraft factory, and at a hand grenade factory. After the revolution, he was an accountant, a journalist at YugROSTA, an editor in humorous and other magazines, and a member of the Odessa Union of Poets. In 1923 he came to Moscow and became an employee of the Gudok newspaper, with which M. Bulgakov, Y. Olesha and other subsequently famous writers collaborated in the 1920s. Ilf wrote materials of a humorous and satirical nature - mainly feuilletons. Petrov was born on November 30, 1903 in Odessa in the family of a teacher. Became the prototype for Pavlik Bachey in the trilogy of his older brother Valentin Kataev Waves of the Black Sea. In 1920 he graduated from a classical gymnasium and became a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency. In the autobiography of Ilf and Petrov (1929) it is said about Petrov: “After that, he served as a criminal investigation inspector for three years. His first literary work was a protocol for examining the corpse of an unknown man.” In 1923 Petrov arrived in Moscow. V. Kataev introduced it among journalists and writers. Petrov became an employee of the Red Pepper magazine, and in 1926 he came to work for the Gudok magazine. Like Ilf, he wrote mainly humorous and satirical materials.
In 1927, with collaboration on the novel Twelve chairs The creative collaboration between Ilf and Petrov began. The plot basis of the novel was suggested by Kataev, to whom the authors dedicated this work. In his memoirs about Ilf, Petrov later wrote: “We quickly agreed that the plot with chairs should not be the basis of the novel, but only the reason, the reason for showing life.” The co-authors fully succeeded in this: their works became the brightest “encyclopedia Soviet life» late 1920s – early 1930s.
The novel was written in less than six months; in 1928 it was published in the magazine “30 days” and in the publishing house “Land and Factory”. In the book edition, the co-authors restored the banknotes that they were forced to make at the request of the magazine editor.
Ostap Bender was originally conceived as minor character. For him, Ilf and Petrov had only a phrase prepared: “The key to the apartment where the money is.” Subsequently, like many other phrases from novels about Ostap Bender (“The ice has broken, gentlemen of the jury!”; “A sultry woman is a poet’s dream”; “Money in the morning, chairs in the evening”; “Don’t awaken the beast in me”, etc.) , she became winged. According to Petrov’s recollections, “Bender gradually began to push out of the framework prepared for him, and soon we could no longer cope with him. By the end of the novel, we treated him as if he were a living person, and were often angry with him for the impudence with which he wormed his way into every chapter.”
Some images of the novel were outlined in Ilf's notebooks and in Petrov's humorous stories. So, Ilf has a note: “Two young people. All life phenomena are answered only with exclamations. The first one says “horror”, the second one says “beauty”. In Petrov's humoresque Gifted girl(1927) a girl “with an unpromising forehead” speaks in the heroine’s language Twelve chairs cannibals Ellochka.
Novel Twelve chairs attracted the attention of readers, but critics did not notice it. O. Mandelstam wrote with indignation in 1929 that this “pamphlet splashing with fun” was not needed by the reviewers. A. Tarasenkov’s review in Literaturnaya Gazeta was entitled The book that is not written about. Rapp critics called the novel “gray mediocrity” and noted that it does not “charge with deep hatred of the class enemy.”
Ilf and Petrov began working on a continuation of the novel. To do this, they had to “resurrect” Ostap Bender, who was stabbed to death in the finale Twelve chairs Kisa Vorobyaninov. New novel Golden calf was published in 1931 in the magazine “30 days”, in 1933 it was published a separate book in the publishing house "Federation". After release Golden calf The dilogy became incredibly popular not only in the USSR, but also abroad. Western critics compared her to The adventures of the good soldier Schweik J. Hasek. L. Feuchtwanger wrote that he had never seen “the commonwealth develop into such a creative unity.” Even V.V. Nabokov, who spoke contemptuously about Soviet literature, noted in 1967 the amazing talent of Ilf and Petrov and called their works “absolutely first-class.”
In both novels, Ilf and Petrov parodied Soviet reality - for example, its ideological clichés (“Beer is sold only to trade union members,” etc.). Meyerhold's performances also became the subject of parody ( Marriage at the Columbus Theater), and the correspondence of F.M. Dostoevsky with his wife published in the 1920s (letters from Father Fyodor), and the searches of the post-revolutionary intelligentsia (“homespun truth” by Vasisualiy Lokhankin). This gave grounds for some representatives of the first Russian emigration to call the novels of Ilf and Petrov a libel against the Russian intelligentsia.
In 1948, the Secretariat of the Writers' Union decided to consider Twelve chairs And Golden calf libelous and slanderous books, the republication of which “can only cause indignation on the part of Soviet readers.” The ban on reprinting was also enshrined in a special resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which was in force until 1956.
Between two novels about Bender, Ilf and Petrov wrote a satirical story Bright personality(1928), two series of grotesque short stories Extraordinary stories from the life of the city of Kolokolamsk And 1001 days, or New Scheherazade(1929) and other works.
Since 1932, Ilf and Petrov began writing feuilletons for the newspaper Pravda. In 1933–1934 we visited Western Europe, in 1935 - in the USA. Sketches about travel to the USA compiled into a book One-story America(1937). It was a story about small country towns and farms, and ultimately about the “average American.”
The creative collaboration of writers was interrupted by Ilf’s death in Moscow on April 13, 1937. Petrov made a lot of efforts to publish Ilf’s notebooks, conceived great work My friend Ilf. In 1939–1942 Petrov worked on the novel Journey to the land of communism, in which he described the USSR in 1963.
During the Great Patriotic War, Petrov became a front-line correspondent. He died on July 2, 1942 in a plane crash while returning to Moscow from Sevastopol.
“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 an 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. This is how the joint creative path Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, which grew into a strong friendship between the 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 worked 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, editor humor magazine. With completely different temperaments, in ten years creative activity they became so close that they became, as it were, a single literary being - so much so that in only job, which they wrote separately - the story "One-Storey America", written alternately - it is impossible to determine whose pen each individual part belongs to.
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.
Ilf I. and Petrov E.- Russian Soviet satirical writers; co-authors who worked together. In the novels “The Twelve Chairs” (1928) and “The Golden Calf” (1931) - they created adventures talented swindler and adventurer, showing satirical types and Soviet morals of the 20s. Feuilletons, book “One-Storey America” (1936).
IN Russian literature XX century Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov take the place of the most beloved satirical writers among the people. You can read their books, re-read them, you can even talk with phrases from them all your life. Many people do just that.
Ilya Ilf(pseudonym; real name and surname Ilya Arnoldovich Fainzilberg) was born on October 15 (October 3, old style) 1897 in Odessa, in the family of a bank employee. Zodiac sign - Libra. He was an employee of Yugrost and the newspaper “Sailor”. In 1923, having moved to Moscow, he became a professional writer. In Ilya’s early essays, stories and feuilletons, it is not difficult to find thoughts, observations and details that were later used in the joint writings of Ilf and Petrov.
Evgeniy Petrov(pseudonym; real name and surname Evgeny Petrovich Kataev) was born on December 13 (November 30, old style) 1902 in Odessa, in the family of a history teacher. Zodiac sign - Sagittarius. He was a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency, then an inspector of the criminal investigation department. In 1923, Zhenya moved to Moscow and became a journalist.
In 1925, the future co-authors met, and in 1926 their joint work began, which at first consisted of composing themes for drawings and feuilletons in the magazine “Smekhach” and processing materials for the newspaper “Gudok”. The first significant working together Ilf and Petrov had a novel, “The Twelve Chairs,” published in 1928 in the magazine “30 Days” and published as a separate book in the same year. The novel was a great success. It is notable for its many brilliantly executed satirical episodes, characterizations and details, which were the result of topical life observations.
The novel was followed by several short stories and novellas (“Bright Personality”, 1928, “1001 Days, or New Scheherazade”, 1929); At the same time, systematic work by writers began on feuilletons for Pravda and Literary newspaper" In 1931, the second novel by Ilf and Petrov was published - “The Golden Calf”, the story of the further adventures of the hero of “The Twelve Chairs” Ostap Bender. The novel contains a whole gallery of small people, overwhelmed by acquisitive motives and passions and existing “in parallel big world in which they live big people and big things."
In 1935 - 1936, the writers traveled around the United States, which resulted in the book “One-Storey America” (1936). In 1937, Ilf died, and the Notebooks published after his death were unanimously praised by critics as outstanding. literary work. After the death of his co-author, Petrov wrote a number of film scripts (together with G. Moonblit), the play “Island of Peace” (published in 1947), “Front-line Diary” (1942). In 1940 he joined the Communist Party and from the first days of the war became a war correspondent for Pravda and Informburo. Awarded the Order of Lenin and a medal.
The books of Ilf and Petrov were repeatedly dramatized and filmed, republished in the USSR and translated into many foreign languages. (G.N. Moonblit)
Essays:
- Collected Works, vol. 1 - 4, M., 1938;
- Collection soch., vol. 1 - 5, M., 1961.
Literature:
- Konstantin Mikhailovich Simonov, Preface, in the books: Ilf I. and Petrov E., Twelve Chairs. Golden Calf, M., 1956;
- Sintsova T. N., I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Materials for bibliography, L., 1958;
- Abram Zinovievich Vulis, I. Ilf and E. Petrov. Essay on creativity, M., 1960;
- Boris Galanov, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, M., 1961;
- Memories of I. Ilf and E. Petrov, M., 1963;
- Yanovskaya L., Why do you write funny?, M., 1969;
- Russian Soviet writers, prose writers. Biobibliographic index, volume 2; L., 1964.
Books:
- I. Ilf. E. Petrov. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 1, I. Ilf, E. Petrov.
- I. Ilf. E. Petrov. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 2, I. Ilf, E. Petrov.
- I. Ilf. E. Petrov. Collected works in five volumes. Volume 4, I. Ilf, E. Petrov.
- Ilf and Petrov were traveling on a tram, USSR, 1971.
Film adaptations works:
- 1933 - Twelve chairs;
- 1936 - Circus;
- 1936 - One day in the summer;
- 1938 - 13 chairs;
- 1961 - Quite seriously (essay on How Robinson was created);
- 1968 - Golden Calf;
- 1970 - The Twelve Chairs (Twelve chairs);
- 1971 - Twelve chairs;
- 1972 - Ilf and Petrov rode on a tram (based on stories and feuilletons);
- 1976 - Twelve chairs;
- 1989 - Bright personality;
- 1993 - Dreams of an idiot;
- 2004 - Twelve Chairs (Zwölf Stühle);
- 2006 - Golden Calf.
Today we will talk about two more writers from the “Southwest”, about two writers from Odessa who lived and worked in Moscow and were truly Soviet writers. One can just say about them that they were not writers of the Soviet era, but Soviet writers. This is Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov.
Petrov was the brother of Valentin Petrovich Kataev. At the time he started, Kataev was already famous writer, so Petrov took a pseudonym for himself, choosing as his new name surname. This was often done quite well different writers. And Kataev, in fact, dragged Petrov to Moscow.
Petrov worked in the criminal investigation department at first, and then switched to writing short stories. funny stories, feuilletons. And Ilf, who came from Odessa, worked together with Kataev in the famous railway newspaper “Gudok”, which we have already talked about when we touched on the work of Yuri Karlovich Olesha.
And so Kataev, Valentin Petrovich Kataev, and he plays an important role for our conversation today, he read in a book about Dumas the Elder that Dumas typed for himself - I apologize for the political incorrectness, but this will need to be said, formulated exactly that way - he typed for himself “ literary blacks“, that is, he took young writers, gave them an idea, gave them a plot, and these writers developed it, then Dumas went through the hand of a master, and then these novels were published under three names.
By this time Kataev was already a fairly famous writer. He wrote the story “The Embezzlers,” funny and humorous too, which he turned into a play and was shown at the Moscow Art Theater. Stanislavski praised him.
In general, he was already a fairly well-known writer, and so he was fired up by this idea, he liked this idea. He felt like Dumas the peer, Dumas the father, and he decided to take two people for testing. It was he, it was he who combined these two names: he took his brother, took Ilf and offered them a plot about how diamonds are placed in twelve chairs, and then, in fact, that plot of “The Twelve Chairs”, which we know, was partly invented Kataev, because Kataev did not have any Ostap Bender there yet. Ilf and Petrov have already come up with this.
And so he gave them this plot, promising to later go through the master’s hand, and went to rest, and Ilf and Petrov began to write. And when Kataev returned from vacation, they read to him what they had done, Bender was already there, and Kataev, to give him his due, said no, you’ve already developed it so much, it’s so unlike, it’s so better than that that I assumed that I would not be the third in this tandem of yours, I don’t want to, and I give you this novel, write together.
But he only had two conditions. The first condition is that all editions of the novel must contain a dedication to Valentin Petrovich Kataev. This condition was fulfilled, and now, when you open this novel, you will see this dedication there. The second condition was more difficult for Ilf and Petrov. He demanded a gold cigarette case for giving this idea. The co-authors grunted, but in the end, this cigarette case, after the novel was published, was given to Kataev, albeit a woman’s one, because it was lighter in weight.
New life for an old story
But, however, Kataev himself, in coming up with this plot, relied on an already known plot. Let's remember this. This will be useful to us, perhaps, in our lecture today. Conan Doyle has famous story about Sherlock Holmes “The Six Napoleons”, where the situation is partly similar.
A certain young man who stole a diamond runs away from the police, runs into a sculpture workshop and quickly embeds this diamond in one of the busts of Napoleon, of which there are several standard ones, then runs away and then begins to look for these busts and break them.
But Ilf and Petrov took advantage of the opportunity not 50 or 80, not even 100, but 120 percent. They turned a potentially humorous story into a wonderful, if you are not afraid of such lofty words, into a great work. They used the opportunity to search for chairs in order to give a panorama of life in the Soviet country, because two heroes, Ostap Bender and Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, nicknamed Kisa, they travel around the Soviet Union, and a picture is given, such a rather large-scale picture of life in general in the Soviet country .
And the question that seems important to me and in answering which we will try to analyze this text and the text of the novel “The Golden Calf” is the question of the attitude of writers to Soviet reality. You and I have already raised it in a lecture about Yuri Olesha. And it is no coincidence that it arises again among us, because Ilf and Petrov were Moscow writers, that is, Muscovites of the Odessa flood, and they completely sincerely believed in building socialism, and then communism in a single country, in the Soviet Union. But at the same time, they wanted - this was the type of their talent - they wanted to write a satirical novel, that is, a novel in which life in the Soviet Union and certain aspects of life in the Soviet Union were ridiculed.
And they were faced with a rather difficult alternative: what to do? How to write a novel that glorifies socialism, and at the same time a novel that would ridicule not only the shortcomings of the past (actually speaking, this is not a very rewarding task, right, to ridicule the tsarist regime? Everyone did this), in which there would be a critical look at life would have been present in the Soviet Union too. Ilf and Petrov came out of this difficult situation with honor, and they came up with - this is, unfortunately, not my observation, this is the observation of the wonderful philologist Yuri Konstantinovich Shcheglov, which I will develop in the first part of the lecture, in the second something of my own I’ll try to do it - they came up with the so-called, Shcheglov calls it, a two-tier structure of the Soviet world.
What does this mean, a two-tier building? And this means that Soviet world, as presented in the novels The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf, it consists of two tiers. One of the tiers is the far tier of space. This is the socialism that is being built. This is the socialism that looms on the horizon. This is the socialism that Ilf and Petrov wrote in “The Twelve Chairs”, and especially in the novel “The Golden Calf”... Let me remind you that the novel “The Twelve Chairs” dates back to 1928, and “The Golden Calf” - 1931. So, this socialism is glorified in novels. We will also provide quotes. Ilf and Petrov find the highest words to describe this socialism, which will only be built. So, long shot, long tier.
And there is a nearby tier, that is, the tier where events take place today, modernity, and here Ilf and Petrov allow themselves to be very ironic, allow themselves to laugh, mock, and laugh and mock not only at the relics of the past, at those, for example, characters, and there are many of them in “The Twelve Chairs” and in The “Golden Calf”, who dream of returning and restoring the past. They allow themselves to laugh at some Soviet processes. I will give only a few examples, which seem to me to be very expressive.
Something to laugh about
For example, in “The Golden Calf” they allow themselves to write very ironically about the so-called purge. This is such a Soviet phenomenon. This did not happen before the revolution. That is, people who had some kind of dubious past, from the point of view of the new Soviet government, they were nobles or were landowners of some kind, and so on and so forth, they were purged from Soviet institutions. If you remember, there is such a pretty big story about the accountant Berlaga and other people working at Hercules. Ilf and Petrov laugh at them, they laugh at them, and at the same time the process itself is also described quite ironically.
Or, for example, another, it seems to me, expressive case. As always, we have already talked about this in lectures, that very important things are often concentrated on the periphery, not in the main plot line of the novel, but, as it were, a little to the side of this plot line. So, there is a plot, also in “The Golden Calf,” when the swindlers, they ride in the lead column in the “Antelope-Wildebeest” car, skimming the cream, as it were, from this car rally, and then they are exposed, they need to repaint the car, and they they need to rest somewhere, they need to spend some time somewhere.
And so they stop at a person’s last name - it’s funny anyway, unfortunately, the letter “e” is not there, and it’s not clear whether it’s Khvorobyov or Khvorobyov. And this man is a monarchist. He was a Soviet employee, but he had to earn a living, and he always dreamed of how he would stop working when he retired, and then he would finally live his own life, in which the state would not interfere in any way. , he will think about the Emperor, he will think about Purishkevich, and so on and so forth - in general, there will be happiness.
Not so. As soon as he retired, all sorts of thoughts began to painfully come into his head about what they were doing now in our trust, whether they had laid off someone or not. Then he decided: “Well, okay, if in this life of mine Soviet Union I’ve already made my way, the Soviet stuff has made its way, but there are dreams, dreams - this is my sacred, this is inviolable, and there I will see the tsar and the people around him who are dear to me.” No, that was not the case, and here his dreams are full of Soviet realities, demonstrations, and so on and so on. And, in general, this topic is quite serious, it is important: the topic of the penetration of the state at all levels into the life of the average person. It's almost such an Orwellian theme. Of course, Ilf and Petrov solved it in a unique, satirical, easy way, because these novels are such easy, enjoyable reading. But, nevertheless, this topic arises.
Or I’ll give you another example. This is the father of Zosya Sinitskaya, the girl with whom Ostap, who works as a rebus specialist, is in love in the novel “The Golden Calf”. That is, he composes puzzles and charades for all kinds of publications, and now his puzzles...