Ilya Arnoldovich Ilf - Soviet journalist and writer, screenwriter, playwright, photographer. Most known for his books with Evgeny Petrov. Today, for many, Ilf and Petrov are a link that cannot be broken. The names of the writers are perceived as one. Nevertheless, we will try to figure out who Ilya Ilf is, how he lived and what is known.
Biography
Ilya Ilf was born on October 3, 1897. Then his name was Jehiel-Leib Arievich Fainzilberg. His father was a bank employee - he worked as an accountant in a branch of the Siberian Bank in Odessa. The family had four sons. Jehiel-Leib was the third. The birthplace of Ilya Ilf is Odessa.
He studied at a technical school. Then he worked in a drawing office, at a military factory, at a telephone exchange. I tried myself as an accountant. After the revolution, he became a journalist, then grew up to be the editor of humorous magazines. He was a member of the Union of Poets of Odessa. Combining the first and last letters of a hard-to-pronounce name, he became a writer Ilya Ilf, thereby destroying his father's dreams of his son's military career.
After moving to Moscow, she works in the newspaper Gudok (the publishing house of railway workers). I got there thanks to Valentin Kataev, familiar from Odessa. Ilya Ilf wrote feuilleton and other humorous and satirical materials. There he met the writers Isaac Babel, Yuri Olesha, Mikhail Bulgakov and his brother Valentin Kataev - Eugene, who took the pseudonym Evgeny Petrov.
Collaboration with Petrov
In 1927, with Evgeny Petrov, they worked together for the first time on the novel The Twelve Chairs. The plot for the chronicle was suggested by Valentin Kataev, but the authors were so carried away by its development that in the end they got a full-fledged adventure novel, which Kataev recommended to publish.
The following year, Ilf was fired from the newspaper as a result of the reduction. Petrov followed him. Both became employees of the new magazine "Eccentric" - made joint reviews of films and performances under the pseudonym "Don Busilio".
In the future, the result of the writers' creative friendship was a huge number of jointly written short stories, essays, short stories, film scripts and, of course, novels. Their success in the Soviet Union was incredible, but nevertheless, the writers did not enjoy the approval of critics.
After The Eccentric, feuilleton was actively written for other publications: Pravda, Krokodil, Literaturnaya Gazeta.
Death
In the mid-1930s, Pravda newspaper correspondents Yevgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf went on a trip to the United States, which resulted in a series of essays "One-story America."
During the trip, Ilf discovered tuberculosis, which was diagnosed ten years ago. Therefore, on "One-Storied America" writers worked separately. Nevertheless, the unified style worked out over 10 years of work helped to make a series of unified essays on American life.
Ilya Ilf died in Moscow on April 13, 1937. He lived only 39 years.
Ilya Ilf - photographer
In the early 1930s, Ilf was seriously interested in photography. He photographed on the "Watering Can". The writer took thousands of photographs. Among them are many unique ones - photographs of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior before and after the explosion, Mayakovsky’s funeral, photographs of famous contemporaries - Mikhail Bulgakov, Boris Pasternak, Yuri Olesha. His photographs illustrate the book "One-story America."
After the death of Ilya Ilf, his daughter Alexandra found a photo. She gathered them together, prepared for publication. So the book “Ilya Ilf - Photographer” was born.
"Notebooks"
Ilya Ilf wrote about what happened to him in life from 1925 until his death. These were travel diaries, some good phrases, sketches of future work. Gradually, they grew into a full-fledged work of confession. The book includes sketches in the style of prose poems, parodies, critical reviews. In the USSR, it was possible to publish a book only with significant reductions. But the writer's statements became winged phrases all the same and quickly scattered across the country.
Aphorisms
Many quotes by Ilya Ilf became winged expressions. And here are some of them:
- “Wine takes time and talking skills. Therefore, Americans drink whiskey. ”
- “There are things that cannot be changed. The boots can be removed, but you cannot teach a person to laugh in Russian. ”
- “How nice to be business when there is no business.”
- "He got drunk so that he could already perform various minor miracles."
- “In science fiction novels, the main thing was radio. Under him, the happiness of mankind was expected. There is a radio, but no happiness. ”
- “On the line of least resistance, everything is safe.”
- “Not a single pedestrian has yet crushed a car, but for some reason motorists are dissatisfied.”
- "There is always a person who, with all his might, wants to speak out last."
- "All talented people write differently, all mediocre people write the same way and in one hand."
- “Competition of liars. The main prize went to the truth-teller. ”
A family
Speaking about the family of Ilya Ilf, it is first of all worth mentioning about his brothers. The elders, like Ilya, struck creativity, disappointing their father. Sandro Fazini is a famous French cubist artist and photographer. Mikhail Fainzilberg is a Soviet graphic artist and photographer. The younger brother Benjamin lived up to his father’s expectations and became a topographic engineer.
The writer met his wife Maria Tarasenko in Odessa. Masha studied at the school of painting, in which Ilya’s brother taught. The artist fell in love with her brother, but soon surrendered under the pressure of Ilya Ilf and his signs of attention. Ilf left for Moscow - the couple corresponded for two years. On one of Mary’s visits, they got married and got a room in Sretensky Lane. Neighbors were Yuri Olesha and his wife. Material well-being and a large apartment with a housekeeper appeared after the release of the Twelve Chairs. In 1935, the daughter Sasha was born. Ilya Arnoldovich did not look for souls in her, but could not even hug - he was afraid to infect his daughter with tuberculosis.
The works of Ilf and Petrov
It is impossible to talk about Ilya Ilf without considering his works with Petrov. Together, the writers created a huge number of stories, short stories, essays, scripts, but the main hits were their adventurous novels about the adventures of the great combinator Ostap Bender - “Twelve Chairs” and “Golden Calf”, as well as travel essays of the collection “One-story America”. Consider these works in more detail.
"Twelve Chairs"
The novel "Twelve Chairs" by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov was their first work. It was written on the idea of Valentin Kataev, Petrov's older brother, which the writers developed into a full-fledged adventure novel.
The plot is based on the search for diamonds, which are hidden in one of Madame Petukhova’s chairs. Despite the adventurous plot, many critics claimed that the novel gives a global image of the current era. It was this novel that gave us the legendary Ostap Bender, as well as Kisu Vorobyaninov.
Society and critics met the novel with restraint. In 1948, together with the Golden Calf, the novel was banned for publication.
"Golden calf"
The novel of Evgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf "The Golden Calf" is written in the genre of a roguish novel with elements of social satire. He talks about the life of the Bender combinator against the backdrop of the 1930s - what happened to him after the events described in the Twelve Chairs. It was published in the magazine "30 days."
The reaction was also mixed. The main debate unfolded around Ostap Bender. Someone said that he was too charming for the main character, someone saw in him a caricature of a Russian intellectual.
Since May 1931 he was published in the Paris edition of the journal Satyricon. The first full-fledged book was published in 1932 in the United States. In Russian, first appeared in 1933.
Ostap Bender, introducing himself as the son of Lieutenant Schmidt, is trying to fetch money from the chairman of the executive committee of the city of Arbatov. There he meets the local "combinator" Shura Balaganov, a bold but near-minded young man, and Jew Panikovsky, a crook and a crook, talented in finding adventure for himself. Together they go to Chernomorsk to rob the real Soviet millionaire - accountant Alexander Ivanovich Koreiko. The first taxi driver in Arbatov helps them get to Chernomorsk - the most honest Adam Kozlevich, in love with his Antelope Wildebeest car, which by chance becomes a member of their motley company.
"One-story America"
The book is a travel essay on the trip of Ilf and Petrov to the United States of America, where they went in 1935 as correspondents for the newspaper Pravda. In America, they lived for three and a half months.
Some essays were written during the trip and published in Pravda with minor reductions. The first notes were published in 1936 in the magazine "Spark". The text was accompanied by American photographs by Ilya Ilf. The entire book was written over the summer of 1936. It was published in the magazine "Banner", published in the "Roman Newspaper" and "Soviet Writer".
Readers followed the adventures of the authors and the American couple Adams, who accompanied the Russians from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean and vice versa. The book reveals in detail the life of Americans in the thirties. On its pages, readers get acquainted with American celebrities - Henry Ford, Joseph Steffens, Ernest Hemingway and others. Ilf and Petrov describe all the cities that meet on their way, including the US capital Washington and such major cities as New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles and others. Particularly interesting is the description of Hollywood film production. The authors talk about the life of native Indians, Mexicans, and meet with Russian immigrants. The book can be considered an encyclopedia of American life for Russian people. From it you can learn about national sports (rodeo, bullfighting, wrestling, American football), US attractions, the achievements of American scientists (light bulb, phonograph, conveyor). One of the merits of the books is the magnificent landscapes of America: prairies, mountains, deserts, national parks.
The described picture of the life of the United States is very objective. There is no ideology in the book, but standardization of life, intellectual passivity, and credulity are criticized. But Ilf and Petrov praise American service, roads, the ability to work and clearly organize both life and production.
Adaptations
The books of Ilf and Petrov were so popular that cinema did not pass them by. A large number of films were shot based on their works. Films based on the books of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov are very popular. World cinematographers are turning to satirical plots so far!
The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov — the story of Ostap Bender’s adventures — has been filmed more than 20 times. Foreign filmmakers adapted the novel to local realities, changed the names of the characters and the plot. The Germans shot 13 Chairs, in Italy the films One Out of Thirteen Are Not in Chairs, One Out of Thirteen, Please Sit, in England, and The Seven Black Brassieres came out in Sweden. In 1971, a two-part film was released by Leonid Gaidai, which was a resounding success. In 1976, Andrei Mironov played Ostap Bender. The film by Mark Zakharov consisted of a large number of musical scenes that became very popular among the people.
The second part, the Golden Calf, was filmed only here. The first to take on the novel was director Georgi Danelia. In 1958, the short film Vasisualiy Lokhankin was released, in which only one scene of the novel was shown. The most popular was the adaptation of Michael Schweitzer. The main role was played by Sergey Yursky, together with him Leonid Kuravlev, Zinovy Gerdt, Evgeny Evstigneev worked on the site. In 1993, Igor Tolstunov adapted the novel to modern realities and made the film "Dreams of an Idiot." Bender became a middle-aged bald macho, Shura Balaganov - a gopnik, Panikovsky - a small intellectual. Most recently, the Golden Calf series was released, where Oleg Menshikov, Mikhail Efremov, Fedor Dobronravov played.