Dvenadtsat’ stuliev (The Twelve Chairs, 1928) and Zolotoi telenok (The Golden Calf, 1931, Soviet book edition 1933), by Ilya Il’f and evgenii petrov, hold a unique place in Soviet culture. although incorporated into the official canon of Socialist realist satire (a phenomenon whose very existence was constantly put into question), the books “became a pool of quotes for several generations of Soviet intellectuals, who found the diptych to be a nearly overt travesty of propagandistic formulae, newspaper slogans, and the dictums of the founders of ‘Marxism-Leninism.’ paradoxically, this ‘Soviet literary classic’ was read as anti-Soviet literature.” (Odesskii and Feldman, 6)
as Mikhail Odesskii and David Feldman (12–25) have shown, Dvenadtsat’ stuliev was commissioned to Valentin Kataev and his
“brigade” in 1927 by Vladimir Narbut, editor-in-chief of the journal 30 days, which serialized the novel throughout the first half of 1928.
Narbut also was a director of a major publishing house, “Zemlia i Fabrika” (“Land and Factory”), which released the novel in book form after the journal publication. Kataev, already a recognized writer, invited two young journalists into his “brigade,” his brother petrov and Il’f—an old acquaintance from Odessa and a colleague at the newspaper Gudok (Train Whistle) where Kataev had also worked in the past—letting them develop his story of a treasure hidden inside one chair of a dining room set. however, once Kataev had ascertained that the co-authors were managing fine without a “master’s oversight,” the older brother left the group and the agreement with the journal and publisher was passed on to Il’f and petrov. as Odesskii and Feldman suggest, Kataev purposefully acted as the project’s “locomotive” by
securing a contract for the unfinished novel in his name and then passing it on to his co-authors. These researchers also show that the novel was commissioned as part of the campaign against trotskyism, waged by the “Stalin wing” throughout 1927. The pretense of attacking trotskyism gave Il’f and petrov free reign to mock Nep (which trotsky actively defended) and left-wing ideology. Later the authors excised a number of chapters which related to trotskyism too directly, as the subject lost its relevance with the onset of the attack on Bukharin, Stalin’s past ally, and the “right opposition” in 1928. Generally speaking, these events benefited the novel as they involuntarily broadened the scope and focus of the satire from mere trotskyism to include “real socialism” and Soviet ideological language. Of course, even the first novel went far beyond the boundaries of the politically motivated commission, mostly thanks to the figure of Ostap Bender. It was Bender who filled Il’f and petrov’s novels with his own, alternative and unorthodox, ideology: himself embodying the discourse of total irony and kynical trickery as a form of social resistance and even a type of romantic pose, which was later inherited by several generations of Soviet readers.
The novel’s first critics sensed this. It is no accident that Soviet criticism of the 1920s and 30s at first accused Il’f and petrov’s novels of “thematic pettiness” (melkotem’e) and “insufficiently profound hatred for the class enemy.” For instance, Dvenadtsat’ stuliev provoked criticism along the lines of: “… By laughing at the nincompoopery of daily life and speaking ironically of the representatives of philistinism, the novel does not rise to the height of satire… the authors passed real life by—it is not reflected in their observations, their artistic lens only caught the types who are leaving the stage of life: the doomed, ‘former people.’” (Sitkov, 38) even after favorable publications in Literaturnaia gazeta, such as an article by anatolii tarasenkov that took Dvenadtsat’
stuliev beyond the dangerous discussion on the necessity of satire in a perfect Soviet society (tarasenkov), Il’f and petrov’s novel instilled unease in the Soviet official organs.1 It is a small wonder, then, that Zolotoi telenok, after the initial (abridged) publication in serial form in 1931, was released as a novel in Germany, austria, the U.S. and england two years prior to the first book edition in the USSr. The publication
1 See: Zorich, Selivanovskii, troshchenko.
would not have occurred at all if Gorky had not pressed a.S. Bubnov, the then people’s Commissar of enlightenment.2 anatolii Lunacharsky (a former Commissar of enlightenment) supplied a foreword to the american edition in which he described Ostap Bender in the following words: “This unusually dexterous, daring, ingenious, and, in his own way, great-hearted rogue, Bender, who showers derisions, aphorisms, paradoxes around him, seems the only real person in the midst of these microscopic vipers [the novel’s characters—ordinary Soviet
‘philistines’]… This Bender is more attractive and more human than those who surround him. his band is lost in the rays of light shed by its talented leader who is almost a genius.” (Lunacharsky, xvii) having said that, Lunacharsky carefully disclaimed: “… Further sympathy for such a type [Ostap Bender] assumes the natures of anarchism.” (ibid., xviii)
The response of the critics of the 1960s–70s to the renewed interest in Il’f and petrov’s diptych and the new popularity of its protagonist, who was to become a real hero for the new generation, did not add much to Lunacharsky’s duality. Thus, abram Vulis, in the first book written about Il’f and petrov, argues that the authors “underestimated
2 See about this in Munblit and raskin, 209.
1. Ostap Bender and Koreyko by Kukryniksy
the attractiveness of this, essentially negative character who was armed with their fabulous irony” (Vulis, 270), while Ostap’s “negative”
characteristics derive from the fact that “rejecting both Soviet power and its enemies, Bender finds a place between two warring forces.”
(idem., 278) Vladimir Sappak formulated a similar idea in “Manichean”
terms: Bender is “a negative character who fulfils a positive function.
[…] his ability to see the real value of things […] his talent for ridicule, mockery and parody towards everything that deserves to be ridiculed, constitutes the immense positive charge carried by Ostap Bender…”
(Sappak, 123)3
Yurii Shcheglov and alexander Zholkovsky were the first critics to dispense with this awkward interpretational construct. In Shcheglov’s view, the character Bender is formed at the intersection of two
3 Somewhat similar interpretation of Ostap is presented in Ianovskaia, 94–107.
2. Ostap Bender by Kukryniksy
archetypal models: the rogue and the “demonic hero.” Bender’s roguish genealogy is self-evident—the scholar indicates numerous parallels with the characters of Mark twain, O. henry’s “noble conmen,” some of Chaplin’s heroes, Babel’s Benya Krik, Bulgakov’s ametistov (also see Likhachev), as well as older examples of rogues from Lazarillo de tormes and Gil Blas de Santillane, to Gogol’s Chichikov and Dickens’s Mr. alfred Jingle, and Sam Weller from The Pickwick Papers.4
all the same, Ostap’s intellectual brilliance, the virtuosity of his parodic aphoristic formulae, his masterful manipulation of linguistic stereotypes, his aptitude at momentarily recognizing people’s weaknesses and exploiting them for his own benefit, multiplied by his charm, all bring him into the “scattered family of intellectually sophisticated heroes, rising above the ‘crowd’ and lonely atop their Olympus… Such a hero habitually gives himself the right to dispose of ‘little people’ and their lives as cheap material for his titanic experiments… In less appealing variations he exhibits such traits as emptiness, cynicism, a mockery of everything and all, and the Devil’s famous lack of a stable character, his endless multiplicity of masks and guises.” (Shcheglov, 31) a few years before Shcheglov, Maya Kaganskaia, and Zeev Bar-Sella demonstrated parallels between Ostap and Bulgakov’s Woland (see Kaganskaia and Bar-Sella). Shcheglov and Lurie point at a resemblance between Ostap and erenburg’s Khulio Khurenito (“the great provocateur”—“the great combinator”) and even Sherlock holmes (death and resurrection; the likeness in plot between
“Six Napoleons” and Dvenadtsat’ stuliev was noticed as early as in 1929 [Kashintsev]).
Though presented ironically, Bender’s romanticism and sometimes
“demonism” is apparent in several of his features and particularly evident in Zolotoi telenok; examples include Ostap’s resurrection after the finale of Dvenadtsat’ stuliev, his agency’s specialization in “horns and hooves,” his debate with the catholic priests over Kozlevich’s soul (analogous to his tormenting Father Fyodor in the first novel), and his tragic defeat during the crossing of the Dniestr—the mythological boundary between this world and the other—completing the realization of Bender’s own maxim that “the ice is moving”; this scene
4 Viktor Shklovsky was one of the first to detect the genealogy of Ostap in rogue novels.
See Shklovsky, 1934.
is comparable to the “infernal” depiction of the Crimean earthquake which accompanies the loss of hope for the recovery of the 11th chair in the second-to-last chapter of Dvenadtsat’ stuliev.
however, both as the rogue and as the “demonic” hero, embodying a philosophical superiority over the “crowd,” Ostap appears as the sole free character in the whole Soviet world. Shcheglov suggests that in Il’f and petrov’s novels the characters’ involvement in the utopian project of building the communist future serves as the main criterion for their aesthetic evaluation by the authors (22–24). This principle of aesthetic evaluation, however, does not appear to extend to Ostap (at least until the finale of Zolotoi telenok). his virtuoso juggling of masks, his glorious disdain for all things Soviet (“Building socialism bores me”5 [2009: 58]), his principled refusal to engage with the collective utopia and focus on his personal quest instead does not undermine Ostap’s charm in the least, but rather testifies to his artistry and intellectual superiority.
Furthermore, as Shcheglov shows, Ostap mocks the old pre-revolutionary and the new Soviet symbols, discourses and ideas in equal measure: “Bureaucracy, slogans, ideological campaigns, the domestic chaos of contemporary russia are, for Ostap, merely the various forms and faces of universal stupidity on par with monarchist plots, the squabbles of communal life and personal eccentricities, such as ellochka’s competition with fashionable foreign lionesses… perhaps for socialism it is this failure to distinguish the Soviet from the rest that constitutes the most hurtful aspect of Bender’s ridicule” (45).
alexander Zholkovsky also proposes interpreting Ostap as a paradoxical poet of individual freedom:
The official view on individual rights (the collective is all, the individual—nothing, morally suspect, and most likely criminal) is inseparably intertwined with the Western view, furthermore both are extolled and mocked, perhaps even with a certain spiritual advantage in the West’s favor. Ostap walks through the Soviet world like a certain knight of the bourgeois image, deriving his values, Don Quixote-like, from an idealized historical past, but
5 «Мне скучно строить социализм» (Il’f and petrov 1995b: 25).
appearing a head above his surroundings. It is not only, as is sometimes written, that Ostap is a charming criminal, but that he is a charming individualist, at his limit—a charming anti-Soviet, though this charm is offered with a heavy pro-Soviet flavor. (49-50)
This last paradox points at Ostap’s ability to create or call into life certain anti-structural elements within the very system, in other words, to perform one of the most significant functions of the trickster.6
OStap aS trICKSter
Just like the other characters discussed in this study, Bender represents only certain aspects of the trickster archetype, reducing or altogether effacing other components. the traits that are most defining of Il’f and petrov’s hero are: ambivalence in union with liminality, artistry and vitality that are inseparable from a very specific sense of the sacred.
Ambivalence/liminality. even the brief history of Ostap Bender’s reception and interpretation cited above, illustrates the ambivalence of his image. this ambivalence is also validated by Ostap’s position within the system of characters in both novels. the diptych presents Ostap in the company of tricksters who belong to a lower order than he does. On the one hand, the others double some of Ostap’s isolated features; on the other hand, they accentuate his superiority. Bender’s intellectual power and multifacetedness, as well as his animal vitality and artistic flexibility, stand out when he is contrasted with Vorobianinov, while his resemblance to this character affords Ostap a certain aristocratism. By the novel’s end, Vorobianinov comes to resemble Ostap, although he acquires only
“the traits of determination and cruelty.” (1992: 386)7. By killing Ostap, Kisa loses the remnants of his own humanity: “It was an insane, impassioned wild cry—the cry of a she-wolf shot through the
6 For a detailed analysis of Soviet and post-Soviet critical responses to the character of Ostap Bender from the 1920s to the 2000s see in Fisher, 142–220.
7 «В характере появились не свойственные ему раньше черты решительности и жестокости» (1995a: 402).
body…”8 (1992: 394) at the same time Bender, although sacrificed, not only secures the reader’s compassion, but even resurrects himself in the next novel, as though a god defying death. Ostap’s three partners in Zolotoi telenok, clearly below him with respect to wit and talent, only highlight Bender’s superiority through their adoration and failures alike. at the same time they really do become his “milk brothers”: Shura Balaganov accentuates Ostap’s strength and youthfulness, Kozlevich brings out Ostap’s “angelic”
side, and panikovsky, the “demonic.” It is also possible to detect in Ostap’s “milk brothers” representation of three cultural/religious traditions—russian/Orthodox (Balaganov), Jewish (panikovsky), and polish/Catholic (Kozlevich)—which, on the one hand, adds a sense of universalism to the representation of Ostap, and on the other, emphasizes his position as a liminal mediator situated
“betwixt and between.”
Ostap acts as a mediator between various—social, cultural, and geographical—spheres of the Soviet world, and this function of his becomes the axis of both novels. as a mediator, Ostap Bender is himself inevitably liminal. his liminality is accentuated by his unclear social status and education; certainly he is a “gentleman of the road”
in the proper sense. Curiously, in a world where one’s class origins are decisive, Ostap turns this, seemingly predetermined, identity into a game: my father, he would say, “was a turkish citizen,” (1992: 340, 2009:
58)9 his mother “a countess who lived off labor-less profits,”10 and he is repeatedly—albeit ironically—called by authors a “descendant of the janissaries” (potomok ianycharov). The sum of these pseudo-romantic quotations transfers the very question of “social origins” to a literary or fantastic dimension.11
at the same time, while functioning beyond the bounds of the
8 «Крик его, бешеный, страстный и дикий, - крик простреленной навылет волчицы...»
(ibid., 408).
9 «Отец... был турецко-поданный» (1995a: 366)ь, «Был у меня папа, турецкий поданный...» (1995b: 25).
10 «Мать... была графиней и жила нетрудовыми доходами» (1995a: 366).
11 Mikhail Odesskii and David Feldman decipher “the turkish origin” as a non-ambiguous indication of Bender being a Jew, since Jews from Odessa frequently accepted the turkish citizenship in order to save their children from russian discrimination and, most importantly, from the recruitment to the russian army (see their commentary in Il’f and petrov 1997: 467).
text, as a personage belonging to both the official and the unofficial subcultures, Ostap mediates between the symbolic planes of the Soviet ideological discourses and the concrete social experience of Soviet people. Bender’s quasi-legitimate presence in the Socialist realist canon points at certain voids, certain liminal zones of indeterminacy within the Soviet discourse. We will return to the contents of these uncertain zones, noting for the moment that in the diptych, Bender frequently creates artificial, although clearly liminal, situations—something that naturally follows from his function as a trickster-mediator.
a particularly telling example of a liminal situation is found in the “alliance of the Sword and the plowshare” chapter in Dvenadtsat’
stuliev, formed by Ostap for the sole purpose of extracting money from the circle of Stargorod’s old elites, in order to pay for his wedding with M-me Gritsatsueva. at the meeting, Bender inundates those gathered with monarchist and “conspiratorial” formulae—for example: “You support Kirillov, I hope” (1992: 126); “russia will not forget you” (ibid., 127);” Which regiment were you in?” (ibid., 130); “The West will help us! Stand firm” (ibid., 130); “as a representative of private capital you cannot remain deaf to the pleas of the motherland” (ibid., 130–131);
“…I warn you, we have a long reach.” (ibid., 131)12 at the same time, Ostap declares the meeting’s stated goal to be a charity collection for homeless children. This goal cannot be interpreted as “conspiratorial,”
though it is packaged in the clichés of a pre-revolutionary and not at all Soviet liberal discourse: “It is only the young children, the waifs and strays, who are not looked after. These flowers of the street, or, as the white-collar proletarians call them, ‘flowers in asphalt,’ deserve a better lot. We must help them, gentlemen of the jury and, gentlemen of the jury, we will do so.” (ibid.,131–32)13 The meaning of the speech is deeply ambiguous; it may equally be read as a call for anti-Soviet activity and as proof of Bender’s and the entire “alliance’s” political
12 «Вы, надеюсь, кирилловец?», «Россия вас не забудет!», Вы в каком полку служили?»
«Вы дворянин?... Вы, надеюсь, остались им и сейчас? Крепитесь», «Запад нам поможет.
Крепитесь», «Вы как представитель частного капитал не можете остаться глухим к стонам родины», «... у нас, предупреждаю, длинные руки» (1995a: 206, 208-209).
13 «Одни лишь маленькие дети, беспризорные дети, находятся без призора. Эти цветы улицы, или, как выражаются пролетарии умственного труда, цветы на асфальте заслуживают лучшей участи. Мы, господа присяжные заседатели, должны им помочь»
(ibid., 210).
loyalty. By creating such an internally contradictory discourse, Ostap exploits two strong feelings yoking the Stargorod “aristocracy”—
hatred for the Soviet regime—and terror at being drawn into a risky political situation: “‘two years of solitary confinement at best,’
thought Kisliarskii, beginning to tremble. ‘Why did I have to come here?’” (ibid., 131)14
at first sight, in this scene Bender overcomes a fundamental opposition between permitted and anti-Soviet public activity.
however, his game is much more complicated. he sets up a situation where political taboos are broken and draws the gathered party into this transgression. In other words, Bender creates a liminal situation in which he feels thoroughly at home (“Ostap was carried away. things seemed to be going well” [ibid., 130]15), while regular citizens feel a very understandable horror at the disintegrating order of things around them (“Kisliarskii became [pale] like marble.
that day he had had such a good, quiet dinner of chicken gizzards, soup with nuts, and knew nothing of the terrible ‘alliance of the Sword and the plowshare.’” [ibid., 131]16) at the same time, Bender offers his “co-conspirators” a way out of this unbearable (for them) situation, in the form of help for vagrant children. Briefly put, he creates a particular sort of ritual transgression, a temporary chaos, a limited liminal situation—akin to those that traditionally involve the trickster in mythology and folklore. In order to end the ritual transgression and the accompanying feeling of perilous freedom, a sacrifice is necessary. Ostap activates this exact symbolic logic by collecting money from the “assembly.”
The organization formed by Ostap is suspiciously reminiscent of the infamous government operations “Sindikat-2” (1921–1924) and
“trest” (1921–1927).17 In both cases the OGpU created a fictitious anti-Soviet underground organization (in operation “trest” the organization was called the “Monarchist Union of Central russia,”
14 «В лучшем случае, два года со строгой изоляцией, - подумал Кислярский, начиная дрожать.—Зачем я сюда пришел?» (ibid., 210).
15 «Остапа несло. Дело как будто налаживалось» (ibid., 209).
16 «Кислярский сделался мраморным. Еще сегодня он так вкусно и спокойно обедал, ел куриные пупочки, бульон с орешками и нечего не знал о страшном «союзе меча и орала» (ibid., 210).
17 See Brook-Shepherd; andrew and Mitrokhin; Costello and tsarev; Spence.
which cannot help but recall Ostap’s “monarchism”) which served to attract not only such famous opponents of Bolshevism as Boris Savinkov and Sidney reilly (in the course of these operations both were lured to the USSr and executed), but also dissidents living in the USSr who were willing to fight the Soviet regime. at the time Dvendatsat’ stuliev was written the details of both operations were widely known, which is why Ostap’s “conspiracy” could not help but evoke the corresponding associations.
analogously, in Zolotoi telenok, Ostap performs a “mock” internal police investigation of Koreyko’s machinations, discovering along the way that “hercules” acts as a façade for the “underground millionaire.”
It is no accident that Ostap’s investigation takes place against the backdrop of an official “purge,” to say nothing of the fact that Bender effectively exploits his victims’ fear of the arrest by the OGpU. Consider this scene:
The commissioner of hooves appeared in the corridor.
Swinging his enormous hands like a member of the royal Guard, Balaganov walked up to Berlaga and handed him a summon:
tO: COMreDe BerLeGe.
UpON reCeIpt YOUr ere
UpON reCeIpt YOUr ere