April 13, 1937
A 39-year-old writer and journalist died of tuberculosis in Moscow. Ilya Ilf. Co-author of "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf." One of the fathers of Soviet satire.
A funny phrase needs to be cherished, nurtured, and gently stroked over the subject
Born in 1897 in Odessa, into the family of a bank employee. Birth name: Yehiel-Leib Fainzilberg (from the first letters of this complex name the surname Ilf will appear).
He graduated from a vocational school and began working at the age of 16. First, in a drafting office, then as a lineman at a telephone exchange, a foreman in a doll workshop, and a turner in military factories where airplanes and grenades were made.
Humor is a very rare metal
In 1919, he served in a Red Army guard regiment formed from conscripts unfit for military service. He participated in battles against General Denikin's army.
I knew the fear of death, but I was silent, afraid in silence and didn't ask for help. I remember myself lying in the wheat. The sun was beating down on the back of my head, and I couldn't turn my head without seeing what I was so afraid of.
Later, he was assigned to report to the provincial commission, which was responsible for forming food detachments and supplying the Red Army. It was here that he gained an insight into bureaucracy from the inside.
You need to show him some paper, otherwise he won't believe that you exist.
His interest in literature began in his youth: he read a lot and even then began writing ironic stories. He published his first poems under a female pseudonym.
In 1923, he moved to Moscow. He got a job at the newspaper "Gudok," editing the worker correspondents' letters, which were published on the back page. In his first month, he made this page the most widely read, transforming dull articles into caustic feuilletons.
All talented people write differently, all untalented people write the same way and even in the same handwriting
Here I met Evgeny Petrov (real name - Kataev). From 1926 onward, they began working together: first, they wrote feuilletons for the magazine "Smekhach," and in 1928, they published the novel "The Twelve Chairs" (according to one version, they wrote it in four months). They worked in the same room, at the same table. If a word occurred to both of them at once, they crossed it out and declared it banal.
The customer of the story about the "treasure hidden in the furniture" was probably Yevgeny Petrov's older brother, a famous writer Valentin Kataev. He offered to work for him as "ghostwriters" and prepare a manuscript that he would polish himself. However, the authors ended up with a satire on all of Soviet life. Enthusiastic about the drafts, Kataev presented them with his idea in exchange for a promise to buy him a gold cigarette case with his first salary.
Together with Petrov, he wrote feuilletons for the magazines Chudak and Krokodil, as well as for Literaturnaya Gazeta and Pravda.
There is no need to fight for clean streets, just sweep them
In 1931, chapters from a new novel about Bender's adventures, "The Golden Calf," began to be published. However, censors soon banned it, calling it a "libel against the Soviet Union," delaying its publication for three years. Specifically, the original version of the novel ended with the wedding of the great schemer and the formation of a new cell of the Society of Builders of Socialism. This idea was disliked by "the very top brass of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)"—they declared Bender unnecessary among the builders of socialism and forced the book to be rewritten.
He also co-wrote film scripts, stories, essays and vaudevilles with Petrov.
In 1935, they embarked on a four-month trip to the United States, publishing the book "One-Story America" based on their findings. It was during this trip that Ilf's long-standing tuberculosis, diagnosed in the early 1920s, worsened. After returning to the Soviet Union, he was forced to leave Moscow, suffocated by the dust. He settled in a dacha outside Moscow, but was never able to overcome the disease.
This is my funeral too
(from Evgeny Petrov's farewell speech)
After his death, Ilf's "Notebooks" were published—the diaries he kept from 1925. Hundreds of observations, funny phrases, and sorrowful reflections of an attentive, ironic man.
A face not exhausted by mental exercise
I was born between a rock and a hard place
Living on such a planet is just a waste of time.
