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Ilya Ilf (Ilya Arnoldovich Feinsilberg) (Russian: Илья Арнольдович Файнзильберг, 1897–1937) and Evgeny or Yevgeni Petrov (Yevgeniy Petrovich Kataev/Katayev or Russian: Евгений Петрович Катаев, 1903–1942) were two Soviet prose authors of the 1920s and 1930s. They did much of their writing together, and are almost always referred to as "Ilf and Petrov". They were natives of Odessa.
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Publications
Ilf and Petrov became extremely popular for their two satirical novels: The Twelve Chairs and its sequel, The Little Golden Calf. The two texts are connected by their main character, Ostap Bender, a con man in pursuit of elusive riches. Both books follow exploits of Bender and his associates looking for treasure amidst the contemporary Soviet reality. They were written and are set in the relatively liberal era in Soviet history, the New Economic Policy of the 1920s. The main characters generally avoid contact with the apparently lax law enforcement. Their position outside the organized, goal-driven, productive Soviet society is emphasized. It also gives the authors a convenient platform from which to look at this society and to make fun of its less attractive and less Socialist aspects. These are among the most widely read and quoted books in Russian culture. The Twelve Chairs was adapted for ca. twenty movies, in the USSR (by Leonid Gaidai and by Mark Zakharov), in the US (in particular by Mel Brooks), and in other countries.
The two writers also traveled across the Great Depression-era United States. Ilf took many pictures throughout the journey, and the authors produced a photo essay entitled "American Photographs," published in Ogonyok magazine. Shortly after that they published the book Одноэтажная Америка (literally: "One-storied America"), translated as Little Golden America (an allusion to The Little Golden Calf).The first edition of the book did not include Ilf's photographs. Both the photo essay and the book document their adventures with their characteristic humor and playfulness. Notably, Ilf and Petrov were not afraid to praise many aspects of the American lifestyle in these works. The title comes from the following description.
America is primarily a one-and two-story country. The majority of the American population lives in small towns of three thousand, maybe five, nine, or fifteen thousand inhabitants.
Memory
The minor planet 3668 Ilfpetrov, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina in 1982, is named after them.
In Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Pale Fire, a character cites Ilf and Petrov as "those joint authors of genius" among "such marvelous Russian humorists as Gogol, Dostoyevsky..." The clever reference to Dostoyevsky is a bow to the satire of Ilf and Petrov.