Summary
Ilja Iljf, Yevgenij Petrov: 12 chairs
Ilja Iljf and Yevgenij Petrov, "an author composed of two halves", two bright and cheerful young men, who, despite their sincere friendship, never switched to "you" when addressing each other, worked as a tandem for only ten years, having acquired with their two novels (both published by Šareni dučan), a series of satirical stories and feuilletons and a travel book exceptional popularity...
Since way back in 1928, when the novel »12 chairs« was first published, every new generation falls again and again for the charm and freshness of this humorous evergreen. Along with the main character, the endlessly ingenious swindler Ostap Bender, stretches a column of picturesque figures: bureaucrats, small-towners, miscreants, petty thieves, local powerful people, nostalgic for the time "before historical materialism", naive conspirators against the government, journalists who can't do without sending phrases, actors on a summer tour, union members, Komsomol women in love, a grandmother witch doctor and local chess masters tend to believe that their "little misto" can become the center of the chess world. Ostap - this time in search of brilliants in one of the 12 upholstered chairs scattered all over the Soviet Union - answered all these immature opponents with his stories; he instilled fear in the bones of some, squeezed the last clothes out of others, while others he just mocked, took off their mask or broke their hearts. And it would be a wonder if such a charming underworld, in which Čičikov, Petrica Kerempuh, and the Captain from Köpenick (and there is also something of the good soldier Švejk in it), did not win the sympathy of the readers...
(from the foreword by Rudi Aljinović)
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