The Twelve Chairs

This satirical epic, published in 1928, exposes the selfishness and greed of Soviet society shaped by the New Economic Policy. It was a hugely successful book and achieved something of a cult status among its readers. Set in 1927, it was written collaboratively by journalist colleagues Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. The central character, Ippolit Matveevich Vorobyaninov, sets out on an exhaustive search for the jewels which his mother-in-law had secreted in one of twelve chairs. The chairs have been redistributed by the authorities. Together with Ostap Bender, a conman accomplice who forces himself on Vorobyaninov for a share of the treasure, he finds a way to obtain each chair and tear open the lining to see if the diamonds are hidden within. The idea for the plot was suggested by Petrov's brother, Valentin Kataev, whose novel, Embezzlers, parodies many of the same aspects of Soviet society of the 1920s.

The co-author, Ilya Ilf (born 15 October 1897), came from Odessa in present-day Ukraine. Ilf was a pseudonym; he was of a Jewish family called Fainzilberg. Ilf and Kataev were the same age and were close friends. Kataev recalled coming up with the scenario:
“As I saw it, the search for diamonds hidden in one of 12 chairs scattered all over the country by the Revolution offered the chance to portray a satirical picture gallery of character types from the N.E.P. era. I laid it all out for my friend and brother... I suggest the idea, the springboard, and they work it up, clothe it in the flesh and blood of a satirical novel. Then I go over their writing with the master's expert hand and we end up with an amusing picaresque novel.”

In a clever Russian-doll feature of the novel, some writers in a Moscow theatre discuss ideas for a play:
“It's a swell plot. See, here's what happens. A Soviet inventor comes up with a death ray and hides the design in a chair. Then he dies. His wife doesn't know about it and sells the chairs to different people. But the fascists find out and start hunting down the chairs. But then a Young Communist finds out about the chairs and so a struggle begins. Now you could do something really big here...”

Vorobyaninov and Bender have a rival in the pursuit of the diamonds, except he is sent after an entirely different set of chairs when swindled by a corrupt local archivist. He is Father Fyodor Vostrikov and is one of the few characters in the novel for which we are told anything about their experience of the Great War:
“Father Fyodor's impetuous soul knew no peace. It never had... Vostrikov switched from seminary to university and finished the first three years of the law faculty but in 1915 he got scared of being mobilised and returned to the spiritual line of work. First he was ordained a deacon, then he was consecrated to the sacred office of priest... And throughout all these stages of his spiritual and lay career, Father Fyodor had always been, and now remained, a money-grubber.”