The plot of the novel Twelve Chairs is very traditional and routine. The story of two thieves in pursuit of diamonds that have been hidden in the upholstery of a chair allow the authors, in transitioning from one scene to the next, to present and make jabs at the Russia of that era. N. V. Gogol used the same technique in Dead Souls to satirically describe the Russia of his days.
One of the main characters in Twelve Chairs, con man and smooth operator Ostap Bender, appears again in The Little Golden Calf where he continues his hunt for a million rubles.
Ilf and Pertrov’s satirical novels present a clear picture of the late 1920s-early 1930s, and offer a more tangible and artistically valid depiction than more “serious” literature from this era. This is possible because artistic truth rises above different ideological doctrines circumstances. The novels of Ilf and Petrov vacillate between extreme worldviews, avoiding a unique, uniform picture of Soviet Russia, employing neither romantic idealization nor definitive criticism. The magic of their works lies in their successful realization of a compromise between these two poles, and the writing of works acceptable to both readers and to the ideological regime. Ilf and Petrov present a satirical picture of Soviet bureaucracy, presenting a society almost completely without goods, ridiculing the ideological dominance of the rubber stamps and slogans, and even at times the absurdity of the ideology itself.
The authors often present the characteristics of the totalitarian regime as well as the way of thinking of those who was generated by these regime.
The goal of the course is to enable students to reconstruct a complex picture of life in post-revolution Russia based on the in-depth analysis of two novels.