The Twelve Chairs
(IIYA IIF, EVGENY PETROV)
In Soviet Russia, former marshal of the nobility Ippolit
Matveyevich Vorobyaninov works as a registry clerk ? until his mother-in-law
reveals on her deathbed that her family jewellery had been concealed in one of the
twelve chairs in a lounge suite. He becomes a treasure hunter and, teaming up
with smooth operator and con-man Ostap Bender, sets off to track down the
chairs, in a journey that will take him from his provincial town first to
Moscow and then across Russia to the Caucasus.
In this enterprise Ostap Bender is in his element, deceiving the credulous
individually and en masse, telling tall tales and spinning money-making schemes
from nothing, and happily resorting to theft and fraud. Vorobyaninov is not so happy,
steadily abandoning his principles and losing his self-esteem. The Twelve
Chairs satirises not just its central characters, however, but the people
and institutions they encounter: the planning and implementation of a new tram
system in a small town, a farcical counter-revolutionary conspiracy, the
operations of a Moscow
newspaper, student housing, a provincial chess club, and so forth. And there
are comic but shrewd observations on aspects of everyday life.
As well as being great entertainment, The Twelve Chairs, first
published in 1928, offers a revealing view of Russian life at the time. It was
wildly popular within the Soviet Union and has been adapted for film many
times, both in Russia
and in the West.
Resumos Relacionados
- Thud
- Mariya
- The Master And Margarita
- War And Peace
- The Oligarchs. Wealth And Power In The New Russia.
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