“Each of us considers himself indebted to the other ...”
Let's take a look: this person opens up to us mostly in tandems. Every reader knows the famous pair of co-authors, sounding like a whole, inseparably: Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov. This duo of writers remained in Russian literature, first of all, as the creator of the incredibly popular, witty, satirically grotesque, adventurous aphoristic novels The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf. In the miniature “Double Biography”, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov wrote in 1929: “It is rather difficult to compose an autobiography of the author of The Twelve Chairs...
Much less people, even readers, know about another couple - Evgeny Petrov and Valentin Kataev. The fact is that the famous Petrov, being the younger brother of the author already known at that time, Valentin Kataev, took a pseudonym for himself by his own patronymic, rightly assuming that the “Bolivar of native literature” would not withstand two Kataevs, confusion would arise.
Evgeny Petrovich Kataev was born on December 13, 1903. Of course, in Odessa. It was this city that gave readers a galaxy of the so-called "southwestern" writing school. These are world-class writers - Valentin Kataev, Isaac Babel, Yuri Olesha, Eduard Bagritsky, Evgeny Petrov, Ilya Ilf, Semyon Kirsanov, Vera Inber. The term "southwest" in the literary sense was introduced in the article of the same name in 1933 by the well-known literary critic, writer, journalist, screenwriter and film theorist V. Shklovsky. However, the first collection of poetry by E. Bagritsky, published in 1928, was also called.
Evgeny Petrovich Kataev, aka Evgeny Petrov
Literary critics are still debating whether this is a school or, perhaps, a number of independent talents, but the facts are inexorable: many of the above-mentioned writers, having moved to Moscow and working in the editorial office of the Gudok newspaper (where Mikhail Bulgakov, from Kiev, by the way, also worked), became famous Soviet writers.
In Odessa, the Kataevs lived on Kanatnaya Street, and by 1920 Evgeny graduated from the 5th Odessa classical gymnasium. During his studies, his classmate was Alexander Kozachinsky, a nobleman by his father, who later wrote the adventure story "The Green Van", the prototype of the protagonist of which - the head of the Odessa district police department Volodya Patrikeev - was Yevgeny Petrov.
It should be said about this third pair, in which Evgeny Petrov is convincingly represented. Only a few fans of the domestic adventure genre know about it. This story is romantically enchanting, dramatic, with a criminal plot, even with the blood oath of brotherhood that Zhenya and Sasha gave each other during their school years. Indeed, their fraternal bonds of friendship survived throughout their lives, although they were subjected to serious tests.
Correspondent of the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency Yevgeny Petrov
The fact is that fate brought two friends together in a bizarre way: Alexander Kozachinsky, a man of adventurous warehouse and great charm, from the age of 19, leaving detective work in the Bolshevik criminal investigation department, led a gang of raiders operating in Odessa and its environs. Ironically, in 1922, it was Yevgeny Kataev, then an employee of the Odessa Criminal Investigation Department, who arrested him. Kozachinsky, after a chase with a shootout, hid in the attic of one of the houses, where he was discovered by a classmate. Subsequently, Yevgeny achieved a review of the criminal case and the replacement of Kozachinsky with an exceptional measure of punishment, execution, with imprisonment in a camp. Moreover, in the fall of 1925, Kozachinsky was amnestied. At the exit from prison, he was met by his mother and true friend, Yevgeny Kataev...
Vadim Lebedev, columnist for Sovershenno Sekretno, concludes his essay The Green Van with surprising facts, emphasizing the inexplicable, supernatural connection that existed between these people: “The year 1941 separated them. Petrov goes to the front as a war correspondent. Kozachinsky is sent for evacuation to Siberia for health reasons. In the autumn of 1942, having received news of the death of a friend, Kozachinsky fell ill, and a few months later, on January 9, 1943, a modest obituary appeared in the newspaper Sovetskaya Sibir: “Soviet writer Alexander Kozachinsky died.”
That is, in the years that have passed since Kozachinsky's release from prison, he managed to become a "Soviet writer." Which, by the way, was also facilitated by Evgeny Petrov. In 1926, he arranged for Kozachinsky as a journalist in the same editorial office of the Gudok newspaper. And in 1938, Petrov persuaded his friend, with whom they once read Mine Reed, to write the adventure story "The Green Van" (in 1983 it was interestingly filmed, some echoes of the biography of Alexander Kozachinsky are also visible in the image of the leader of the gang in the 1974 film by Nikita Mikhalkov “At home among strangers, a stranger among our own”). But now we also understand what is behind the last lines of the Green Van: “Each of us considers himself indebted to the other: I - because he did not once shoot me from a manlicher, and he - because I planted him just in time."
Alexander Kozachinsky
In the biography of Petrov, we note his work as a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency, as well as service for three years as an inspector of the Odessa Criminal Investigation Department. Ironically, in the style known to us, this page of life is reflected in the autobiography of Ilf and Petrov (1929): “His first literary work was the protocol for examining the corpse of an unknown man.”
Reference books report that in 1923 Petrov came to Moscow, where he became an employee of the Red Pepper magazine. Yevgeny was greatly influenced by his elder brother Valentin Kataev (1897-1986). Kataev's wife recalled: “I have never seen such affection between the brothers as Valya and Zhenya have. Actually, Valya forced his brother to write. Every morning he started by calling him - Zhenya got up late, began to swear that he had been woken up ... "Okay, swear further," Valya said and hung up.
In 1927, with the joint work on the novel "The Twelve Chairs" (1928), the creative community of two Odessans, Evgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf, began. Subsequently, in collaboration with Ilya Ilf, he wrote the novel The Golden Calf (1931), the short stories Unusual Stories from the Life of the City of Kolokolamsk (1928), the fantastic story The Bright Personality (filmed), the short stories 1001 Days, or the New Scheherazade" (1929), etc.
Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov
The books of Ilf and Petrov were repeatedly staged and filmed. The creative cooperation of writers was interrupted by the death of Ilf in Moscow on April 13, 1937.
Ilf and Petrov, living in Odessa, attended the literary circle "Collective of Poets", in which Kataev, Olesha, Bagritsky started, but they met already in the Moscow "Hook", where the entire 4th page of the newspaper was assigned to satire. In the story “My Diamond Crown”, Valentin Kataev wrote: “My younger brother came to Moscow, who served in the Odessa Criminal Department, and got a job as a warden in Butyrka. I was horrified and forced him to write. Soon he began to decently earn feuilletons. I suggested to him and a friend (Ilf. - Auth.) a story about finding diamonds hidden in the upholstery of chairs. My co-authors not only developed the plot perfectly, but invented a new character - Ostap Bender.
Ilf and Petrov wrote enthusiastically, after the end of the working day in the editorial office, they returned home at two in the morning. In 1928, the novel "The Twelve Chairs" was published - first in a magazine, and then as a separate book. And immediately became extremely popular. The story about the adventures of the charming adventurer and swindler Ostap Bender and his companion, the former marshal of the nobility, Kisa Vorobyaninov, captivated with brilliant dialogues, vivid characters, and a subtle satire on Soviet reality and the philistine. Laughter was the authors' weapon against vulgarity, stupidity and idiotic pathos.
Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov
The book quickly sold out into quotes: “All smuggling is done in Odessa, on Malaya Arnautskaya Street”, “Dusya, I am a man tormented by Narzan”, “A sultry woman, a poet’s dream”, “Bargaining is inappropriate here”, “Money in the morning - chairs in the evening” , “To whom the bride is a mare”, “Only cats will be born quickly”, “Giant of thought, father of Russian democracy” and many, many others. Unforgettable is the dictionary of Ellochka the cannibal with her interjection words and other replicas that have entered our lives - “darkness!”, “Horror!”, “fat and handsome”, “boy”, “rude”, “your whole back is white! ”, “Don’t teach me how to live!”, “Ho-ho”. In fact, it can be said without exaggeration that the entire book about Bender consists of immortal aphorisms, constantly quoted by readers and moviegoers.
The Odessa acquaintance of the writers, Osip Shor, an adventurer with a special sense of humor and a wonderful storyteller, whose adventures are included in the book (marrying Madame Gritsatsueva, arriving in the province under the guise of a famous artist), became the prototype of the great schemer Ostap Bender.
Odessa was present in "The Twelve Chairs" in the character and humor of Bender, and in the next book "The Golden Calf" (the famous phrase "golden calf" is amusingly parodied in the title), it becomes the scene of action, recognizable in the port city of Chernomorsk, where Ostap and Panikovsky and Balaganov on the Wildebeest. And again, a lot of quotes that have gone to the people: “The ice has broken, gentlemen of the jury!”, “A saucer with a blue border”, “A car is not a luxury, but a means of transportation”, “Let's hit the road and sloppiness with a rally!”, “Load oranges in barrels ”,“ Distribution of elephants ”,“ Do not make a cult out of food ”,“ I will command the parade.
Monument to Ellochka the cannibal on Petrovsky Street in Kharkov. The prototype is the actress Elena Shanina, who played the role of Ellochka in the film by Mark Zakharov
Evgeny Petrov remarked about the protagonist of his picaresque novel: “Ostap Bender was conceived as a minor figure, almost an episodic person. For him, we had prepared a phrase that we heard from one of our billiard players: "The key to the apartment where the money is." But Bender began to gradually bulge out of the framework prepared for him. Soon we could no longer cope with him. By the end of the novel, we treated him like a living person and often got angry with him for the impudence with which he crawled into almost every chapter.
Ilf and Petrov were at the peak of their popularity: their feuilletons were successfully published in the Pravda newspaper, collections of their short stories were published, and after a trip to the USA in 1932-1935, the story One-Storied America (1937) was published. How do we write together? Yes, we write together. Like the Goncourt brothers. Edmond runs around the editorial offices, and Jules guards the manuscript so that friends do not steal it, ”the co-authors joked.
As predicted by Valentin Kataev, two novels by Ilf and Petrov have become classics of humor and satire, translated into many world languages. They became even more popular after cult adaptations with favorite Soviet actors: The Golden Calf with Sergei Yursky, Zinovy Gerdt and Leonid Kuravlev, The Twelve Chairs with Andrei Mironov and Anatoly Papanov. In Odessa there is a monument to Stul, a monument to Ostap Bender and Kisa Vorobyaninov (in the City Garden). The monument to Ilf and Petrov was opened in the Sculpture Garden of the Literary Museum.
Monument to Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov in Odessa
One of the streets of Odessa is named after the writers. There are monuments to Kise, Osa and Ellochka the cannibal in Kharkov, near the Rio cafe. And a monument to Father Fyodor, who ran out in Kharkov for boiling water, was erected on the platform of the South Station of Kharkov. “Kharkov is a noisy city, the center of the Ukrainian Republic. After the province, it seems as if he went abroad,” wrote Fr. Fedor to his wife.
In 1937, Ilya Ilf died of tuberculosis. Petrov made a lot of efforts to publish his friend's notebooks, he conceived a large work "My friend Ilf". In 1939-1942 he worked on the novel Journey to the Land of Communism, in which he described the USSR in the near future, in 1963 (excerpts were published posthumously in 1965).
The writer Yevgeny Petrov has two wonderful sons. We know the cameraman Pyotr Kataev (1930-1986), who made the main films of Tatiana Lioznova. These are the well-known to us "Seventeen Moments of Spring", "Three Poplars on Plyushchikha", "We, the Undersigned", "Carnival". And with the composer Ilya Kataev (1939-2009), we are familiar with the song “I am standing at a half-station” from the Soviet television series “Day after Day”. Ilya Kataev is the author of music for Sergei Gerasimov's films "At the Lake" and "To Love a Man".
Monument to Ostap Bender in Kharkov. Opened on August 22, 2005 on Petrovsky Street. Sculptor Eduard Gurbanov. Prototype - actor Sergei Yursky
Let's not disregard the mystical page in the life of an extraordinary person Yevgeny Petrov, which, according to the existing legend, completes his earthly destiny.
They say that the writer had a strange and rare hobby: all his life he collected envelopes ... from his own letters! He sent a letter to some country, but invented everything except the name of the state - the city, the street, the house number, the name of the addressee. Therefore, after a month and a half, the envelope was returned to Petrov, but already decorated with multi-colored foreign stamps, with the indication "The addressee is incorrect."
But in April 1939, the writer sent a letter to New Zealand, inventing a city called Hydebirdville, Wrightbeach Street, House 7, and the addressee Merrill Augene Weisley. In the letter itself, Petrov wrote in English: “Dear Merrill! Please accept our sincere condolences on the passing of Uncle Pete. Brace yourself, old man. Forgive me for not writing for a long time. I hope Ingrid is all right. Kiss my daughter for me. She's probably quite big. Your Eugene.
Monument to Father Fyodor on the first platform of the South Railway Station in Kharkov. year 2001. Inscription on granite: "The first capital of Ukraine - to Father Fedor"
The story goes that by August, instead of his usual envelope, he received a real reply, the return address was: New Zealand, Hydebirdville, Wrightbeach 7, Merrill Augene Weisley. And - blue postmark "New Zealand, Hydebirdville Post".
The content of the letter plunged Petrov into horror: “Dear Eugene! Thank you for your condolences. The ridiculous death of Uncle Pete knocked us out of the rut for six months. I hope you will forgive the delay in writing. Ingrid and I often think back to those two days you were with us. Gloria is very big and will go to the 2nd grade in the fall. She still keeps the bear you brought her from Russia.” Petrov, who had never traveled to New Zealand, was completely struck by the fact that in the photograph he saw a man of strong build who was hugging ... himself, Petrov! On the reverse side of the picture was written: "October 9, 1938" ...
It is amazing, but it was on the day indicated in the photo that the writer was admitted to the hospital in an unconscious state, with severe pneumonia. Then, for several days, doctors fought for his life, believing that he had almost no chance of surviving. Petrov wrote another letter to New Zealand, but did not wait for an answer: the Second World War had begun. From the first days of the war, the writer became a war correspondent for Pravda and the Information Bureau. Colleagues did not recognize him - he became withdrawn, thoughtful, and stopped joking altogether ...
Yevgeny Petrov on the leader "Tashkent" broke into the besieged Sevastopol. From left to right - Yevgeny Petrov and the commander of "Tashkent" Vasily. Eroshenko
Here is the documented truth: on July 2, 1942, the plane on which front-line journalist Yevgeny Petrov was returning to Moscow from Sevastopol was shot down by a German fighter over the territory of the Rostov Region, near the village of Mankovo ...
But an amazing story put the finishing touches on it: they say that on the day the news of the disappearance of the plane was received, Petrov's Moscow address received a letter from Merrill Weisley. Weisley admired the courage of the Soviet people and expressed concern for the life of Yevgeny himself. In particular, he wrote: “I got scared when you started swimming in the lake. The water was very cold. But you said you were destined to crash your plane, not drown. I beg you, be careful - fly as little as possible "...
A monument was erected at the site of the plane crash ...
Angelina DEMYANOK, "One Motherland"
According to the rules in force at all times, the biography of a creative person consists of facts, conjectures and outright fictions. The biography of the famous Soviet writer Yevgeny Petrov was no exception. It is true that the child was born in Odessa, a city by the Black Sea. The father's surname is Kataev. Even many readers of our days know about the writer Valentin Kataev. But not everyone knows that Valentin is the older brother, and Eugene is the younger. In life, it so happened that the youngest had to work under a pseudonym in order to avoid confusion on a historical scale and in solving everyday issues.
Education Kataev Jr. received in a classical gymnasium. In the early 20s of the last century, after the end of the Civil War, Eugene came to Moscow after his older brother. Before that, he managed to work at home in the criminal investigation department. The work left its mark on the memory for a long time, and on the basis of these “traces”, the young writer wrote the story “The Green Van”, based on which the film of the same name was made twice. Due to the circumstances, the career of a detective in the capital did not work out, and the visiting Odessa resident had to retrain as a journalist. He was initially good at humorous and satirical essays.
It should be emphasized that natural data - intelligence and excellent memory - allowed Yevgeny to quickly get used to the literary environment of the capital. The first humoresques and sketches from life saw the light on the pages of the Red Pepper magazine. After some time, Petrov took the position of executive secretary of this publication. At that time, a young and energetic journalist was called a “multi-station operator”. He had the strength and imagination to write several texts at once and send them to different editions. A similar practice is used today, but such a load is not within the power of every subject who stains paper.
Creativity is like life
The personal life of Evgeny Petrov has developed simply and even tritely. In the turmoil of editorial affairs, he fell in love with the girl Valentina, who turned out to be eight years younger than the groom. Husband and wife, as they say, coincided in character, upbringing and temperament. The family was formed once and for all. And each child was born as a unique product. The Petrovs had two sons. And each literary work was prepared for release, like a beloved child. Such harmony in family relationships is extremely rare.
Meanwhile, life in the country flowed and seethed. Already accomplished writer and journalist Yevgeny Petrov set himself and solved large-scale tasks. Some critics note that the novels "12 Chairs" and "The Golden Calf" created in collaboration with a colleague in writing Ilya Ilf became the pinnacle of his work. For a significant number of connoisseurs, the names of the authors - Ilf and Petrov - have become an idiom, a stable combination. Among those noticed and appreciated is their book One-Storied America. Before reading these travel notes, Soviet people knew little about how the American people live in the outback.
When the war began, Evgeny Petrov began to work as a correspondent in the Soviet Information Bureau - the Soviet Information Bureau. At the same time, he sent his materials from the army to the newspapers Pravda, Krasnaya Zvezda, and the Ogonyok magazine. War correspondent Petrov died in a plane crash in 1942, returning from a mission to Moscow. After his death, collections of his works "Moscow is behind us" and "Front diary" were published.
Evgeny Petrov (pseudonym of Evgeny Petrovich Kataev). Born on November 30 (December 13), 1902 in Odessa - died on July 2, 1942 in the Rostov region. Russian Soviet writer, journalist, screenwriter. Co-author of Ilya Ilf. Chief editor of the Ogonyok magazine since 1938.
Evgeny Petrovich Petrov (real name Kataev) was born on November 30 (December 13), 1902 in Odessa in the family of a history teacher. The younger brother of the writer Valentin Kataev.
In Odessa, the Kataevs lived on Kanatnaya Street.
In 1920, Evgeny graduated from the 5th Odessa classical gymnasium, where Alexander Kozachinsky was his classmate and best friend (the boys even took an oath of fraternal fidelity: they cut their fingers with a piece of glass and mixed the blood). Subsequently, Kozachinsky wrote the adventure story "The Green Van", the prototype of the protagonist of which - Volodya Patrikeev - was Yevgeny Petrov.
For some time, Yevgeny Petrov worked as a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency.
For three years he served as an inspector of the Odessa Criminal Investigation Department (in Ilf and Petrov's "Double Autobiography" (1929) it is said about this period of life: "His first literary work was the protocol of examination of the corpse of an unknown man").
In 1922, during a chase with a shootout, he personally detained his friend Alexander Kozachinsky, who led a gang of raiders. Subsequently, he achieved a review of his criminal case and the replacement of A. Kozachinsky with "the highest measure of social protection" (execution) by imprisonment in a camp. This story later formed the basis of the already mentioned story by Kozachinsky "The Green Van", on which films of the same name were made in 1959 and 1983.
In 1923, Petrov came to Moscow, where he became an employee of the Krasny Pepper magazine.
In 1926, he came to work for the Gudok newspaper, where he arranged A. Kozachinsky, who had been released by that time under an amnesty, as a journalist.
Evgeny Petrov was greatly influenced by his brother Valentin Kataev. Valentina Kataeva's wife recalled: "I have never seen such affection between the brothers as Valya and Zhenya have. Actually, Valya forced his brother to write. Every morning he started by calling him - Zhenya got up late, began to swear that he had been woken up ... “Okay, continue cursing,” said Valya and hung up.
In 1927, joint work on the novel "The Twelve Chairs" began the creative community of Yevgeny Petrov and (who also worked in the newspaper "Gudok"). Subsequently, in collaboration with Ilya Ilf, the novels The Twelve Chairs (1928) and The Golden Calf (1931), the fantastic story The Bright Personality (filmed), the short stories Unusual Stories from the Life of the City of Kolokolamsk (1928) and A Thousand and one day, or the New Scheherazade" (1929), the story "One-storied America" (1937).
In 1932-1937, Ilf and Petrov wrote feuilletons for the Pravda and Literaturnaya Gazeta newspapers and the Krokodil magazine.
In 1935-1936 they made a trip to the United States, which resulted in the book One-Story America (1937). The books of Ilf and Petrov were repeatedly staged and filmed.
In 1938 he persuaded his friend A. Kozachinsky to write the story "The Green Van".
Petrov made a lot of efforts to publish Ilf's notebooks, he conceived a large work "My friend Ilf".
In 1939-1942, Petrov worked on the novel Journey to the Land of Communism, in which he described the USSR in 1963 (excerpts were published posthumously in 1965).
During the Great Patriotic War, Petrov became a front-line correspondent. He died on July 2, 1942 - the plane on which he was returning to Moscow from Novorossiysk was shot down by a German fighter over the territory of the Rostov region, near the village of Mankovo.
A monument has been erected at the site of the plane crash.
Yevgeny Petrov was married to Valentina Leontievna Grunzaid, from the Russified Germans.
Sons - cameraman Pyotr Kataev and composer Ilya Kataev.
Bibliography of Evgeny Petrov:
Joys of Megas, 1926
No report, 1927
At war, 1942
Front diary, 1942
Air carrier. Screenplays, 1943
Island of the world. Play, 1947
Unfinished novel "Journey to the Land of Communism".
Screenplays by Evgeny Petrov:
Sound film script (together with Ilya Ilf), 1933, was not staged
Circus (together with Ilya Ilf and Valentin Kataev, uncredited), staged in 1936 by G. Alexandrov
Musical History (together with Georgy Moonblit), staged in 1940 by A. Ivanovsky and G. Rappaport
Anton Ivanovich gets angry (together with Georgy Moonblit), staged in 1941 by A. Ivanovsky
Air cab, delivered in 1943 by G. Rappaport.
The Russian satirist Evgeny Petrovich Petrov (real name Kataev) was born on December 13 (November 30 according to the old style), 1903 (according to some sources, in 1902) in Odessa.
His father, Petr Vasilyevich Kataev, was the son of a priest from the city of Vyatka, a teacher at the diocesan and cadet schools in the city of Odessa. Mother - Evgenia - a Ukrainian from Poltava, who bore the surname Bachey as a girl, died shortly after the birth of her second son. The elder brother is Valentin Kataev, a future writer.
The Kataevs had an extensive family library, but classical literature did not attract Yevgeny. He read books by Gustave Aimard, Robert Louis Stevenson and others. He dreamed of becoming a detective, he was attracted by adventures.
In 1920, Yevgeny Kataev graduated from the fifth Odessa classical gymnasium. He worked as a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency, then as a criminal investigation inspector in Odessa.
In 1923 he moved to Moscow, where he continued his education and took up journalism.
In 1924, the first feuilletons and stories appeared in the satirical magazine "Red Pepper" under the pseudonym Petrov, also under the name of Gogol's "Foreigner Fedorov". Used a satirist and other pseudonyms. He did not want another writer with the surname Kataev to appear.
Before starting cooperation with Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov published more than fifty humorous and satirical stories in various periodicals and released three independent collections.
In 1926, while working for the Gudok newspaper, Yevgeny Petrov met Ilya Ilf. Their joint work began: they processed materials for the Gudok newspaper, composed themes for drawings and feuilletons in the Smekhach magazine.
In the summer of 1927, Ilf and Petrov made a trip to the Crimea and the Caucasus, visited Odessa. They kept a joint travel diary. Later, some impressions from this trip were included in the novel "The Twelve Chairs", which was published in 1928 in the monthly literary magazine "30 Days". The novel was a great success with readers, but was rather coldly received by literary critics. Even before the first publication, censorship severely reduced it. Soon the novel began to be translated into many European languages, and it was published in many European countries.
Their next novel was The Golden Calf (1931). Initially, it was published in parts in the monthly "30 days".
In September 1931, Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov were sent to the exercises of the Red Army in the Belarusian military district, based on the materials of the trip, the essay "Difficult Topic" was published in the magazine "30 Days".
Since 1932, Ilf and Petrov began to be published in the Pravda newspaper.
In 1935-1936, the writers made a trip to the United States, which resulted in the book One-Story America (1937).
In collaboration with Ilya Ilf, the short stories "Unusual Stories from the Life of the City of Kolokolamsk" (1928-1929), the fantastic story "A Bright Personality" (1928), the short stories "1001 Days, or New Scheherazade" (1929) and others were written.
The death of Ilf in 1937 interrupted the creative collaboration of writers.
Petrov did a lot to perpetuate the memory of his friend. In 1939, he published Ilya Ilf's Notebooks, and later decided to write a novel called My Friend Ilf. The novel was not completed, only separate sketches and detailed versions of the plan have been preserved.
Peru Yevgeny Petrov owns a number of screenplays. In collaboration with Ilya Ilf, Black Barracks (1933), Once Upon a Summer (1936) were created, in collaboration with Georgy Moonblit - Musical History (1940), Anton Ivanovich Gets Angry (1941) and others. scripts were written for the films "Quiet Ukrainian Night" and "Air Carrier". He worked on the script for the film "The Circus", but in the end demanded that his name be removed from the credits.
In 1941, Petrov became a war correspondent for Pravda and the Soviet Information Bureau. Often and for a long time he was at the front.
On July 2, 1942, Yevgeny Petrov died while returning by plane from the besieged Sevastopol to Moscow. The writer was buried in the Rostov region in the village of Mankovo-Kalitvenskaya.
Many films based on the works of Ilf and Petrov were staged: The Golden Calf (1968), The Twelve Chairs (1971), Ilf and Petrov Ride in a Tram (1972) and others. Based on the play by Evgeny Petrov The Island of the World (published in 1947) filmed the cartoon "Mr. Walk" (1950).
Evgeny Petrov was awarded the Order of Lenin and a medal.
The writer's wife was Valentina Grunzaid. Their children: Pyotr Kataev (1930-1986) - a famous cameraman who shot almost all the films of Tatyana Lioznova; Ilya Kataev (1939-2009) - composer, author of a number of popular songs and music for films.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yevgeny Petrov (pseudonym of Yevgeny Petrovich Kataev, 1902-1942) - Russian Soviet writer, co-author of Ilya Ilf.
Evgeny Petrovich Petrov (real name Kataev) was born in Odessa in the family of a history teacher.
In Odessa, the Kataevs lived on Kanatnaya Street.
In 1920 he graduated from the 5th Odessa classical gymnasium. During his studies, his classmate was Alexander Kozachinsky, who later wrote the adventure story "The Green Van", the prototype of the main character of which - Volodya Patrikeev - was Evgeny Petrov.
He worked as a correspondent for the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency.
For three years he served as an inspector of the Odessa Criminal Investigation Department (in the “double autobiography” of Ilf and Petrov (1929) it is said about this period of life:
"His first literary work was the report of the inspection of the corpse of an unknown man").
In 1922, during a chase with a shootout, he personally detained his friend Alexander Kozachinsky, who led a gang of raiders. Subsequently, he achieved a review of his criminal case and the replacement of A. Kozachinsky with the highest measure of social protection - execution - by imprisonment in a camp. This story later formed the basis of Kozachinsky's story "The Green Van", based on which films of the same name were made in 1959 and 1983.
In 1923, Petrov came to Moscow, where he became an employee of the Krasny Pepper magazine.
In 1926, he came to work for the Gudok newspaper, where he arranged A. Kozachinsky, who had been released by that time under an amnesty, as a journalist.
In 1927, joint work on the novel "The Twelve Chairs" began the creative community of Yevgeny Petrov and Ilya Ilf (who also worked in the newspaper "Gudok").
The novel "Twelve Chairs" (1928);
the novel The Golden Calf (1931);
short stories "Unusual stories from the life of the city of Kolokolamsk" (1928);
fantastic story "Bright Personality" (screened);
short stories "A Thousand and One Days, or New Scheherazade" (1929);
story "One-story America" (1937).
In 1932-1937, Ilf and Petrov wrote feuilletons for the Pravda newspaper.
In 1935-1936 they made a trip to the United States, which resulted in the book One-Story America (1937). The books of Ilf and Petrov were repeatedly staged and filmed.
During the Great Patriotic War, Petrov became a front-line correspondent. He died on July 2, 1942 - the plane on which he was returning to Moscow from Sevastopol was shot down by a German fighter over the territory of the Rostov region, near the village of Mankovo. Monument erected at the crash site
How long has death been chasing Yevgeny Petrov (Kataev)?
On the morning of July 2, 1942, in the last hours of the heroic defense of Sevastopol, Admiral Ivan Stepanovich Isakov turned to his longtime acquaintance, the famous writer Yevgeny Petrov: “Evgeny Petrovich, Douglas is flying to Moscow at noon. It will have a place for you. Everything you wanted to see in the besieged city - you have already seen. The Soviet people must know how we are fighting here.” Petrov did not answer immediately; in general, he always treated any proposal with extreme caution. He silently looked towards the sea, where everything was engulfed in the glow of fire, listened to the roar of the cannonade, and finally said in a barely audible voice:
"I will think. And now we have to disperse, it's too late already.
Do you escape fate?
They met when the sun was already high. Petrov was in excellent spirits, it was evident that the hours of sleep had done him good. However, he did not fall asleep right away - on the table of the gazebo there were several written sheets, pressed down with pebbles so that they would not scatter from the wind.
“You know, for three or four days I couldn’t close my eyes at all,” the writer smiled at the admiral. - And then, although not immediately, he fell asleep. True, I slept like a log, I didn’t even see dreams ... I agree: to Moscow, so to Moscow. They went to the airport together. Ivan Stepanovich looked wearily at a small black dot that was moving away in space, and thought that maybe it was good that Petrov would not see with his own eyes how our troops would leave Sevastopol. Yes, he knows that the situation is critical, but he does not even imagine how hopeless the situation is. Not today, tomorrow everything will be over. And who knows if he will be able to escape from this meat grinder. And so, by plane, more reliable ...
Isakov felt great relief because he had persuaded one of the authors of The Twelve Chairs to leave the city. He already reproached himself for not being able to do this three days earlier, when the destroyer Tashkent, on which Petrov arrived in Sevastopol, was returning to Novorossiysk. Then Yevgeny Petrovich flatly refused to go back... But who could have guessed that fate had prepared for Petrov the most chess fork ever? And he had no choice: if he had gone on the "Tashkent", inevitable death would have awaited him: it was on July 2 that the fascist aviation made a massive raid on the Novorossiysk naval base and several bombs fell on the "Tashkent", sinking it at the very pier as soon as he returned from Sevastopol.
After more than three hours, about four o'clock in the afternoon, on July 2, Admiral Isakov was called to a special telephone. Here it is better to give the floor to the admiral himself: “Are you Admiral Isakov? - Yes I! - Did you send the Douglas in the morning with the writer Yevgeny Petrov? - Yes I! - Unfortunately, we must inform you that Petrov has crashed... - Who is talking to me? I yelled, still hoping for something. - Commissioner of the NKVD from Chertkovo.
Was death chasing after him?
Was this death accidental? It's hard to say, everything happens in a war, both on the front line and in the relative rear. But Petrov's older brother, the writer Valentin Kataev, having learned about the death of the younger, was the first to exclaim: "This catastrophe was rigged!" They rushed to calm him down. And in fact, who was interested in the death of Petrov? It seems that no one, the writer was very fond of. Just a fatal accident. But Kataev stubbornly insisted: "Death was chasing him on his heels, and it could not have happened otherwise!" Perhaps it was emotion. But many years later, Valentin Petrovich wrote the following: “... He was terribly unlucky.
Death was on his heels. He swallowed hydrogen sulfide in the gymnasium's laboratory, and was pumped out by force in the fresh air, on the lawn in the gymnasium's garden, under a blue Christmas tree. In Milan, near the famous cathedral, he was hit by a cyclist and nearly hit by a car. During the Finnish war, a shell hit the corner of the house where he spent the night. Near Moscow, he came under mortar fire from the Germans. At the same time, on the Volokolamsk Highway, his fingers were pinched by the door of the front-line emka, painted with white protective paint of winter camouflage: they were attacked by German aircraft, and they had to run out of the car into a ditch.
Finally, the plane on which he flew from the besieged Sevastopol, leaving the "Messerschmites", crashed into a mound somewhere in the middle of the endless Don steppe, and he forever remained lying in this dry, alien land ... "
And right there, many people who knew Yevgeny Petrov immediately began to pile up stories around the writer, one more terrible than the other. Like, for example, Ilya Ehrenburg, who, as they say, heard the ringing, but does not know where he is. Here is what you can read in his memoirs about Petrov: “... A few days later he made his way to Sevastopol. There he came under desperate bombardment. He was returning on the destroyer Tashkent, and a German bomb hit the ship, there were many casualties. Petrov reached Novorossiysk. There he rode in a car; an accident occurred, and again Evgeny Petrovich remained unharmed. He began to write an essay about Sevastopol, in a hurry to Moscow.
The plane flew low, as they flew then in the front line, and hit the top of the hill. Death chased Petrov for a long time, and finally overtook him…”
Rumors abound...
Let's compare the two stories and we will realize that only one detail is common - death in a plane crash. But the car accident, according to Kataev, took place in Milan, and according to Ehrenburg, in Novorossiysk. According to Kataev and Isakov, who saw off Petrov at the airport, the writer flew from Sevastopol, while according to Ehrenburg it turns out that from Novorossiysk. Hypnotized by the words of the two masters, the rest of Petrov's acquaintances began to look for mystical coincidences in his fate.
“I firmly knew that I must die very soon, that I cannot help but die,” they quote from Petrov’s diary a few years before 1942. Or another one: “Until now, I lived like this: I thought that I had three, four days left to live, well, a maximum of a week. I got used to this thought and never made any plans.
I had no doubt that<…>must perish for the happiness of future generations.<…>I knew for sure that I must die very soon, that I can’t help but die” – this is in Petrov’s sketches for the book about Ilf. It remains to add that at that time Yevgeny Petrovich served in the criminal investigation department and, in his own words, “... stepped over the corpses of people who died of starvation and made inquiries about 17 murders. I conducted the investigation, as there were no judicial investigators. Cases immediately went to the tribunal. But isn't the service in the criminal investigation department a certain risk? And couldn't she have been cut off by a shot from a bandit sawn-off shotgun?
But, as you can see, his bullet was never cast ...
For myself and for that guy...
One thing is clear: Petrov was not looking for death, as it might seem to someone, and was not afraid of it. He simply lived the same front-line life as other war correspondents of that time, the same Konstantin Simonov or Semyon Guzenko, who became a Hero of the Soviet Union. So to say that death personally "chased" Yevgeny Petrovich means to sin against the truth ... Someone was lucky, but someone was not very good. Is it possible to say that the same Ivan Stepanovich Isakov got off with a “light fright”? Three months later, on October 4, 1942, he was seriously wounded near Tuapse, his leg was amputated. For three months, the struggle for his life continued ... And then he began to live for two: for himself and Petrov. In marine magazines and separate publications, his research works on the experience of the Second World War were published, of which more than 60 were published! Yes, it was impossible to return Petrov, but Isakov replaced him in some way... And, by and large, there is no death for writers. They live in their works...
