The fate of the literary community of Ilf and Petrov is unusual. She touches and excites. They did not work together for long, only ten years, but they left a deep, indelible mark on the history of Soviet literature. The memory of them does not fade, and the love of readers for their books does not weaken.
The novels The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf are widely known. In new historical conditions, on the material of our time. Ilf and Petrov not only revived the old, classic genre of the satirical novel, but also gave it a fundamentally new character.
We name these two novels first of all, because "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf" are really the peaks of the work of Ilf and Petrov. But these novels rise above the whole literary massif, which is made up of works of various genres. surveying literary heritage Ilf and Petrova, not only the works written by them together, but also each separately, one cannot but marvel at the breadth of creative possibilities writers, the literary brilliance of feuilletons, essays, comedies.
The talent of the satirists was in full swing. A wide road opened before the authors. They hatched a lot of ideas, plans, themes. Satire in the works of writers became deeper and deeper. Unfortunately, the end of their community was tragic. Ilf's life ended too soon. And after a few years. also in the prime of his talent, Petrov died.
All their short joint literary activity closely, inextricably linked with the first decades of existence Soviet power. They were not only contemporaries of their great era, but also active participants in socialist construction, fighters at the forefront. Laughter was their literary weapon, and they did not lay down this weapon until the end of their days.
The novels of Ilf and Petrov "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Golden Calf" followed the same path. The first novel is a wide-ranging satirical canvas with lively humorous colors. This extensive gallery small and tiny people.
They are connected by a common storyline: twelve chairs, which the main character of the novel, Ostap Bender, is looking for. Traveling through various cities gives him the opportunity to meet many people, diverse in character, but belonging to the same environment. These are all philistines in spirit, in character, former officials, merchants, NEPmen, people without specific occupations - small crucian inhabitants who exist for that, so that they are swallowed alive by a swindler of pike breed - Ostap Bender.
On the face of it, they seem to be even good-natured people. Many of them are not formally enemies of socialism and Soviet power. They don't have any political views, and Elle has no convictions at all. She's just a bipedal mammal whose entire mental baggage fits into three or four phrases. However, in reality, she is the very “canary” that Mayakovsky advised to turn his head.
Ella is a cannibal. perhaps one of the most expressive and powerful satirical images in the novel by Ilf and Petrov. It vividly represents the wretched and at the same time predatory nature of philistinism. With others, it is masked by pompous phrases, by the gift of accommodation. Ellochkavsya as in the palm of your hand. This is a very tiny predatory animal, its most dangerous feature is vitality. She lives to this day. We meet it sometimes among the youth of our time, among girls and boys. They are now called dudes. The composition of the novel predetermined its end. The plot was exhausted when Ostap Bender found the last chair - the one in which the jewels were sewn up. With the proceeds from their sale, the railroad built an excellent club. This was also the last failure of the hero of the novel. He had no reason to live any longer, and the authors did away with him in a rather mechanical way. As is known. Ostap Bender was stabbed to death by his accomplice, former Marshal of the Nobility Kisa Vorobyaninov.
The novel "The Twelve Chairs" was an extraordinary success. It was read and reread with unceasing merry laughter. Ilf and Petrov wrote several new satirical works after the novel. In 1928-1930, they actively collaborated in the magazines Ogonyok and Chudak. In addition to numerous feuilletons and stories, the satirical story “The Bright Personality”, a series of short stories about the city of Kolokolamsk and the tales of the New Scheherazade were published there. Inhabitants of the fantastic cities of Kolokolaysk and Pishcheslav. invented by Ilf and Petrov, these are, as it were, residents of the Shchedrin town of Glupov. direct descendants of the famous Poshekhonians. They show the disgusting features of the petty-bourgeois money-grubbers, that Nepman spirit. which Ilf and Petrov ridiculed in the novel "The Twelve Chairs". In their new works, the writers continued in a grotesque form satirical line his first novel. But the form they found did not satisfy the authors. As the writers themselves believed, they could not fully solve in these works those creative tasks, which were set in front of them.
Why did the authors need to resurrect the slaughtered hero? The simplest and easiest explanation suggests itself. The satirical image of Ostap Bender has become extremely popular. It had artistic originality. In his vitality, in his significance, he entered the series of typical characters headed by Khlestakov. Chichikov and other wonderful satirical images of classical Russian literature. Of course, the scales of Chichikov and Ostap Bender are completely different, but the fact is that they are in the same literary row. The name of Ostap Bender also became a household name.
The authors were sorry to part with their hero. This can be understood. In their reserves, many more such materials were preserved that could be successfully used in Bender's further adventures. Moreover, in the first novel, Ostap's death was not motivated either logically or psychologically. In a playful preface to The Golden Calf, Ilf and Petrov say that the death sentence for the hero of the novel was passed by accident. The authors hesitated and even argued about whether to kill Ostap or leave him alive. The dispute was decided by lot. A piece of paper was taken out of the sugar bowl, on which a skull and two chicken bones were depicted. But soon after the sentence was carried out. Ilf and Petrov realized that they had made a mistake. I had to resurrect Ostap Bender, leaving him in memory of untimely death scar on the neck.
It can be assumed that, resuming the history of adventures already famous hero. Ilf and Petrov decided to correct and some weak sides first novel. At one time, benevolent criticism pointed to them. In The Twelve Chairs, an almost exclusively small world of mixed is depicted, the townsfolk, the simpleton, whom the “great strategist” leads by the nose so easily and so amusingly. The big world, the world of revolution and socialist construction is, as it were, absent. It is assumed that the Soviet reader himself always sees this Big world. From his height, all the human pettiness that fills the novel is mercilessly ridiculed.
In addition, all the characters in The Twelve Chairs are too small. There are no large and serious enemies among them. Hence, some touch of good nature in the novel. And Ostap Bender, with his wit, resourcefulness, even inspires some sympathy for himself. He leaves the stage unexposed to the end.
Apparently, Ilf and Petrov themselves felt some dissatisfaction as the creators of an interesting satirical image. Perhaps they themselves said to themselves: we gave birth to you, Ostap Bender, and we will kill you. This is how the second novel ends. Ostap Bender does not physically die. He says about himself that he intends to leave his tricks and retrain as a house manager. But he suffers complete moral bankruptcy. The authors give him a more cruel and “more just” sentence: Ostap Bender is ridiculed to death, killed by his own weapons.
In the second novel, that broad social background appears, which is clearly lacking in the first. The authors, in fact, do not go beyond the framework of a satirical novel. The action develops in a small world of philistine passions. But from time to time we hear the noise of the real big life, pictures of the great socialist construction arise. Symbolic and complete deep meaning those pages where it is told how the passengers of the Antelope, forced to turn off the highway, hide in a ravine and watch how the cars of a real motor race rush one after another. Ostap Bender and his companions feel that a genuine big life, and they are hopelessly behind, ridiculed, thrown out.
In the city of Chernomorsk, a picture of a large and busy port is drawn, as if in passing. It boils there new life, and against this background, the adventures of millionaires Koreiko and Ostap Bender look miserable.
Thus, The Golden Calf shows the true historical scale of that little world in which Ostap Bender is considered in his own way " strong man". At the center of the satirical denunciation are the same small people, philistines, townsfolk. However, among them there are predators of a different caliber than in The Twelve Chairs - larger opponents, more dangerous enemies of the new order. These are crooks, plunderers of public property, who directly or indirectly come into contact with the criminal world.
The very objects of denunciation are also expanding - writers direct the fire of satire in the novel against bureaucrats and opportunists. It is no coincidence that the generalized image of "Hercules" acquired a nominal meaning, became the embodiment of bureaucracy and bureaucratic indifference.
The most important thing is that. that from a triumphant hero Ostap Bender turns into a loser, suffering one defeat after another. Grand schemer eventually acquires his "million", but loses faith in his egoistic principles. His wit fades, his attractiveness disappears. He loses his accomplices and is left alone. The authors gradually debunk it and consistently bring it to a comic-dramatic finale.
Completely superfluous, alien, no matter how cleverly he adapts, Ostap looks like on a train with Soviet and foreign journalists, which is going to build the Eastern Highway (read: Turksib). And when his dream finally comes true and Ostap receives the coveted million, he is finally thrown out of life. This is where the main idea of the novel comes into play. She is in it. that a rich private owner is impossible, absurd, meaningless in a socialist society. This is how the authors morally kill the hero of private property profit that they have engendered.
The Golden Calf is not just a continuation of The Twelve Chairs, but a further development of the theme. The humorous colors in the second novel are no less vivid than in the first, and the satire reveals a higher level of political sharpness. The "Golden Calf" testifies to the greater ideological and artistic maturity of the authors.
The satirical novels discussed in this paragraph are, as it were, the pinnacles of the work of Ilf and Petrov. They wrote, in addition, a considerable number of stories, short stories, essays, feuilletons, plays, screenplays. It is like the foothills and spurs of the main literary massif. They also sparkle with humor, they have the same inexhaustible merry laughter, rich fiction, accuracy of caricature characteristics. And the same satirical direction. Ilf and Petrov are fighting against their constant enemies - against philistinism, vulgarity, bureaucracy, indifference.
The second chapter of this study is devoted to the analysis of satirical works of the twentieth century in order to determine how the Soviet era is reflected in these works. We took as a basis the works of four writers - M. Bulgakov, M. Zoshchenko, I. Ilf and E. Petrov.
As a result of the analysis, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1) The beginning of the 20th century was full of events on a global and Russian scale that changed humanity, society, and attitudes towards the individual. satire like false mirror, faithfully followed reality in the works of new authors, who exposed the new vices of society and man. Russian satirical writers (M. Zoshchenko, I. Ilf and E. Petrov, M. Bulgakov, and others) in the 1920s were distinguished by their particular boldness and frankness in their statements. All of them were the heirs of Russian realism of the XX century.
2) M. Bulgakov created in his semi-fantastic works very accurate and realistic image the reality that arose in Russia after the revolution. Environment shown in a grotesque manner, but this is what makes it possible to expose the absurdities and contradictions of the existing social Soviet system.
3) The works of M. Zoshchenko and his life itself reflected the contemporary Soviet era when in Russia there was a break in times, a break in history. The speech of the heroes of M. Zoshchenko reflected the complex processes that took place in politics, culture, and the economy of the 20-30s of the twentieth century. At this time, old concepts disappeared, and with them whole layers of vocabulary, but many new words, new speech structures appeared. Zoshchenko in his works puts the heroes in circumstances to which it is difficult for them to adapt, which is why they look ridiculous and ridiculous.
4) Satire requires direction. I. Ilf and E. Petrov, going to the forefront of the satirical front of Soviet literature, chose a certain area for themselves. They set their guns against worst enemies socialist revolution: against philistinism, inertia, narrow-mindedness.
Writers, poets, playwrights have created many vivid satirical works in which by force artistic word social and moral vices that interfere with the normal development of life are ridiculed. The denunciation of evil and injustice by means of art is an ancient tradition, humanity has accumulated vast experience along this path.To make bad and bad things funny means to depreciate, reduce it, to induce in people the desire to get rid of negative traits. Satirical literature, like no other, has a strong educational impact, although, of course, not everyone likes to recognize themselves in heroes. satirical comedy or fables. Any satirical work: a fable, a comedy, a fairy tale, a novel - has a number of specific features that are unique to them. Firstly, this is a very large degree of conventionality of the depicted, the proportions real world in a satirical work are displaced and distorted, the satirist consciously focuses only on negative sides reality, which appear in the work in an exaggerated, often fantastic, form. Remember Gogol's confession that in The Inspector General the writer "wanted to collect everything bad in Russia and laugh at everything at once." But this, according to the writer, is “a laughter visible to the world” through “invisible, unknown to him tears”, the satirist mourns the lost ideal of a person in his caricatured, often repulsive heroes. satirical writer must have a special talent for creating comic, i.e. funny, in a literary work. These are a variety of comic plot collisions, illogical, absurd situations, the use of speaking names and surnames, etc. The most important artistic techniques, allowing you to create satirical images, are the following (see diagram 6).
Irony(eironeia Greek, mockery, pretense) - a method of ridicule when direct and hidden meaning what has been said contradict each other, when under the mask of imaginary seriousness lies a sharp, caustic mockery.
The mayor Borodavkin "led the campaign against the arrears, and burned thirty-three villages and, with the help of these measures, recovered the arrears of two rubles and a half."
M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. "History of a City"
Character dialogues that use irony are also a common technique in satirical works, the comic effect occurs because one of the characters does not feel the ironic overtones.
Sarcasm(sakasmos in Greek, I literally tear meat) - a caustic, cruel mockery, expressed directly, without
half hints.
Gloomy-Burcheev - one of the mayors in the "History of a City" by M. Saltykov-Shchedrin - is described exclusively in sarcastic tones:
“Before the eyes of the viewer, the purest type of idiot rises, who has made some kind of gloomy decision and swore an oath to carry it out.”
“I came two weeks later and was received by some girl with eyes slanted to her nose from constant lies.”
M. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita"
Hyperbola- exaggeration, bright and, perhaps, one of the most important satirical techniques, since exaggeration, exaggeration of negative features, is the law of a satirical depiction of reality, it is no coincidence that V. Mayakovsky called satire "a look at the world through a magnifying glass."
Hyperbole can be verbal (" bad news”), however, more common is extended hyperbole, when the injection of many similar details exaggerates some feature to the point of absurdity.
Entire episodes are often built according to the laws of hyperbolization, for example, the famous “scene of lies” from The Inspector General, when in ten minutes Khlestakov made himself from a petty official into the director of a department, who subordinates “couriers, couriers, couriers ... you can imagine thirty-five thousand one couriers!”
Hyperbole is often combined with the grotesque and fantasy.
Fantastic(phantastike Greek. the ability to imagine) - the image of absolutely impossible, illogical, incredible situations and heroes.
In satirical works, fantasy is very often used together with the grotesque and hyperbole, it is often impossible to separate them, as, for example, in V. Mayakovsky's poem “The Sitting Ones”: “I see: half of the people are sitting. O devilry! Where is the other half?!”
Grotesque(grotesque fr. bizarre, intricate) - the most complex satirical device, which consists in an unexpected, at first glance, impossible combination of high and low, funny and terrible, beautiful and ugly.
The grotesque contains elements of fantasy and exaggeration, therefore it contains a very strong impulse of emotional and psychological impact on the reader, the grotesque strikes, excites the imagination, calling to look at reality from a new, often paradoxical point of view. The grotesque was especially often resorted to in his work by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin and M.A. Bulgakov.
Sometimes the plot of the entire work can be built on a grotesque situation (M. Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog").
The first significant collaboration between Ilf and Petrov was the novel The Twelve Chairs, published in 1928 in the journal 30 Days. In the same year, the novel was published as a separate book. The novel immediately won the recognition of readers.
The story of the search for Madame Petukhova's jewels hidden in one of the twelve chairs, which in the plot sense did not represent novelty, did not have a self-contained significance in the novel. Its merit lay in the multitude of satirical characteristics, scenes and details brilliant in execution, the material for which was topical life observations.
Ilf and Petrov created a bright, sparkling character, the image of which is still relevant and popular with the reader - the main character of the novel, Ostap Bender, a great schemer, a rogue, a subtle psychologist who plays on the vices of man and the imperfection of society. Ostap is a man who so contradictory combined shamelessness and - charm, arrogance and - subtle humor, cynicism and - unexpected generosity.
Along with the presentation of the process of finding chairs, the authors open before us a panorama of the miserable little world of the inhabitants of that time. These are the “cannibal” Ellochka Shchukina, whose vocabulary was thirty words, and the master of witticisms, Absalom Vladimirovich Iznurenkov, and the “poet” Nikifor Lyapis-Trubetskoy, who sold his third-rate poems about the many-sided Gavrila to various tabloid publications:
And so, in the end, the chair was found, but - alas ... The diamonds managed to turn into a chic house of culture.
At the end of the novel, Kitty Vorobyaninov, overwhelmed by greed, cuts the throat of the great strategist with a razor. The authors, as they themselves write in their memoirs, had a major quarrel over the following issue: should they kill the main character of "12 Chairs" Ostap Bender or leave him alive? The fate of the hero was decided by lot. Two pieces of paper were placed in the sugar bowl, on one of which a skull and two chicken bones were depicted with a trembling hand. The skull came out - and in half an hour the great strategist was gone.
Readers disagreed with this ending. In numerous letters they demanded that Ostap's life be extended. And the authors did not let the hero die.
Both novels by Ilf and Petrov are replete with phrases that later became catchphrases: “I will command the parade!”, “The ice has broken, gentlemen of the jury!”, “The key to the apartment where the money is”, “Money in the morning - chairs in the evening”, “ Saving the drowning is the work of the drowning themselves”, “Foreign countries will help us!”, “A car is not a luxury, but a means of transportation”, “Breathe deeply: you are excited!”, “Saw, Shura, saw!” and etc.
Just like The Twelve Chairs, The Golden Calf is a satirical novel. But this does not fully exhaust its originality. The satire here is merged with humor. In a cheerful, mischievous, mocking narration, the live voice of the authors is directly felt all the time - uniquely witty and restrainedly lyrical.
The one who begins to separate satire from others will be deeply mistaken literary genres and childbirth. We can say that satire is lyrics driven to rage, slaying lyrics.
This is how the novels of Ilf and Petrov appear before us - merciless, but not hopeless, striking and - humane. They not only draw characters with "distorted" moral character, with a flawed nature, but also reminds of what a person can and should be.
satirical novel
Literary encyclopedia. - In 11 tons; M.: publishing house of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Friche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .
See what "Satiric novel" is in other dictionaries:
satirical, satirical, satirical. 1. adj. to satire in 1 value; being satire (lit.). satirical literature. satirical novel. 2. Characteristic of satire, mocking, sarcastically ironic. satirical image life.… … Dictionary Ushakov
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NOVEL (French roman, German Roman; English novel / romance; Spanish novela, Italian romanzo), central genre (see GENRE) European literature New time (see. NEW TIME (in history)), fictional, in contrast to the adjacent genre of the story (see ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
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novel- (from French roman originally: a work written in one of the Romance (i.e., modern, living) languages, as opposed to written in Latin) epic genre: a large epic work in which life is comprehensively depicted ... ... Dictionary of literary terms
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Vyacheslav Alekseevich P'etsukh, the first who dared in the current century to reveal the secrets of the archive of the city of Foolov, abandoned in the last century
To the reader
The characters of this version of the continuation of the "HISTORY OF ONE CITY" M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin - real historical characters: Alexander II, Alexander III, Nicholas II, Prince Lvov, Kerensky, Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and also, in some cases, the most colorful figures of their inner circle.
We play the Shchedrin game. The geography of the city of Glupov with its Deanery Administration, settlements Navoznaya and Negodnitsa, impassable mud everywhere and in everything is completely preserved. With Guzheeds and walrus-eaters surrounding Foolov. Foolov's sociology has also been preserved with the townsfolk, eminent citizens, guards and their halberds, quarterly and higher ranks, and most importantly - with their consciousness and behavior, the relationship between them, which, according to the author, has not undergone any significant changes over the past thousand years. Is that stupidity and meanness have become more sophisticated.
We categorically reject Foolov's reproaches of "mocking the people" that were made as far back as Saltykov-Shchedrin. However, such accusations invariably sounded against every satirist, at least a little beyond the limits of toothless humor. Mikhail Evgrafovich gave all of them a worthy rebuke, denouncing their creators of the impudence of a bastard who constantly confuses the Fatherland with swallowed sturgeon.
I am sick with the pain of my people. I can't imagine myself outside of it. I treat with mockery any Foolovist who, by the will of fate, fell behind the cordon and tries to teach the Foolovites who did not get there, remaining, of course, the same Foolovist, and even multiplied by the inescapable sovietness.
I am doubly hurt today when my people are subjected to humiliation unheard of since the days of Batu near Moscow and the Poles in the Kremlin. We must not allow blasphemy against him with impunity. My people are no worse, though, and no better than other peoples of the world. And if we have the city of Glupov, then they also have exactly the same Fulltown, Doomstadt, Bethetia and countless Caravanserais.
We equally categorically reject Foolov's reproaches of "bias", absolutely incompatible with the genre of satire. Yes, the figures of Alexander II or Nicholas II are very tragic, they evoke in me personally, to some extent, even sympathy and sympathy; it is possible that in the personality of Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and their associates there are also features that can arouse such sympathy or sympathy, because not everything in their deeds deserves censure. But that's not what we're talking about here.
"Under the heel of stupidity" - this is not humor, but satire!
To paraphrase the words of one of our well-known commanders, I will say: when it comes to the benefits of the Fatherland, the fate of individual people and their deeds may well be represented by that side that is especially important for understanding the benefits of it. All the more clarification through satire.
I did not spare any of the main characters in Foolov's historical tragedy, which every now and then turns into a farce, and it is Shchedrin's farce that is presented here. He even treated Yeltsin "on an equal footing", as well as his predecessors, although it was not easy to do this because of the man's principled refusal to be persecuted not only for criticism, but also for blasphemy. However, he did not spare himself and his blood relatives of the sixties, evidence of which is the image of Yegorka Neladny, with a painful for him at that time and now funny transfer from loyalist fanaticism to enlightenment fanaticism, with his truly stupid passion to give " a human face" to an inhuman monster and Hamlet's suffering, when the next - utopian - undertaking suffered the fate of all utopian undertakings. Starting with attempts to implement the ideas of utopian socialists and ending with an attempt to build socialism on a whole third of one, separately taken planet.
I also really wanted the reader to find himself among the inhabitants of the city of Glupov (Fultown, Dumstadt, Caravanserai, etc.), look at his deeds as if from the outside and at least mentally complete his own “History of his city”. This seems very important today, when the new home-grown Foolov holy fools are making and will make one attempt after another to again plunge the population of the city of Foolov into the nightmare of another gloomy mumbling, calling again to march in formation for forced labor for a piece of bread with salt equally for everyone ( quarterly - two pieces each), or move in the same formation to wash their boots on the shores of New Delhi.
These days, it is worth remembering that Saltykov-Shchedrin and Dostoevsky were the first Russian thinkers who saw more clearly than others what danger lies behind the demagogic lamentations of "guardians of the people's welfare." A danger that turned into reality throughout the next century of Foolov's history. Dostoevsky made an accurate medical diagnosis of the incipient obsession: "Demons!" Shchedrin explained: "Idiots in general are very dangerous ... because they are alien to any considerations and always go ahead, as if the road on which they found themselves belongs exclusively to them alone."
In order to move from the city of Foolov to the city of Umnov, one must, among other things, take a closer look at the vile features of Foolovism and try to eradicate them in one’s heart, burn with a passionate desire to get rid of them. Then the rest in such a resettlement will go easier.
As a historian and sociologist, I allowed myself, transported to other times, to interview several of my good old acquaintances of the past centuries and decades regarding the content of the narrative brought to the attention of the reader. Here is what the distinguished respondents said:
M. LOMONOSOV:
The Russian people from times, deep antiquity, hidden, to this century so many have seen changes in their happiness, that if anyone judges, he will come to great amazement, that because of so many divisions, oppressions and discords, not only was he not wasted, but also on highest degree majesty, power and glory achieved.
The chief of the gendarmes, His Excellency Count A BEN-KENDORF:
Russia's past is amazing, its present is more than magnificent, as for the future, it is higher than anything that the wildest imagination can imagine.
M. POGODIN:
Gifts were not encouraged, but destroyed. Ignorance proudly raised its head... and only hungry dogs, capable of barking or licking, remained in the field of literature.
A. PUSHKIN:
Oh people! A pitiful race, worthy of tears and laughter.
N. GOGOL:
There is a time when it is impossible to direct society, or even the whole generation, towards the beautiful, until you show the full depth of its real abomination.
V. KUROCHKIN:
After all, I can’t cry for joy with disgust. Or look for beauty in the ugliness of Asia. Or smoke in the direction given by Incense. In a word, to flirt with the evil and adversity of Odami.
B. OKUJAVA:
It is beneficial to be a fool, but you don’t really want to. And the smart ones really want it to end in a beating. In nature on the lips - an insidious prophecy, But maybe someday we'll come to the middle.
M. YURSENAR:
Any attempt to tell the truth causes a scandal.
E. GIBBON:
We will act prudently if we make an object of edification out of the occasion for the scandal.
From the publisher
The hut, in which the archive of the city of Foolov is located, stands, leaning, on the extreme road from the outpost to the churchyard. In general, anyone who feels ripe for such a journey would do well to look there (in the archive, of course) before reaching the extreme point of this route. Bypassing this intermediate point, the inhabitant runs the risk of falling asleep in the same stupidity that he was born. And, on the contrary, after plowing for an hour or two over yellow sheets, eaten by mice and filthy flies, you begin to understand exactly where you managed to pass your life and why it was bad for you here, but not boring. That is why, even for the last time, you close your eyes only with a smile through welling tears.
After Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin exactly 125 years ago published the annals of the first four Foolov chroniclers, covering the period from 1731 to 1825 (and in fact until 1855, because the mayoral administration of Perehvat-Zalikhvatsky was an organic continuation of the mayoralty of Ugryum-Burcheev and did not introduce anything fundamentally new, especially since from 1825 to 1855 history, as the chronicler correctly states, “stopped its flow”), the researcher’s foot did not set foot in the Foolovsky archive for a long time. Thought: why? After all, history has stopped flowing! But they were mistaken: since the city of Foolov continued to exist, it could not but resume its course and its history.
And where there is history, there are chroniclers. After Mikhail Evgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin, he was the first to rise to this absolute truth Moscow writer Vyacheslav Alekseevich Pietsukh, to whom, in this regard, we dedicate the following narrative. He was the only one who was not too lazy to look into the dilapidated Foolovsky archive almost 120 years after his visit to M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. And he was not deceived: he found four more documents, namely, an unusually large-format so-called barn book, covered with different handwriting, plus two so-called common notebooks in a cage, plus one typewritten manuscript enclosed in a green folder. This allowed V.A. Pietsuhu to bring Shchedrin's narrative to the beginning of 1988. An inquisitive reader can get acquainted with him from the book of the above-named author "New Moscow Philosophy" ("Moskovsky Rabochiy", M., 1989, p. 3-164).
Let's make a reservation right away: the continuation of the "History of the city of Foolov in new and modern times» we have read with interest, refer to significant literary monuments and in no way question what is written in it. As they say, the version of V.A. Pietsuha has the right to exist. However, unlike other literary works, the history of your own city, in my opinion, should be captured by each citizen personally, on the basis of own experience life in this city. Both in writing and in print, as it turns out, but it is obligatory in your mind and heart. That is why, a few years after reading the truly brilliant work of V.A. Pietsukha, following my own advice, set out at the beginning of this preface, I was also not too lazy and jumped off my funeral dross on the way to the Foolovsky churchyard (where you always have time) in order to pass the sunset hours in the solitude of the Foolovsky archive. And he was not deceived either: along with the documents discovered by V.A. Pietsukh, there was such a mountain of notebooks with notes piled up in the corner that everyone who was willing and not too lazy to bend over could easily find his own version of the history of his native city.
I picked up the first pile that turned up under my arm - and was stunned: in front of me was another set of Foolov's chronicles leading the history of this city right up to 1995 - a whole seven years longer than in the notebooks of the previous researcher! The question arose: should we publish only the last of the notebooks found, covering just last years, or to publish everything at once, which describes the same period of 1855-1995, but with the pen of other chroniclers, from the angle of their point of view. Mature reflection, I came to the last decision.
Let the reader compare both versions, but not in order to decide which one is better (in this case it does not matter), but in order to at least mentally compose, as already mentioned, his own version, so that later tell it to your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, so that they learn from the history of the city where they grew up, lessons for the future, allowing them to make the city of Stupid, to the best of human capabilities, less and less Stupid.
Description to the mayors different time appointed to the city of Foolov from the higher authorities, and later, by his own impudence, sat down
(1855-1995)
The world is like a theater, said Shakespeare.
I see only character roles.
That one is a scoundrel, that one is a crook, that one is a vampire.
And everything, as Pushkin said, what more?
V. Vysotsky
1) Leopold Loengrinovich Zamanilovsky, retired hussar headquarters captain (1855-1881). He gave, on the grief of the Foolovites, the long-awaited freedom, which they did not wait for. Killed to death by the predecessors of umoscopists (later umoscopists).
2) Medvezhatnikov Guriy Gurevich, retired forester (1881-1894). He was allegedly present in the city administration, but was not present at it. He died from the most common male disease.
3) Alisin Nikodim Apollinarievich, retired dragoon lieutenant colonel (1894-1917). Despite the gentle nature and good intentions of this mayor, his reign from beginning to end was a chain of fatal misfortunes worthy of an ancient Greek tragedy. Brutally killed with a family of beasts by umoscopists.
4) Puzanov Sila Terentyich, Glupov's favorite citizen, his richest and most eminent man in the street (1917). Pushed out to the mayor by the force of circumstances, and by it, having done nothing, “pushed” back into non-existence.
5) Khiryanskaya Shurka, Porfiry Gunyavy, the predecessor of umoscopists, daughter or son (1917). Pushed (a) to the mayor by the same force of circumstances. Upon closer examination, he turned out to be either a woman or a hermaphrodite, and behaved accordingly: he fled, dressed in a woman's sundress.
6) Gunyavov-Plyuganov Fyodor Ionovich, nicknamed Kartavy, better known under the pseudonym brother Okhov, schismatic of umoscopists, founder of the sect of umoscopists (1917-1922). Dorval to power a successful attempt on it. In vain he tried to make fools of the Foolovites, bringing them to complete ruin. He died, devoured by his own villainy, betrayed by his successors, renouncing his deeds, but remaining committed to his malevolence.
7) Kobasdohia Idris Velzevulovich, nicknamed Sysoika Clumsy, better known as brother Sdokhov, by appearance the leader of umoscopists, and by patronymic - the fiend of Beelzebub (1922-1953). Justifying his origin, he brutally exterminated almost all of the Foolovites, turning the lives of the rest into a living hell. The most beloved mayor, mourned by the Foolovites to this day.
8) Podzhilkin Kuzma Sysoevich, former lackey and court jester of the previous one (1953-1964). Pushed into the mayor's office (called clerks since the time of brother Okhov, and clerks since the time of brother Sdokhov) by force of circumstances. He held on to power only by pushing his feet away from the dead body of the previous one. He tried to feed the Foolovites to the full with bananas and relocate them to the moon in 20 years. He was exiled by his faithful accomplices to the garden to plant cabbage for trying to create two whole Foolovs from one. He died helpless.
9) Busty Dementy Varlamovich, more precisely, his understudy of the sample of 1762. A talking doll, very similar to a real mayor (1964-1982). Removed from the closet due to the lack of competitors. She behaved as befits a talking doll with an organ, as a result of which the Foolov story stopped its course for the second time. Like a doll, it seemed immortal, but the organ eventually ran out of its resource, and the doll had to be sent back to the closet.
10) Nameless blockman in paralysis, nicknamed Slubyanki (1982-1984). He was pushed out to the mayor by accomplices in the hope that he would soon die and vacate the vacancy for the next one, but before he died, he made an attempt to eradicate idlers in Foolov. He died from overexertion at such an unthinkable feat for a mere mortal under the ridicule of these idlers.
11) Another nameless, who did not even have a nickname, the former orderly officer of Brodysty (1984-1985). Usop immediately upon filling the vacancy, but continued to be listed as the mayor (clerk) and in the deceased state, until he completely went to dust.
12) Maria Verbludova, a simple rural worker who pretended to be a peasant and, on this basis, sat down in the mayor's (podyacheskoe) chair (1985-1991). Tried to abolish illegal incomes, taking up arms against the left. I tried to give the Foolovites a hangover without drinking. She tried to let the Foolovites go to loose detention, in which they completely ran wild. Finally, having despaired of these events of hers, she renamed herself from clerks to townspeople, and when every single one of the Foolov quarters, who also declared themselves the townsmen of their settlements, quarters and even individual sheds, followed her example, she locked herself. out of resentment in the outhouse and sat there until she found her mayor's chair occupied.
13) Elkin-Palkin, Buslai Nalomaevich, the only one of the maids of Verbludova, who, due to her oversight, turned out to be a peasant and behaved surprisingly not like a woman. I’ll keep silent about this, because, having sat down in the mayor’s chair, I dozed off and asked not to wake me up.
