Ostap Bender and another Ostap. From the book The Brothers Kataev [Bratya Kataevy]

Abstract

   In his book My Diamond Crown [Almazniy moy venets], V. Kataev claims that Ostap Bender, the protagonist of I. Ilf and E. Petrov’s iconic dilogy The Twelve Chairs [Dvenadtsat Stuliev], was inspired by an Ostap Shor. The claim remained unchallenged by scholars and most historians of literature, and regular readers accepted it as the truth. In the forty years since the first publication of Kataev’s memoirs, the figure of Ostap Shor has developed its own mythology. However, the historian and critic S. Belyakov points out that, before Kataev’s book, Shor had only been mentioned once in S. Bondarin’s reminiscences. At the same time, no proof exists of Ilf and Petrov ever meeting Shor, nor can he be spotted in any photos of the Odessa-born writers. Not a single staff writer of the newspaper Gudok, in whose editorial office Ilf and Petrov wrote their Twelve Chairs, mentions this character in their memoirs. Ostap Shor had nothing to do with the literary community of the day. The many anecdotes about Shor’s adventures were concocted after the publication of Kataev’s book, which directly inspired them. What has been verified as true facts of Shor’s life story does not allow for any parallels with Ostap Bender. Therefore, the article debunks Kataev’s story about Shor as fictional.