The Twelve Chairs

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This article is about the novel. For its film adaptations, see The Twelve Chairs (film). For its operatic adaptation, see The Twelve Chairs (Shostakovich).
The Twelve Chairs
The Twelve Chairs monument.jpg
A monument in Odessa
Author Ilf and Petrov
Original title Двенадцать стульев
Country Soviet Union
Language Russian
Publication date

The Twelve Chairs (Russian: Двенадцать стульев, Dvenadtsat stulyev) is a classic satirical novel by the Odessan Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1928. Its main character Ostap Bender reappears in the book's sequel The Little Golden Calf.


General view of the Twelve Chairs monument, in Odessa.

In the Soviet Union in 1927, a former member of the nobility, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, works as a desk clerk. His mother-in-law reveals on her deathbed that her family jewelry had been hidden from the Bolsheviks in one of the twelve chairs from the family’s dining room set. Those chairs, along with all other personal property, had been taken away by the Communists after the Russian Revolution. He becomes a treasure hunter, and after the “smooth operator” and con-man Ostap Bender forces Kisa ("Pussycat", Vorobyaninov’s funny childhood nickname, which Bender prefers) to partner with him, they set off to track down the chairs. This ultimately helps Kisa, who doesn’t possess Bender’s charm and is not as street-smart.

The two "comrades" find the chair set which is put up for auction, but fail to buy it and afterwards find out that the set has been split up and sold individually. They are not alone in their quest. Father Fyodor took advantage of the deathbed confession, and has also set off to recover the fortune. In this search for the treasure, he becomes Vorobyaninov’s main rival. While in this enterprise Ostap is in his element, Vorobyaninov is not as happy, and is steadily abandoning his principles and losing self-esteem.

As they find and cannibalize the chairs one by one, the two finally discover the location of the 12th and last chair that they hope would contain the treasure. To avoid splitting the loot, Vorobyaninov murders Ostap. He then discovers that the jewels have already been found and spent on erecting the very building the chair was found in, and as a result goes insane.

Apart from satirizing its central characters, The Twelve Chairs also does the people and contemporary institutions: the operations of a Moscow newspaper, a student dormitory, a provincial chess club, and so on. The entrepreneurial and individualistically minded Bender is alien to the new Communist order. A sort of modern Till Eulenspiegel, Bender claims to know “four hundred comparatively honest ways of relieving the people of their money” (Russian: "Четыреста сравнительно честных способов отъёма денег у населения"), and he has no future in the post revolutionary Soviet Union. Ilf and Petrov’s observations on aspects of everyday life are shrewd as well as comic.


In total, the novel inspired as many as twenty adaptations in Russia and abroad. The first cinema adaptation of the novel was the joint Polish-Czech film Dvanáct křesel (1933). The original plot was considerably altered yet many following adaptations were primarily based on this film rather than on the novel itself (e.g., the former marshal of nobility from the novel was replaced in the Polish-Czech film by a barber who then appeared in several later adaptations).

In Nazi Germany Dreizehn Stühle (Thirteen Chairs)[1] was based on this novel in 1938. However, the film did not credit the novel's authors (probably due to Ilf's Jewish origins).

The book also inspired the 1936 film Keep Your Seats, Please, directed by Monty Banks at Ealing Studios and starring George Formby. The action takes place in Britain and involves seven chairs, not twelve.

The comedy It's in the Bag! (1945) starring Fred Allen and Jack Benny was very loosely based on the novel, using just five chairs.

In 1957, a Brazilian version called Thirteen Chairs starred comedians Oscarito, Renata Fronzi and Zé Trindade. In this version, the main character, played by Oscarito, inherits his aunt's mansion, which is soon confiscated, leaving him with only 13 chairs. After selling them, he finds out that his aunt had hidden her fortune in the chairs. He then goes on a quest to have the chairs back.

In 1962 Tomás Gutiérrez Alea made a Cuban version titled Las Doce Sillas in a tropical context starkly similar to the Soviet one of the novel.

The story also served as the basis for the 1969 film The Thirteen Chairs starring Sharon Tate.

In 1970 Mel Brooks made a version titled The Twelve Chairs. Brooks's film followed the novel more closely, but with a sanitized "happier" ending.

In the 1970s, two adaptations were made in the USSR: a film in 1971 by Leonid Gaidai and a miniseries in 1976 by Mark Zakharov, featuring Andrei Mironov as Bender.

In Vladimir Nabokov's novel, Pale Fire, page 155, a character refers to Ilf and Petrov as "those joint authors of genius" among "such marvelous Russian humorists as Gogol, Dostoevski ...."[citation needed] The clever reference to the decidedly un-humorous Dostoevski is a bow to Ilf and Petrov's satire.

External links[edit]


  1. ^ IMDb .