Ostap Bender
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Ostap Bender (Russian: Остап Бендер; also Ostap-Suleyman-Berta-Maria-Bender-Bey, Bender-Zadunaysky, Ostap Ibragimovich) is a misanthropic con man and antihero who first appeared in the novel The Twelve Chairs (January 1928 - Russian: "Двенадцать стульев"), written by Russian authors Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov.
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[edit] Appearances
Proclaiming himself the "great combinator," Ostap Bender searches for a stash of diamonds hidden in one of the twelve eponymous chairs. The action takes place in the Soviet Union during the New Economic Policy era. At the end of the novel, he is killed by his partner, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobianinov, who does not want to share the treasure with Bender when it seems like they are about to reach their goal. The name "Ostap Bender" has become an archetypal name for a con man in the Russian language.
The character's death was retconned away in 1931 in the sequel novel, The Little Golden Calf (Russian: "Золотой теленок"), where Ostap claimed that "surgeons barely saved his life." This book was an extended satire on certain elements of Soviet life. Here, Ostap Bender follows a Soviet underground multi-millionaire, hoping to acquire some of the man's riches, and thus amass a fortune. Bender gets his money, but proceeds to lose it as he flees the country. The implications of such themes help explain why the novel took over a year to gain approval for publishing.[citation needed]
[edit] Character
Bender is a complex character: while displaying the traits that would befit a social parasite in Soviet official terms, he frequently seems to adhere to several Marxist tenets, and is clearly an atheist (as revealed by bits of dialogue, most of them in The Little Golden Calf). All of this is especially intriguing, as Bender's ideal in life is to quit the Soviet Union for good.
Ostap Bender is mysterious about his origins; the only part of his biography that he mentions is that his father was a "Turkish subject," hinting at Jewish Odessa roots. He is obsessed with travelling to Rio de Janeiro, "the city of his dreams," while admitting the futility of that obsession. Bender spawned a number of Russian catch phrases, including: "The ice is moving, ladies and gentlemen of the jury!" ("Лёд тронулся, господа присяжные заседатели!"); "I will be in charge of the parade!" ("Командовать парадом буду я!"); and "Perhaps you'd also like the key to the apartment where the money is?" ("Может быть, тебе дать ещё ключ от квартиры, где деньги лежат?").
[edit] Film adaptations
The Twelve Chairs was made into a slapstick comedy in a 1970 film by Mel Brooks and Michael Hertzberg. Frank Langella played the part of Ostap Bender. Shortly after that, the novel was adapted to film twice in the USSR: first in 1971 by Leonid Gaidai with Archil Gomiashvili as Bender, and then in 1976 by Mark Zakharov, featuring Andrei Mironov as Bender. The Little Golden Calf was filmed by Mikhail Schweizer in 1968, with Sergey Yursky as Bender. In 2006, the Russian Channel One aired a new mini-series based on the novel starring Oleg Menshikov as Bender.
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