Nikifor Lyapis-Trubetskoy

Nicephorus Lyapis-Trubetskoy appears in the XXIX chapter, entitled "The author of the" Gavriliada "." This "young man with a lamb hairstyle and immodest (in the first edition of the novel - undaunted ^[1] ) gaze" lives on through poems and poems about the "many-faced Gavril." The works are for sale in numerous departmental publications, whose editors, being naive and unassuming people, trustingly buy Lyapis's verses. According to the literary critic Boris Galanov , the ease with which the character realizes his creations is explained not only by his brisk character, but also by the fact that “there was a demand for hack-work and there were customers” ^[2] .

Literary critics responded in silence to the publication of The Twelve Chairs; one of the first reviews that appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta in 1929, signed by Anatoly Tarasenkov , had the corresponding name - “A No-One Written About” ^[4] . The situation changed after the meeting of workers and rural correspondents, at which Nikolai Bukharin spoke. During the report, Bukharin casually mentioned the “Twelve Chairs”, noting that the work includes “the hack-worker Lyapis, who adapts his hero Gavril to any production subject.” This was enough for reviewers to “notice” the novel and start writing about it. The reviews, according to the literary critic Jacob Lurie , were at first “sour, but condescending” ^[5] . So, in the magazine “Books and Revolution”, published in April 1929, the debut work of Ilf and Petrov was called “imitation of the best examples of a classic satirical novel”; at the same time, the critic admitted that when creating the image of the hack poet Lyapis, the authors “manage to rise to genuine satire” ^[6] .

The author of Gavriliada was also noticed by Vladimir Mayakovsky : during one of the disputes, the poet told the writers sitting in the hall that they needed to be more actively involved in the life of various editions, because "in those publications where the writer seldom looks, hackworkers like Gavril nest" ^{[ 2]} .

Gavril from the same breed as the Soviet Romeo-Ivanes or heroes of the vulgar “red romances”, about whom Ilf repeatedly wrote. In the image of the author of the Gavriliade, satirists branded the pseudo-revolutionary opportunism that they hated. But it’s not just Lyapis’s resourcefulness. Behind the figure of the author of the Gavriliada, what Shchedrin called the “whole psychological structure” was seen.

- Boris Galanov ^[2]

The question of exactly who served as the prototype of Lyapis-Trubetskoy remained debatable for a long time. Konstantin Paustovsky , who worked at Gudka together with Ilf and Petrov, recalled that there were many different editorial offices in the Labor Palace, where their newspaper was located. This made it possible for some authors to receive royalties in several publications at once during the day: “Without leaving the Palace of Labor, they hastily wrote poems and poems glorifying people of various professions - needle workers, counter workers, firefighters, woodworkers and copyrockers” ^[7] . According to Boris Galanov, when creating the image of Lyapis, the writers could use an article from the Laughing Magazine published in 1927. It described a “fairly well-known poet” who posted his verses, united by a common theme, simultaneously in “Pechatnik”, “Medical Worker”, “Communication Workers” and “Tanner's Voice”. Even before the release of The Twelve Chairs, the satirical miniature of Evgeny Petrov about the “Comprehensive Bunny” ( “The Bunny Walks Through the Forest / Towards the North Pole” ) was published , in which the clever author, who published the same story in Children's joys ”,“ The Expendable Hunter ”,“ The Forest, as it is ”,“ The Red Lover of the North ”and“ Herald of the southern tip of the North Pole ” ^{[2] [8]} .

The feuilleton player Mikhail Shtikh (M. Lvov) in the book of memoirs about Ilf and Petrov reproduced an episode of a conversation with a cheerful cheat-worker who appeared in the editorial office of Gudka in the midst of work on the next issue and “boasted of his dubious literary successes.” Once, the journalists decided to play a trick on Nikifor and informed him that the word “ dactyl ” is considered an anachronism in the literary community - self-respecting poets should pronounce it in a new way: “ pterodactyl ”. This and other episodes, according to the author of the memoirs, testified to the "primeval ignorance" of the poet ^[7] :

He stopped his visits only after he recognized himself in the author of the Gavriliada. I could not help but find out. But it did him good. He was a capable guy and in the following years, "having worked on himself," he began to write very good poems.

The writer Viktor Ardov in the book “Studies for Portraits” spoke about the version of Abram Vulis , who in his dissertation, written in the late 1950s, suggested that Mikhail Zoshchenko was meant by the author of “Gavriliada”. The basis for such a hypothesis, according to Vulis, was one of the literary pseudonyms that Zoshchenko sometimes used - Gavrilych. Outraged by this "arrogant assumption", Ardov explained to the dissertation that Ilf and Petrov always treated Mikhail Mikhailovich with respect. At the same time, the writer said that the prototype of Nikifor is the poet Osip Kolychev ^[9] , whose real name is Sirkes, was consonant with the name of Lyapis ^[1] .

Literary critic Yuri Shcheglov wrote that not only personal impressions of communicating with poets “multi-station workers” within the walls of the House of Labor, but also some literary works could create an image of Lapis co-authors. So, a similar theme was developed in 1924 by Valentin Kataev , in whom the poet Niagarov acts in the story “Bird of God”. Taking the line from the poem “The Bird of God Doesn't Know ...”, Niagarov endlessly “exploits” Pushkin’s motives, “inserting either Marx , Kolchak , or other topical names” ^[8] . In his other story, “Niagarov Journalist,” this same character whips up texts with a huge amount of incorrectly used terms similar to Lyapis-Trubetskoy's “fast jack” (“A dead swell whistled in the gears of an average compass. A large beautiful rumbling shone in the sun copper parts. Mitka, this old sea wolf, picked a bowsprit in his teeth and cheerfully shouted “Kubrick!”, etc.).

An equally close “kinship” is found in Lyapis with the hero of Arkady Averchenko ’s short story “ Incurable ”. The hero Averchenko, a writer Kukushkin specializing in works of a pornographic genre, is forced to repeatedly change the plot in accordance with demand and offer ^[8] (however, each of these crossings ends with a characteristic template phrase: “Without remembering himself, he rushed to her , grabbed her in a hug, and wrap it all ... ").

The name that Lyapis-Trubetskoy gave the hero of his poetic cycle goes back, according to literary scholars David Feldman and Mikhail of Odessa , to the popular Gavril-Busoter in the 1920s. In jokes and feuilletons, he looked “a child’s mode, unlucky and good-natured” ^[1] . The title of the poem “On Bread, Product Quality, and Beloved,” which Nikifor brings to the editorial office of the “Workers of the Bulk” publication, is a parody of the “structure of Mayakovsky’s agitation” (such as “On the fiasco”, “apogee” and others unknown things "). The dedication to Hina Chlek, preceding the poem by Lapis, is a possible reference to the addressee of many Mayakovsky's poems Lilya Brik ; At the same time, the researchers admit that Hina Chlek meant the journalist Evgenia Yuryevna Khin, who was one of the poet’s close friends ^[10] .

The episode in which journalist Persitsky introduces Lyapis into a room with a “large newspaper clipping” encircled by a mourning border hanging on a wall was taken from the life of Gudka and other editorial offices. It was customary to demonstrate inaccuracies and blunders made by the authors of publications ^[10] :

For example, in Gudka, where the authors of the novel worked, a special stand was intended for such blunders, called the snot and yell staff.

Composer Gennady Gladkov and poet Julius Kim , who wrote songs for the film “ 12 Chairs ” (1976), decided to continue the theme after years. In 2011, at the request of the Yekaterinburg Drama Theater, they composed the musical of the same name, transferring the action from the 1920s to the 21st century. In this work, Lapis is no longer a poet, but a major publisher, in whom “everything is captured” in life. Ostap Bender , having come to Nikifor’s office behind a chair, learns that he saturates the market with low-grade products and lives according to the principle: “To everyone needs / Instead of bread / Full bucket of consumer goods!” ^[11]

In the film “ 12 Chairs ” (1971), the role of Lyapis-Trubetskoy was played by actor Roman Filippov , and the plot lines of Lyapis and another character, also a literary day-laborer, Absalom Iznurenkov, were combined. In the television play " 12 Chairs " of 1966, Leo Lemke played the hero.