Kisa Vorobyaninov who. The character of the novel "Twelve Chairs" Kisa Vorobyaninov: biography and interesting facts
Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov was born in 1875 on the estate of his father, in the Stargorod district. His life was very ordinary, he was "a typical representative of a degenerating aristocracy," and Keys did not differ in any talents or bright features. He studied poorly, stayed for the second year, was lazy. He didn’t join the army because of his health, he avoided public service, didn’t want to get a good education. So Ippolit Matveyevich remained a nobleman without much work, he lived for his own pleasure, he drank a lot, allowed himself a lot, and everything would have been fine if it were not for the events of 1917. And Vorobyaninov suddenly found himself without his usual way of life and without money, and he had to become a modest employee, an employee of the registry office. He hid his past, and no one knows if he recalled with longing alone his past exploits - so he appeared in public with two completely naked girls, but he beat the attorney at law in a dashing way.
But the reputation of a rake and a carousel - all this is left behind, and in the book the reader first meets Vorobyaninov in the image of a downtrodden former aristocrat, struggling to adapt to the new reality.
A former dandy and mot, he had lost almost all of his former glamor and was a rather pitiful sight at the time of his meeting with Ostap. However, he was still ready for adventure, telling Bender about the treasures, and when Ostap suggested that he find them and run away, after a short bargaining Kisa agreed, and agreed with great enthusiasm.
As for the appearance of Vorobyaninov, he was a 52-year-old man, 185 centimeters tall, with gray hair, which he dyed "radically black," and with a noticeable mustache, which he valued very much. He wore pince-nez, was distinguished by good manners, and in general could not hide the former leader of the nobility in himself.
Ostap Bender instantly suppressed Ippolit Matveyevich, and, despite rare riots, Kisa resigned himself. He was already tired of life, and in the young and energetic Bender he saw a chance for himself.
Both readers and moviegoers could notice how Vorobyaninov's personality changes in the course of the plot. So, as he approached the treasures, he seemed to become more "predatory". "And Ippolit Matveyevich's gait was no longer the same, and the expression in his eyes became wild, and the mustache no longer stuck out parallel to the earth's surface, but almost perpendicularly, like an elderly cat."
Vorobyaninov also changed in character, becoming more tough, and in the end he began to really hate his young companion Bender.
Who would have thought that Kisa Vorobyaninov, the former leader of the nobility, would eventually slash Ostap down the throat with a razor, but that is exactly what happened. However, it is clear from everything that by that time Vorobyaninov was already simply damaged by his mind ...
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Russian viewers know two on-screen Vorobyaninovs - in the 1971 production of Leonid Gaidai, Kisu was played by Sergei Filippov, and Ostap was then performed by Archil Gomiashvili.
In the production of Mark Zakharov in 1976, together with Andrei Mironov, who embodied Ostap Bender, Anatoly Papanov starred in the role of Ippolit Matveyevich.
Both of these films have become iconic for Russian cinema, and both have a huge number of fans and even fans.
As for Vorobyaninov himself, some of his phrases became catchphrases, and these include "Let's go to the rooms!", "I think that bargaining is not appropriate here," and, of course, the famous "It's not mange pas sis jur".
The dialogues between Ostap Bender and Kisa Vorobyaninov are real gems, and experts in the book traditionally quote them.
As for the life of Ippolit Matveyevich after he went mad and struck Otsap on the throat, nothing more is known about him - whether he returned to the quiet life of a Soviet employee, or tried to escape, or perhaps he sank down and became an ordinary beggar beggar. Only once in the novel "The Golden Calf" Ostap mentions him, calling him "an eccentric old man" with whom they once "sought happiness in the amount of one hundred and fifty thousand rubles."
Kisa, the Father of Russian democracy, the Leader of the Nobility (albeit a former one) - what nicknames did Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov give to their hero. By the way, when the writers were just conceiving the book "12 Chairs", Ippolit Vorobyaninov was to become its main character, and the son of a Turkish citizen Ostap-Suleiman-Berta-Maria Bender Bey was to become a minor one. But the original idea had to be changed. In any case, the bright figure of Vorobyaninov arouses in the reader the same interest as the image of his colleague-concessionaire Ostap. So it would not be fair not to find the prototype of Ippolit Matveyevich.
Deprived by the 1917 revolution of the position of the leader of the local nobility, Ippolit Matveyevich moved to the county town N, where he worked as a registrar in the registry office. He lived with his mother-in-law, who, as we remember, on her deathbed admitted that she hid her family jewels in one of the chairs made by Master Gambs. Thus began an adventure romance about adventure seekers. We know from the book that Ippolit Matveyevich is a tall (185 cm) gray-haired old man who wears a well-groomed mustache and dyes his hair “radical black”. And now even closer to the text:
“Ippolit Matveyevich woke up at half past seven and immediately stuck his nose into an old-fashioned pince-nez with a gold bow. He did not wear glasses. Once, having decided that wearing pince-nez was not hygienic, Ippolit Matveyevich went to the optician and bought rimless glasses with gilded shafts. The first time he liked the glasses, but his wife found that he was the spitting image of Milyukov in the glasses, and he gave the glasses to the janitor.
It is because of the similarities indicated by the authors with the famous historian and politician Pavel Milyukov that many readers have decided that the prototype of Vorobyaninov was the Nobel laureate in literature, the famous Russian writer Ivan Bunin. Ivan Alekseevich really looked a bit like the democrat Milyukov. However, in the weak-minded Kis there are quite few similarities with the literary genius of Bunin. Perhaps that is why some readers saw an unambiguous similarity between Vorobyaninov and another Russian writer - Alexei Tolstoy.
But the residents of Vyatka are sure that their fellow countryman Nikolai Dmitrievich Stakheev became the prototype of Kisa Vorobyaninov. He was one of the brightest representatives of the famous dynasty of Elabuga merchants Stakheevs. Nikolai possessed extraordinary commercial abilities. At the beginning of the 20th century, the annual turnover of his trading company was 80 million rubles. Before the First World War, Stakheev left for France with his family, but in Europe he met the October Revolution - this news, of course, did not please the merchant, since all his capital was nationalized. A dangerous, but the only correct plan has matured in Stakheev's head. In 1918, Stakheev secretly returned to Moscow to pick up silver and jewelry from the cache of his house on Basmannaya Street. However, upon leaving the estate, the merchant, along with all the treasure, was detained by the employees of the GPU. During interrogation, Stakheev offered Felix Dzerzhinsky a deal: he says where the valuables are hidden in the house, and he is given a pension or given the opportunity to leave. Dzerzhinsky allegedly accepted the terms of the former industrialist. It was said that Stakheev received a pension until the end of his days, and a part of the "found" treasures was used to build the House of Culture of railway workers on modern Komsomolskaya Square in Moscow.
But the most plausible version seems to us, according to which the prototype of the ‘leader of the nobility’ was Yevgeny Petrovich Ganko, the head of the Poltava Zemstvo Council. Very little information remains about him - only the memories of his nephews, the Kataev brothers and one of the authors of "12 chairs" Yevgeny Petrov.
Evgeny Ganko was a widower and lived with the sister of his late wife. She managed his farm, as Eugene often went on trips to exotic countries: China, Japan, India. Valentin Kataev recalled that very often returning from another trip, Ganko would visit them and bring them gifts: Japanese lacquered pencil cases, ostrich eggs, cigarette cases with a picture of a scarab beetle, and so on. Eugene wore a golden pence, which looked especially impressive on him. By his old age, Ganko settled in Poltava, entertaining himself by looking at old French magazines or packing his own stamps. By the way, he was a great collector.
Yevgeny Petrov said that his uncle (Yevgeny Ganko) loved to flaunt in front of young ladies and throw dust in their eyes. His image lay like "a piece of paper in a pile." Based on all this, we can safely say that it was Yevgeny Ganko who became the prototype for Kisa Vorobyaninov.
Kisa's real name is Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov. The hero comes from a noble environment and before the revolution was the district leader of the nobility.
Bender, not without sarcasm, calls Kisa a giant of thought, the father of Russian democracy and a special person close to the emperor. Deprived of former privileges, the hero lives with his mother-in-law and works in the registry office of a certain provincial town. The hero's pre-revolutionary life is discussed in the story "The Past of the Registrar of the Registry Office", which was supposed to be included in the novel "The Twelve Chairs" as one of the chapters, but eventually came out separately a year after the publication of the novel.
History and image
Vorobyaninov was born in the Stargorod district in 1875. His father Matvey Alexandrovich, the owner of the estate, was a passionate lover of pigeons. The hero himself appears in the story of the pre-revolutionary years as an adventurer and reveler. The hero is a "notorious bachelor" and marries the landowner Marie Petukhova, only to fix the shaky affairs in his own estate. After marriage, he continues to have an affair with the wife of the district attorney, with whom he goes for a drive to Paris. The hero's legal wife dies in 1914.
The hero outraged decent society, appearing in public places in the company of naked ladies and led the life of a mot and bon vivant, until in 1918 he was expelled from his own estate. After the revolution, Vorobyaninov has to lead the life of a simple Soviet employee.
At the time of the novel, Kise is 52 years old. Vorobyaninov is described in the novel as a tall gray-haired man with a well-groomed mustache, outwardly very similar to Milyukov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs under the Provisional Government. Because of this, Kisa is forced to give up glasses and wear pince-nez instead of those, so that the similarity is not so obvious.
Trying to change his appearance before going to look for chairs, the hero dyes his hair black. After the first wash, the paint goes off, and the black color turns into green, and the hero has to shave off his mustache and shave his head bald.
The hero's adventurous adventures begin at the moment when the dying mother-in-law tells Kise about the old family jewels hidden in one of the chairs of the headset made by the master Habs. The set consists of twelve chairs, and the hero begins to look for those in order to take possession of the treasure.
Having started the search on his own, the hero ends up in Stargorod, where another participant is involved in the "project" - the swindler Ostap Bender. The hero's life is complicated by the presence of a competitor - Father Fyodor, a priest who confessed Vorobyaninov's dying mother-in-law, also learned about the chairs and launched his own campaign to find jewelry.
The heroes find themselves in Moscow, in the museum of furniture, where ten of the twelve chairs that were included in the mother-in-law of the set are being auctioned. However, the heroes cannot buy them, because Vorobyaninov had spent the money intended for this purpose the day before. The chairs included in the set diverge in different hands, and the heroes have to open the hunt for new owners of precious furniture. And the former hero-lover Kisa spent money in the restaurant "Prague", where he came with a lady.
Then Vorobyaninov, along with his companion, finds himself on a steamer sailing along the Volga, in the city of Vasyuki he runs away from angry chess players, and in Pyatigorsk he is forced to beg for alms. After these ordeals, the hero returns to the capital, where the traces of the last chair are lost. Bender discovers that the chair is a "donkey" in the railroad club.
On the night before the final raid, Vorobyaninov kills his partner with a straight razor blow to the throat in order to take possession of the treasure alone. However, the next day it turns out that the treasures had already been found a few months earlier and “turned” into a sports and entertainment center for workers.
The image of Vorobyaninov is largely copied from the uncle of Yevgeny Petrov, one of the authors of the work. This uncle lived in Poltava, wore sideburns and a gold pince-nez, was a gourmet and lover of luxurious life.
Screen adaptations
The novel "Twelve Chairs" has survived about twenty film adaptations. In Russia, the film adaptation of 1976 called "12 chairs" is widely known, filmed, where the role of Kisa was played by an actor, and the role of Ostap Bender -. A few years earlier, another film based on the novel was directed by a director. In this two-part comedy he played the role of Kisa.
In 1980, Sergei Filippov plays the role of Kisa Vorobyaninov again, this time in the film "Comedy of Bygone Days" directed by Yuri Kushnerev. The film is essentially a crossover - the characters and plots of various Soviet films intersect there. The Coward and the Experienced, the famous petty offenders from the comedies of Leonid Gaidai, join the adventure of Kisa and Bender. A combined team of adventurers sets off in search of treasures of four.
Outside the Cyrillic sector, the novel was also filmed several times. In Germany, Italy, Great Britain, the USA and Sweden in the first half of the twentieth century, their variations on the theme of "Twelve Chairs" appeared, more or less close to the original. The wave of popularity of the novel by Ilf and Petrov reached even Brazil, where in 1957 they also filmed a film adaptation called "Treze cadeiras" ("13 chairs").
Oscarito as Bonifacio Boaventura (Kisa Vorobyaninov) in the Brazilian adaptation Another amusing film adaptation was filmed in the United States in 1970 by director Mel Brooks. Filming took place in Finland and Yugoslavia, and the film itself is characterized by a typical American comedy "happy ending". Ostap and Kisa together go to the railway club at night for the last chair. Learning that the jewels "floated away", Kisa starts a pogrom. Later, the disenchanted adventurer companions peacefully discuss their future plans, and no killing occurs.
Ron Moody as Kisa Vorobyaninov in the American film adaptation The storyline related to the search for the chairs sold out at the auction is truncated in the film. The heroes do not travel around the country, looking for chairs one by one, but find seven chairs from the headset at once in the transportable Columbus Theater, where they were sold. To get to them, the heroes are hired to the theater, passing off Kisa as an actor. Some of the chairs diverge from the theater into the wrong hands, and the heroes have to look for them.
Kisa takes one chair from a Finnish tightrope walker. To do this, the hero, passive and inventive in the original, climbs the rope himself and demonstrates the wonders of balancing act. The heroes open four more chairs for jewelry right in the furniture museum, where the auction was held. And only the last chair, as it should be, is in the Moscow club of railway workers.
The last film adaptation was released in Italy in 2013 and is a free interpretation of the plot, where only the chairs and the treasure hidden in them remain intact (“Happiness is not in chairs,” or “La sedia della felicità”).
In 2016, a monument to Kisa Vorobyaninov by sculptor Katib Mamedov appeared in Kharkov. The bronze hero, stealthily looking around, with a chair in his hands, emerges from the brick wall, still half hidden in the masonry.
The replicas of the heroes Ilf and Petrov became famous quotes. Kisa is especially famous for the plaintive mantra she repeats when she asks for alms:
“Monsieur, it’s not a mange pa sis magazine. Goeben world zi bitte etvas kopeck auf dem stuk brod. Give something to a former State Duma deputy. "
When Yuri Nikulin found out that Leonid Gaidai had decided to shoot "12 Chairs", he immediately called the director - he really wanted to star in this film as Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov. But Gaidai refused to his friend - he did not see Vorobyaninov in Nikulin and entrusted him with the role of Tikhon's janitor
And he considered three actors for the role of the leader of the nobility - Anatoly Papanov, who by that time had already played the role of Vorobyaninov on stage
Rostislav Plyatt
and Sergey Filippov
Plyatt was very good paired with Mikhail Pugovkin (who played Fyodor's father), but in independent episodes, the director did not really like
Therefore, Gaidai inclined towards Filippov. But then a big problem arose - Filippov was diagnosed with brain cancer. The director decided to approve Rostislav Plyatt. But Filippov, having learned about this, called Leonid Gaidai and said: he will play Ippolit Matveyevich, no matter what it costs him. The director found himself in a difficult situation: on the one hand, he did not want to offend Filippov, on the other hand, the performer's serious illness could put the shooting at risk. But when Plyatt found out about Sergei Filippov's passionate desire to play Kisa Vorobyaninov, Rostislav Yanovich called Gaidai and refused this role
As a result, Gaidai decided to take a risk and approved Filippov, for whom this decision was a second chance - by that time he was fired from the theater due to alcohol problems. Filippov zealously set to work, despite a serious illness. But at the end of filming, Filippov felt worse, he was urgently admitted to the hospital. But, fortunately, the treatment was successful and he himself voiced his hero
Used frames from the film "12 chairs", dir. L. Gaidai, Mosfilm, 1971
and photos from the Mosfilm archive
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