Ilf and Petrov Satire

Moscow archive contains correspondence between Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov detailing their creative process. Letters show the authors consciously developed the technique of literary irony allowing them to criticize Soviet bureaucracy, provincial backwardness and ideological rigidity without direct confrontation with censorship. Their method was based on creation of comic characters embodying certain social types, revealing through their actions the absurdity of the existing system. Ilf and Petrov carefully studied actual Soviet life, traveled throughout the country, collected material. Their novels Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf combine adventure plot with sharp satire on social customs. Researchers note that their approach to irony as means of expressing social criticism influenced later Soviet literature, creating tradition of hidden dissidence through laughter.