Ostap Bender

Ostap Bender (Russian: Остап Бендер) is a fictional con man and the central antiheroic protagonist in the novels The Twelve Chairs (1928) and The Little Golden Calf (1931) written by Soviet authors Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov.

In the second novel, The Little Golden Calf, published in 1931, Bender is alive, he says, because "surgeons barely saved my life", Ilf and Petrov having conjured the character's death away retroactively.

Ostap Bender's origins are mysterious; he mentions only that his father was "a Turkish subject",[3] his mother was "a Countess and received unearned income" and that his full name is Ostap-Suleyman-Berta-Maria-Bender-Bey (Остап-Сулейман-Берта-Мария-Бендер-Бей).

In the comments to the Complete Works of Ilf and Petrov by M. Odessky and D. Feldman, this phrase is explained as a hint to his supposed Jewish origin from a port city in Novorossiya, most probably Odesa, where many Jews claimed Turkish citizenship to evade discrimination and conscription for military service.

There were a number of possible prototypes for Bender, most famously Ostap (Osip) Shor (1899–1978), a friend of the authors who spent his youth in Odesa gaining money as a con man and then—as a Cheka inspector.

[5][6] Valentin Kataev who came up with the idea for the novel (which, in turn, is dedicated to him) is named as another prototype; he also led an adventurous life and was known as a literary hoaxer, adding many original touches to the biography of Osip Shor whom he saw as fitting the readers' expectations of a "real-life combinator".

[7] Another suggested influence was the character of Alexander Ametistov from Mikhail Bulgakov's play Zoyka's Flat that had been written and staged in 1926, before the work on The Twelve Chairs was even started.

[1][11][12] Bender is educated and has an analytical mind; is full of energy; in the case of a failure keeps his optimism and has an ability to reassess the situation; has an empathy towards his subordinates, opponents and "marks"; has exceptional organizational skills, even when limited by scarce resources.