Ostap Bender - Character

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). To put in simple terms, he is a con artist. All of this is especially intriguing, as Bender's ideal in life is to quit the Soviet Union for good.

Ostap Bender's origins are mysterious; he mentions only that his father was "a Turkish subject" and that his full name is Ostap-Sulayman-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 Jewish origin from a port city in Novorossiya, most probably Odessa (now in Ukraine), where many Jews claimed Turkish citizenship to evade discrimination and conscription for military service. While some of them indeed held the Turkish citizenship as for example Martov. In The Little Golden Calf, Ostap Bender is also called "Бендер-Задунайский" ("Bender-Zadunaisky", literally: "Bender-Trans-Danubian") and "Остап Ибрагимович" (Ostap Ibragimovich, where "Ibragimovich" is a patronymic, literally meaning "son of Ibrahim"). The city of Bender and the Danube river are historically and geographically close to both the large regional city of Odessa and the former Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Ostap Bender dreams of 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 has broken, ladies and gentlemen of the jury!" ("Лёд тронулся, господа присяжные заседатели!", said to declare the onset of a progress in something after a period of deadlock, uncertainty, or stagnation); "I will be commanding the parade!" ("Командовать парадом буду я!", semiformally uttered upon taking charge of something); and "Perhaps you'd also like the key to the apartment where the money is stashed?" ("Может быть, тебе дать ещё ключ от квартиры, где деньги лежат?", in response to unreasonable requests).

The prototype of Ostap Bender was Osip Shor, a brother of a Russian poet-futurist Natan Shor. Osip Shor was a person of adventurous life and a good story-teller. Many of his tales served as a base of the adventures of Ostap Bender.