Ostap Bender is a fictional con man

Confidence trick

A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...

 and antihero who first appeared in the novel The Twelve Chairs

The Twelve Chairs

The Twelve Chairs is a classic satirical novel by the Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1928. Its main character Ostap Bender reappears in the book's sequel The Little Golden Calf.-Plot:...

written by Soviet authors Ilya Ilf

Ilya Ilf

Ilya Ilf was an extremely popular Soviet author of the 1920s and 1930s, who worked in collaboration with Yevgeni Petrov. See Ilf and Petrov for more info....

 and

Ilf and Petrov

Ilya Ilf Ilya Ilf Ilya Ilf (Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg and Evgeny or Yevgeni Petrov (Yevgeniy Petrovich Kataev or Katayev were two Soviet prose authors of the 1920s and 1930s...

 Yevgeni Petrov and released in January 1928

1928 in literature

The year 1928 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Ford Madox Ford publishes Last Post. It is the final book of a four-volume work titled Parade's End published between 1924 and 1928....

.

Appearances

Proclaiming himself the "great combinator", Ostap Bender searches for a stash of diamond

Diamond

In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...

s hidden in one of the twelve eponymous chairs. The action takes place in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 during the New Economic Policy

New Economic Policy

The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...

 era. At the end of the novel, he is killed by his partner, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobianinov, who does not want to share the treasure with Bender when it seems like they are about to reach their goal. The name "Ostap Bender" has become an archetypal name

Archetypal name

Archetypal names are proper names of real, mythological, or fictional characters that have become designations for archetypes of certain personal traits.Archetypal names are a literary device used to allude to a certain traits of a character or a plot....

 for a con man in the Russian language.

The character's death was retcon

Retcon

Retroactive continuity is the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work. Retcons are done for many reasons, including the accommodation of sequels or further derivative works in a series, wherein newer authors or creators want to revise the in-story history to allow a course...

ned away in 1931

1931 in literature

The year 1931 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Cherokee playwright Lynn Riggs' play Green Grow the Lilacs premiers. It would later be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein as Oklahoma!....

 in the sequel novel The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf is a famous satirical novel by Soviet authors Ilf and Petrov, released in 1931. Its main character Ostap Bender, also appeared in a previous novel of the authors called The Twelve Chairs...

, where Ostap claimed that "surgeons barely saved his life." This book was an extended satire on certain elements of Soviet life. Here, Ostap Bender follows a Soviet underground multi-millionaire, hoping to acquire some of the man's riches, and thus amass a fortune. Bender gets his money, but soon discovers he can't spend it in USSR without attracting police attention. He proceeds to lose it as he flees the country.

Character

Bender is a complex character: while displaying the traits that would befit a social parasite

Parasitism (social offense)

Social parasitism is a charge that is leveled against a group or class in society which is considered to be detrimental to the whole by analogy with biologic parasitism .-General concept:...

in Soviet official terms, he frequently seems to adhere to several Marxist

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 tenets, and is clearly an atheist

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

 (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

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 subject" and that his full name is Ostap-Sulayman-Berta

Berta

Berta is a female Germanic name or may also be a colloquial shortening of Alberta or Roberta.Berta may refer to:* Berta people, an ethnic group from western Ethiopia and eastern Sudan** Berta language, their language...

-Maria-Bender-Bey

Bey

Bey is a title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. Accoding to some sources, the word "Bey" is of Turkish language In historical accounts, many Turkish, other Turkic and Persian leaders are titled Bey, Beg, Bek, Bay, Baig or Beigh. They are all the same word...

 (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, probably from a South Russian port city, most probably Odessa

Odessa

Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...

 (now in Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

), where many Jews claimed Turkish citizenship to evade discrimination and military service

Military service

Military service, in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft . Some nations require a specific amount of military service from every citizen...

. While some of them indeed held the Turkish citizenship as for example Martov. In The Little Golden Calf he was also called Бендер-Задунайский (Bender-Zadunaisky literally: Bander-Trans-Danubian

Danube

The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....

) and Остап Ибрагимович (Ostap Ibragimovich, where "Ibragimovich" is a patronymic

Patronymic

A patronym, or patronymic, is a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father, grandfather or an even earlier male ancestor. A component of a name based on the name of one's mother or a female ancestor is a matronymic. Each is a means of conveying lineage.In many areas patronyms...

, literally meaning "son of Ibrahim

Ibrahim (name)

Ibrahim is the Arabic name of the prophet and patriarch Abraham. It is a common first name throughout the Muslim world.-Given name:*Ibrahim I , Ottoman sultan*Ibrahim I of Shirvan, a ruler of Shirvan from the Derbendid dynasty 1382-1417...

").

He dreams of travelling to Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, "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 in charge of 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?" ("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 Anatoli Fioletov (Natan Shor, :ru:Анатолий Фиолетов). 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.

Film adaptations

The Twelve Chairs was made into a slapstick comedy in a 1970 film with the same name

The Twelve Chairs (1970 film)

The Twelve Chairs is a 1970 American slapstick comedy film directed by Mel Brooks, starring Frank Langella, Dom DeLuise and Ron Moody. The screenplay was written by Brooks. The film is loosely based on a Russian 1928 novel The Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov...

 by Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks

Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...

 and Michael Hertzberg. Frank Langella

Frank Langella

-Early life:Langella, an Italian American, was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of Angelina and Frank A. Langella Sr., a business executive who was the president of the Bayonne Barrel and Drum Company. Langella attended Washington Elementary School and Bayonne High School in Bayonne...

 played the part of Ostap Bender. Shortly after that, the novel was adapted to film twice in the USSR: first in 1971

1971 in film

The year 1971 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*February 8 - Bob Dylan's hour long documentary film, Eat the Document, premieres at New York's Academy of Music...

 by Leonid Gaidai

Leonid Gaidai

Leonid Iovich Gaidai was one of the most popular Soviet comedy directors, enjoying immense popularity and broad public recognition in the former USSR & modern Russia...

 with Archil Gomiashvili as Bender, and then in 1976

1976 in film

The year 1976 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*March 22 - Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars science fiction film...

 by Mark Zakharov

Mark Zakharov

Mark Anatolyevich Zakharov is a Soviet and Russian theatrical director and playwright. He was also a professor of the Moscow Theatre Institute ....

, featuring Andrei Mironov

Andrei Mironov

Andrei Alexandrovich Mironov was a Soviet theatre and film actor who played lead roles in some of the most popular Soviet films, such as The Diamond Arm, Beware of the Car and Twelve Chairs...

 as Bender. The Little Golden Calf was filmed by Mikhail Shveytser in 1968

1968 in film

The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...

, with Sergey Yursky as Bender. In 1993

1993 in film

The year 1993 in film involved many significant films, including the blockbuster hits Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and The Firm. -Events:...

, it was adapted as "Mechty Idiota" (Idiot's Dreams) by director Vasili Pichul

Vasili Pichul

Vasili Vladimirovich Pichul is a Soviet and Russian film director, best known for his film Little Vera , released in 1988...

, starring pop singer Sergei Krylov as Bender. In 2006

2006 in film

- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...

, the Russian Channel One

Channel One (Russia)

Channel One is the first television channel to broadcast in the Soviet Union. The channel was renamed Ostankino Channel 1 in 1991, after the Soviet Union broke up and the Russian SFSR became the Russian Federation. According to a recent government publication, the Russian government controls 51%...

 aired a new mini-series based on the novel starring Oleg Menshikov

Oleg Menshikov

Oleg Evgenyevich Menshikov ; is a Russian entertainer. He is a film and theatre actor, singer and director. He started his film career in the early 1980s playing in the comedy Pokrovskie vorota and in Nikita Mikhalkov's Rodnya....

as Bender.