The creativity of Ilf and Petrov is a complex phenomenon. With wooden a priori standards, this living element of humor cannot be approached, it is harmful. And it is no less harmful to turn a blind eye to the undoubted, lasting and enduring success of The Twelve Chairs, The Golden Calf, The Merry Unit or The Notebooks. After all, the more the book is read, the more carefully it should be analyzed. The policy of expectant silence - for all its external harmlessness - leads not only to the artificial impoverishment of Soviet literature, but also opens up the opportunity for distorters of historical truth to freely interpret the work of satirists at random.