What is it about?
In 1935, two Soviet satirists, Ilia Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, undertook a 10,000-mile American road trip from New York to Hollywood and back accompanied only by their guide and chauffeur, a gregarious Russian Jewish immigrant and his American-born, Russian-speaking wife. They immortalized their journey in a popular travelogue that condemned American inequality and racism even as it marveled at American modernity and efficiency. Lisa Kirschenbaum reconstructs the epic journey of the two Soviet funnymen and their encounters with a vast cast of characters, ranging from famous authors, artists, poets and filmmakers to unemployed hitchhikers and revolutionaries. Using the authors' notes, US and Russian archives, and even FBI files, she reveals the role of ordinary individuals in shaping foreign relations as Ilf, Petrov and the immigrants, communists, and fellow travelers who served as their hosts, guides, and translators became creative actors in cultural exchange between the two countries.
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Photo by Zack Marshall on Unsplash
Why is it important?
*Challenges a simplistic view of Soviet-US relations in the 1930s, foregrounding ordinary individuals as drivers of cultural exchange *Provides an engaging panorama of the United States during the Great Depression from the perspective of two perceptive and funny Soviet observers *Illuminates the understudied question of how Soviet travelers in the United States interacted with Russian and Jewish American immigrant communities
Perspectives
Eighty-four years after Ilf and Petov's epic American road trip, I decided to retrace their route and uncover their American contacts. I was motivated by a desire to explore the hopeful if fleeting moment when the Soviet Union and the United States engaged in the project of constructing friendly relations. Read against Ilf and Petrov’s letters and narratives, the American stories illuminate the shared concerns as well as the preconceptions and misconceptions that shaped and sometimes limited efforts to understand the Other.
Professor Lisa A Kirschenbaum
West Chester University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Introduction, February 2024, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/9781009008914.001.
You can read the full text:
Resources
- Interview
History Extra Podcast
A Soviet Road Trip through 1930s America After years of suspicion and hostility, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States had improved by the 1930s. In this episode, Lisa Kirschenbaum tells Danny Bird about how two Soviet satirists, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, launched a remarkable road trip across America in the middle of that fraught decade. From inedible T-bone steaks and coming face-to-face with President Roosevelt, to the grim reality of Jim Crow, it was a journey that continues to fascinate to this day.
- Interview
New Books Network
An interview with Iva Glisic on the book Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists.
- Interview
Eurasian Knot Podcast
In 1935, two Soviet funny men, Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, set off to America. They didn’t emigrate. Or go to make an official state visit. Their mission, interestingly, was a particularly American one–to take a 10,000 mile road trip from New York to Hollywood and back. Armed with a used car, a map, and a Russian Jewish immigrant and his wife as translator and guide, the dynamic duo passed through cities big and small, the Midwest and the deep South, up and down the West and East coasts, and met a variety of people in between. Ilf and Petrov published their travelog as “One-Story America '' in 1937. What was the purpose of Ilf and Petrov’s road trip? Why a road trip? What did they think of America and Americans? And to what extent did their ideological lenses warp their perception of American realities? The Eurasian Knot put these questions and more to Lisa Kirschenbaum about her new book Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists: Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip published by Cambridge University Press.
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