Literary stand‑up “Station of Words” with Ivan Tolstoy.Creative Freedom and the State Assignment. What Ilf and Petrov Kept Silent About.

“The Prague Book Tower” continues to develop new event formats and introduce audiences to unusual cultural spaces across the city.
We are launching a series of four evenings with philologist and literary historian Ivan Tolstoy — hosted in the atmospheric Foyer Café at Prague’s Main Railway Station.

Literary Stand‑Up “The Station of Words” with Ivan Tolstoy.
16 June, 18:30 — Evening Three: Creative Freedom and the State Assignment. What Did Ilf and Petrov Keep Silent About?

The cheerful novel The Twelve Chairs is one of the most exhilarating books ever written.

A symbol of free laughter. A satire on Soviet life as a whole — as if censorship simply didn’t exist.

And yet the novel was commissioned by the GPU — not just commissioned, but delivered with strict deadlines, prescribed plotlines, subtext, and in some places even the text itself.

How could this have happened? Am I slandering the brilliant co‑authors? Am I diminishing their natural talent?

A literary stand‑up by Ivan Tolstoy.