Another participant in the literary meetings at the National Library of Armenia was Sergey Belyakov - a contemporary Russian writer, historian, literary critic, and laureate of literary awards. Literary critic Ivan Rodionov conducted the conversation with him. The topic of the meeting: "Ostap Bender. Character creators and prototypes - real and fictional." "The Twelve Chairs" and "The Little Golden Calf" are among the most famous novels of Russian literature of the 20th century. Ostap Bender is one of the most famous Russian literary heroes, almost as famous as Eugene Onegin, Grigory Pechorin, Rodion Raskolnikov, Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov. But who was his prototype, or did he have a prototype?

In 1978, Valentin Kataev told the story of the creation of the novel "The Twelve Chairs" and cited the name of Ostap Shor as a prototype. Was Shor the prototype of Bender or was it a literary forgery by Valentin Kataev?. In the last 10-12 years, a new strange myth has appeared, according to which the author of the novels about Ostap Bender was not Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, but their old friend Mikhail Bulgakov. Is this true? History is a science that helps separate truth from lies, debunk myths and understand how everything happened.

Historian and writer Sergei Belyakov is currently working on the book "The Kataev Brothers". Yesterday his speech was devoted to the content of his future book. The meetings with contemporary Russian writers in the National Library took place on the Institute of Translation (Moscow) initiative, within the framework of the program of Russia's participation in international book festivals and book fairs, simultaneously with the Yerevan International Book Festival.