All books about: “Jean Jacques Babel. Idea without number

Domestic writer, journalist. He entered literature with stories from Odessa life...

“The Russian language is still raw, and Russian writers are, in terms of language, in a more advantageous position than French ones. In terms of artistic integrity and refinement, the French language has been brought to the utmost degree of perfection and thus complicates the work of writers. Young French writers told me about this sadly. What can replace the dryness, brilliance, and polish of old books - perhaps with a noise orchestra? [ …]

As a child, I studied poorly. At seventeen it “came upon me” and I began to read and study a lot.
Within one year I studied three languages and read many books.

To this day, I largely feed off that baggage.”

Babel I.E., Working on a story / Favorites, M., “Fiction”, 1966, pp. 404-405.

In youth "… Isaac Babel actively participated in amateur performances and composed plays. At the insistence of his father, he studied violin with the famous maestro Peter Solomonovich Stolyarsky. While studying, Isaac began to write. At that time he was barely 15 years old. For two years he composed in French under the influence G. Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant and his French teacher Valen. His father spoke about his literary work in the following way: “There were “oversights” - at night he would stain the paper, write something in French, and hide what he had written. Emmanuel Isaakovich jokingly called his son “Count Montecrist” for this. Isaac Babel himself later recalled his first stories: “I take a trifle - an anecdote, a market story - and make it into a thing that I myself cannot tear myself away from...” French sharpened the young writer's sense of literary language and style. Already in his first stories, Babel strove for stylistic grace and the highest degree of artistic expressiveness. The main property of prose was formed early: the aspiring writer was able to connect the heterogeneous layers of life and language.”

Sklyarenko V.M., Iovleva T.V., Ilchenko A.P., Rudycheva I.A., 100 famous Jews, Kharkov, “Folio”, 2006, p. 23.

"In a short autobiography (it was mythologized by the author for the sake of the political fashion of that time - Note by I.L. Vikentyev) Babel said that in 1916 A.M. Bitter“sent” him “to the people.” Isaac Emmanuilovich continued: “And I went into public life for seven years - from 1917 to 1924. During this time, I was a soldier on the Romanian front, then I served in the Cheka, in the People's Commissariat for Education, in the food expeditions of 1918, in the Northern Army against Yudenich, in the First Cavalry Army, in the Odessa Gubernia Committee, and was a publisher in the 7th Soviet printing house in Odessa, was a reporter in St. Petersburg and Tiflis, etc.” Indeed, the seven years that Babel mentions gave him a lot, but he was “in the people” even until 1916, and remained “in the people” even after he became a famous writer: he could not exist outside of the people. “The Story of My Dovecote” was experienced by a boy and much later told by a mature master. During his adolescence and early youth, Babel met the heroes of his Odessa stories - raiders and money dealers, short-sighted dreamers and romantic swindlers. Wherever he went, he immediately felt at home, entered into someone else's life. He did not stay long in Marseille, but when he talked about Marseille life, it was not the impressions of a tourist - he spoke about gangsters, about municipal elections, about a strike in the port, about some aging woman, it seems a laundress, who, having received an unexpectedly large inheritance , poisoned herself with gas.”

Erenburg I.G. , Babel was a poet, in Sat.: Memoirs of Babel / Comp.: A.N. Pirozhkova, N.N. Yurgeneva, M., “Book Chamber”, 1989, p. 47.

"Due to the constant need for money Babel, sacrificing literature, took on part-time work. He translated, wrote journalistic articles, fulfilled orders for films, and even edited articles for the Medical Encyclopedia. However, in daily work he could not reach the level of his prose. At times these writings of his descended to the level of crude propaganda. “He hasn’t printed anything new for over seven years. All this time he lives on the interest from what he printed. His art of extorting advances is amazing. He didn’t take it from anyone, to whom he didn’t owe it - all for new stories and novellas written, ready for printing,” he writes in his diary V.P. Polonsky. “You can whip me with rods on Myasnitskaya Street - I will not hand over the manuscript before the day when I consider it ready,” Babel responds in a letter Polonsky. “I have a hard time writing. And, it’s true, I’m a man of only two or three books. I can hardly do more and have time,”- quotes Babel’s words in his “Diary of a Writer” D.A. Furmanov. After Babel’s arrest, his entire archive was confiscated and has not yet been found.”

Khodasevich G.V., Genius and illness: thanks to or in spite of?, Issue 1, M., “Atomosphere”, 2005, p. 21-22.

"Metaphor. Babel. Babel's Odessa is four stories with a total volume of twenty-eight pages. In memory, it appears as a much more extensive book. The text is oversaturated with colorful, striking details, the phrase is savory, expressive, valuable in itself, - Babel one of the most quoted writers in our conversations. Babel wrote little, literary scholars often wonder why. The objective reason is clear: the thirties came, some prostituted, others fell silent, like the man who died in prison Babel. But there is also a subjective reason: Babel has exhausted the material suitable for him. For his hyperbolic, metaphorical, crudely naturalistic and at the same time romantic artistic worldview, everyday routine was not suitable. The rude and dashing grunts of the First Cavalry and the life-loving bandits of Moldavanka, “people kicked out of the right life” - lumpens, prostitutes - these are his heroes, breaking out of the framework of an established life. “... I told myself: it’s better to go on a hunger strike, prison, wandering, than sitting at a desk for ten hours a day. The wisdom of my grandfathers sat in my head: we are born to enjoy work, fight, love, we are born for this and nothing else.” Writing unusually capaciously and concentratedly, Babel “worked out” the civil war and old Odessa; in the new times of prosaic peaceful construction, planned for Stalin’s five-year plans, there was no place for his talent. It is impossible to write like this about the new way of life, collectivization and the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station: try to imagine. Here is an example of a writer’s destiny as a unity of form and content.”

Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel. BABEL Isaac Emmanuilovich (1894 1940), Russian writer. In the short stories, marked by metaphorical language, he depicts the elements and dramatic collisions of the Civil War, bringing in the personal experience of a soldier of the 1st Cavalry Army (collection... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

Russian Soviet writer. Born in Odessa into the family of a Jewish merchant. He published his first stories in the journal “Chronicle”. Then, on the advice of M. Gorky, he “went into the public eye” and changed several professions. In 1920 he was a fighter and... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

- (1894 1940) Russian writer. Dramatic collisions of the Civil War in colorful short stories in the collections Cavalry (1926), Odessa Stories (1931); plays: Sunset (1928), Maria (1935). Repressed; rehabilitated posthumously... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (July 13, 1894, Odessa March 17, 1941), Russian writer, screenwriter. Graduated from Odessa Commercial School (1915). He began his literary career in 1916 as a reporter for Maxim Gorky's magazine "Chronicle", where he published his first story. IN… … Encyclopedia of Cinema

- (1894 1940), Russian writer. In the short stories, distinguished by metaphorical imagery and colorful language (the originality of Odessa jargon), he depicted the elements and drama of the conflict of the Civil War, bringing in the personal experience of a soldier of the 1st Cavalry Army... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (b. 1894 in Odessa) one of the most famous modern fiction writers; son of a Jewish merchant. Until the age of 16, he studied the Talmud, then studied at the Odessa Commercial School. In 1915 he moved to St. Petersburg. He began his literary career in 1915 in “Chronicle”... ... Large biographical encyclopedia

BABEL Isaac Emmanuilovich- (18941941), Russian Soviet writer. Cycles of stories “Cavalry” (192325, separate edition 1926), “Odessa stories” (192124, separate edition 1931). Plays “Sunset” (1928), “Mary” (1935). Film scripts. Essays. Articles.■ Izbr., M., 1966.●… … Literary encyclopedic dictionary

I. E. Babel... Collier's Encyclopedia

- ... Wikipedia

I. E. Babel Memorial plaque in Odessa, on the house where he lived Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel (family name Bobel; July 1 (13), 1894 January 27, 1940) Russian Soviet writer. Contents... Wikipedia

Books

Odessa stories, Babel Isaac Emmanuilovich. "Benya speaks little, but he speaks with relish." The wonderful Russian writer Isaac Babel (1894-1940), like his legendary hero Benya Krik, spoke and wrote with relish - no one before him could do that.…
Odessa stories, Babel Isaac Emmanuilovich. “Benya speaks little, but he speaks with relish.” The wonderful Russian writer Isaac Babel (1894-1940), like his legendary hero Benya Krik, spoke and wrote with relish - no one before him could do that.…

Swiss Jean-Jacques Babel calculated:
that in the entire history since 3500 BC.
and to this day humanity has lived peacefully
only 292 years... How little is that...

Hoarse horns will awaken courage
In our tormented regiments.
And the scorched flags will fly up
On time-worn shafts.

The words of combat commanders will merge
In a victorious sounding chord,
Throwing rows of colorful uniforms
On the spears of enraged cohorts.

Let's mix bayonets, crossbows and whips...
The last sip will be interrupted...
Under the gnashing of interjections itching in the teeth,
And crying into a mother's handkerchief.

Burnt birds will fly high
Over the smoke of campfires...
And maybe You... will scatter the wheat
In the fields of battle ashes.

Reviews

It is a pity that these poems are not read by those who are now constantly sitting. The war in Ukraine is dangerous for them too. Ukraine and Russia supply Western Europe with bread, and, most importantly, wheat. Wise, bitter poems. The poem is successful both in form and content. Creative success. Hope.

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Youth

Writer's career

Cavalry

Creation

Arrest and execution

Babel family

Creativity Researchers

Literature

Bibliography

Editions of essays

Film adaptations

(original surname Bobel; July 1 (13), 1894, Odessa - January 27, 1940, Moscow) - Russian Soviet writer, journalist and playwright of Jewish origin, known for his “Odessa Stories” and the collection “Cavalry” about Budyonny’s First Cavalry Army.

Biography

Babel’s biography, known in many details, still has some gaps due to the fact that the autobiographical notes left by the writer himself are largely embellished, altered, or even “pure fiction” for a specific purpose that corresponded to the political moment of that time. However, the established version of the writer’s biography is as follows:

Childhood

Born in Odessa on Moldavanka in the family of a poor merchant Many Itskovich Bobel ( Emmanuel (Manus, Mane) Isaakovich Babel), originally from Bila Tserkva, and Feiga ( Fani) Aronovna Bobel. The beginning of the century was a time of social unrest and a mass exodus of Jews from the Russian Empire. Babel himself survived the pogrom of 1905 (he was hidden by a Christian family), and his grandfather Shoil became one of the three hundred Jews killed then.

To enter the preparatory class of the Odessa commercial school of Nicholas I, Babel had to exceed the quota for Jewish students (10% in the Pale of Settlement, 5% outside it and 3% for both capitals), but despite the positive marks that gave the right to study , the place was given to another young man, whose parents gave a bribe to the school management. During the year of education at home, Babel completed a two-class program. In addition to traditional disciplines, he studied the Talmud and studied music.

Youth

After another unsuccessful attempt to enter Odessa University (again due to quotas), he ended up at the Kiev Institute of Finance and Entrepreneurship, where he graduated under his original name Bobel. There he met his future wife Evgenia Gronfein, the daughter of a wealthy Kyiv industrialist, who fled with him to Odessa.

Fluent in Yiddish, Russian and French, Babel wrote his first works in French, but they have not reached us. Then he went to St. Petersburg, without, according to his own recollections, the right to do so, since the city was outside the Pale of Settlement. (A document issued by the Petrograd police in 1916, which allowed Babel to reside in the city while studying at the Psychoneurological Institute, has recently been discovered, which confirms the inaccuracy of the writer in his romanticized autobiography). In the capital, he managed to immediately enroll in the fourth year of the law faculty of the Petrograd Psychoneurological Institute.

Babel published his first stories in Russian in the journal “Chronicle” in 1915. “Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofyevna” and “Mother, Rimma and Alla” attracted attention, and Babel was about to be tried for pornography (Article 1001), which was prevented by the revolution. On the advice of M. Gorky, Babel “went into the public eye” and changed several professions.

In the fall of 1917, Babel, after serving for several months as a private, deserted and made his way to Petrograd, where in December 1917 he went to work in the Cheka, and then in the People's Commissariat for Education and in food expeditions. In the spring of 1920, on the recommendation of M. Koltsov, under the name Kirill Vasilievich Lyutov was sent to the 1st Cavalry Army as a war correspondent for Yug-ROST, and was a fighter and political worker there. He fought with her on the Romanian, northern and Polish fronts. Then he worked at the Odessa Provincial Committee, was the producing editor of the 7th Soviet printing house, and a reporter in Tiflis and Odessa, at the State Publishing House of Ukraine. According to the myth he himself voiced in his autobiography, he did not write during these years, although it was then that he began to create the cycle of “Odessa Stories.”

Writer's career

Cavalry

In 1920, Babel was assigned to the 1st Cavalry Army, under the command of Semyon Budyonny and became a participant in the Soviet-Polish War of 1920. Throughout the campaign, Babel kept a diary (Cavalry Diary, 1920), which served as the basis for a collection of short stories, Cavalry, in which the violence and cruelty of the Russian Red Army soldiers strongly contrasts with the intelligence of Babel himself.

Several stories, which were later included in the collection "Cavalry", were published in Vladimir Mayakovsky's magazine "Lef" in 1924. Descriptions of the brutality of the war were far from revolutionary propaganda of the time. Babel has ill-wishers, so Semyon Budyonny was furious with how Babel described the life and way of life of the Red Army soldiers and demanded the execution of the writer. But Babel was under the patronage of Maxim Gorky, which guaranteed the publication of the book, which was subsequently translated into many languages of the world. Kliment Voroshilov in 1924 complained to Dmitry Manuilsky, a member of the Central Committee and later the head of the Comintern, that the style of the work about the Cavalry was “unacceptable.” Stalin believed that Babel wrote about “things that he did not understand.” Gorky expressed the opinion that the writer, on the contrary, “decorated from the inside” the Cossacks “better, more truthfully than Gogol the Cossacks.”

The famous Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges wrote about “Cavalry”:

Creation

In 1924, he published a number of stories in the magazines “Lef” and “Krasnaya Nov”, which later formed the cycles “Cavalry” and “Odessa Stories”. Babel managed to masterfully convey in Russian the style of literature created in Yiddish (this is especially noticeable in “Odessa Stories,” where in some places the direct speech of his characters is an interlinear translation from Yiddish).

Soviet criticism of those years, while paying tribute to the talent and significance of Babel’s work, pointed to “antipathy to the cause of the working class” and reproached him for “naturalism and apology for the spontaneous principle and romanticization of banditry.”

In “Odessa Stories,” Babel depicts in a romantic way the life of Jewish criminals of the early 20th century, finding exotic features and strong characters in the everyday life of thieves, raiders, as well as artisans and small traders. The most memorable hero of these stories is the Jewish raider Benya Krik (his prototype is the legendary Mishka Yaponchik), in the words of the “Jewish Encyclopedia” - the embodiment of Babel’s dream of a Jew who can stand up for himself.

In 1926, he edited the first Soviet collected works of Sholem Aleichem, and the following year he adapted Sholem Aleichem’s novel “Wandering Stars” for film production.

In 1927, he took part in the collective novel “Big Fires,” published in the magazine “Ogonyok.”

In 1928 Babel published the play “Sunset” (staged at the 2nd Moscow Art Theater), and in 1935 - the play “Maria”. Babel also wrote several scripts. A master of the short story, Babel strives for laconicism and accuracy, combining enormous temperament with external dispassion in the images of his characters, plot collisions and descriptions. The flowery, metaphor-laden language of his early stories is later replaced by a strict and restrained narrative style.

In the subsequent period, with the tightening of censorship and the advent of the era of great terror, Babel published less and less. Despite his doubts about what was happening, he did not emigrate, although he had the opportunity to do so, visiting his wife, who lived in France, in 1927, 1932 and 1935, and the daughter born after one of these visits.

Arrest and execution

On May 15, 1939, Babel was arrested at a dacha in Peredelkino on charges of “anti-Soviet conspiratorial terrorist activity” and espionage (case No. 419). During his arrest, several manuscripts were confiscated from him, which turned out to be lost forever (15 folders, 11 notebooks, 7 notebooks with notes). The fate of his novel about the Cheka remains unknown.

During interrogations, Babel was subjected to severe torture. He was sentenced to capital punishment by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and executed the next day, January 27, 1940. The execution list was signed personally by Joseph Stalin. Among the possible reasons for Stalin's hostility towards Babel is the fact that he was a close friend of Ya. Okhotnikov, I. Yakir, B. Kalmykov, D. Schmidt, E. Yezhova and other “enemies of the people.”

In 1954 he was posthumously rehabilitated. With the active assistance of Konstantin Paustovsky, who loved Babel very much and left warm memories of him, after 1956 Babel was returned to Soviet literature. In 1957, the collection “Favorites” was published with a foreword by Ilya Ehrenburg, who called Isaac Babel one of the outstanding writers of the 20th century, a brilliant stylist and master of the short story.

Babel family

Evgenia Borisovna Gronfein, with whom he was legally married, emigrated to France in 1925. His other (common-law) wife, with whom he entered into a relationship after breaking up with Evgenia, is Tamara Vladimirovna Kashirina (Tatyana Ivanova), their son, named Emmanuel (1926), later became famous during the Khrushchev era as the artist Mikhail Ivanov (member of the Group of Nine "), and was brought up in the family of his stepfather, Vsevolod Ivanov, considering himself his son. After breaking up with Kashirina, Babel, who traveled abroad, was reunited for some time with his legal wife, who bore him a daughter, Natalya (1929), married to the American literary critic Natalie Brown (under whose editorship the complete works of Isaac Babel were published in English).

Babel’s last (common-law) wife, Antonina Nikolaevna Pirozhkova, gave birth to his daughter Lydia (1937), and has lived in the USA since 1996. In 2010, at the age of 101, she came to Odessa and looked at the model of her husband’s monument. She died in September 2010.

Influence

Babel’s work had a huge influence on the writers of the so-called “South Russian school” (Ilf, Petrov, Olesha, Kataev, Paustovsky, Svetlov, Bagritsky) and received wide recognition in the Soviet Union, his books were translated into many foreign languages.

The legacy of the repressed Babel in some ways shared his fate. He began to be published again only after his “posthumous rehabilitation” in the 1960s, however, his works were heavily censored. The writer's daughter, American citizen Natalie Babel (Brown, English. NatalieBabelBrown, 1929-2005) managed to collect hard-to-find or unpublished works and publish them with commentaries (“The Complete Works of Isaac Babel”, 2002).

Creativity Researchers

One of the first researchers of the work of I.E. Babel was the Kharkov literary critic and theater critic L.Ya. Lifshits

Literature

Kazak V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the 20th century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917. - M.: RIK "Culture", 1996. - 492 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8
Voronsky A., I. Babel, in his book: Literary portraits. vol. 1. - M. 1928.
I. Babel. Articles and materials. M. 1928.
Russian Soviet prose writers. Biobibliographic index. vol. 1. - L. 1959.
Belaya G.A., Dobrenko E.A., Esaulov I.A. "Cavalry" by Isaac Babel. M., 1993.
Zholkovsky A.K., Yampolsky M. B. Babel/Babel. - M.: Carte blanche. 1994. - 444 p.
Esaulov I. Logic of the cycle: “Odessa Stories” by Isaac Babel // Moscow. 2004. No. 1.
Krumm R. Creating a biography of Babel is the task of a journalist.
Mogultai. Babel // Mogultai's Destiny. - September 17, 2005.
The enigma of Isaac Babel: biography, history, context / edited by Gregory Freidin. - Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2009. - 288 p.

Memory

Currently in Odessa, citizens are collecting funds for a monument to Isaac Babel. Already received permission from the city council; the monument will stand at the intersection of Zhukovsky and Rishelievskaya streets, opposite the house where he once lived. The grand opening is planned for early July 2011, on the occasion of the writer’s birthday.

Bibliography

In total, Babel wrote about 80 stories, collected in collections, two plays and five film scripts.

A series of articles “Diary” (1918) about work in the Cheka and Narkompros
A series of essays “On the Field of Honor” (1920) based on front-line notes of French officers
Collection "Cavalry" (1926)
Jewish Stories (1927)
"Odessa Stories" (1931)
Play "Sunset" (1927)
Play "Maria" (1935)
The unfinished novel “Great Krinitsa”, from which only the first chapter “Gapa Guzhva” (“New World”, No. 10, 1931) was published
fragment of the story “The Jewish Woman” (published in 1968)

Editions of essays

Favorites. (Foreword by I. Ehrenburg). - M. 1957.
Favorites. (Introductory article by L. Polyak). - M. 1966.
Selected items: for youth/Compiled, preface. and comment. V. Ya. Vakulenko. - F.: Adabiyat, 1990. - 672 p.
Diary 1920 (cavalry). M.: MIC, 2000.
Cavalry I.E. Babel. - Moscow: Children's literature, 2001.
Collected works: In 2 volumes - M., 2002.
Selected stories. Ogonyok Library, M., 1936, 2008.
Collected works: in 4 volumes / Comp., notes, intro. Art. Sukhikh I.N. - M.: Time, 2006.

A new selection of questions for “What? Where? When” at home. Let's spend time with friends for the benefit of the mind :)

As always, the questions have already been tested on friends and relatives))

Questions with answers:

The cocked hat originated in the 16th century from a military hat with a folded brim. What military necessity was the reason for this?

Answer: the fields interfered with the shooting of firearms.

A cow and a chair, a chicken and a compass, a tripod and a piano. What do every couple have in common?

Answer: number of legs.

Humans are more than 75% water. Blood consists of 90% water. What is the driest thing in the human body?

Answer: tooth enamel

In 1893, mechanic Henry Arons invented something without which modern jeans are unthinkable. What?

Answer: zipper.

The Swiss Jean-Jacques Babel calculated that from 3500 BC. Humanity has only spent 292 years without... What?

Answer: no wars.

In the ancient Icelandic saga there is such an episode: an evil stepmother forced her two stepdaughters to wash clothes on the seashore in winter. A piercing wind was blowing and the girls, wearing only linen shirts, were shivering from the cold. The glorious knights Garvig and Ortwich passed by and handed their cloaks to the girls. But the noble sisters flatly refused to wear cloaks. Why?

Answer: the raincoats were men's.

Many buffoons in ancient times had a rattle made from a bull's bladder. What plant fruits were inside this bubble?

Answer: pea - "pea jester."

In the USA, Reebok sneakers of the original assembly are sold: the right shoe is made in Taiwan, and the left one is made in Thailand. Thus, the company significantly reduced its losses. Why did the company suffer losses?

Answer: due to the theft of shoes from finished goods factories.

In one American city, local librarians organized an unusual exhibition. Among the various pieces of paper, visitors could see slices of lard, kitchen knives, surgical gloves and razor blades. What did the exhibits serve in their time?

Answer: bookmarks.

They say about a friend: mine to the grave, mine to the tips of my fingers. They said about the Lame Commander - my up to... to what?

Answer: ...to the holes. Moidodyr.

Recently, in the West, on some tourist maps, for the convenience of walking, walking contours of equidistance from the hotel and distances are marked not in meters or km, but in what?

Answer: hours' walk.

The thrifty Japanese government has called on all employees to go to work in the summer without ties or jackets. What is the government going to save on?

Answer: on the electricity spent on air conditioning. (2)

On the walls of the Sahurn pyramid you can find images of working people wearing what looks like swimming trunks with a square piece of leather on the back. What is the profession of these people?

Answer: they are rowers.

Telemail, guardsmen, Polyglot printing house, bank, library, museum team. In which country's football championship do these teams participate?

Answer: Vatican.

Which Moscow building bears the name of a prominent beggar and madman?

Answer: St. Basil's Cathedral.

Question 5: For the British it is a drop falling on the snow, for the French it is “pierce the snow”, for the Germans it is “snow bell”. And we have?

Answer: snowdrop.

Derived from the Latin - measure, image, method, rule, prescription, this is interpreted in TSB as a short-term dominance of taste, while in Dahl it is a walking custom. What is it if women are more susceptible to this?

Answer: fashion.

In such cases, the Chinese speak of bird, the Germans - of Spanish, the British - of Greek, and the Turks - of French. Name the two-word phraseology that Russians remember.

Answer: Chinese letter.

At the site chosen for the dam, engineers from Wisconsin discovered the remains of a dam built in 870 BC. Who needed a dam in such ancient times?

Answer: beaver.

The most popular way to transport people in the world?

Answer: on foot.

The management of the hotel in the city of Matsushiro provides guests with a discount when paying for a room: with three, clients receive a free bottle of beer, with four, the payment is reduced by 50%, with five, there is no need to pay for the room. Why are benefits provided to guests?

Answer: Because of earthquakes.

Where, according to the poet I. Brodsky, is the lack of space compensated for by an excess of time?

Answer: in prison.

In the late eighties, a Spanish journalist published a book, by analogy with Tolkien’s famous book, called “The Lords of the Rings.” But it was not at all fantastic, but on the contrary, it was devoted to completely earthly issues: corruption. And where?

Answer: at the International Olympic Committee.

As a child, HE wandered and wandered for some time, so to speak, living up to his surname. This continued until HE ended up in an orphanage. Name in two words the “month” for which he became famous.

Answer: Tender May.