In Ilf and Petrov's "The Golden Calf" the word
голова is used idiomatically, in the sense "good brains:"
–
Бриан! – говорили они с жаром. – Вот это голова! Он со своим проектом
пан-Европы...
Briand!*
- they [old men in the pique waistcoats] said with animation - He has
good brains indeed! With his project of pan-Europe... (Chapter XIV: "The First
Rendezvous")
The
setting of "The Golden Calf" is Chernomorsk. The villain in Pushkin's "Ruslan
and Lyudmila" is an evil dwarf Chernomor. He has a brother, Golova
(the still alive gigantic head that was chopped off by
Chernomor).
Château
+ Briand = Châteaubriand; Golova (head) + Veen = Golovin. Ivan Ilyich dies
in Tolstoy's story, but he lives on as a pouf ("ivanilich, a kind of
sighing old hassock upholstered in leather:" 1.37) and as Van Veen (whose
first name needs but the initial I to become Ivan and whose family name
looks as if it were the Englished last syllable of Ivan Ilyich's
surname) in Ada.
*Aristide
Briand,
1862-1932, a French statesman
Alexey
Sklyarenko