A.Platonov. Unknown flower
In the family of Platon Firsovich Klimentov, a mechanic at railway workshops, Andrei was the eldest of eleven children. After studying at the diocesan and city schools, as a fourteen-year-old boy, he began working as a delivery boy, foundry worker, assistant driver on a steam locomotive, and during the Civil War, on an armored train. “...Besides the field, the village, my mother and the ringing of bells, I also loved (and the more I live, the more I love) steam locomotives, a car, a whining whistle and sweaty work.”(Autobiographical letter). Andrei Platonov was called “a philosopher-worker” or “a poet-worker” in Voronezh - under this name he published poems and philosophical sketches in local newspapers: for example, “Audible Steps. Revolution and mathematics". In 1921, his brochure “Electrification” was published. General concepts”, and in 1922 - a book of poems “Blue Depth”.
He was an electrical engineer and land reclamation worker, built a hydroelectric power station on the Don, cleaned up the Chernaya Kalitva and Tikhaya Sosna rivers, invented "experienced gas diesel locomotive" And "electric aircraft powered by long-distance power lines", developed the “half-metro” project. With regard to the transformation of the earth and humanity, the ideas of A.A. Bogdanov, K.A. Timiryazev, N.F. Fedorov, K.E. Tsiolkovsky were close to him. However, he said: “I love wisdom more than philosophy, and knowledge more than science.”.
In 1927, Platonov received an appointment from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture to head the provincial land reclamation department in Tambov. “Wandering through the outback, I saw such sad things that I did not believe that luxurious Moscow, art and prose existed somewhere”. In Tambov he wrote almost simultaneously fantastic story"Ethereal tract" historical story“Epiphanian Locks”, the satire “City of Grads” and the novel “Chevengur” (“Builders of the Country”).
A completely unique writer has appeared in Russian literature. Until now, both readers and researchers are often perplexed: is his writing style naive or refined? According to Platonov himself, “a writer is a victim and an experimenter rolled into one. But this is not done on purpose, it just happens naturally.”.
Very soon, especially after the publication of the story “The Doubting Makar” and the poor peasant chronicle “For Future Use,” frantic adherents of ideological purity declared Platonov’s works ambiguous, petty-bourgeois and harmful.
In the thirties, in Moscow, Platonov worked a lot, but rarely published. “Chevengur”, the stories “The Pit” and “The Juvenile Sea”, the play “14 Red Huts”, and the novel “Happy Moscow” will be published decades after the author’s death.
“...Can I be a Soviet writer, or is this objectively impossible?”- Platonov asked M. Gorky in 1933. However, before the First Congress of Soviet Writers, he was included in the so-called writing brigade heading to Central Asia, and also - as a land reclamation specialist - in the detachment of the Turkmen complex expedition of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
“I traveled far into the desert, where there is an eternal sand hurricane”.
“...There is nothing there except rare muddy wells, reptiles, the sky and empty sand...”
“The ruins (walls) are made of clay, but terribly strong. All of Asia is clay, poor and empty.”.
“The desert under the stars made a huge impression on me. I understood something that I didn’t understand before.”.
(From letters to his wife Maria Alexandrovna)
This trip gave Platonov the idea for the story “Takyr” and the story “Dzhan”, but only “Takyr” was published immediately. 
The collection of short stories “The Potudan River” (1937) caused a wave of rabid criticism. Platonov was accused "Yurod speeches" And "religious dispensation". In May 1938, the writer’s fifteen-year-old son, Plato, was arrested following a horrific libel. Thanks to the intercession of M. Sholokhov, the boy was released from the camp, but he soon died. “...I made such important conclusions from his death here during the war, which you will learn about later, and this will console you a little in your grief.”, - Platonov wrote to his wife from the front.
He achieved his appointment as a war correspondent in the active army. D. Ortenberg recalls: “Platonov’s modest and outwardly inconspicuous figure probably did not correspond to the reader’s idea of the writer’s appearance. The soldiers did not feel constrained in his presence and spoke freely about their soldier topics.”. Platonov’s war stories were published in newspapers and magazines “Znamya”, “Red Star”, “Red Army Man”, “Red Navy Man”. Three collections of these stories were published in Moscow. Official criticism regarded them as "literary tricks". At the front, Platonov was shell-shocked and fell ill with tuberculosis; demobilized in February 1946.
He wrote a lot, especially at the end of his life, for children and about children: retellings of Bashkir and Russian folk tales (published with the assistance of M. Sholokhov), several plays for children's theater(“Granny’s Hut”, “Good Titus”, “Step-Daughter”, “Lyceum Student” - young viewers they were never seen), collections of stories “The July Thunderstorm” and “All Life” (the first book was published in 1939, the second was banned). In his work, Platonov always took a keen interest in childhood, old age, poverty and other extremes of existence, because he had long known and remembered: people near non-existence understand meanings of life that are inaccessible to them in vanity. And in the human soul, he said, there are spaces even larger than in the interstellar deserts.
Svetlana Malaya
WORKS OF A.P.PLATONOV
COLLECTED WORKS: 3 volumes / Comp., intro. Art. and note. V. Chalmaeva. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1984-1985.
COLLECTED WORKS: In 5 volumes: To the 100th anniversary of the writer’s birth. - M.: Informpechat, 1998.
WORKS: [In 12 volumes]. - M.: IMLI RAS, 2004-.
And this publication is announced only as an approach to the complete collected works of Andrei Platonov.
- Works,
included in the reading circle of high school students -
"Hidden Man"
“Pukhov was always surprised by space. It calmed him in his suffering and increased his joy, if there was a little of it.”.
Machinist, Red Army soldier and wanderer Foma Pukhov is a hidden person, “because nowhere can you find the end of a person and it is impossible to draw a large-scale map of his soul”.
"Jan"
In the area of the Amu Darya delta, a small nomadic people from different nationalities: fugitives and orphans from everywhere and old, exhausted slaves who were driven away, girls who fell in love with those who suddenly died, and they did not want anyone else as husbands, people who do not know God, mockers of the world... This people was not called anything, but to itself gave the name - jan. According to Turkmen belief, jan is a soul that seeks happiness.
"Epifanskie locks"
In the spring of 1709, the English engineer Bertrand Perry came to Russia to build a canal between the Don and Oka. But already on the way to Epifan he “I was horrified by Peter’s idea: the land turned out to be so large, so famous is the vast nature through which it is necessary to arrange a water passage for ships. On the tablets in St. Petersburg it was clear and handy, but here, on the midday journey to Tanaid, it turned out to be crafty, difficult and powerful.”.
"Pit"
The diggers and the restless worker Voshchev, who has pestered them, are digging a pit for the foundation of the future common proletarian house.
“The mown wasteland smelled of dead grass and the dampness of naked places, which made the general sadness of life and the melancholy of futility more clearly felt. Voshchev was given a shovel, and with the cruelty of the despair of his life, he squeezed it with his hands, as if he wanted to extract the truth from the middle of the earth’s dust ... "
"Juvenile Sea (Sea of Youth)"
State farm meeting in Parents' Yards “decided to build wind heating and dig deep into the earth, right down to the mysterious virgin seas, in order to release compressed water from there onto the daytime surface of the earth, and then plug the well, and then a new fresh sea will remain in the middle of the steppe - to quench the thirst of grass and cows”.
"Chevengur"
Chevengur - county town somewhere in central Russia. Comrade Chepurny, nicknamed the Japanese, organized communism in it. “The indigenous residents of Chevengur thought that everything was about to end: something that never happened couldn’t continue for long.”.
Utopia “Chevengur” or dystopia is a controversial issue. Initially, Platonov gave the novel the title “Builders of the Country. Traveling with an open heart."
- Publications -
RECOVERY OF THE LOST: Stories; Stories; Play; Articles / Comp. M. Platonova; Entry Art. S. Semyonova; Biochronicle, comment. N. Kornienko. - M.: Shkola-Press, 1995. - 672 p. - (Reading range: School curriculum).
Contents: Stories: Epiphanian Gateways; City of Gradov; Hidden man; Pit; Juvenile Sea; Stories: Doubting Makar; Garbage wind; Also mom; Fro et al.; Play: Organ organ; Articles: Literature Factory; Pushkin is our comrade; From letters to his wife.
PITCH: [Novels, stories, stories]. - St. Petersburg: ABC-classics, 2005. - 797 p. - (ABC-classics).
Contents: Chevengur; Happy Moscow; Pit; Epifanskie locks; Spiritualized people.
PIT: [Sat.]. - M.: AST, 2007. - 473 p.: ill. - (World classics).
Contents: Juvenile Sea; Etheric tract; Epifanskie locks; Yamskaya Sloboda; City of Gradov.
PIT; CITY OF CITY; JAN; STORIES. - M.: Synergy, 2002. - 462 p.: ill. - (New school).
AT THE DAWN OF MISTY YOUTH: Novels and Stories / Intro. Art. N. Kornienko. - M.: Det. lit., 2003. - 318 p. - (School library).
Contents: Hidden Man; Pit; Sandy teacher; Fro; At the dawn of foggy youth; In a beautiful and furious world (Machinist Maltsev); Return.
IN THE MIDNIGHT SKY: Stories / Comp. M. Platonova; Preface M. Kovrova. - St. Petersburg: ABC-classics, 2002. - 315 p. - (ABC-classics).
Contents: Doubting Makar; Potudan River; Third son; Fro; In the midnight sky, etc.
STORY; STORIES. - M.: Bustard, 2007. - 318 p. - (B-ka classic art literature).
Contents: Pit; Hidden man; Doubting Makar; Fro; In a beautiful and furious world (Machinist Maltsev).
DESCENDANTS OF THE SUN. - M.: Pravda, 1987. - 432 p. - (Adventure World).
Contents: Moon Bomb; Descendants of the Sun; Etheric tract; Armor; Jan et al.
CHEVENGUR: Novel. - M.: Synergy, 2002. - 492 p. - (New school).
CHEVENGUR: [Novel] / Comp., intro. Art., comment. E. Yablokova. - M.: Higher. school, 1991. - 654 p. - (B-literacy student).
- Stories and fairy tales for children -
MAGIC RING: Fairy tales, stories / Artist. V. Yudin. - M.: Onyx, 2007. - 192 p.: ill. - (B-younger schoolboy).
Contents: Fairy tales: The Magic Ring; Ivan the mediocre and Elena the Wise; Smart granddaughter; Hassle; Stories: Unknown Flower; Nikita; Flower on the ground; July thunderstorm; Also mom; Cow; Dry bread.
UNKNOWN FLOWER: Stories and fairy tales. - M.: Det. lit., 2007. - 240 pp.: ill. - (School library).
Contents: Unknown flower; July thunderstorm; Nikita; Flower on the ground; Dry bread; Also mom; Ulya; Cow; Love for the Motherland, or the Journey of a Sparrow; Smart granddaughter; Finist - Clear Falcon; Ivan the mediocre and Elena the Wise; Handleless; Hassle; Soldier and Queen; Magic ring.
STORIES. - M.: Bustard-Plus, 2008. - 160 p. - (School reading).
Contents: Cow; Sandy teacher; Little Soldier; Ulya; Dry bread; At the dawn of foggy youth.
“In the depths of our memory both dreams and reality are preserved; and after a while it is no longer possible to distinguish what once really appeared and what was a dream, especially if they have passed long years and the memory goes back to childhood, into the distant light of original life. In this memory of childhood, a long-past world exists unchanged and immortal..."(A. Platonov. Light of life).
- Retellings of folk tales,
made by Andrey Platonov -
BASHKIR FOLK TALES / Lit. processing A. Platonova; Preface prof. N. Dmitrieva. - Ufa: Bashkirknigoizdat, 1969. - 112 p.: ill.
The book was first published in Moscow and Leningrad in 1947.
Platonov A.P. MAGIC RING: Rus. adv. fairy tales. - Fryazino: Century 2, 2002. - 155 p.: ill.
Platonov A.P. MAGIC RING: Rus. adv. fairy tales / [Art. M. Romadin]. - M.: Rus. book, 1993. - 157 pp.: ill.
The first edition of the collection “The Magic Ring” was published in 1950.
THE SOLDIER AND THE QUEEN: Russian. adv. fairy tales retold by A. Platonov / Artist. Yu. Kosmynin. - M.: Sovrem. writer, 1993. - 123 p. - (Wonderland).
Read more about these retellings in the section “Myths, legends, folk tales”: Platonov A.P. Magic ring.
Svetlana Malaya
LITERATURE ABOUT THE LIFE AND WORK OF A.P. PLATONOV
Platonov A.P. Notebooks: Materials for a biography / Compiled, prepared. text, preface and note. N. Kornienko. - M.: IMLI RAS, 2006. - 418 p.
Andrey Platonov: World of creativity: [Sat.] / Comp. N. Kornienko, E. Shubina. - M.: Sovrem. writer, 1994. - 430 p.
Creativity of Andrey Platonov: Research and materials; Bibliography. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1995. - 356 p.
Babinsky M.B. How to read fiction: A manual for students, applicants, teachers: Using the example of the works of M. Bulgakov (“The Master and Margarita”) and A. Platonov (“The Secret Man,” “The Pit,” etc.) - M.: Valent, 1998 . - 128 p.
Vasiliev V.V. Andrey Platonov: Essay on life and work. - M.: Sovremennik, 1990. - 285 p. - (B-ka “For lovers of Russian literature”).
Geller M.Ya. Andrey Platonov in search of happiness. - M.: MIK, 1999. - 432 p.
Lasunsky O.G. Inhabitant hometown: Voronezh years of Andrei Platonov, 1899-1926. - Voronezh: Center for Spiritual Revival of the Chernozem Region, 2007. - 277 p.: ill.
Mikheev M.Yu. Into the world of Platonov through his language: Sentences, facts, interpretations, guesses. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2003. - 408 p.: ill.
Svitelsky V.A. Andrey Platonov yesterday and today. - Voronezh: Rus. literature, 1998. - 156 p.
Chalmaev V.A. Andrey Platonov: To help teachers, high school students and applicants. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2002. - 141 p. - (Rereading the classics).
Chalmaev V.A. Andrey Platonov: To the hidden person. - M.: Sov. writer, 1989. - 448 p.
Shubin L.A. Searches for the meaning of separate and common existence: About Andrei Platonov. - M.: Sov. writer, 1987. - 365 p.
Yablokov E.A. Unregulated intersections: About Platonov, Bulgakov and many others. - M.: Fifth Country, 2005. - 246 p. - (The latest research into Russian culture).
CM.
FILM Adaptations of A.P. Platonov's Works
- ART FILMS -
Lonely voice of a man. Based on the story “The Potudan River”, as well as the stories “The Hidden Man” and “The Origin of the Master”. Scene Yu.Arabova. Dir. A. Sokurov. USSR, 1978-1987. Cast: T. Goryacheva, A. Gradov and others.
Father. Based on the story "The Return". Dir. I. Solovov. Comp. A. Rybnikov. Russia, 2007. Cast: A. Guskov, P. Kutepova and others. 
The birthplace of electricity: A short story from the film anthology “The Beginning of an Unknown Century.” Scene and director L. Shepitko. Comp. R. Ledenev. USSR, 1967. Cast: E. Goryunov, S. Gorbatyuk, A. Popova and others.
- CARTOONS -
Erik. Dir. M. Titov. Production designer M. Cherkasskaya. Comp. V. Bystryakov. USSR, 1989.
Cow. Dir. A.Petrov. USSR, 1989.
The text is based on the books:
A. Platonov. Notebooks. Materials for the biography. M.: Heritage, 2000.
A Notebook of Other People's Ideas, Thoughts and Conversations (1936)
All about Andrey Platonov
Biography
Articles about Andrey Platonov:
Orlov V. Andrey Platonov: Recent years
Nagibin Yu. Fragment of the diary. Platonov's funeral
Rassadin S. Why the tyrant hated Zoshchenko and Platonov
Yuryeva A. The main biographers of Andrei Platonov were NKVD-OGPU informants
Andrey Platonov: Memories of friends and colleagues
The most important dates in the life and work of A. Platonov
Wikipedia
Joseph Brodsky about Andrei Platonov:
“Platonov was born in 1899 and died in 1951 from tuberculosis, having become infected from his son, whose release from prison he, after much effort, achieved, only for the son to die in his arms. A thin face looks at us from the photograph, as simple as countryside, looks patiently and as if willing to accept and overcome everything that befalls.” (Brodsky I. “Disasters in the Air”)
Brief biographical sketch
From the book: Mikheev M.Yu. Into the world of Platonov through his language. Assumptions, facts, interpretations, guesses. M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2002. 407 p.
“At the end of 1929, the writer was subjected to “ideological flogging” for publishing (together with B. Pilnyak) the essay “Che-Che-O”, and then, in 1931, for his own story “Doubting Makar” (published in the magazine “October” by A. Fadeev, for which the editor-in-chief immediately publicly repented and apologized, calling the story “ideologically unrestrained, anarchist”, for which, they say, he “got it right from Stalin.”
Insarov M. Andrey Platonovich Platonov (1899–1951). Life and creative path
Bolot N. Platonov Andrey Platonovich
Mikheev M.Yu. Notebooks and diaries (30s): Mikhail Prishvin, Pavel Filonov, Andrey Platonov, ...
The text is compiled from a lecture course given at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2002.
“When reading Plato’s notebooks to a reader familiar with his main key themes, sometimes the skeleton of a recognizable plot will flash, and sometimes an unknown variation of some already known character will suddenly appear. Or a thought that is not developed anywhere further, immediately torn off, will rush through, which in the future could be useful to the author and, in the event of a new return to it, would result, perhaps, in a story, tale, etc. But more often than not, it happens that in the notebook Platonov’s thought, not completed (as if “not thought through” and to us, the readers, was never presented, incomprehensible due to our lack of awareness), seems to have been stopped by the author halfway.” .
Kozhemyakin A. New pages in the life and work of writer Andrei Platonov
“As I see it, we should compare the activities of the hydromeliorator and electrifier Andrei Platonov with his first literary works.”
Simonov K. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. Reflections on I.V. Stalin
Fragment of the book by Konstantin Simonov (M., APN, 1989).
Kovrov M. Mystic of Russian victory (To the 100th anniversary of the birth of Andrei Platonov)
Dystopia is no worse than life
Conversation between correspondent G. Litvintsev and professor of Voronezh state university Vladislav Svitelsky, author of the collection of articles “Andrei Platonov Yesterday and Today.”
“It seems that if the author had ready-made answers, his works would not be so compelling and would not have such depth and power. He searched for the truth along with his heroes and his time. The crossroads of his thoughts are no less complex and tragic than the crossroads of history itself. Platonov lived in his questions and doubts. At the turn of the 20-30s, he made the necessary rethinking of ideology and practice Soviet era, to which we have only broken through on a large scale today.”
Iovanovic M. Genius at the fork in the road
From the notes of a literary critic.
“The most painful thing for the “impatient” Platonov and his heroes was the question of questions - the search for happiness (universal happiness). Russian literature, following Kant, who placed the moral law above eudaimonia (the desire for happiness), did not know this category; her heroes behaved like Pushkin, seeking not happiness, but peace and freedom. Platonov wanted to evade this tradition, to “invent” happiness both for the individual and for entire nations.”
Gumilevsky L.I. "Fate and Life"
“It’s not difficult to assume that readers’ assessments will be different. Some will be attracted by colorful pictures of the past, recreated using seemingly mundane, but artistically meaningful details. Others will be more interested in portraits of writers (we especially note the pages dedicated to Andrey Platonov)".
Basinsky P. No violinist needed
“Someday, of course, it will be modern. Someday... a day Last Judgment. When material grievances become meaningless, when it doesn’t matter where this day finds you, in a Merc or a Zaporozhets, when a shrimp seems no sweeter than a stale crust, and a luxurious car no smoother than a country road. When money won’t be needed.”
Malaya S. Platonov Andrey Platonovich
Works of Platonov
Electronic library "Librusek"
Most full meeting works by A. Platonov.
Library of Maxim Moshkov
Stories. Stories. Inhabitant of the State. Blue Depth (Book of Poems).
Classica.ru
Stories.
Stories: “The Pit”, “The Potudan River”, “The Hidden Man”, “The Juvenile Sea”.
Novels: “Happy Moscow”, “Chevengur”.
Fiction: online collection of works
“Anti-sexus”, “For future use”, “City of Gradov”, “State Resident”, “The Pit”, “Meadow Masters”, “Moscow Violin”, “Inanimate Enemy”, “Once in Love”, “Father-Mother” (script) , “Potudan River”, “Semyon”, “The Hidden Man”, “Happy Moscow”, “Doubting Makar”, “Fro”, “Chevengur”, “Juvenile Sea”.
Collection of rare texts
Once loved
Andrei Platonov in the documents of the OGPU-NKVD-NKGB.19301945 (Publication by Vladimir Goncharov and Vladimir Nekhotin)
Machinist (libretto)
Father-Mother (script)
In a beautiful and furious world (Machinist Maltsev)
Return (Ivanov Family)
City of Gradov
Pit
“Voshchev grabbed his bag and went into the night. The questioning sky shone over Voshchev with the tormenting power of the stars, but in the city the lights had already been extinguished, and whoever had the opportunity slept, having eaten his fill of dinner. Voshchev went down the crumbs of earth into the ravine and lay down there with his stomach down to fall asleep and part with himself. But sleep required peace of mind, trust in life, forgiveness of past grief, and Voshchev lay in the dry tension of consciousness and did not know whether he was useful in the world or whether everything would work out well without him? A wind blew from an unknown place so that people would not suffocate, and with a weak voice of doubt a suburban dog made its service known.”
Sandy teacher
“Four years have passed, the most indescribable years in a person’s life, when the buds burst in a young chest and femininity, consciousness blossoms, and the idea of life is born. It's strange that no one ever helps at this age young man overcome the anxieties that torment him; no one will support the thin trunk, which is torn by the wind of doubt and shaken by the earthquake of growth. Someday youth will not be defenseless.
Mary, of course, had both love and a thirst for suicide, and this bitter moisture waters every growing life.”
Hidden Man
Happy Moscow
“The clear and ascending life of Moscow Chestnova began on that autumn day when she was sitting at school by the window, already in the second group, looking at the death of leaves on the boulevard and with interest read the sign of the opposite house: Workers' and Peasants' Library-Reading Room named after A. IN. Koltsova".
Doubting Makar
Fro
“The young woman stopped in surprise in the midst of such a strange light: in the twenty years of her life, she did not remember such an empty, shining, silent space, she felt that her heart was weakening from the lightness of the air, from the hope that her loved one would come back.”
Chevengur (in the first edition - “Builders of the Country”)
“A man appears with that vigilant and sadly emaciated face who can fix and equip everything, but he himself lived his life unequipped. Any product, from a frying pan to an alarm clock, has not escaped the hands of this man. He also did not refuse to throw out soles, pour wolf shot and stamp fake medals for sale at rural antique fairs. He never made anything for himself, neither a family nor a home.”
Juvenile Sea
Sea of Youth
Articles about creativity
Section “Platonic Studies” on the website of the CHRONOS project
Articles about Andrey Platonov
Bobrova O. Andrei Platonov is a great Russian writer of the twentieth century. To the 100th anniversary of his birth
“What is there in Platonov’s prose? There is life: its pain and blood, greatness and strangeness, logic and absurdity, its fragility and infinity. This prose seems to push a person into an open, uncomfortable world. Makes you feel loneliness, suffer along with the heroes and struggle to find the truth, the meaning of all things.”
Mikheev M.Yu. Into the world of Platonov - through his language. Assumptions, facts, interpretations, guesses
Platonov created in his works, in essence, something like a religion of new times, trying to resist both traditional forms of religious cult and the fusion of heterogeneous mythologies that formed within the framework of socialist realism.
Lyuty V. About the language of Andrei Platonov
Tarasov A.B. “The Third Kingdom” as an attempt to model the world of “new” righteousness: A. Platonov and M. Tsvetaeva
Surikov V. Free thing by Andrei Platonov
About the works "Chevengur", "Pit".
“It’s a little disgusting, but then it will be good... Who doesn’t know this simplest deception, the elementary exchange of mental suffering for mental comfort, that happens every second in the myriads of human thoughts and actions? Who knows how unbearably difficult it is to resist it in everyday, insignificant things and not to be seduced by the availability of peace? Is it through this exchange that in every act, in every thought, the unsteady, elusive line between good and evil passes? Is this where the danger of mass “temptation” lurks—when some superidea, teasing universal happiness, combines these elementary movements into a mad leap?
Andrei Platonov found himself in a different role - in the role of a doubting participant in the events, who did not want, did not allow himself to step aside and desperately rushed into the very thick of events, into the hottest and most dangerous place.
“You can’t come here, here is an abyss, here is unprecedented bloody suffering, here is brutality, you can only get out of here on four paws.” All this had to be not said, but shouted out to go out in front of the enraged, breaking loose common sense ideas.
What was required was no longer dissent, but code of action.”
Ordynskaya I.N. “Chevengur” by Andrei Platonov is a symbol of love for his people
This is a very thankless task - to write the truth about one’s time; as a rule, no one is forgiven for such attempts, especially talented writers, whose works themselves seem to begin to live. After all, destroying a book is often more difficult than real person. And the images fiction they often remain immortal altogether.
About the novel “Chevengur”
A whole series of terrible sacrifices were made by the commune for the sake of increasing the “stuff of existence”, “stuff of life” repeatedly mentioned in the novel, which is key concept novel.
Joseph Brodsky. Afterword to “The Pit” by A. Platonov
“In our time, it is not customary to consider a writer outside the social context, and Platonov would be the most suitable object for such an analysis if what he does with language did not go far beyond the framework of that utopia (building socialism in Russia), a witness and chronicler which he appears in “The pit”.
About the works “Epiphanian Gateways”, “Ethereal Route”, “City of Grads”
Barsht K.A. Truth in round and liquid form. Henri Bergson in “The Pit” by Andrei Platonov // Questions of Philosophy. – 2007. – No. 4. – P. 144–157.
The idea that percussion is described in A. Platonov’s “Pit” socialist construction, not so certain. The construction theme only covers, in the form of packaging material, what is hidden inside - a philosophical mystery filled with tension.
Olga Meyerson. Undefamiliarization of Andrei Platonov: danger and the power of inertia of perception
Review of a collection of two special issues of the journal “Essays in Poetics”, which published materials from a conference on the study of Plato’s creative heritage, held in 2001 in Oxford.
Loginov V. “Happy Moscow” by A. Platonov from the point of view of an inexperienced computer user
Henryk Chlystowski. Afterword to the translation of “Happy Moscow” by Andrei Platonov
“What kind of world is created in Platonov’s works? This world (especially in “Happy Moscow”) is completely devoid of history, memory and religion, a world that wants to build everything anew, but deprived of the main foundation is forced to constantly run into the future, into delirious unrealistic fantasies, and place its hopes there. This future is beautiful, wonderful and problem-free, but you need to somehow get to it, break through the inertia of matter and human vices.”
Bulygin A., Gushchin A. “Extraneous space”. Anthroponymy of the “Pit” (fragment)
Pin L.A. Andrey Platonovich Platonov. "Revolution is like a locomotive"
Gracheva E. “Inspiration”: The Unmade Film of Andrei Platonov
This was very important for Platonov. He had just begun to recover from the brutal pogrom that the Rappovites staged for his “poor peasant chronicle” “For Future Use” (“Krasnaya Nov”, 1931, No. 9). Stalin himself decorated the margins of the chronicle with the notes “Bastard!” and “Scoundrel!”, the frightened Fadeev declared that Platonov is “a kulak agent of the latest formation,” and off we go...
ANDREY PLATONOV - Russian Soviet writer and playwright, one of the most original Russian writers in style and language of the first half of the 20th century.
Born on August 28, 1899 in Voronezh. Father - Klimentov Platon Firsovich - worked as a locomotive driver and mechanic in Voronezh railway workshops. Twice he was awarded the title of Hero of Labor (in 1920 and 1922), and in 1928 he joined the party. Mother - Lobochikhina Maria Vasilievna - daughter of a watchmaker, housewife, mother of eleven (ten) children, Andrey - the eldest. Maria Vasilievna gives birth to children almost every year, Andrey, as the eldest, takes part in raising and, later, feeding all his brothers and sisters. Both parents are buried at the Chugunovskoye cemetery in Voronezh.
In 1906 he entered the parochial school. From 1909 to 1913 he studied at a city 4-grade school.
From 1913 (or from the spring of 1914) to 1915 he worked as a day laborer and for hire, as a boy in the office of the Rossiya insurance company, as an assistant driver on a locomotive on the Ust estate of Colonel Bek-Marmarchev. In 1915 he worked as a foundry worker at a pipe factory. From the autumn of 1915 to the spring of 1918 - in many Voronezh workshops - for the production of millstones, casting, etc.
In 1918 he entered the electrical engineering department of the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute; serves in the main revolutionary committee of the South-Eastern railways, in the editorial office of the magazine "Iron Path". Participated in Civil War as a frontline correspondent. Since 1919 he published his works, collaborating with several newspapers as a poet, publicist and critic. In the summer of 1919, he visited Novokhopyorsk as a correspondent for the newspaper Izvestia of the Defense Council of the Voronezh Fortified Region. Soon after this he was mobilized into the Red Army. He worked until the fall on a steam locomotive for military transportation as an assistant driver; then he was transferred to a Special Purpose Unit (CHON) in a railway detachment as an ordinary rifleman. In the summer of 1921 he graduated from a one-year provincial party school. In the same year, his first book, the brochure “Electrification,” was published, and his poems were also published in the collective collection “Poems.” In 1922 his son Plato was born. In the same year, Platonov’s book of poems “Blue Depth” was published in Krasnodar. In the same year, he was appointed chairman of the provincial Commission on Hydrofication under the Land Department. In 1923, Bryusov responded positively to Platonov’s book of poems. From 1923 to 1926 he worked in the province as a land reclamation engineer and specialist in agricultural electrification (head of the electrification department in the Gubernia Land Administration, built three power plants, one of them in the village of Rogachevka).
In the spring of 1924 he participated in the First All-Russian Hydrological Congress, he developed projects for hydrofication of the region, and plans for insuring crops against drought. At the same time, in the spring of 1924, he again submitted an application to join the RCP (b) and was accepted by the GZO cell as a candidate, but never joined. In June 1925, Platonov’s first meeting took place with V.B. Shklovsky, who flew to Voronezh on an Aviakhim plane to promote the achievements of Soviet aviation with the slogan “Facing the Village.” In the 1920s, he changed his last name from Klimentov to Platonov (the pseudonym was formed on behalf of the writer’s father).
In 1931, the published work “For Future Use” caused sharp criticism from A. A. Fadeev and I. V. Stalin. The writer had the opportunity to catch his breath only when RAPP itself was flogged for its excesses and dissolved. In 1934, Platonov was even included in a collective writing trip around Central Asia- and this was already a sign of some trust. The writer brought the story “Takyr” from Turkmenistan, and his persecution began again: a devastating article appeared in Pravda (January 18, 1935), after which the magazines again stopped accepting Plato’s texts and returned those already accepted. In 1936 the stories “Fro”, “Immortality”, “Clay House in the District Garden”, “The Third Son”, “Semyon” were published, in 1937 - the story “The Potudan River”.
In May 1938, the writer’s fifteen-year-old son was arrested, having returned from imprisonment in the fall of 1940, terminally ill with tuberculosis, after the troubles of Platonov’s friends. The writer gets infected from his son while caring for him, and from then on until his death he will carry tuberculosis within himself. In January 1943, Platonov's son died.
During the Great Patriotic War a writer with the rank of captain serves as a war correspondent for the newspaper "Red Star", Platonov's war stories appear in print. There is an opinion that this was done with Stalin's personal permission.
At the end of 1946, Platonov’s story “Return” (“The Ivanov Family”) was published, for which the writer was attacked in 1947 and was accused of libel. In the late 1940s, deprived of the opportunity to earn a living by writing, Platonov was engaged in literary processing of Russian and Bashkir fairy tales, which are published in children's magazines. Platonov's worldview evolved from a belief in the reconstruction of socialism to an ironic image of the future.
He died on January 5, 1951 in Moscow from tuberculosis. He was buried in the Armenian cemetery. The writer left behind a daughter, Maria Platonova, who prepared her father’s books for publication.
In harsh years severe tests that befell the people during the Great Patriotic War, the writer turns to the theme of childhood in order to find and show the most hidden origins in man.
In the stories "Nikita", "Still Mother", "The Iron Old Woman", "Flower on the Ground", "Cow", "Little Soldier", "At the Dawn of Foggy Youth", "Grandfather Soldier", "Dry Bread", By creating images of children, the writer consistently conveys the idea that a person is formed as a social, moral being in early childhood.
“Still Mom” was first published in the magazine “Counselor”, 1965, No. 9. “A mother, giving birth to a son, always thinks: aren’t you the one?” Platonov wrote in his notes. Memories of his first teacher A. N. Kulagina acquire in Plato’s prose the inherent high symbolic meaning. “Mother” in the world of Plato’s artistic prose is a symbol of the soul, feelings, “needed homeland,” “salvation from unconsciousness and oblivion.” That is why “still a mother” is the one who introduces the child into the “beautiful and furious” world, teaches him to walk along its roads, and gives moral guidelines.
The writer explains the behavior of an adult as a patriot, a defender of his homeland with this most important and defining childhood experience. For a little person, learning about the world around him turns out to be a complex process of learning about himself. In the course of this cognition, the hero must take a certain position in relation to his social environment. The choice of this position is extremely important, since it determines all subsequent human behavior.
Platonov’s world of childhood is a special cosmos, into which not everyone is allowed to enter on an equal footing. This world is a prototype of the larger universe, its social portrait, blueprint and outline of hopes and great losses. The image of a child in the prose of the 20th century is always deeply symbolic. The image of a child in Platonov’s prose is not only symbolic - it is painfully concrete: it is ourselves, our life, its possibilities and its losses... truly, “the world is great in childhood...”.
“A child learns to live for a long time,” writes in notebooks Platonov, he is a self-taught student, but he is also helped by older people who have already learned to live and exist. Observing the development of consciousness in a child and his awareness of the surrounding unknown reality is a joy for us.”
Platonov is a sensitive and attentive researcher of childhood. Sometimes the title of the story itself (“Nikita”) is given by the name of the child - the main character of the work. At the center of “The July Thunderstorm” are nine-year-old Natasha and her brother Antoshka.
“The Origin of the Master” shows the reader in unforgettable detail the childhood, adolescence and youth of Sasha Dvanov, unique children’s images in other Platonic stories. Afonya from the story “Flower on the Earth”, Aidim from the story “Dzhan”, easily remembered, although not named children from the stories “The Motherland of Electricity”, “Fro”, “Moon Bomb”...
Each of these children is endowed from birth with precious properties necessary for harmonious physical and mental growth: an unconscious feeling of the joy of being, greedy curiosity and irrepressible energy, innocence, goodwill, the need to love and act.
“...In youth,” Platonov wrote, “there is always the possibility of the noble greatness of the future life: if only human society does not disfigure, distort, or destroy this gift of nature, inherited by every baby.”
However, not only a special interest in childhood and adolescence as decisive moments human life, a preferable depiction of a young hero or frank instructiveness, but also by the very essence of his talent, striving to embrace the world as a whole, as if with a single, unprejudiced and all-penetrating gaze, Platonov is close to the young. It is not for nothing that his first books and “The Secret Man” (1928) were published by the publishing house “Young Guard”, and his last lifetime collections “A Soldier’s Heart” (1946), “The Magic Ring” (1950) and others were published by the publishing house “Children’s Literature”.
It would seem that the circumstances of the lives of two little poor fellows - Sasha and Proshka Dvanov, living in a poor peasant family, are not much different. The only difference is that Sasha is an orphan and adopted in Proshkin’s house. But this is enough for little by little to form characters that are basically diametrically opposed: the selfless, honest, recklessly kind and open to all people Sasha and the cunning, predatory, on his own, resourceful Proshka
Of course, the point is not that Sasha is an orphan, but that with the help good people- Proshka’s mother, but most of all Zakhar Pavlovich - Sasha overcomes his biographical orphanhood and social orphanhood. He called it “the country of former orphans” Soviet Russia Platonov in the 30s. As if about Sasha Dvanov, independent, who knew from childhood true price bread and human kindness, said, looking back from the forties, Mikhail Prishvin in the fairy tale “ Ship thicket": "The time of our people's orphanhood is over, and new person goes down in history with feeling selfless love to his mother - native land- not with full consciousness of one’s cultural world dignity.”
Prishvin's thought is organically close to Platonov. Mother - Motherland - Father - Fatherland - family - home - nature - space - earth - this is another series of supporting concepts characteristic of Plato’s prose. “Mother... is the closest relative of all people,” we read in one of the writer’s articles. What amazingly poignant images of the mother are captured on the pages of his books: Vera and Gyulchatay (“Dzhan”), Lyuba Ivanova (“Return”), the nameless ancient old woman in “The Motherland of Electricity”... It seems that they embody all the hypostases of motherhood, which includes yourself and love, and selflessness, and strength, and wisdom, and forgiveness.
The history of the formation of man as a spiritualized personality is the main theme of A. Platonov’s stories, the heroes of which are children. Analyzing the story "Nikita", where the hero of this story, the peasant boy Nikita, painfully and difficultly overcoming age-related egocentrism, reveals himself in his kindness, is formed as a "Good Whale" (under this title the story was published in the magazine "Murzilka").
A. Platonov’s story “Still Mom” is dedicated to depicting the complex process of a private person’s transition to life “with everyone and for everyone.” The hero of this story, young Artyom, through the image of his mother, learns and comprehends the whole world, joins the great community of people of his homeland.
In the stories “The Iron Old Woman” and “Flower on the Earth” the same hero - a little man, but under a different name - Yegor, Afoni, in the process of learning about the world for the first time encounters good and evil, determines for himself the main life tasks and goals - finally defeat the greatest evil - death ("The Iron Old Woman"), discover the secret of the greatest good - eternal life ("Flower on Earth").
The path to feat in the name of life on earth, its moral origins and roots are manifested in wonderful story“At the dawn of a foggy youth”, which testifies to the unity of problematics and detail in the work of the writer of the war and pre-war years.
About the connections of creativity. Both folklorists and ethnographers wrote about A. Platonov with folklore, without focusing on the fact that the narrator’s thoughts are aimed, first of all, at revealing the moral side of the actions of the heroes of the fairy tale. The connection between A. Platonov’s creativity and folklore is much deeper and more organic. In a whole series of stories ("Nikita", "Still Mom", "Ulya", "Fro"). A. Platonov turns to the compositional scheme fairy tale, described in the classic work of V. Ya. Propp. A. Platonov writes not fairy tales, but short stories, but they are based on archaic genre structures. In that genre originality many stories by A. Platonov, which is explained not only by the stability genre forms, but also by the peculiarities of the writer’s artistic thinking, focused on the analysis and depiction of the root causes and fundamental principles of human existence.
Usually such stylistic means of creating artistic expression, as metaphor, metonymy, personification are considered as elements of poetics. In relation to a number of works by A. Platonov ("Nikita", "The Iron Old Woman", "Still Mother", "At the Dawn of Foggy Youth"), we talk about the usual use of these techniques as stylistic devices it is forbidden. The unusual nature of their use by A. Platonov is that in stories in which children are the heroes, they have become a natural and organic form of perception of the world. We should be talking not about metaphor, but metaphorization, not about metonymy, but metonymization, not about personification, but about personifying apperception and its varieties. This “stylistics” appears especially clearly in the story “Nikita”. The way of knowing and perceiving the world through one or another emotionally charged and ethically significant image-concept is almost the norm for the heroes of A. Platonov’s works.
Thus, the hero of the story “Still Mom” “paves” his way into Big world people of his homeland, armed with one single “weapon” - the image-concept of his own mother. The hero, metaphorically and metonymically trying it on to all unknown creatures, things and phenomena of the surrounding world, through this image expands his inner world. This is how A. Platonov depicts the first meeting of a person with his homeland, complex and hard way self-knowledge and human socialization.
