Andrey Platonov biography. Brief biography of Plato. Creative heritage - famous works and books of Andrei Platonov

(real name - Klimentov)

(1899-1951) Russian writer

There are writers whose work is far ahead of their time, and therefore decades pass before they find their place in the history of literature. Andrei Platonov is one of them.

He was born into a large large family. Andrey's father worked as a mechanic and then as an assistant driver at the Voronezh railway workshops. Andrei was the eldest child in the family, and he had nine more brothers and sisters. Therefore, after graduating from primary school, the boy had to go “into the people”, work to help feed his family.

So, at the age of fourteen, he began working, first as an auxiliary worker, and then acquired the qualifications of a foundry mechanic and an assistant driver.

After the revolution, Andrei Platonov ended up in the Red Army. Moreover, he signed up there voluntarily. For an eighteen-year-old boy, this was a natural act, since in those years he still could not understand what was happening around him, and simply obeyed the circumstances.

It was there, in the army, that he first began to write, publishing his poems and short essays in various small newspapers. After demobilization, Andrei Platonov decided to fulfill his old dream and entered the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute, but did not abandon his literary studies. He publishes his materials in local newspapers and speaks at literary and journalistic meetings. At this time, his work is dominated by ideal heroes, whom the revolution awakens to an active creative life. Later, these moods will remain only in the form of individual memories, giving way to a feeling of bitter disappointment.

After graduating from the institute, Andrei Platonov dreamed of devoting himself entirely to literature, but life forced him to change his plans. I had to take care of my family, so I had to write in fits and starts. For several years he has been working as a provincial ameliorator and electrical engineer, traveling to collective farms and helping to set up farms. He reflects this restless life in his stories written at that time.

The drought of 1925 was a strong shock for the young engineer. Andrei Platonov thought a lot about its tragic consequences and then for the first time realized that as a writer he could bring no less benefit in transforming life than as a specialist.

In 1926, Andrei Platonovich Platonov came to Moscow and brought with him the manuscript of the first collection of stories, “Epiphanian Gateways,” which was soon published and received a favorable assessment from M. Gorky. The writer himself at this time was working in Tambov as an assistant to the head of the land reclamation department. His family is in Moscow, and Platonov writes long letters to his wife almost every day.

Gradually, under the influence of the tragic events of collectivization, Andrei Platonov gives up the illusion that technology can solve all social problems. In the story “Epiphanian Gateways,” which gave the collection its title, he shows for the first time that unspiritual work can lead to tragedy.

But this internal conflict manifested itself most sharply in the stories of Andrei Platonov in the late twenties and in his last major work - the chronicle novel “For Future Use,” which was published during the author’s lifetime. It was published in 1931 and immediately received sharply negative reviews from critics.

The writer was accused of distorting reality and of the most terrible sin at that time - preaching humanism. Therefore, another of Platonov’s novels, “Chevengur,” written in 1927-1928, where he also critically examined the existing concept of building socialism and its detrimental impact on culture, was generally banned from publication.

The original instigator of the campaign launched against Andrei Platonov was A. Fadeev, who shortly before became one of the leaders of the Writers' Union. From that time on, only small reviews and critical articles by Platonov appeared in print.

In the thirties, many writers who, for one reason or another, could not talk about what really worried them, turned to conventional forms - fairy tales, fiction, drama.

Andrei Platonov, along with K. Paustovsky, begins to write fairy tales and becomes known for his adaptations of stories from world folklore. These works were not prohibited, so Platonov sometimes added original works to his adaptations of classical authors.

In 1933, as part of a group of writers, Platonov made a long trip around Turkestan. As a result of this trip, his fantastic story “Jan” appeared, the main character of which is an idealist. He is obsessed with the communist idea of ​​​​rebuilding the world and tries to impose his ideas on others.

The conventionality of the situation helped the writer to convey his negative attitude towards these ideas in a hidden form. The story “Jan” is also accompanied by Andrei Platonov’s great novel “The Juvenile Sea,” in which, with bitter irony, the writer shows the absurdity of desert transformation projects that were so popular in the thirties.

Since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Andrei Platonovich Platonov has been at the front as a correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. He publishes stories in various front-line newspapers, and sometimes small collections of his front-line essays appear. But when trouble comes to the Platonovs' house - their only son dies at the front, the writer again experiences bitter disappointment in life. This mood of Andrei Platonov is reflected in his story “Ivanov’s Family.”

After the war, the writer again finds himself erased from great literature. He has nowhere and nothing to live on, so he settles in the outbuilding of the Literary Institute and works as a janitor. True, even during these difficult years, sometimes joyful events happened in his life, such as the birth of his long-awaited daughter. Subsequently, she would become the custodian of her father's archive and the main publisher of his manuscripts. However, the writer himself was already seriously ill by that time. In the winter of 1951, he died of tuberculosis.

The main works of Andrei Platonovich Platonov were published in Russia only after 1988. From this time on, the true entry of this original writer into Russian literature begins.

Platonov (real name - Klimentov), ​​Andrei Platonovich, writer, playwright (September 1, 1899, Voronezh - January 5, 1951, Moscow). Born into the family of a mechanic at railway workshops. Since 1913 he worked as an auxiliary worker, mechanic, foundry worker, etc. Participated in Civil War on the Red side - first as a war correspondent, then as an ordinary rifleman in a detachment CHONa. In 1924 he graduated from the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute, worked as an engineer in the field of land reclamation and specialized in the electrification of agriculture.

Since 1918, his poems and prose regularly appeared in local periodicals. The first collection of poems was published in 1922, the first collection of stories - in 1927. In the same year, Platonov moved to Moscow for engineering and administrative work, but soon left it and began to engage only in literary activities.

Andrey Platonovich Platonov

Already the author of numerous book and magazine publications, Andrei Platonov was sharply criticized in 1929 for the story Doubting Makar, which was also due to his short-term entry into the group “ Pass" Platonov's novel typed in galleys Chevengur in 1929 it was not allowed to print.

Tale For future use, where the author’s ironic attitude towards forced collectivization was expressed, was the reason for the almost complete ban on Platonov’s work in 1931. The role of the instigator in the campaign against Platonov was played by A. Fadeev, who published For future use in the magazine "Krasnaya Nov" After the publication of the story, Stalin personally sent a letter to this magazine, where he called Platonov’s work “a story by an agent of our enemies, written to debunk the collective farm movement” and demanded that the author be punished.

In 1933, Platonov was included in a group of writers traveling around Turkmenistan; the fact of this inclusion was equated to partial rehabilitation. In 1934-37, some of Platonov's works were sometimes published, including stories Fro , Immortality, Clay house in the county garden, story Potudan River. A collection of prose was published in 1937; in subsequent years, its publications were limited to literary critical articles (including about Pushkin, Hemingway, Chapek, Greene, Paustovsky) under the pseudonyms F. Chelovekov (1937-41) and A. Firsov (1938-40). However, in May 1938, the writer’s fifteen-year-old son Plato was arrested.

Since October 1942, Platonov was a front-line correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, published many stories, and six small collections of his prose were published. But unlike many other war correspondents ( Simonov, Sholokhov, Grossman etc.) at the end of the war he was awarded only the medal “For Victory over Germany.”

Due to the tightening of literary policy that came after party resolution dated August 14, 1946, V. Ermilov made a devastating criticism of Platonov’s story Ivanov family(later called Return), accusing the author of “the most vile slander against the Soviet people, the Soviet family, and the victorious soldiers returning home.” Erased from Soviet literature, Platonov died in 1951 from tuberculosis, which he contracted from his son, who returned seriously ill from exile in 1940.

Apart from the publication of four short texts by Platonov after 1946, his prose works only after XX Party Congress became again available to the Soviet reader. With the help of the writer's wife, M.A. Platonova, some texts that were in manuscripts were published for the first time. However, most of Platonov's plays were not published for a very long time, and his main books - Chevengur, written in 1929/30, a story about industrialization and collectivization Pit and other works appeared only in the West.

Andrey Platonov. Video

All of Platonov’s work is determined by the principle of unconditional sincerity. His early prose is still close to the ornamental style, but over the years it becomes compressed and strict. In his best stories and tales of the 1920s, Platonov mixes the lyrical with irony, often using the contrasts of the sublime and the base, the heroic and the funny. City of Gradov(1926) is a sharp and profound satire of the Soviet bureaucracy.

In the 1930s, Platonov’s work was dominated by the theme of the hard work of railway workers, which was portrayed out of the blue and with genuine sympathy. In the story Jan(written in 1933-35 after a trip to Turkmenistan and published only in 1964) an idealist who believes in the party fails in his attempt to impose communist ideology on the impoverished people of the desert; here the realistic is closely intertwined with the miraculous against the backdrop of thoughts of a universal human nature.

Platonov's war works combine patriotic consciousness with a merciless display of the cruelty that comes with war into people's families.

At the center of his prose, permeated with a subtle psychological sense, there is always a person. “His phrases have the viscous, priestly, precisely measured rhythm of village storytellers” (Drawicz).

See on our website summaries of the works of A. Platonov:

PLATONOV, ANDREY PLATONOVICH(1899–1951), real name Klimentov, Russian prose writer, playwright. Born on August 16 (28), 1899 in a working-class suburb of Voronezh. He was the eldest son in the family of a mechanic at railway workshops. The impressions of a difficult childhood full of adult worries are reflected in the story Semyon(1927), in which the image of the title character has autobiographical features. He studied at a parochial school, but in 1914 he was forced to leave his studies and go to work. Until 1917, he changed several professions: he was an auxiliary worker, a foundry worker, a mechanic, etc., which he wrote about in his early stories Next(1918) and Seryoga and me(1921). According to Platonov, “life immediately turned me from a child into an adult, depriving me of my youth.”

In 1918, Platonov entered the Voronezh Railway Polytechnic, realizing his childhood interest in machines and mechanisms. For some time, after interrupting his studies, he worked as an assistant driver. In 1921 he wrote a brochure Electrification and upon graduating from technical school (1921) he called electrical engineering his main specialty. Platonov explained the need to learn in the story Potudan River(1937) as a desire to “quickly acquire higher knowledge” in order to overcome the meaninglessness of life. The heroes of many of his stories ( At the foggy dawn youth, Old mechanic etc.) are railway workers, whose lives he knew well from childhood and youth.

From the age of 12, Platonov wrote poetry. In 1918 he began working as a journalist in the Voronezh newspapers “Izvestia fortified area”, “Krasnaya Derevnya”, etc. In 1918, Platonov’s poems began to be published in the magazine “Zhelezny Put” ( Night, Yearning etc.), his story was published Next, as well as essays, articles and reviews. From that time on, Platonov became one of the most prominent writers in Voronezh, actively appearing in periodicals, including under pseudonyms (Elp. Baklazhanov, A. Firsov, etc.). In 1920, Platonov joined the RCP(b), but a year later he left the party of his own free will.

Platonov's book of poems Blue depth(1922, Voronezh) received a positive assessment from V. Bryusov. However, at this time, under the impression of the drought of 1921, which led to mass starvation among the peasants, Platonov decided to change his occupation. In his 1924 autobiography, he wrote: “Being a technician, I could no longer engage in contemplative work - literature.” In 1922–1926, Platonov worked in the Voronezh provincial land department, working on land reclamation and electrification of agriculture. He appeared in print with numerous articles on land reclamation and electrification, in which he saw the possibility of a “bloodless revolution”, a radical change for the better in people’s lives. The impressions of these years are embodied in the story Motherland electricity and other works of Platonov of the 1920s.

In 1922, Platonov married rural teacher M.A. Kashintseva, to whom he dedicated the story Epifanskie locks(1927). The wife became the prototype for the title character of the story Sandy teacher. After the death of the writer M.A. Platonov did a lot to preserve his literary heritage and publish his works.

In 1926 Platonov was recalled to work in Moscow at the People's Commissariat for Agriculture. He was sent to engineering and administrative work in Tambov. The image of this “philistine” city, its Soviet bureaucracy is recognizable in the satirical story City of Gradov(1926). Soon Platonov returned to Moscow and, leaving his service in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, became a professional writer.

The first serious publication in the capital was the story Epifanskie locks. The story followed Hidden Man(1928). Described in Epifansky locks The transformations of Peter I echoed in Platonov’s work with the “main” communist projects of the global reorganization of life that were contemporary to him. This topic is the main one in the essay. Che-Che-O(1928), written together with B. Pilnyak after a trip to Voronezh as correspondents for the magazine “New World”.

For some time Platonov was a member of the literary group “Pereval”. Membership in the "Pass", as well as the publication in 1929 of a story Doubting Makar caused a wave of criticism against Platonov. In the same year, A. M. Gorky received a sharply negative assessment and Platonov’s novel was banned for publication Chevengur(1926–1929, published in 1972 in France, 1988 in the USSR).

Chevengur became not only Platonov’s largest work in volume, but also an important milestone in his work. The writer brought to the point of absurdity the ideas of the communist reorganization of life that possessed him in his youth, showing their tragic impracticability. The features of reality acquired a grotesque character in the novel, and in accordance with this, the surreal style of the work was formed. His heroes feel their orphanhood in a godless world, their disconnection from the “soul of the world,” which is embodied for them in ethereal images (for the revolutionary Kopenkin - in the image of the unknown Rosa Luxemburg). Trying to comprehend the mysteries of life and death, the heroes of the novel are building socialism in the provincial town of Chevengur, choosing it as a place in which the good of life, the accuracy of truth and the sorrow of existence “occur by themselves as needed.” In the utopian Chevengur, security officers kill bourgeois and semi-bourgeois, and the proletarians feed on the “food leftovers of the bourgeoisie,” because the main profession of a person is his soul. According to one of the characters, “a Bolshevik must have an empty heart so that everything can fit in there.” At the end of the novel, the main character Alexander Dvanov dies of his own free will in order to comprehend the mystery of death, because he understands: the mystery of life cannot be solved by the methods used to transform it.

The reorganization of life is the central theme of the story Pit(1930, published in 1969 in Germany, in 1987 in the USSR), which takes place during the first five-year plan. The “common proletarian house”, the foundation pit for which the heroes of the story are digging, is a symbol of communist utopia, “earthly paradise”. The pit becomes the grave for the girl Nastya, symbolizing the future of Russia in the story. The construction of socialism evokes associations with the biblical story of the construction of the Tower of Babel. IN Kotlovan Platonov’s traditional motif of a journey is also embodied, during which a person—in this case, the unemployed Voshchev—comprehends the truth by passing space through himself. In the afterword to the American edition Pit I. Brodsky noted Platonov’s surrealism, fully expressed in the image of a hammer bear participating in the construction. According to Brodsky, Platonov “subordinated himself to the language of the era, seeing in it such abysses, having looked into which once, he could no longer glide across the literary surface.”

Publication of the chronicle story For future use with a devastating afterword by A. Fadeev (1931), in which the collectivization of agriculture was shown as a tragedy, made the publication of most of Platonov’s works impossible. The exception was a collection of prose Potudan River(1937). Stories Jan (1935), Juvenile Sea(1934), plays written in the 1930s Organ organ And 14 Red Huts were not published during the author's lifetime. The publication of Platonov’s works was allowed during the Patriotic War, when the prose writer worked as a front-line correspondent for the newspaper “Red Star” and wrote stories on military topics ( Armor, Spiritualized people, 1942; Of death No!, 1943; Aphrodite, 1944 and others; 4 books were published). After his story Family Ivanova(other name - Return) in 1946 was subjected to ideological criticism, Platonov’s name was erased from Soviet literature. Novel written in the 1930s Happy Moscow was discovered only in the 1990s. First book after a long break The Magic Ring and Other Tales was published in 1954, after the author's death. All publications of Platonov's works were accompanied by censorship restrictions during the Soviet period.

Platonov Andrey Platonovich (1899-1951), writer.

Born on September 1, 1899 in Voronezh in the family of a mechanic at railway workshops, Klimentov (in the 20s of the 20th century, the writer changed his surname to the surname Platonov).

He studied at a parochial school, then at a city school; At the age of 15 he began working to support his family. He was an auxiliary worker, foundry worker, mechanic, etc.

In 1918, Platonov entered the Voronezh Railway Polytechnic. In 1919, he participated in the Civil War in the Red Army.

After the end of the war, he returned to Voronezh and became a student at the Polytechnic Institute (graduated in 1926).

Platonov’s first brochure, “Electrification,” was published in 1921. In 1922, his second book, a collection of poems “Blue Depth,” was published. In 1923-1926. Platonov works as a provincial ameliorator and is responsible for the electrification of agriculture. In 1926 Platonov moved to Moscow. In 1927, the book “Epiphanian Gateways” made the writer famous. In 1928, the collections “Meadow Masters” and “The Hidden Man” were published.

The publication of the story “Doubting Makar” in 1929 caused a wave of criticism against the author. In the same year, the novel “Chevengur” was banned from publication, and Platonov’s next book appeared only eight years later. Since 1928, he collaborated in the magazines “Krasnaya Nov”, “New World”, “October” and others, and continued to work on prose works - the stories “The Pit”, “The Juvenile Sea”.

I tried myself in dramaturgy (“High Voltage”, “Pushkin at the Lyceum”). In 1937, a book of his stories “The Potudan River” was published. The publication of Platonov’s works was permitted during the Great Patriotic War, when he was a front-line correspondent for the newspaper “Red Star” and wrote stories and essays on military topics.

In 1946, after the publication of the story “Ivanov’s Family” (later called “Return”), Platonov was again criticized and stopped publishing. The first book after a long break, “The Magic Ring and Other Tales,” was published in 1954, after the author’s death.

Platonov is distinguished by a tragically intense perception of the “beautiful and furious world”, the desire to penetrate into the “innermost” essence of man and deep social processes. His prose, striking in its musicality, unusual in its flexible “tongue-tiedness,” had a great influence on world literature

Andrei Platonovich Platonov (1899-1951) - Russian writer, playwright, journalist and critic. He is considered one of the most original writers of the first half of the 20th century. The prose writer was distinguished by his original language and manner of narration. His works are filled with tongue-tiedness, amazing roughness of words and a huge number of metaphors. The most famous stories in Platonov’s work were “The Epiphanian Locks”, “The Potudan River” and “The Origin of the Master”. His best works were published after the author's death.

Big family

Andrei Klimentov (the real name of the prose writer) was born on August 28, 1899 in Voronezh. He grew up in an ordinary working-class family; they had 10 more children. His parents did not live well, so from adolescence the boy began to earn extra money and help them. Platon Firsovich, father, worked as a mechanic in a railway workshop. His wife, Maria Vasilievna, was the daughter of a watchmaker. After the wedding, she stayed at home, ran the house and raised children.

The future writer studied at a parochial school. After its successful completion, he entered the school, then studied at the railway technical school. From the age of 13 he worked: first Andryusha got a job as an assistant driver, then he was a foundry worker and electrical engineer at a steam locomotive repair plant. There were other places of work in Klimentov's life - an insurance company, a colonel's estate, various workshops in Voronezh.

War time

The October Revolution marked the beginning of a new era in the life of Klimentov and his peers. At that time, he began working in magazines and newspapers, writing poetry and prose. He also often acted as a publicist and reviewer. In 1919 Andrei went to war. A year later, he changed his last name and became a war correspondent.

When the battle ended, Platonov was able to enter the Polytechnic Institute. His debut book was published in 1921, called Electrification. The first stories were filled with aggression, idealistic plans and revolutionary ideas. But over time, the writer radically changed his opinion due to the unreality of his plan. His future wife played an important role in the change of views.

In 1922, a collection of Andrei’s poems “Blue Depth” was published. This book was highly praised by critics, and readers also liked it. The poet Valery Bryusov also praised Platonov's works. This year, another event occurred - the prose writer was invited to take the post of chairman of the provincial commission for hydrofication under the land department. Until 1926 he worked there and even tried to join the RCP (b), but in the end he changed his mind.

Moving to Moscow and conflicts with the authorities

The writer received his diploma in 1926 and immediately moved to Moscow. At the same time, he finished working on the manuscript of the work “Epiphanian Gateways”. It was this book that brought Platonov fame. Since 1928, he began collaborating with such printed publications as “New World”, “October” and “Krasnaya Nov”. The writer also released several plays, including “High Voltage” and “Pushkin at the Lyceum.”

Over the next three years, he wrote the story “The Pit” and the novel “Chevengur”, but they were published after the death of the prose writer. In 1929, only one part of the novel, entitled “The Origin of the Master,” was published. These chapters caused a flurry of attacks and criticism, and the work had to be shelved for eight years.

The move and some beginnings of fame inspired Andrey. Over the course of several years, he published an impressive number of stories and novellas. Among them are “Yamskaya Sloboda”, “The Hidden Man”, “City of Grads”, “Ethereal Route” and “Sandy Teacher”. Not all of his works were published, since the writer had strained relations with the government and censorship.

In 1931, the story “For Future Use” was published, which caused discontent on the part of Fadeev and Stalin. The dictator made every effort to prevent the writer from publishing his works in the future. And only after the dissolution of RAPP the pressure stopped. Before this, Stalin personally read the works of Andrei Platonovich and even wrote swear words in the margins, describing his attitude towards the author.

During the war, Platonov again began working as a war correspondent. Thanks to this, his works began to be published. In 1934 he took part in a group trip to Central Asia. In Turkmenistan, a writer composed the story “Takyr,” which again caused a wave of negativity from the press. The Pravda magazine published a devastating article, after which almost all the works were returned to the author. But in 1936 he managed to publish several stories, and in 1937 the story “The Potudan River” was published.

last years of life

In May 1938, Platonov’s son was arrested for “anti-Soviet propaganda.” He returned a few years later, he was sick with tuberculosis. In 1943, the young man was buried, and his father contracted the disease from him.

In 1946, Andrei Platonovich was demobilized, and at the same time he published the story “Return.” This time, due to criticism, he forever lost the opportunity to publish his works. Perhaps it was these events that forced the writer to rethink his attitude towards revolutionary ideas and their realism.

In the fifties, the writer became completely disillusioned with military topics. He devoted all his time to processing folk tales and worked part-time as a janitor. On January 5, 1951, the novelist died as a result of a long battle with tuberculosis. He was buried in the Armenian cemetery.

In the sixties, readers rediscovered the works of Platonov, and they began to talk about him everywhere. A street, a gymnasium and a library were named in honor of the writer. His monument was also erected in the city center.

The writer's personal life was not filled with events. At the age of 22, he met his love - Maria Kashintseva. The story with elements of the biography “The Sand Teacher” was dedicated to her. Andrei vividly described how his beloved left him in the outback in 1921. In the end, he still managed to win her heart, and pregnancy finally tied the girl to the prose writer. In 1922 their son Plato was born. In 1944, daughter Masha was born.