To use presentation previews, create a Google account and log in to it: https://accounts.google.com

Slide captions:

BIOGRAPHY of Andrey Platonovich Platonov Prepared by primary school teacher GBOU secondary school No. 349 of the Krasnogvardeisky district of St. Petersburg Pechenkina Tamara Pavlovna

Andrei Platonovich Platonov 08/20/1899 – 01/05/1951 Russian Soviet writer and playwright

Andrey Platonovich Platonov (real name Klimentov) was born in Voronezh. Father - Klimentov Platon Firsovich worked as a locomotive driver and mechanic in the Voronezh railway workshops. Provincial newspapers wrote about him more than once as a talented self-taught inventor. Twice he was awarded the title of Hero of Labor, and in 1928 he joined the party. Mother - Lobochikhina Maria Vasilievna - the daughter of a watchmaker, a housewife. The family was large (11 children), and Andrei was the eldest, so the writer’s working life also began quite early - at the age of 13. He worked in railway workshops, at a pipe factory as a foundry worker, then as an electrician, and as an assistant driver.

In 1906 he entered the parochial school. From 1909 to 1913 he studied at a city 4-grade school. From 1913 to 1915 he worked as a day laborer and as a hired boy in the office of the Rossiya insurance company; assistant driver of a locomotive.

From the autumn of 1915 to the spring of 1918, Andrei worked in many Voronezh workshops producing millstones. In 1918 he entered the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute; serves on the editorial board of the magazine “Iron Path”, in which he publishes his poems.

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 1922–1926, Platonov worked in the Voronezh provincial land department, working on land reclamation and electrification of agriculture. In 1922 Platonov married a rural teacher M.A. Kashintseva, to whom he dedicated the story “Epifansky Locks” (1927). The wife became the prototype of the title character of the story “The Sandy Teacher.” In 1922, the couple had a son, Plato.

In the thirties, Platonov's talent manifested itself with greatest force. In 1930, he created one of his main masterpieces - the story "The Pit" (first published in the USSR in 1987) - a social dystopia on the themes of industrialization, a tragic-grotesque description of the collapse of the ideas of communism. In the mid-1930s, Platonov was a writer who wrote mainly on the table. At the same time, the abundance of ideas overwhelms the writer. He works hard. At this time, he wrote the novel “Happy Moscow”, the play “The Voice of the Father”, and articles on literature. In 1933-1935, after a trip to Turkmenistan, Platonov created the story “Dzhan”. In 1928, Platonov completed work on the novel "Chevengur", but it was published in its entirety only in 1972 in Paris. The novel is a multifaceted narrative in which lyricism and satire are intertwined with philosophical constructs and political illusions.

In 1937, Platonov managed to publish a collection of stories, “The Potudan River,” which was subjected to devastating criticism. Platonov was again in disgrace, his position was aggravated by another event - in 1938, Platonov’s only son, a fifteen-year-old teenager who returned from prison after the troubles of Platonov’s friends, was arrested on a trumped-up case. in the fall of 1940, terminally ill with tuberculosis. The writer gets infected from his son while caring for him, and from then on until his death he will carry tuberculosis within himself.

During the war, Platonov was a front-line correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. In the stories about the war he created, Platonov’s inherent ambiguity of assessments, the atmosphere of paradoxical existence, the internal conflict of man and the world, are preserved. The story "The Ivanov Family" ("Return") provoked sharp criticism for "slander" against the Soviet family.

At the end of 1946, Platonov’s story “Return” (“Ivanov’s Family”) was published, for which the writer was attacked in 1947 and was accused of libel. At the end of the 1940s, deprived of the opportunity to earn a living by writing, Platonov was engaged in literary adaptation of Russian and Bashkir fairy tales, which were published in children's magazines.

Platonov died on January 5, 1951 in Moscow from tuberculosis, which he contracted while caring for his son who had been released from prison. The son, in turn, already had his own child; Platonov managed to become a grandfather. He was buried in the Armenian cemetery.

Central City Library named after A. Platonov today (Voronezh) Monument in the writer’s homeland in the city of Voronezh

http://hrono.ru http://orel.rsl.ru http://www.prosv.ru http://www.ucheba.ru SOURCES.

(1899–1951)

Real name is Klimentov.

He was born in a working-class suburb of Voronezh into a large family with many children. His 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. He studied at a parochial school, but in 1914 he was forced to leave his studies and go to 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.

The impressions of a difficult childhood full of adult worries were reflected in the story “Semyon” (1927), in which the image of the title character has autobiographical features. From the age of 12, Platonov wrote poetry. Subsequently, Platonov’s book of poems “Blue Depth” (1922, Voronezh) received a positive assessment from V. Bryusov.

Until 1917, he changed several professions: he was an auxiliary worker, a foundry worker, a mechanic, etc. According to Platonov, “life immediately turned me from a child into an adult, depriving me of my youth.”

After the revolution, Platonov ended up in the Red Army. Moreover, he signed up there voluntarily. It was there in the army that he first began to write, publishing his poems and short essays in various small newspapers. After demobilization, 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.

After graduating from the institute, 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, Platonov has been working as a provincial ameliorator and electrical engineer, traveling to collective farms and helping to establish farms. He reflects this restless life in his stories written at that time. In 1922, Platonov married rural teacher M.A. Kashintseva. After the death of the writer M.A. Platonov did a lot to preserve his literary heritage, publish it

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

In 1926, 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. It was followed by the story “The Hidden Man” (1928). 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,

Illusion No. 1 under the influence of the tragic events of collectivization, the writer parted with the illusion, that technology can solve all social problems.
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 READ " Doubting Makar" caused a wave of criticism against Platonov. The writer was accused of distorting reality and of the most terrible sin at that time - preaching humanism.

In the same year, Platonov’s novel “Chevengur” (1926–1929, published in 1972 in France, 1988 in the USSR) received a sharply negative assessment from A.M. Gorky and was banned from publication. “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 reorganization of life is the central theme of the story “The Pit” (1930, published in 1969 in Germany, in 1987 in the USSR), the action of 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. “The Pit” also embodies Platonov’s traditional motif of a journey, during which a person comprehends the truth by passing space through himself.

The original instigator of the campaign launched against Platonov was A. Fadeev, who shortly before became one of the leaders of the Writers' Union. The 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.

From that time on, only small reviews and critical articles by Platonov appeared in print. Platonov, along with K. Paustovsky, began to write fairy tales and became 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 story “Jan” is also accompanied by 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. The plays "Hurdy Organ" and "14 Red Huts", written in the 1930s, 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 a military theme (“Armor”, “Spiritualized People”, 1942; “No Death!”, 1943; “Aphrodite”, 1944, etc.; 4 books were published). 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 Platonov is reflected in his story “Ivanov’s Family.” After his story “The Ivanov Family” (another title is “The Return”) was subjected to ideological criticism in 1946, Platonov’s name was erased from Soviet literature.

The novel Happy Moscow, written in the 1930s, was discovered only in the 1990s. The first book after a long break, “The Magic Ring” and other fairy 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.

After the war, the writer has nowhere and nothing to live on, so he settles in the wing of the Literary Institute and works as a janitor. True, even during these difficult years, joyful events sometimes 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. Platonov's main works were published in Russia only after 1988.

Andrey Platonovich Platonov born in Yamskaya Sloboda on the outskirts of Voronezh on August 28 (although his birthday was traditionally celebrated on September 1), 1899.

His father, a mechanic at railway workshops Platon Firsovich Klimentov, was a fairly well-known person in the city; local newspapers wrote about him more than once as a talented self-taught inventor. His mother, Lobochikhina Maria Vasilievna, a simple, deeply religious woman, managed to convey a Christian worldview to her son. Andrey was the eldest of eleven children. He studied at a parochial school and a city school. At the age of 14 he began working as a delivery boy, a foundry worker at a pipe factory, and an assistant driver. He showed literary inclinations quite early - from the age of 12 he wrote poetry. After the revolution, in 1918, he entered the railway polytechnic in the electrical engineering department. Inspired by the new ideas of the time, he participated in discussions of the Communist Union of Journalists, published articles, stories, and poems in Voronezh newspapers and magazines (“Voronezh Commune”, “Red Village”, “Iron Path”, etc.).

In 1919, as an ordinary rifleman in a railway detachment, and also as a “journalist for the Soviet press and writer,” he participated in the Civil War, receiving a baptism of fire in skirmishes with the white units of Mamontov and Shkuro.

In 1920, the First All-Russian Congress of Proletarian Writers took place in Moscow, where Platonov represented the Voronezh Writers' Organization. A survey was conducted at the congress. Platonov’s answers give an idea of ​​him as an honest (not inventing a “revolutionary past” for himself, like others) and quite confident in his abilities as a young writer: “Did you participate in the revolutionary movement, where and when?” - "No"; “Were you subjected to repression before the October Revolution?..” - “No”; “What obstacles have hindered or are hindering your literary development?” - “Low education, lack of free time”; “Which writers have influenced you the most?” - “None”; “Which literary movements do you sympathize with or belong to?” - “No, I have my own.”

Andrei Platonov was a candidate member of the RCP(b) for a short time, but for criticizing “official revolutionaries” in the feuilleton “The Human Soul is an Indecent Animal” in 1921, he was expelled as a “shaky and unstable element.” In the same year, his first book (brochure) “Electrification” was published, and the following year in Krasnodar - a collection of poems “Blue Depth”.

For some time, Platonov abandoned literary work and devoted himself entirely to practical work in his specialty (a proletarian writer, in his opinion, was obliged to have a profession and to create “in his free weekend hours”). In 1921–1922 he was the chairman of the Extraordinary Commission to Combat Drought in the Voronezh Province, and from 1923 to 1926 he worked in the Voronezh Provincial Land Administration as a provincial land reclamation specialist, in charge of work on the electrification of agriculture. From the surviving certificate issued to Platonov, it is known that “under his direct administrative and technical supervision... 763 ponds were built... 315 mine wells... 16 tube wells, 7,600 dessiatines were drained... 3 rural electric power plants were built” . These were not violent labor feats, but a consistent materialization of Platonov’s views, which he outlined in “Russian Rattlesnake”: “The fight against hunger, the fight for the life of the revolution comes down to the fight against drought. There is a way to defeat it. And this is the only means: hydrofication, that is, the construction of artificial irrigation systems for fields with cultivated plants. The revolution turns into a fight against nature.” Later, as a technically educated and gifted person (having dozens of patents for his inventions), he will see the environmental danger of such a “struggle.”

In 1926, at the All-Russian Congress of Land Reclamation Workers, Platonov was elected to the Central Committee of the Union of Agriculture and Forestry Work and moved with his family to Moscow. By that time he was married to Masha Kashintseva. He met her in 1920 at the Voronezh branch of literary writers, where she served. “Eternal Mary”, she became the writer’s muse, the “Epiphanian Locks” and many poems that Platonov composed throughout his life are dedicated to her.

Work in the Central Committee of the Union of Agriculture did not go well. “This is partly to blame for the passion for thinking and writing,” Platonov admitted in a letter. For about three months he worked in Tambov as head of the land reclamation department. During this time, a series of stories on Russian historical themes was written, the fantastic story “Ethereal Tract” (1927), the story “Epiphanian Gateways” (about Peter’s reforms in Russia) and the first edition of “The City of Gradov” (a satirical interpretation of the new state philosophy).

Since 1927, Platonov finally settled in Moscow, and the next two years, perhaps, can be called the most prosperous in his life as a writer, which was greatly assisted by G. Litvin-Molotov. A member of the Voronezh provincial committee and the editorial board of the Voronezh Izvestia (he attracted young Platonov to work in local newspapers), Litvin-Molotov then headed the Burevestnik publishing house in Krasnodar (where Platonov’s collection of poems was published), and from the mid-1920s he became editor-in-chief publishing house "Young Guard" in Moscow. It was there that the first two collections of Platonov's stories and stories were published. Several letters have survived in which Litvin-Molotov examines Platonov’s works (in manuscript) and reveals good literary taste, although he tries to keep the writer within the shores of common sense (taking into account censorship).

At this time, Andrei Platonov created a new edition of “The City of Gradov”, a cycle of stories: “The Hidden Man” (an attempt to comprehend the Civil War and new social relations through the eyes of the “natural fool” Foma Pukhov), “Yamskaya Sloboda”, “Builders of the Country” (from which the novel “Chevengur” will grow). Collaborates in the magazines “Krasnaya Nov”, “New World”, “October”, “Young Guard”, publishes collections: “Epiphanian Locks” (1927), “Meadow Masters” (1928), “The Hidden Man” (1928), “ The Origin of the Master" (1929).

Moscow literary life inspired Platonov’s satirical pen to create several parodies: “Factory of Literature” (written for the magazine “October”, but published there only in 1991), “Moscow Society of Consumers of Literature. MOPL", "Antisexus" (dialogue with LEF, Mayakovsky, Shklovsky, etc.).

1929 was called “the year of the great turning point” - the dispossession of the village was underway. A turning point also occurred in the literary fate of the writer - critics of RAPP destroyed his stories “Che-Che-O”, “State Resident”, “Doubting Makar” (articles by V. Strelnikova “Revelers of Socialism” and L. Averbakh “On the Holistic Scale and Particular Makars” "). “The Doubting Makar” was also read by Stalin himself, who, unlike the following leaders, read everything more or less noticeable - he did not approve of the ideological ambiguity and anarchic nature of the story. In the eyes of literary functionaries, this was equivalent to a sentence. The typesetting version of the novel “Chevengur” was immediately scattered. Platonov sought Gorky's intercession. Alexey Maksimovich, who highly valued him as an artist, but understood the situational “irrelevance” of the visionary “Chevengur”, carefully wrote to him after reading the manuscript: “You are a talented person, this is indisputable... But, given the undeniable merits of your work, I don’t think that it will be printed and published. This will be prevented by your anarchic state of mind, apparently characteristic of the nature of your “spirit”. Whether you wanted it or not, you gave the coverage of reality a lyrical-satirical character, which, of course, is unacceptable for our censorship.”

In the autumn of the same year, Andrei Platonov, on instructions from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, traveled a lot to state and collective farms in Central Russia. The impressions from what he saw form the plot of the story “The Pit,” on which he begins to work. “The plot is not new, the suffering is repeated” - the epigraph preserved in the drafts of the story confirms that the writer did not retreat from his first impression, talking about the “apocalypse of collectivization” in “apocalyptic” language. “The Pit” and the play “Hurdy Organ,” completed in 1930, were not published during Platonov’s lifetime. The chronicle story “For Future Use,” published in 1931 in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov”, only added heat to the critical furnace, which “melted” many writers and tried to do the same with Platonov. The story was called slander against the “new man” and the “general line” of the party. Andrei Platonovich was forced to send letters to central newspapers admitting his mistakes, but received no answers, just as he did not receive an answer to his letter to Gorky, in which he wrote: “I am writing this letter to you not to complain, but to complain to me.” no matter what... I want to tell you that I am not a class enemy, and no matter how much I suffer as a result of my mistakes, like “For the Future,” I cannot become a class enemy and it is impossible to bring me to this state, because the worker class is my homeland, and my future is connected with the proletariat... to be rejected by my class and still be internally with it is much more painful than to recognize myself as an alien... and step aside.”

The ensuing isolation did not force Andrei Platonov to give up his pen. He writes the folk tragedy “14 Red Huts” - about the famine in the Russian province, which led to the “great turning point”. Business trips from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture to collective and state farms in the Volga region and the North Caucasus provided the writer with material for the story “The Juvenile Sea” (1932).

From 1931 to 1935 Platonov worked as a senior design engineer at the Republican Trust for the Production of Weights and Measures. In 1934, together with a group of writers, he visited Turkmenistan. Following this trip, the story “Dzhan”, the story “Takyr”, articles “On the First Socialist Tragedy”, etc. were written. During the writer’s lifetime, only “Takyr” was published.

The next book of stories (after 1929) was published in the alarming 1937 - “The Potudan River”, which included such classic works as “Fro”, “The July Storm”, “In a Beautiful and Furious World”. Paradoxically, it was precisely this time of careful tracking of the unreliable that provoked the appearance of the first and only monographic study of his work during the writer’s lifetime. It was a large accusatory article by A. Gurvich “Andrei Platonov” in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov”. Tracing the creative evolution of the writer, Gurvich determined that the basis of Platonov’s artistic system is the “religious structure of the soul.” Essentially true, but against the background of the “godless five-year plan” it was a political denunciation. Platonov responded to Gurvich in Literaturnaya Gazeta on December 20, 1937 with the article “Objection without self-defense.”

The book conceived by Platonov, following Radishchev, “Journey from Leningrad to Moscow in 1937” was included in the plans of the publishing house “Soviet Writer” for 1938. The writer traveled along the routes of Radishchev and Pushkin, collected material, but the book was not published. In 1938, his fifteen-year-old son Tosha (Platon), following a slander, was arrested and convicted under Article 58/10 - “for anti-Soviet agitation.” He was released only in 1941 thanks to the efforts of M. Sholokhov (at that time a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR), who was friends with the Platonovs. Tosha returned from prison with severe consumption and died two years later. Platonov did not overcome this grief until the end of his days.

Before the start of the Great Patriotic War, Andrei Platonov collaborated with the magazines “Literary Critic” and “Literary Review”, wrote the books “Reflections of a Reader” and “Nikolai Ostrovsky”. The set of “Reflections” was scattered under the blows of criticism, and the manuscript of “Ostrovsky” was requested by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, where it disappeared. Platonov was forced to earn a living by writing books for children. The children's literature publishing house published the book “The July Storm,” but the plays written for the Central Children's Theater - “Granny's Hut,” “Good Titus,” “Step-Daughter” - were never seen on stage during the writer's lifetime.

The war found Platonov in Moscow. Yuri Nagibin recalls: “...Andrei Platonovich came to see us. He was completely calm. The frightened mother rushed to him with the words: “Andrei Platonovich, what will happen?” He looked so surprised: “What?.. Russia will win” - “But how?!” - Mom exclaimed. “The Germans are already on the outskirts of Moscow!” Platonov shrugged: “How? I do not know how. Belly!”

From 1942 until the end of the war, Andrei Platonov was a front-line correspondent for the newspaper "Red Star", published four books of military prose: "Spiritualized People" (1942), "Stories about the Motherland", "Armor" (both 1943), "Towards the Sunset" sun" (1945).

Having returned to civilian life, he again found himself in the position of a literary outcast: censorship cut down the book “All Life”, the published story “The Ivanov Family” (“Return”) - that war cripples a person not only physically, but also morally - criticism declared slandering a heroic soldier, the Central Children's Theater did not accept the play about Pushkin “Lyceum Pupil”...

In the last years of his life, seriously ill (progressive tuberculosis), Platonov earned his living by transcribing folk tales. He was supported financially by Sholokhov and Fadeev, who once “ex officio” attacked “Doubting Makar.” Sholokhov also helped with the publication of books of fairy tales “Finist - Clear Falcon”, “Bashkir Folk Tales” (both 1947), “The Magic Ring” (1950). Platonov lived in a wing of the M. Gorky Literary Institute. One of the writers, seeing him sweeping the yard under his windows, started a legend that he works as a janitor.

Andrei Platonov passed away unrecognized. One of the most significant writers of the 20th century did not see his main works - the novel “Chevengur”, the stories “The Pit”, “The Juvenile Sea”, “Dzhan” - published. When the first Platonov books timidly began to appear in Khrushchev's sixties, in every intelligentsia's house the red corner was occupied by a portrait of Hemingway, who in his Nobel speech named Platonov among his teachers.

In 1951, Andrei Platonov passed away. He was buried in Moscow at the Armenian cemetery next to his son.

A number of works by Andrei Platonov are traditionally classified as science fiction, including in various genre anthologies.

First of all, these are the stories “Satan of Thought” (written in 1922) and “Moon Bomb” (1926) and the story “Ethereal Tract” (1926-1927), which, according to the author’s plan, constitute a single cycle.

The heroes of these works are fanatical scientists and inventors who set themselves tasks of a planetary scale. “The earth must be remade by human hands, as man needs.” Engineer Kreuzkopf creates a projectile capable of reaching the Moon - the “lunar bomb” - and becomes the first person to know its secrets. Engineer Vogulov invents an incredible source of energy - ultralight - and changes the topography of the Earth, tearing down mountains and filling up seas. The heroes of the “Ethereal Route” Thaddeus Popov, Isaac Mathissen, Mikhail Kirpichnikov make grandiose scientific discoveries, which are brought to completion by Yegor Kirpichnikov, inventing a method of matter reproduction that allows the cultivation of metals and coal “like cattle breeders breed pigs” through “artificial feeding and growing electrons.”

The coming transformation of the world by the forces of the human spirit and mind using new knowledge is also the theme of such stories by Platonov as “Markun” (1921), “The Thirst of a Beggar” (1921), “The Adventures of Baklazhanov” (1922), “In the Starry Desert” (1921) , “A Story about Many Interesting Things” (1923), the story “The Juvenile Sea” (1932). “My car is a mouth in which the entire universe can disappear in an instant, taking on a new image in it, which I will pass through the spirals of the motor again and again” - the hero of the story “Markun” argues in these categories.

Fantastic motifs can be found in other works of Andrei Platonov.

The stories “Erik” (1921), “Tyuten, Vityuten and Protegalen” (1922) are a kind of popular fairy-tale fiction.

The story "War" (1927) depicts a future in which the ideas of the Great October Socialist Revolution spread throughout the world.

The story-pamphlet “Antisexus” (1925-1926), written in the form of celebrity reviews of an unexpected invention by scientists, seems to echo Stanislaw Lem’s apocryphal “Sexquake” from the “Library of the 21st Century”.

The story “Garbage Wind” (1934) uses the technique of fantastic metamorphosis, evoking allusions to the famous story “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka.

Platonov's main works - the novel "Chevengur" (1929) and the story "The Pit" (1930) - are defined by modern literary criticism as social dystopias, and his plays - "Fools on the Periphery" (1928), "Hurdy Organ" (1930) - are staged in one row with the works of the creators of the theater of the absurd Ionesco and Beckett.

Many of Platonov’s works contain elements of phantasmagoria; it is enough to recall the hammer bear from the story “The Pit”, who took an active part in dispossession of kulakism.

Finally, one cannot help but recall Platonov’s brilliant work on the literary treatment of folk Bashkir and Russian fairy tales.

But, speaking about the fantastic in Platonov’s work, we cannot limit ourselves to purely formal features. All of his work is, to one degree or another, colored by the worldview of the author, who can be called a science fiction writer - a seer of the future, to a much greater extent, than many modern authors who use elements of science fiction only to give a fashionable ambience to their works.

The fantastic component in Andrei Platonov’s prose, the influence on his work of the ideas and theories of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Alexander Bogdanov, Nikolai Fedorov, Vladimir Vernadsky is a topic for in-depth research, far beyond the scope of the tasks of bibliographic description, so I will limit myself to quoting Andrei Platonov himself:

“We must love the universe that can be, and not the one that is. The impossible is the bride of humanity, and our souls fly to the impossible... The impossible is the border of our world with another. All scientific theories, atoms, ions, electrons, hypotheses - all sorts of laws - are not real things at all, but the relationship of the human body to the Universe at the moment of cognitive activity...” (from a letter to his wife)

“Until now, humanity has only wanted a clear understanding, a warm sensation of that free fiery force that creates and creates and destroys universes. Man is an accomplice of this force, and his soul is the same fire that lit the sun, and in the soul of man there are such and even greater spaces that lie in the interstellar deserts. A person wants to understand himself in order to free himself from the false concepts of sin and debt, possible and impossible, truth and lies, harm and benefit, etc. When a person understands himself, he will understand everything and will be free forever. All the walls will fall before him, and he will finally rise again, for there is no real life yet.” (from the essay “About Love”)

Andrei Klimentov was born on August 20 (September 1), 1899 in Voronezh into a working-class family, in which, besides Andrei, 10 more children were born. Being the eldest son, Andrei Platonovich helps his parents in raising his brothers and sisters, and later begins to provide financially.

Education in the biography of Platonov (he changed his last name in 1920) was received first at a parochial school, then at a 4-grade city school. In 1918 he began to study at the Voronezh Technical School. Due to the difficult financial situation in the family, he started working early. He changed many professions: he was an assistant driver, a pipe foundry worker at a factory, he worked in the insurance industry, and in the production of millstones.

The beginning of a literary journey

He began writing during the Civil War, as he worked as a war correspondent. This was followed by active creative activity: Andrei Platonovich Platonov showed himself as a talented writer (publicist, poet) and critic. In 1921, he published his first book, “Electrification,” and in 1922, Platonov’s book of poems, “Blue Depth,” was published, which received positive reviews from critics.

In 1923, the poet Valery Bryusov spoke positively about the collection of poems by Andrei Platonovich.

The rise of creativity and repression

After graduating from polytechnic school in 1924, Platonov worked as an electrical engineer and land reclamation specialist. Like many people of that time, the biography of Andrei Platonov is filled with idealistic revolutionary ideas. Expressing them in his works, the author eventually comes to the opposite opinion, realizing the impracticability of his plan.

In 1927-1930 Platonov writes some of his most significant works: the story “The Pit” and the novel “Chevengur”.

Then a turning point comes in Platonov’s life. After the publication of the story “For Future Use,” which was sharply criticized by Joseph Stalin, the writer’s works were refused to be published. During the Great Patriotic War, Platonov, as during the Civil War, worked as a war correspondent. Platonov's novels and war stories are being published again.

Last years of life. Death and legacy

However, the writer's literary freedom did not last long. In 1946, when Platonov’s story “Return” was published, it was again stopped being published due to excessive criticism, now forever. Probably, such events led him to ironic thoughts about the unrealizability of revolutionary ideas. The writer died on January 5, 1951 in Moscow from tuberculosis, and was buried in the Armenian cemetery.

Literary fame came to the writer after his death. As V. Vasiliev briefly noted: “The reader missed Andrei Platonov during his lifetime in order to get to know him in the 60s and rediscover him in our time.”

In memory of the writer in Voronezh, a street, a library, a gymnasium, a literary prize were named after him, and a monument was erected in his honor in the city center.

(real name - Klimentov)
09/01/1899, Yamskaya Sloboda, Voronezh - 01/05/1951, Moscow

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 longer 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 specialist, 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 almost simultaneously wrote the fantastic story “Ethereal Tract”, the 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 order". 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 never saw them), 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 the 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 wander and suffer: 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... These people were not called anything, but they gave themselves a 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 is a district 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 cannot 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 many years have passed 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. Resident of his hometown: The 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.