Fiction of the story of the foundation pit. Artistic features of Andrei Platonov's story "the foundation pit"

Composition

"Sadly existing people are building a bright house of socialism." These people, according to Zhachev, the hero of The Foundation Pit, “a layer of sad monsters,” were formed against the background of those historical events that shook Russia after 1917. In the fire of a terrible time, the best spiritual and moral strength of the people dried up: "Their faces were gloomy and thin, instead of the peace of life they had exhaustion." Degenerated spiritually and physically, the heroes of "The Pit" are really freaks. The pit is a symbol: an image of a place that does not exist, and a social utopia. Platonov skillfully debunks it, showing the immorality of a historical experiment on peoples. In the story, the reader is presented truly "the world of lost illusions."

"Pit" - a literary fiction in pure form, this is a model of the social structure of barracks communism. The events in it are the source of the writer's thoughts, his warning to future generations. There is no dynamic change of events in the story, everything is extremely simplified, schematic, and the very image of a pit, a monster devouring people, intensifies the feeling of a static plot. People appear on the pit, disappear or remain. People believe in the future, work for it, and hope to "live in the future with at least a small remnant of their hearts." They forget the past, do not see the present, living only in the future. And their life consists only in the fact that they "dig and sleep"; but none of them "dreamed and spoke to memories."

The images of the heroes are created as parodies of social types generated by the era are feature dystopias.

The cruel, inhuman reality of barracks communism distorted the characters, the fate of the characters. There are special characters in the work who "knew everything, foresaw everything." They had one problem - to find "the substance of long life." This is the image of the Chief, it is called that way. He has only to give an order, and zealous performers like Pashkin will immediately convey the order to the masses. The Pashins live beautifully, do not torment themselves with unnecessary questions, believing that "happiness will come historically." The masses themselves put forward this type of people, trusting them.

The main character, Voshchev, is a kind of folk philosopher. He was glad to participate in the "common existence", but the daily exhausting to the point of dull work disappointed the hero. At the end of the novel, Voshchev comes to the conclusion that it would be better again "not to know anything and live without hope in the vague lust of a vain mind, if only the girl was whole ...". The girl Nastya is a symbol of the future. Its fate is closely linked with the fate of the builders of the foundation pit. Nastya inherited from her mother, who died in the basement, the fear of new life, and in order to survive, the girl needs to sincerely believe in better life"Without the bourgeoisie" and "without the kulaks." Everyone is drawn to her, preparing for her a "girl's dowry" - socialism. But, thinking about Nastya's future, the builders of the pit forgot that the child should first of all have a happy present. Organized wretchedness, the gray scarcity of every day spent on the foundation pit, ruin the barely begun life. With the death of the girl, Voshchev loses the meaning of further existence.

It took almost 60 years for the main works of Platonov: "Chevengur", "Pit", "Juvenile Sea" - to see the light, and the readers saw the world as it opened to the writer at the dramatic turn of the 20-30s. It took a certain level of development of democracy for Platonov to be published. To be understood now, you need a mature and courageous public consciousness... This is a special task, because reading Platonov is not only difficult, but also joyful, for now it is already obvious that Andrei Platonov, who has been carefully hidden from Soviet readers for so long and carefully, is a wise writer, whose work makes many people think.

The unusual language of Platonov's works helps the author to reveal to the readers the meaning of his plans. The speech of the author and his characters is a hidden irony. His language is subordinated to the style of the era - the style of slogans and cliches. It turned out that the Russian language was lost, only verbal monsters remained. Gradually, we come to understand the symbolism of the author.

The era of social upheaval showed the world a new chronicler of her spiritual life, unlike anyone else. Recognizing life as the highest value, Platonov did not consider, however, that all life is worthy of man. The writer strove to comprehend the meaning of life and the purpose of man on Earth.

"Virtuoso masters, brilliant inventors and selfless fighters for universal happiness, in whose images Platonov knew neither tiredness, nor repetitions, passing through the fiery tubes of his inspiration and its realization, reveal the futility of their initiatives" (I. Borisova). As a rule, they are victims of their own or someone else's ideas, perishing in a collision with an implacable, artificial pseudo-reality.

It is characteristic that in the social utopias of Platonov, the function of the "innermost" hero is transferred to secondary or even episodic characters... And although they rarely appear in the storyline of the narrative, their semantic role is extremely large. To a greater extent, this observation applies to the novel "Chevengur". S. Semenova, one of the leading researchers of Platonov's work, rightly saw in "Chevengur" "a whole layer of characters passing in the background in a novel about violent transformers" and defending the rights of "irrevocable reality."

The most significant among them, besides Zakhar Pavlovich, were the blacksmith of the Sotykh and the peasant nicknamed the Unfinished. Both of them, being the bearers of the people's consciousness, soberly assess the tragic events in the country and see the prospect of further development of the barracks socialism imposed on the people. The unfinished one shrewdly warns strangers, newcomers, obsessed with the idea of ​​instant social reorganization, about the terrible consequences of their policy of dispossessing the peasants.

In the story "The Foundation Pit", the episodic image of Ivan Krestinin is marked with a high semantic load. The scene of the old peasant saying goodbye to his farm stands out sharply against the background of the grotesque narration with its realistic expression, reinforcing the tragic sound of the theme of collectivization in the story:

"The old plowman Ivan Semyonovich Krestinin kissed young trees in his garden and crushed them from the soil by the roots, and his woman wailed over the bare branches.
“Don't cry, old woman,” said Krestinin. “You’ll become a peasant dump on the collective farm. And these trees are my flesh, and even if she now suffers, she is bored with socializing in captivity. "

Noteworthy is the technique used here by the author to strengthen the ideological meaning of the episode: while the main characters of the story are endowed with only surnames, the hero, appearing only in one scene, has a surname, name and patronymic. The author's intent is also manifested in the fact that the name Ivan Krestinin is consonant with the phrase Ivan - a peasant's son. There are also prophecies in the "Pit" that are close in meaning to the Chevengur ones. In the scene of dispossession of kulaks, a remark of one of the peasants is striking with its boldness.

"- Liquidated ?! - he said from the snow. - Look, now I'm not here, and tomorrow you will not be. So it will come out that one of your main people will come to socialism!"

Platonov's works masterfully reveal the mechanism of mythologizing the consciousness of all strata of society, not only the proletariat, but also the peasantry. The writer sympathized with the people who were captured by the "artificial idea", saw in this not his fault, but a misfortune. He expressed his position in the words of the blacksmith Sotykh, who considered the communists to be good people, but strange: common people” , and this slogan was selflessly believed.

Other compositions on this work

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

GOU VPO "Samarskiy State University"

Faculty of Philology

Department of Russian and Foreign Literature

Specialty "philology"

Course work

Artistic features of Andrei Platonov's story "The Foundation Pit"

Completed by a student

course 07301 group

Olga Chernoyarova

supervisor

Candidate philological sciences

Garbuzinskaya Yulia Romanovna

Samara 2012

Introduction

Narrative features

Genre problem

Conclusion

Bibliographic list

Introduction

Andrei Platonov lived in a difficult time for Russia. He believed in the possibility of rebuilding a society in which the common good would be a condition of his own happiness. But in life it was not possible to embody these utopian ideas. Very soon Platonov realized that it was impossible to turn the people into an impersonal mass. He protested against personal violence, transformation reasonable people in spiritless beings who carry out any order of power. This protest is heard in many works, but the theme human destiny v totalitarian state disclosed in the work "Pit"

The story "Pit" tells about the events that take place in the second half of 1929. This is a turning point, in which the fragments of the past, pre-revolutionary, and the outgoing NEP, and the beginning of a new construction were intertwined. Man by himself meant nothing. The main thing was the origin. Everyone who came to a construction site was required to be of a proletarian or peasant-poor origin: "if only he fit the class: then he would be good." The turning point gives rise to new relationships between people, making significant adjustments to their characters.

The proposed work is devoted to the study of the artistic features of Andrei Platonov's story "The Foundation Pit". This topic seems to be quite complex. The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that many issues of studying the work of A. Platonov continue to remain outside the field of view of researchers. The artistic features of the story "The Foundation Pit" have not been sufficiently studied to this day. The urgency of the problems raised by the writer in his story is also undoubted - these are the so-called "eternal" problems. The importance of our research work lies in the fact that Platonov in "The Foundation Pit" showed the ideology of people during the first "five-year plan".

Purpose of work:

.Get acquainted with the works of scientists, researchers, critics, dedicated to creativity Andrey Platonov.

2.Consider the ideological and thematic unity of the story "The Foundation Pit".

.Determine how the road chronotope is transformed.

.Give a theoretical understanding of the terms "narration", "narrator", "narrator", "description", "characteristic"; in the narrow sense to reveal the ratio of compositional forms of speech and, in a broad sense, to the peculiarities of the narrative in the story "The Foundation Pit" by A. Platonov.

.Understand the problem of defining a genre.

Work tasks:

Collecting material about Andrei Platonov.

A brief overview of the critical and scientific works dedicated to the work of Andrei Platonov

Acquaintance with the history of the creation of the story "The Foundation Pit".

.Reveal the ideological and thematic unity of the story.

5.Determine how the chronotope of the road along Bakhtin is being transformed.

.Consider genre controversies.

.Determine how the story is structured.

In our work, we will refer to the opinion of such researchers as Bakhtin M.M., Vinogradov V.V., Tamarchenko N.D., Kramova I., Fomenko L.P., Seyradyan N.P., Ivanova L.A. , Mitrakova N.M., Malygina N.M., Endinova V.V. and etc.

The work consists of two chapters. In the first chapter, we will review the critical and scientific works devoted to the work of Andrei Platonov and talk about the history of the creation of the story. In the second chapter, we will dwell on the artistic features of the story "The Foundation Pit", namely, we will define the ideological and thematic unity, consider how the chronotope and the narrative are built, and identify the problem of the genre.

From the history of the creation of the story "Pit"

The dates of work on the manuscript are set by the author himself - December 1929 - April 1930. Such chronological accuracy is far from accidental: it was during this period that collectivization peaked.

Exact dates unambiguously point to specific historical events that constituted the frame of the narrative. On November 7, 1929, Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Breakthrough" appeared, which substantiated the policy of total collectivization; On December 27, Stalin announced "the beginning of a full-blown offensive against the kulaks" and the transition to "the elimination of the kulaks as a class"; On March 2, 1930, in his article "Dizzy with Success," Stalin briefly put a brake on violent collectivization, and in April Pravda published his article "Answer to Comrades of Collective Farmers." "The pit" is not even created in hot pursuit - it is written practically from life: there is no chronological distance between the events depicted and the narrative.

The idea of ​​the "Pit" refers to the fall of 1929. Platonov at that time worked in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture in his technical specialty - in the reclamation department - and dealt with the problems of reclamation in Voronezh region... At the same time, there was a cruel study of his story "Doubting Makar" (the story was published in the magazine "October", 1929, N 9). Having clearly and distinctly stated his doubts about the new world order, Platonov drew the attention of the higher authorities: the "ideologically ambiguous" and "anarchic" story caught the eye of Stalin - and his assessment served as a signal for persecution of Platonov.

General Secretary of the RAPP L. Averbakh simultaneously in two magazines - the guilty "October" (No. 11 for 1929) and "At the literary post" - published an article "On the integral scale and private Makars". Averbach understood the meaning and pathos Platonic story absolutely certain: "It is hard and difficult for a grassroots worker to live. It is hard and difficult for him because we care about houses, and not about the soul, about an integral scale, and not about an individual, about future factories, and not about today's dishes."

Platonov's story really did not fit into the official ideology on all counts. The obligatory pathos of selfless service to the future - but not to the present - is "replaced" by Platonov's intense attention precisely to "today" and "now." Instead of a heroic transformer of the world, a hero of an act, the writer shows a "pensive" person, a "reflective melancholic". The result of the inner evolution of the hero, from the point of view of ideology, should have been spiritual solidity and unshakable confidence in his righteousness - Platonov, on the other hand, chooses "doubting Makar" as his heroes.

The accusation formulated by Averbach fully met the social order: "And they want to pity us! And they come to us preaching humanism!" Literature must affirm the will of an "integral scale" and not the rights of a "private Makar" —that is what is required of a "real" writer.

The hunt for "humanists" will develop on an even greater scale in 1930-1931, and Platonov, in the winter and spring of 1930, will work on the story "The Foundation Pit". Unacceptably "counter-revolutionary" antitheses will once again permeate the entire narrative: "personal life" - and "general pace of work", "pensive" hero - and the builders of "future motionless happiness." The publication of such a work was out of the question. The story was first published in our country only in 1987.

Review of critical and scientific works dedicated to the work of Andrei Platonov

Seeing the closeness of A. Platonov's humanistic views with other artists of the word, the researchers of his work N.P. Seyranyan, L.A. Ivanova note that in Plato's works, the essence of the humanism of literature, which increased the responsibility of the individual for solving the problem of "man - society", is artistically formulated in Plato's works than in the prose of the mid-twenties. According to L.P. Fomenko A. Platonov, along with the classics of literature, strove for such artistic comprehension and depiction of life, in which the deepening social analysis, historicism and psychologism of artistic research would contribute to the development of literature that is truthful in its essence. The aesthetic achievements of Russian literature expressed those humanistic and moral foundations of human life, which constitute the very essence of the social ideal. Perhaps, today there is not a single researcher who would not share the position that one of the writers in whose work the desire to "support best qualities man ", was Andrey Platonov.

There was a time when a certain part of the criticism, originally associated with the RAPP, misinterpreted the work of A. Platonov, denied aesthetic value of his works, insisted on the incompatibility of the concept of personality reflected in them with the social ideal.

A qualitatively new period in the study of A. Platonov's work falls on the 60s. After the first responses to the reprints of the writer's works, in which the desire "to restore simple justice, to recognize the importance of the writer for our literary, spiritual life," prevailed, followed by attempts at a multifaceted understanding of the work of this artist of the word. Scientifically, these publications are varied and numerous. These are memoirs of contemporaries about the writer, and articles on various problems of A. Platonov's work, and detailed monographs. The extensive dissertation research of L.P. Fomenko, N.P. Seyranyan, L.A. Ivanova.

A significant contribution to the study of A. Platonov's literary activity was the first bibliography of his work, compiled by N.M. Mitrakova. Textual and bibliographic work continues. The most complete bibliographic material about Platonov is collected in the book "Russian Soviet prose writers". Noteworthy is the publication of A. Platonov's works undertaken in the 60s - 80s by E.A. Krasnoshchekova and M.N. Sotskovey, which, along with a complete historical and literary commentary, provides extensive biographical and bibliographic data, as well as textual notes. New interesting materials contained in the works of N.M. Malygina, V.V. Endinova. In the dissertations of L.P. Fomenko, N.P. Seyranyan, D. Ya. Taran traces the main lines of development of the writer's creativity, explores the ways of mastering it by an individual method, interprets the writer's artistic world. In these works, on the basis of extensive historical and literary material, it is convincingly proved that the formation of A. Platonov as an artist took place in the mainstream of the main line of Soviet literature.

The dissertation research of L.A. Ivanova. In this work, the historical-evolutionary approach is subordinated to the system-logical, conceptual one. L.A. Ivanova connects the dynamics of development of creativity A. Platonova with the nature of the multilateral and complex conflict. However, the definition of the main direction of A. Platonov's work by this researcher raises some objections. So, L.A. Ivanova writes: "The ideological principle of" domination - subordination "is the" inanimate enemy "with which the writer is fighting throughout his creative life." To reduce all the pathos of A. Platonov's work to criticism of a certain ideological principle- means to narrow and diminish the humanistic and moral potential of the writer's creativity. The main significance of A. Platonov's work is in depicting the positive principles of human life on the basis of a social ideal, from the point of view of which criticism of the negative aspects of life is carried out. This emphasis on the study of the positive program of A. Platonov's creativity seems to us to be cardinal for correct interpretation, understanding and appreciation of the writer's artistic heritage, his contribution to art. A. Platonov's work was considered by such researchers as ON Nikolenko. in the aspect of the formation of his creative individuality, Losev V.V. in terms of its structure artistic world.

Ideological and thematic unity of the story "The Foundation Pit"

The central problem of the work is the search for truth by the main characters. A single part or several parts mark a certain stage in this search. For the answer, the heroes turn to the stereotypes established in the popular consciousness and look for the truth in various social (or philosophical) spheres. However, the surrounding reality is subordinated to the grandiose bureaucratic system that permeated all spheres, destroyed the centuries-old way of life, the laws of existence (first of all, spiritual ties between people), which approved the class principle of evaluating a person. The search for truth turns out to be in vain. If individual people are able to find harmony and peace (Prushevsky), then on the whole the activity of tireless workers turns out to be not only meaningless, but destructive both for them and for those around them.

In parallel with the theme of the search for truth, the theme of the formation of a "new man" is traced. But this movement also ends in a dead end: either death (Kozlov, Nastya), or complete spiritual emptiness (Chiklin). Thus, both the idea in the name of which the heroes live and work, and the very conditions of life in which the realization of this idea takes place, is denied. This understanding of reality was a new stage in the artistic self-awareness of Russian culture. "The Pit" is a completely unique work in the way of interaction between historical reality and its artistic reflection. This is a kind of "translation" of factual material into special language, into a special system with unusual types of connections within it, with an unlikely way of creating the world. So, for example, the specific time of the story is the autumn of 1929; many facts have a historical background: building a house, collectivization, everyday life and activities of party workers, decrees, slogans, and the like. But, getting into the artistic world of "The Pit", these facts undergo a sharp deformation, often reaching, it would seem, to the grotesque and absurdity. However, thanks to this, they reveal their very essence, without everything accidental and extraneous. Before us is no longer just a fact, but the essence of a fact, an archetype. Platonov carefully cuts off everything that is unnecessary for his plan: we practically do not see the faces of the heroes, but we always have an idea of ​​their inner world, we are in the circle of the heroes' experiences, thoughts and hopes. What, for example, do we know about how Voshchev looked, except that he was weak and thin? Nothing. Yes, you don't need to know this - Platonov cares about his feelings, assessments, thoughts. On the contrary, the image of Pashkin goes through external forms, he is almost denied the content of the inner world.

For Platonov, man is the bearer of the idea, it is she who is in the center of the writer's attention. Interaction, mutual determination of ideas - this is the basis of the artistic world of the "Pit". And therefore, any correlation of events of different times is possible, "compression" of time, for example, Safronov and Kozlov die "instantly" - immediately after the scene of their departure. Prushevsky enters into a conversation with Pashkin and immediately after that he learns from Nastya about the tragedy "in the hut". Here is what T. Mann writes about this: "... for a long time it is absolutely impossible to tell life as it once told itself. This would lead to infinity ... , therefore, artistic time compression is necessary. The work is aesthetically compulsory unfolds before the reader in a certain sequence, i.e. along certain lines that form the scheme of the work and, when perceived, gives a certain certain rhythm. The artistic space of the story, on the contrary, is "expanded": before us is the world cosmic proportions, the heroes' plans are of a worldwide nature. There is no specific city, there is no specific village: there is a City - a symbol of the civilization of the new world, there is a Village that is being transformed into a Collective Farm named after the General Line, there is a Foundation Pit - the basis of future world prosperity. All this is included in the life of the Universe.

Road chronotope transformation

The chronotope of the road is a significant component of the general "chronotope" phenomenon. As you know, the term "chronotope" was introduced by M.M. Bakhtin to denote "the essential interconnection of temporal and spatial relations artistically mastered in literature." According to the scientist, "in the literary and artistic chronotope, there is a fusion of spatial and temporal signs in a meaningful and concrete whole. Time here thickens, becomes denser, becomes artistically visible; space is intensified, drawn into the movement of time, plot, history." It is important to note that the space-time coordinates of literary reality provide a holistic perception of a work of art and organize its composition. The literary-poetic image, "formally unfolding in time (as a sequence of text), with its content reproduces the spatio-temporal picture of the world, moreover, in its symbolic, ideological, value aspect." The literary chronotope varies according to genre and genre. The fusion of space-time and value is inherent in the depicted word of poetry; in prose, on the contrary, a combination of spatio-temporal images with different "frames of reference" is characteristic due to the difference in the points of view and horizons of the characters, as well as their "languages".

The significance of the chronotope of the road in literature is enormous: a rare work does without any variations of the motive of the road, and many works are directly built on the chronotope of the road and road meetings, since the chronotope of the road, having a wide volume, reveals spatio-temporal unity extremely clearly and clearly.

In "The Pit" the chronotope of the road is transformed in this way: the usual logic dictates that if the work begins with the road, then the hero's journey will become the plot. However, the reader's possible expectations are not met. The road leads Voshchev first to the foundation pit, where he lingers for a while and turns from a wanderer into a digger. Then "Voshchev went into one open road" - where it led, the reader does not know. The end point of his journey will again be the foundation pit. In Bakhtin's novel-road, the chronotope of the road is transformed differently, if the work begins with a road, then the hero's wanderings become the plot of the work.

Platonov, as it were, deliberately refuses those plot possibilities that are provided to the writer by the plot of his wanderings. The hero's route is constantly getting lost, he again and again returns to the foundation pit; the connections between events are broken all the time. There are quite a few events in the story, but there are no hard cause-and-effect links between them: Kozlov and Safronov are killed in the village, but who and why remains unknown; Zhachev went to the final to Pashkin - "never returning to the pit again." The linear movement of the plot is replaced by whirling around the foundation pit.

Along with the failed journey of the hero, Platonov introduces a failed construction plot into the work - the general proletarian house becomes a grandiose mirage, designed to replace reality. The construction project was initially utopian: its author "carefully worked on fictitious parts of the general proletarian house." The project of a gigantic house, which turns into a grave for its builders, has its own literary history: it is associated with a huge palace (at the base of which are the corpses of Philemon and Bavkis), being built in "Faust", a crystal palace from Chernyshevsky's novel "What is to be done?" and certainly. The tower of babel... The building of human happiness, for the construction of which was paid for with the tears of a child, is the subject of Ivan Karamazov's reflections from Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov.

The very idea of ​​the House is defined by Platonov already on the first pages of the story: “This is how graves are dug, not at home,” says the foreman of the excavators to one of the workers. The foundation pit will become a grave in the finale of the story - for the child. The semantic result of the construction of "future immovable happiness" is the death of the child in the present and the loss of hope for gaining "the meaning of life and the truth of universal origin", in search of which Voshchev sets off on the road. "I don't believe in anything now!" - the logical conclusion of the construction of the century.

Narrative features

Term narrationis most often used in the study of the speech structure of individual epic works or art system one author. Meanwhile, the content of the concept remains in to a large extent unclear. Characteristic is the "loose and vague confusion of the narrative with" description "," image ", purely eventful content of the text, as well as with fairy-tale forms.

First of all, it is necessary to correlate the concept of "narration" with the structure of a literary work, namely, with the separation of two aspects in it: "the event that is being told" and "the events of the story itself." From the point of view of Tamarchenko N.D. "narration" corresponds exclusively to the event of narration, that is, communication of the narrating subject with the addressee-reader.

With this approach, the category "narration" can be correlated, on the one hand, with certain subjects of the image and utterance, and on the other hand, with various specific forms of organization of speech material, which are, for example, various options dialogueand monologue, characterizationor his portrait, "plug-in "forms (plug-in novella or poems, etc.). The designated aspects of the work are linked by relations of interdependence and interdependence:". not only the subject of speech determines the speech embodiment of the narrative, but the forms of speech themselves evoke with a certain certainty an idea of ​​the subject, build his image. ”From this it is clear, first, that it is precisely the nature of this relationship or this mutual transition that needs to be understood. Secondly, it is necessary to exclude some options: first of all, cases when the subject of the utterance (character) is not depicting, i.e. his speech is only the subject of someone else's image; and then those when the speaker (character) sees and evaluates the object, event or another character, but there is no storytelling process as a special means and at the same time (for the author) the subject of the image.

There is a problem of narration - the delimitation of it as a special compositional form of prosaic speech from descriptionsand specifications.

Description differs from narration in that the description is based on a pictorial function. The subject of description, firstly, turns out to be a part of the artistic space, correlated with a certain background. The portrait may be preceded by interior... Landscape as viz Imagesa certain part of the space can be given in the background messagesinformation about this space as a whole. Secondly, the structure of description is created by the movement of the observer's gaze or a change in his position as a result of movement in space either of himself or of the object of observation. From this it is clear that the "background" (in this case, the semantic context) of the description can also be " inner space"observer.

Contrary to the description characteristicis an image-reasoning, the purpose of which is to explain to the reader charactercharacter. The character is the stereotype of his inner life that has developed and manifested itself in the behavior of a person: a complex of habitual reactions to various circumstances, established attitudes towards oneself and towards others. It is necessary to indicate the signs by which the characteristic form is highlighted in the text. As such, we will call the combination of features analysis (the determined whole-character-decomposes into its constituent elements) and synthesis (the reasoning begins or ends with generalizing statements).

Tamarchenko distinguishes between narration, descriptionand characterizationas special speech structures inherent in the utterances of just such depicting subjects (narrator, narrator) who perform "mediating" functions.

It can be concluded that in "The Pit" the narration prevails over the description and characteristics, which creates a feeling of emotionlessness, objectivity, detachment in the presentation of the story.

Tamarchenko also writes about the duality of the narrative in her work. It combines functions special (informative, subject-oriented) and general (compositional, aimed in this case at the text), is the reason for the widespread opinion that the description and characteristics are special cases of the narrative. This is also the objective basis for the frequent confusion between the narrator and the author. In fact, the compositional function of storytelling is one variation of its mediating role.

So, narration is a collection of fragments of text epic work, attributed by the author-creator to the “secondary” subject of image and speech (narrator, narrator) and performing “intermediary” (connecting the reader with the artistic world) functions, namely: firstly, representing a variety of messages addressed to the reader; secondly, specially designed for attaching to each other and correlating within a single system of all subject-oriented statements of the characters and the narrator.

We see in "The Pit" that the narrator conveys to the reader the experiences of the heroes, their inner world, their aspirations.

Now, I think, we should dwell in more detail on the concept of a narrator. The narrator is the one who informs the reader about the events and actions of the characters, fixes the course of time, depicts the appearance of the characters and the setting of the action, analyzes the inner state of the hero and the motives of his behavior, characterizes his human type (mental disposition, temperament, attitude to moral standards etc.), while not being either a participant in the events, or - what is even more important - the object of the image for any of the characters. The specificity of the narrator is simultaneously - in an all-embracing outlook (his boundaries coincide with the boundaries of the depicted world) and addressed in his speech primarily to the reader, i.e. its orientation just outside the world depicted. In other words, this specificity is determined by the position "on the border" of fictional reality.

The narrative form is determined by the type of narrator. Three main narrative forms can be distinguished.

Ich-Erzählung ). Diegetic narrator (narrator): he himself belongs to the world of the text, i.e. participates in the events depicted - to a greater or lesser extent. So, in " Captain's daughter"the narrator is the main character, and in Gogol's" Shot "or in Gogol's Old World Landowners, although the narrator is a protagonist, he is secondary. Ich-Erzählung .. Narration without the 1st person. The narrator is exegetical, not owned by the world text, as in "The Queen of Spades". The purpose of such a story is "to create a picture of objective being, reality as a reality, independent of its perception by the author." This narrative form creates the appearance of objectivity: the world appears to the reader as if by itself, not portrayed by anyone. This form can be called a traditional narrative .. Free-indirect discourse (Er - Erzählung ), which is characterized by the fact that the narrator (exegetical) partially yields to the character his right to a speech act. A purely literary figure arises - a speaker in the 3rd person, impossible in spoken language. So, for example, Chekhov's story "Rothschild's Violin" begins with the words: The town was small, worse than the village, and almost only old people lived in it, who died so rarely that it was even annoying. The riddle of inappropriate annoyance is solved after it turns out that its subject is not the narrator, but the main character - the undertaker. In Bulgakov's White Guard, the character is, more often than not, the subject of speech acts - with their expression (Mom, the bright queen, where are you? Etc.) and dialogical (But quietly, gentlemen, quietly!). A remarkable example of free indirect discourse (SKD) is Solzhenitsyn's story One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

To describe the type of non-canonical character that characterizes each of the narrative forms, it is necessary to formulate the signs of a canonical speech situation. The canonical communicative situation is characterized by the following conditions.

Condition 1. The utterance has the Speaker and the Addressee - concrete-referent (and not generalized, as, for example, "my reader" in "Onegin") and does not coincide with the speaker himself.

Condition 2 (unity of time). The moment of creation of the statement by the Speaker coincides with the moment of its perception by the Addressee, i.e. The addressee is the Listener.

Condition 3 (unity of place). The Speaker and the Addressee are in the same place and have a common field of vision.

Three narrative forms are also three historical stages in the development of a narrative.

In the story "The Foundation Pit", the story is told from the third person, the author is somewhat detached and the impression is created that the narration is going on by itself. The third-person storytelling creates the impression of a neutral, objective storytelling, not associated with a specific person, subjectively perceiving the events being described. According to Vinogradov, this refers to the second historical stage in the development of narrative - narration without the first person. The narrator is exegetical, not belonging to the world of the text.

There is the problem of narrator and storyteller. There are several ways to solve it. The first and the simplest one is the opposition of two variants of coverage of events: a distant image by an impersonal subject of a character named in the third person (Er-Erzahlung), and statements about events in the first person (Ich-Erzahlung). But as special studies show, there is no direct relationship between the type of speech subject and the named two forms of narration. In a third-person narrative, either an omniscient author or an anonymous narrator can express himself. The first person can belong directly to the writer, and to the specific narrator, and to the conditional narrator, in each of these cases differing in a different measure of certainty and different possibilities. In the story "The Foundation Pit", the all-knowing author appears in a third-person narrative. He does not participate in the events, but he knows everything that is happening and brings it to the reader.

Another way is the idea of ​​the irreparable, albeit indirect, presence in the text of the author, who expresses his own position through the comparison of different "versions of himself" - such as the "hidden author" and "unreliable narrator", or different "subject forms" such as "a carrier of speech, not identified, not named, dissolved in the text", i.e. " narrator (sometimes he is called the author) ", and" a carrier of speech, openly organizing the entire text with his personality, "that is, a" narrator. "It is clear that with this approach one and the same type of subject can be combined with different grammatical forms of organizing the utterance.

The third way is to characterize the most important types of "narrative situations" in which the function of narration is carried out by various subjects. In this direction, the undisputed priority belongs to the works of F.K. Shtantzel. Since the scientist's ideas about the three types of the situations mentioned have been repeatedly stated, we emphasize - relying on the author's introspection in "The Theory of Storytelling" - some more general and important points. First, there are opposed " narrationin the proper sense of mediation "and" image, i.e. reflection of fictional reality in the mind of a novel character, in which the reader has the illusion of immediacy of his observation of the fictional world. ”Accordingly, the polarity of“ the narrator (in a personal or impersonal role) and the reflector ”is fixed. Shtantzel directly relates to two "situations": "austorial" and "I-situation", the subjects whom he designates using the terms "narrator" and "I-narrator." and the generally accepted distinction between the main variants of "perspective" (internal and external points of view), he also attaches fundamental importance to "mode", ie "identity or non-identity of the area of ​​being (Seinsbereiche) of the narrator and characters." lives in the same world as the other characters in the novel, "while the auctorial narrator" exists outside the fictional world. "Thus, despite on the difference in terminology, it is clear that Tamarchenko means precisely those two types of narrating subjects, which in our tradition are usually called narrator and storyteller.

It should also be noted that the narrator is not a person, but a function. But a function can be attached to a character - provided that the character as a narrator does not coincide at all with him as a character.

Tamarchenko also says that the concepts narratorand author's imagesometimes they mix, but they can and should be distinguished. First of all, both should be delimited - precisely as "images" - from the one who created them. author-creator.It is generally accepted that the narrator is “a fictitious image not identical to the author”. The relationship between the "image of the author" and the author's original, or "primary" is not so clear. According to M.M. Bakhtin, "the image of the author", if we understand it as the author-creator, is a contradictio in adjecto; every image is something always created, and not creating. " prototypeauthor as artistic image clearly delimited by B.O. Corman.

"The image of the author" is created by the true author (creator of the work) according to the same principle as the self-portrait in painting. In other words, the artist can picture himself painting this very self-portrait in front of us (cf .: "Until my novel / I finished the first chapter."). But he cannot show how this picture is created as a whole - with a double perspective perceived by the viewer (with a self-portrait inside). To create an "image of the author", like any other, a true author needs a fulcrum outside the work, outside the "image field".

The narrator, unlike the author-creator, is outside only that depicted timeand space,in which the plot unfolds. Therefore, he can easily return or run ahead, and also know the premises or results of the events of the depicted present. But its capabilities are at the same time determined by the author, i.e. the boundaries of the entire artistic whole, which includes the depicted "event of the story itself."

In contrast to the narrator, the narrator is not on the border of the fictional world with the reality of the author and the reader, but entirely insidedepicted reality.

So, the narrator is the subject of the image, sufficiently "objectified" and connected with a certain socio-cultural and linguistic environment, from the position of which he depicts other characters. The narrator, on the other hand, is close in his outlook to the author-creator. At the same time, in comparison with the heroes, he is a bearer of a more neutral speech element, generally accepted linguistic and stylistic norms. The closer the hero is to the author, the less speech differences between the hero and the narrator.

The "mediation" of the narrator allows you to enter the world depicted and look at the events through the eyes of the characters. But in "The Pit" it is the narrator, therefore, we see that the "mediation" of the narrator helps the reader, first of all, to get a more reliable and objective idea of ​​the events and actions, as well as the inner life of the characters.

Genre problem

The story is a prose genre that does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate place between the novel, on the one hand, and the story and short story, on the other, tending to a chronicle plot that reproduces the natural course of life. This definition of the genre is characteristic exclusively of the Russian literary tradition. In Western literary criticism, the terms "novel" or "short novel" are used for such prose works. Due to its versatility, the genre of the story is difficult to define unambiguously. The plot of the story is almost always centered around the protagonist, whose personality and fate are revealed within a few events. Subplots in the story (in contrast to the novel), as a rule, are absent, the narrative chronotope is concentrated on a narrow period of time and space.

Platonov's work does not correspond to many of the fundamental features of the story as an established genre with a certain structure, for example, the following: "Typical", "pure" form of the story are works of a biographical nature, artistic chronicles: S.T. Aksakov, L.N. Tolstoy, "Poshekhonskaya antiquity" by M.Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin, M. Gorky's tetralogy, "Kashcheev's chain" by M.M. Prishvina. The term "story" coexists with the less canonical name "history", just carrying the notion of a story such as a chronicle, in which artistic unity defines the image of the narrator, the "historian." As it was written above, in the story the plot is almost always centered around the protagonist, but in the "Pit" of the protagonist there is no such thing. This list of classic samples is enough to feel the huge difference between them and "The Pit". Therefore, it is necessary to define the genre variety of Platonov's work "The Foundation Pit". This is necessary to clarify the features of the writer's artistic thinking, because any literary genre is a form of the author's judgment that has significance and determines many components both in the structure of the text (narrative method, space-time forms, plot, ways of creating images, etc.), and in substantive aspects.

The word "story" is inscribed on the typescript of "The Pit" by the author's own hand, and it was assumed that there could be no questions here. In this regard, it is not entirely clear why K. Barsht, for example, calls "The Foundation Pit" a novel, because novel- large form; a work, in the events of which many characters usually take part, whose fates are intertwined. Novels can be philosophical, adventure, historical, family and everyday, social. We cannot precisely attribute the "pit" to the novel, because the volume of the work does not give us the right to do so. There were also attempts to correlate the Platonic tale with the mystery genre. The closeness of the Platonic story to the works in the genre of the production novel was also noted. The problem of the genre was discussed in detail only in connection with the concept of "dystopia", one of the examples of which, like the novel "Chevengur", is often called "The Foundation Pit". In a dystopia, as a rule, a kind of fantastic model of society is depicted in which already familiar ideas can function. This provision is only partially applicable to "Chevengur" and "Pit". Despite the obvious conventionality of the artistic space of both works, they still have an undeniable connection with a specific historical reality.

"The Foundation Pit" is a relatively small story: in the edition prepared by the Pushkin House, it occupies 95 pages. In the process of working on the story, Platonov made a noticeable correction of the text, which was reflected in the composition. The creative history of the "Pit" can be described as a series of successive transformations of the original design, and the most significant of these transformations is based on the change in the character of the chronotope. The chronotope of the story is formed due to the movements of the protagonist - Voshchev. First, from one city to another, where the "great digging" of the foundation pit for the General Proletarian House is taking place, then to the village, in which, after the main actors arrived there, collectivization unfolded and a collective farm appeared. In the finale, the events are again transferred to the foundation pit. During the final revision of the text, Platonov significantly reduced that part of it that preceded the description of the work in the pit itself. Thus, the path has become emphatically cyclical: foundation pit - village - foundation pit. The story lacks any formal division into chapters, including numbered passages.

We have before us two points of view on life: the first - as a special organism that needs spiritual meaning for each, even the most insignificant, element, where everything is important and the second is a view of life as a mechanical structure with a clear hierarchy of values ​​and strict certainty of the functions of man and nature. The conflict is ideological in nature: Voshchev understands the need for meaning, but cannot yet acquire it; the system, on the other hand, permanently generates contradictions even within itself: a strict definition of human functions leads to a loss of spirituality (a food worker refuses an elementary service to tired workers; within the framework of this structure, he is right, but the workers are also right, since the same system postulates an expression, first of all interests of the working class), the precarious position of even the "bureaucrats" themselves: Zhachev can blackmail comrade Pashkin with impunity, the most zealous can be killed (as happened with Kozlov and Safronov).

Nature is also imbued with disharmony, as if reflecting the state of people: "A clay mound rose behind the pub, and an old tree grew on it, alone in the light weather." In general, the writer often refers to the image of a tree (the parallel "man - tree").

The deformation of the spiritual world has a correspondence in the appearance of the heroes, it is closely connected with the "material shell" of the characters: Voshchev, for example, feels "the weakness of the body without truth", with the maximum for the artistic world of the "Pit" meticulously depicted the "crippled man" Zhachev : "The cripple had no legs - one at all, and instead of the other there was a wooden attachment; he held on, mutilated by the support of crutches and the auxiliary tension of the wooden process of the right cut off leg. the fat remnant of his torso; his brown, sparingly open eyes watched the foreign world with the greed of deprivation, with the longing of accumulated passion, and his gums rubbed in his mouth, uttering inaudible thoughts of a legless one. " Again, the only "bright" moment of the initial parts of the story - the march of the pioneer detachment - has a flip side: "Any of these pioneers was born at a time when the dead horses of social war lay in the fields, and not all pioneers had skin at the hour of their origin. because their mothers ate only the reserves of their own body; therefore, the face of each pioneer was left with the difficulty of the infirmity of early life, the scarcity of the body and the beauty of expression. " Entering the barrack, Voshchev observes the sleeping builders of the foundation pit: "All the sleeping people were thin, like the dead, the tight space between the skin and bones of each was occupied by veins. Voshchev peered into the face of the next sleeping man - does it not express the unrequited happiness of a satisfied person. But the sleeping man lay there. dead, deeply and sadly, his eyes disappeared, and his cold legs stretched out helplessly in old work trousers. "

So, before us is a picture of the complete disharmony of the world. Both people and nature are in disharmony. The reason - in the absence in this world of "truth", "meaning" designed to explain and change the entire world order. Voshchev, one of central characters the story, organically, with all his being, realizes both this discord and its cause, trying to find the truth in order to restore the lost harmony of the world: "The dead, fallen leaf lay next to Voshchev's head, it was brought by the wind from a distant tree, and now this leaf was to be humbled Voshchev picked up the withered leaf and hid it in a secret compartment of the sack, where he kept all sorts of objects of misfortune and obscurity. died. Since nobody needs you and are lying among the whole world, then I will keep and remember you. "

The reason for the loss of truth is spoken of in the conversation between Voshchev and the Zavkomov workers. The holders of power assert: "Happiness will come from materialism, Comrade Voshchev, and not from meaning." This position was very characteristic of the real representatives of the new ideology. Thus, it can be assumed that the system into which a person is inscribed reduces spiritual elements. The hero understands this, realizing the true role of those who govern life ("sit on their necks"). "Everything lives and endures in the world, not realizing anything. As if someone, one or a few of the few, extracted from us a convinced feeling and took it for themselves." However, Voshchev sees the source of the tragedy of discord not in the representatives of the system. Finding this source means getting closer to understanding the truth.

Truth in Voshchev's mind is something concrete. You can "invent" it, you can try to find it in the world around you. By the way, it is here that the elements of utopianism are manifested in the spiritual image of the Platonic hero. Utopian consciousness posits the inner world of a person as a mechanistic combination of various elements: good nature, envy, wit, jealousy, etc., deriving them both from human nature and from their interaction with reality. Perfect state system gives the possibility of complete control of a person, assumes the satisfaction of all his needs. The main task is to find the truth - this is what defines the entire composition of the "Pit". A similar idea was expressed by V. Vyugin when he noted that “one of the most important themes of the Foundation Pit is the search for truth. In the first parts, a kind of exposition, a problem is postulated, which Voshchev is trying to solve, and then other heroes. Their journey in search of truth forms the structure of the story.

In the finale of the story, the heroes' last hopes for the possibility of finding the truth perish. “Voshchev stood in bewilderment over this calmed child — he no longer knew where communism would now be in the world if it was not at first in the child's feeling and convinced impression. Disbelief also penetrates the proletarian milieu: Zhachev confesses in a conversation with Safronov: “I don’t believe in communism now ... communism is a child's business, for which I loved Nastya.” The funeral of the girl is, in fact, the burial of the idea of ​​achieving happiness on earth, a sentence to the entire existing system.

We can say that "The Foundation Pit" is built on the principle of answering the question about happiness, truth, the meaning of life. The way of narration - an objective author's speech - allows you to penetrate into the inner world of the heroes to the deepest depths, see their experiences, reflect on their problems. But how can you just call a story a work in which the main characters are ideas, and the action is the mutual determination of ideas? A work where there is no main character (sometimes Voshchev is called that, but in the second half of the story he is already in the background, giving way to other characters)? Where is the result not the end of the plot of the action, but a cruel sentence to the whole world? The ending of the story is a response in a form that implies the impossibility of a positive response to global issues staged by Platonic heroes. In "The Pit" does not sound directly: "the truth is this and that." Specifically, her heroes do not find it. But for the reader, this is a very eloquent testimony: the truth was sought in all possible forms of modern life, it is not there not because they were looking badly, but because with the existing way of life it simply cannot exist. This result can be called a conclusion, or morality. The world is reaching a dead end, it is necessary to change something in principle, if there is a desire to find happiness; what the heroes are presented as truth is not. The postulate of the presence of truth in this world is a deliberate deception, which is often understood by the ideologists themselves. This is also clear to the heroes of the story - it is no coincidence that Zhachev goes at the very end to "kill Comrade Pashkin." Each element of the "Pit" structure works for this conclusion. He is in the logic of the entire figurative and ideological world. This means that the work is didactic and the author pursues a very specific goal - to bring the reader to a clear conclusion.

This principle of comprehending reality is fundamental for the genre of the parable. It is in this genre that everything extraneous is discarded, the essence of phenomena is exposed, the ultimate convention of place and time, their functional nature, becomes an artistic device. Parable- this is a story with a conclusion, morality, often unpronounceable, but implied. Unlike the fable, the parable does not verbalize an unambiguous conclusion, does not postulate "morality" with all its frankness. It requires comprehension and "deciphering", its pathos must be "unraveled". It is in "The Pit" that we see that very morality, which means that the work teaches us to seek the truth, although in essence it is not in this device, but the heroes try to find it to the last. In order to properly understand the parables, the following points must be taken into account:

It is not necessary that everything that is told in a parable should be in reality; the narrated event might not have happened. In addition, not all the actions of the persons mentioned in the parable are certainly good and flawless. And the purpose of the parable is not an accurate transmission of an event or natural phenomenon, but in the revelation of higher truths.

It is necessary to understand the purpose of the parable, which can be understood from the explanation, if any, from the preface to the parable or from the circumstances that prompted it to be said, also from general communication with context. In "The Pit" we understand the purpose of this work only after reading it. It shows us that we need to seek the truth, even where we may not find it.

It follows from this that not all details, details of a parable can be understood in a spiritual sense; some, like lights or shadows in a picture, are added to brighten the main idea or more clearly present it to the audience.

Despite this, the parable, in addition to the main idea that it intends to capture, sometimes may contain such details that remind of other truths or confirm them.

So, in conclusion, it should be said, "The Pit" is a detailed narrative, organized in such a way that all elements of the text, in addition to the basic meanings, are aimed at leading the reader to a completely definite conclusion of an ontological nature. The didactic nature of the "Pit" gives us reason to make next output: story-parable - this is how the genre variety of the "Pit" can be defined.

Conclusion

In conclusion of the work, I would like to formulate the conclusions to which we have come. They consist in the fact that, firstly, an overview of creativity was given on the basis of critical and scientific works of I. Kramov, L.P. Fomenko, N.P. Seyradyan, L.A. Ivanova, N.M. Mitrakova, N.M. Malygina M., Endinova V.V. and others. In their works on the vast historical and literary material, it is convincingly proved that the formation of A. Platonov as an artist took place in the mainstream of Soviet literature.

The main significance of A. Platonov's work is in depicting the positive principles of human life on the basis of a social ideal, from the point of view of which criticism of the negative aspects of life is carried out.

Secondly, "The Foundation Pit" was analyzed from the point of view of its ideological and thematic unity. We found out that the central problem of the work is the search for truth by the protagonists, that for the answer the heroes turn to stereotypes established in the popular consciousness and look for truth in various social (or philosophical) spheres. But the surrounding reality is subordinated to the grandiose bureaucratic system that permeated all spheres, destroyed the centuries-old way of life, the laws of existence (first of all, spiritual ties between people), which approved the class principle of evaluating a person. The search for truth turns out to be in vain. In parallel with the theme of the search for truth, the theme of the formation of a "new man" is traced.

Thirdly, we compared "The Pit" with the novel - Bakhtin's road and found that in "The Pit" the chronotope of the road is transformed in this way: the usual logic dictates that if the work begins with a road, then the hero's journey will become the plot. However, the reader's possible expectations are not met. The road leads Voshchev first to the foundation pit, where he lingers for a while and turns from a wanderer into a digger. Then "Voshchev went into one open road" - where it led, the reader does not know. The end point of his journey will again be the foundation pit.

Fourth, the story was analyzed from the point of view of the characteristics of the narrative.

We found that according to Vinogradov, three main narrative forms can be distinguished.

I. Narration from the 1st person ( Ich-Erzählung ). Diegetic narrator (narrator): he himself belongs to the world of the text, i.e. participates in the events depicted - to a greater or lesser extent .. Narration without the first person. The narrator is exegetical, not belonging to the world of the text .. Free-indirect discourse (Er - Erzählung ), which is characterized by the fact that the narrator (exegetical) partially yields to the character his right to a speech act. A purely literary figure arises - a speaker in the 3rd person, impossible in spoken language.

In "The Pit" the narration is from the third person, the author is somewhat detached and the impression is created that the narration proceeds by itself. The third-person storytelling creates the impression of a neutral, objective storytelling, not associated with a specific person, subjectively perceiving the events being described. According to Vinogradov, this refers to the second historical stage in the development of narrative - narration without the first person. The narrator is exegetical, not belonging to the world of the text. The purpose of such a story is "to create a picture of objective being, reality as a reality, independent of its perception by the author." This narrative form creates the appearance of objectivity: the world appears to the reader as if by itself, not portrayed by anyone. This form can be called traditional narrative. In The Pit, the "mediation" of the narrator helps the reader get a more reliable and objective idea of ​​the events and actions, as well as the inner life of the characters. It should also be said that in "The Pit" the narration prevails over the description and characteristics, which creates a feeling of emotionlessness, objectivity, detachment in the presentation of history.

And fifthly, we examined the problem of the genre and concluded that the didactic nature of "The Pit" gives us grounds to conclude that this is a story-parable.

Summing up, we can say that the tasks set at the beginning of the work have been completed.

We see the following prospects for further work:

.See if the theme of the search for truth can be traced in his other works.

2.The theme of children and utopia in the stories "Nikita", "Another mother", "Iron old woman", "Flower on the ground", "Cow", "Little soldier", "At the dawn of foggy youth", "Grandfather-soldier" "," Dry bread ".

platonov story foundation pit genre

Bibliographic list

1. Sources.

1 Platonov A.P. Collected works: In 3 vols. T.3. M., 1985

2 Platonov A. For future use. M .: Fiction, 1990

Scientific and critical literature.

1 Averbakh L. "October", 1929, N 11

2 Averbakh L. "On holistic scales in private Makars". - "At a literary post", 1929

3 Babenko L.G. Man and the world in the stories of A. Platonov in the 1920s. // Problems of style and genre in Soviet literature... AT 8. Sverdlovsk, 1976

4 Balburov E.A. Platonov's space. "Eternal" plots of Russian literature ("prodigal son" and others). Novosibirsk, 1996

6 Bakhtin, M.M. Literature and aesthetics. Research different years/ MM. Bakhtin. - M .: Art. lit., 1975.

7 Bogdanovich T. To the question of the formation creative views A. Platonov // Philological sciences, 1989. № 75-78

8 Bocharov S.G. "Substance of existence" // Andrey Platonov. The world of creativity. M., 1994

9 Vinogradov V.V. Selected Works. On the language of fiction. M., 1980 .-- S. 115-120

10. Vyugin V.Yu. Andrey Platonov: the poetics of the riddle. (Sketch of the formation and evolution of style). SPb .: Publishing house of RHGI, 2004.

11. Ivanova L.A. Personality and reality in the work of Andrei Platonov. Abstract for the degree of candidate of philological sciences. Voronezh, 1973

12. Kozhevnikova N.A. Types of storytelling in Russian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. M., 1994. - P.3-5

13. Corman B.O. Selected works on the history and theory of literature. Izhevsk: Publishing house of Udm. un-that, 1992. - S. 135

14. N.V. Kornienko Platonov's narrative strategy in the light of textual criticism // "Country of Philosophers" by Andrey Platonov: problems of creativity. IN 2. M., 1995

15. Kramov I. In search of essence. - New world, 1969, no. 8, p. 236

16. Losev V.V. Formation of A. Platonov's creative individuality. 1991

17. Lyubushkina M. "The Land of Andrey Platonov's Philosophers: Problems of Creativity" Issue 6. M., 2005

18. Malygina N.M. Ideological and aesthetic searches of A. Platonov in the early 20-ies ("The story of many interesting things), // Russian Literature, 1977, No. 4

19. Mann T. Joseph and his brothers. 1933-43, Russian translation, vols. 1-2, 1968

20. Meerson O. "Free thing": the poetics of non-distancing from Andrei Platonov. Berkley: Berkley Slavik Specialties, 1997

21. Mitrakova N.M. A.P. Platonov (1899-1951). Materials for the bibliography. Voronezh, 1969

22. Nikolenko O.N. Man and Society in the Prose of A.P. Platonov. Kharkov, 1998

23. Platonov A.P. Notebooks... Materials for the bibliography. M., 2000

24. Platonov A. Selected works... In two volumes. M .: Fiction, 1978

25. Platonov A. Pit. - New world. M., 1987, No. 6. - P.50-123

26. Seyradyan N.P. Creativity of Andrei Platonov in the 80s. Abstract for the degree of candidate of philological sciences. Yerevan. 1970

27. Taran D.Ya. The artistic world of Andrei Platonov. Abstract for the degree of candidate of philological sciences. Kiev, KSPI named after A.M. Gorky, 1973

28. Tolstaya-Segal E. Ideological contexts of Platonov / / Russian literature. Amsterdam, 1981. V.9

29. Fomenko L.P. Creativity A.P. Platonov / 1899-1951 /. Abstract for the degree of candidate of philological sciences. I., UPI, 1969

30. Kharitonov A.A. Andrei Platonov in the context of his era (materials of the IV Platonov seminar) // Russian Literature, 1993

31. Shcherbakov A. Kinship, orphanhood, citizenship and loneliness in the works of A. Platonov // "Country of Philosophers" by Andrey Platonov: problems of creativity. IN 2. M., 1995

32. Endinova V.V. To the creative biography of A. Platonov. // Questions of Literature, 1978, no. 3

2.33. Stanzel F. K. Theorie des Erzahlens. Gottingen, 1991

Reference literature

1 Introduction to literary studies. Literary work: basic concepts and terms / ed. L.V. Chernets. M., 2000

2 Mann Yu.V. Literary criticism // Literary encyclopedic Dictionary... / Edited by V.M. Kozhevnikov and P.A. Nikolaev. M., 1987

3 Tamarchenko N.D., Tyupa V.I., Broitman S.N. Literary theory In 2 volumes Volume 1 Theory of artistic discourse Theoretical poetics. Academy, 2010

4 Khalizev V.E. Literature theory: A textbook for university students - 4th ed. isp. and add. graduate School, 2009

Electronic resource

1 Bolot N. Biography of A. Platonov. # "justify">. 2 Kirichenko E. A brief overview of prose genres. http://www.proza.ru/2011/03/08/51

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The dates of work on the manuscript are set by the author himself - December 1929 - April 1930. Such chronological accuracy is far from accidental: it was during this period that collectivization peaked.

The exact dates unambiguously indicate the specific historical events that formed the frame of the narrative. On November 7, 1929, Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Breakthrough" appeared, which substantiated the policy of total collectivization; On December 27, Stalin announced "the beginning of a full-scale offensive against the kulaks" and the transition to "the elimination of the kulaks as a class"; On March 2, 1930, in his article "Dizzy with Success," Stalin briefly put a brake on violent collectivization, and in April Pravda published his article "Answer to Comrades Collective Farmers." The “pit” is not even created in hot pursuit - it is written practically from life: there is no chronological distance between the events depicted and the narrative.

The idea of ​​the "Pit" refers to the fall of 1929. Platonov at that time worked in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture in his technical specialty - in the reclamation department - and dealt with the problems of reclamation in the Voronezh region. At the same time, there was a cruel study of his story "Doubting Makar" (the story was published in the magazine "October", 1929, N 9). Having clearly and distinctly stated his doubts about the new world order, Platonov attracted the attention of higher authorities: the "ideologically ambiguous" and "anarchic" story caught the eye of Stalin - and his assessment served as a signal for persecution of Platonov.

The General Secretary of the RAPP L. Averbakh simultaneously in two magazines - the guilty "October" (N 11 for 1929) and "At the literary post" - published an article "On the integral scale and private Makars". Averbakh understood the meaning and pathos of Plato's story absolutely precisely: “It is hard and difficult for a grassroots worker to live ... It is hard and difficult for him because we care about houses, not about the soul, about an integral scale, and not about an individual, about future factories. , and not about today's dishes. "

Platonov's story really did not fit into the official ideology on all counts. The obligatory pathos of selfless service to the future - but not to the present - is "replaced" by Platonov's intense attention precisely to "today" and "now" -. Instead of a heroic transformer of the world, a hero of an act, the writer shows a “pensive” person, a “reflective melancholic”. The result of the inner evolution of the hero, from the point of view of ideology, was supposed to be spiritual solidity and unshakable confidence in his righteousness - Platonov, on the other hand, chooses "doubting Makar" as his heroes.

The accusation formulated by Averbakh fully corresponded to the social order: “And they want to pity us! And they come to us preaching humanism! " Literature must affirm the will of an "integral scale", and not the rights of a "private Makar" - that is what is required of a "real" writer.

The hunt for "humanists" will develop on an even greater scale in 1930-1931, and Platonov in the winter and spring of 1930 will work on the story "The Foundation Pit". Unacceptably "counter-revolutionary" antitheses will once again permeate the entire narrative: "personal life" - and "general pace of work", the "pensive" hero - and the builders of "future motionless happiness." The publication of such a work was out of the question. The story was first published in our country only in 1987 ("New World", 1987, N 6).

In this article, we will consider the work that Andrei Platonov created, we will carry out it was conceived by the author in 1929, in the fall, when Stalin's article appeared in print entitled "The Year of the Great Turning Point", in which he argued the need for collectivization, after which he announced in December the beginning of the "attack on the kulak" and the elimination of it as a class. In unison, one of the heroes of this work tells him that everyone should be thrown "into the brine of socialism." The bloody campaign, conceived, was successful. The tasks set by Stalin were fulfilled.

The writer also carried out his plans, which is confirmed by the analysis. Platonov's "foundation pit" was conceived as a rethinking of history, the correctness of the path chosen by our country. It turned out to be a deep work with social and philosophical content. The writer comprehended reality and analyzed it.

We will begin to describe Platonov's "foundation pit" with a story about the creation of the work.

History of creation

The story, which is remarkable, was written just during the period of Stalin's active work - from 1929 to April 1930. In those days, Andrei Platonovich Platonov worked in the reclamation department in his specialty, in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, located in the Voronezh region. Therefore, he was, if not a direct participant, then at least a witness to the elimination of kulaks and collectivization. As an artist drawing nature, Andrei Platonovich Platonov painted pictures of the fate of people and the events that happened to those who fell into the meat grinder of depersonalization and equalization.

The theme of the works of Andrei Platonovich did not fit into the general ideas of building communism, the doubting and thinking hero of the story was subjected to sharp criticism from the authorities, which was picked up by the press. She conducted her own, by no means flattering for the author, analysis.

Such is, in brief, the story of the story, which was written by Platonov ("The Foundation Pit").

Features of the presentation

The author's contemporaries, the writers Kataev, Leonov, Sholokhov, cared for by the Bolsheviks, glorified the achievements of socialism in their works, depicting collectivization from the positive side. The poetics of Platonov, in contrast to them, an optimistic description of paintings of selfless labor and construction was alien. This author was not attracted by the magnitude of the tasks and aspirations. He was primarily interested in man and his role in historical events. Therefore, the work "The Foundation Pit", as well as other creations of this author, is characterized by a thoughtful, unhurried development of events. There are many abstract generalizations in the narration, since the author is focused on the thoughts and experiences of his characters. Only external factors help the hero to understand himself, and at the same time in the symbolic events that Platonov tells us about.

"Pit": content in a summary

The plot of the story is typical for the works of that time devoted to collectivization, and is not complicated. It consists of dispossession of kulaks with scenes of an attempt on the life of party activists and peasants defending their property. But Platonov managed to present these events from the point of view of a thinking person who found himself unwittingly drawn into the events about which the story "The Foundation Pit" tells.

The chapter summary is not the subject of our article. We will only briefly describe the main events of the work. The hero of the story, Voshchev, after he was fired from the factory due to thoughtfulness, gets to the diggers who are digging a foundation pit for the house of the proletarians. Brigadier Chiklin brings an orphaned girl whose mother has died. Chiklin and his comrades eliminate the kulaks, rafting them on a raft at sea with their families. After that, they return to the city and continue their work. The story "The Pit" ends with the death of a girl who found her last shelter in the wall of the pit.

Three motives in the work of Platonov

Platonov wrote that he was struck by three things in life - love, wind and a long journey. All these motives are present in the work by chapters, if you refer to it, it will confirm our idea. But it should be noted that these motives are presented in a kind of presentation of the author. The plot is tied to the image of the road. However, Voshchev, Platonov's hero, although he is a wanderer, is by no means in the traditions of Russian literature, since, firstly, he is forced to wander, or rather, to wander, due to the fact that he was fired, and secondly, his goal is the search is not for adventure, but for the truth, the meaning of existence. Wherever this hero goes later, again and again the author returns him to the pit. As if the life of a person is closed and goes in a circle.

Many events make up the story "The Foundation Pit", but there is no cause-and-effect relationship between them. The heroes seem to circle around the pit, dreaming of breaking out of this pit. One wanted to leave to study, increasing the length of service, the other was expecting retraining, the third dreamed of moving to the party's governing apparatus.

Method of editing episodes of the work

In the composition of the work, Platonov uses the method of editing diverse episodes: there is a hammer bear, an activist who educates village women in politics, and kulaks who say goodbye before being sent to sea on a raft with each other.

Some episodes, about which Platonov's work "The Foundation Pit" tells, seem completely random and unmotivated: suddenly, in the course of the action, insignificant characters emerge in close-up, just as suddenly disappearing. As an example, we can cite an unknown, dressed only in pants, whom Chiklin brought to the office unexpectedly for everyone. The man, swollen with grief, demanded the return of the coffins, prepared for future use, which were found in the pit, to his village.

Grotesque

In the dialogue between peasants and workers, it is surprising that with what routine they talk about death, with what hopelessness and humility they prepare coffins for themselves and their children. The funeral box turns into a "child's toy", into a "bed", having ceased to be a symbol of fear. Such a grotesque reality permeates, in fact, the entire story "The Foundation Pit".

Allegory

The author of the work, in addition to the grotesque, also uses allegory when conveying the madness of events. Thanks to this and the previous methods, the problems of this work are more fully revealed in the story "The Foundation Pit". Not finding a character who, like Judas, could point to wealthy families of peasants, he chooses a bear for this role. And given the fact that this animal in folklore has never been the personification of evil, we can talk here about a double allegory.

The plot of Voshchev's wanderings is organically intertwined with another - the failed construction of a monumental proletarian house. But the workers believed to the last that the local proletariat would live in it in a year. This building is associated with the Tower of Babel, because it became a grave for its builders, just as the foundation pit of a house for proletarians turned into a grave for a girl, for whom, in fact, it was erected.

Although at the beginning of the work, Pashkin claims that happiness will still "come historically," it becomes clear by the end of the narrative that there is no hope of finding the meaning of life in the future, since the present is built on the death of a girl, and adults worked with such persistence on the pit as as if they were striving to be saved forever in its abyss.

The work "Pit" after reading leaves a heavy residue on the soul, but at the same time it is felt that Andrei Platonovich is a humanist writer who tells us about the sad events of the story with regret, love and deep compassion for the heroes, through whom the ruthless and uncompromising power machine has walked, striving to turn everyone into an obedient performer of a godless plan.

Description of the characters of the story

Platonov does not give a detailed external description of the heroes, their deep internal characteristics. He, like a surrealist artist who works by breaking logical connections at the subconscious level, only lightly touches with his brush portraits of characters living in an immaterial world devoid of everyday details and interior. For example, there is no data on the appearance of the main character, Voshchev, it is only said that he is thirty years old at the time of the story. In the description of Pashkin, an elderly person is indicated, as well as a bent body, not so much from the past years, but from the "social" burden. Safonov had an "active-thinking" face, and Chiklin had a head, which was, according to the author's definition, "a small stone", Kozlov had "raw eyes" and a monotonous dull face. Such are the characters in the story "The Foundation Pit" (Platonov).

The image of Nastya

To understand the meaning of the work, the image of a girl living with excavators at construction is very important. Nastya is the child of the 1917 revolution. Her mother was a bourgeois, that is, a representative of an obsolete class. Rejection of the past, as you know, means the loss of cultural traditions, historical ties and their replacement by ideological parents - Lenin and Marx. People who deny their past cannot have, according to the author, a future.

Nastya's world is mutilated, because the mother, in order to save her daughter, inspires her not to talk about her non-proletarian origin. The propaganda machine has already taken root in her mind. The reader is horrified when he learns that this heroine advises Safronov to kill the peasants for the cause of the revolution. Who will the child turn into when he grows up, if he has toys in his coffin? The girl dies at the end of the story, and with her the last ray of hope for Voshchev and all the other workers dies. The latter wins in a kind of confrontation between Nastya and the foundation pit. The girl's dead body lies at the base of a house under construction.

Hero-philosopher

Present in the story is a character who is a so-called home-grown philosopher who thinks about the meaning of life, seeks to live according to conscience, and seeks the truth. This is the main character of the work. He is the spokesman for the position of the author. This character, included in Platonov's novel "The Pit", seriously thought and doubted the correctness of what was happening around. He does not move along with the general line, he seeks to find his own road to truth. But he never finds her.

The meaning of the title of the story "Pit"

The title of the story is symbolic. Not only a construction site means a foundation pit. This is a huge grave, a hole that workers are digging for themselves. Many die here. A happy home for proletarians cannot be built on a slavish attitude to human labor and humiliation of the dignity of the individual.

Pessimism, which Platonov did not hide (the story "The Foundation Pit" and other works), in the vigorous tread of Russian literature of that time with positive images party members, meetings and overfulfillment of plans, of course, could not fit in. This author was completely out of step with the times: he was ahead of him.

The dates of work on the manuscript are set by the author himself - December 1929 - April 1930. Such chronological accuracy is far from accidental: it was during this period that collectivization peaked.

The exact dates unambiguously indicate the specific historical events that formed the frame of the narrative. On November 7, 1929, Stalin's article "The Year of the Great Breakthrough" appeared, which substantiated the policy of total collectivization; On December 27, Stalin announced "the beginning of a full-scale offensive against the kulaks" and the transition to "the elimination of the kulaks as a class"; On March 2, 1930, in his article "Dizzy with Success," Stalin briefly put a brake on violent collectivization, and in April Pravda published his article "Answer to Comrades Collective Farmers." The “pit” is not even created in hot pursuit - it is written practically from life: there is no chronological distance between the events depicted and the narrative.

The idea of ​​the "Pit" refers to the fall of 1929. Platonov at that time worked in the People's Commissariat of Agriculture in his technical specialty - in the reclamation department - and dealt with the problems of reclamation in the Voronezh region. At the same time, there was a cruel study of his story "Doubting Makar" (the story was published in the magazine "October", 1929, N 9). Having clearly and distinctly stated his doubts about the new world order, Platonov attracted the attention of higher authorities: the "ideologically ambiguous" and "anarchic" story caught the eye of Stalin - and his assessment served as a signal for persecution of Platonov.

The General Secretary of the RAPP L. Averbakh simultaneously in two magazines - the guilty "October" (N 11 for 1929) and "At the literary post" - published an article "On the integral scale and private Makars". Averbakh understood the meaning and pathos of Plato's story absolutely precisely: “It is hard and difficult for a grassroots worker to live ... It is hard and difficult for him because we care about houses, not about the soul, about an integral scale, and not about an individual, about future factories. , and not about today's dishes. "

Platonov's story really did not fit into the official ideology on all counts. The obligatory pathos of selfless service to the future - but not to the present - is "replaced" by Platonov's intense attention precisely to "today" and "now" -. Instead of a heroic transformer of the world, a hero of an act, the writer shows a “pensive” person, a “reflective melancholic”. The result of the inner evolution of the hero, from the point of view of ideology, was supposed to be spiritual solidity and unshakable confidence in his righteousness - Platonov, on the other hand, chooses "doubting Makar" as his heroes.

The accusation formulated by Averbakh fully corresponded to the social order: “And they want to pity us! And they come to us preaching humanism! " Literature must affirm the will of an "integral scale", and not the rights of a "private Makar" - that is what is required of a "real" writer.

The hunt for "humanists" will develop on an even greater scale in 1930-1931, and Platonov in the winter and spring of 1930 will work on the story "The Foundation Pit". Unacceptably "counter-revolutionary" antitheses will once again permeate the entire narrative: "personal life" - and "general pace of work", "pensive" hero - and the builders of "future motionless happiness." The publication of such a work was out of the question. The story was first published in our country only in 1987 ("New World", 1987, N 6).