Platonov and his stories. The artistic world of stories by Andrei Platonovich Platonov

Years of life: from 08/28/1899 to 01/05/1951

Andrei Platnov is a Russian writer and playwright, one of the most original Russian writers in style and language of the first half of the 20th century.

Andrei Platonovich Klimentov was born on August 28 (16), 1899 (his birthday is officially celebrated on September 1) in large family a mechanic at railway workshops in the Yamskaya settlement on the outskirts of the city of Voronezh. He took the surname Platonov for himself already in the 20s, forming it on behalf of his father, Platon Firsovich Klimentov. Andrey was the eldest of eleven children. He studied first at a parochial school, and then at a city school. He started working at the age of 14. “We had a family... of 10 people, and I am the eldest son - the only worker, except for my father. My father... could not feed such a horde,” he later wrote in his memoirs. The young man worked as a delivery boy, a foundry worker at a pipe factory, an electrical engineer, and an assistant driver. The motif of the locomotive will run through all of his work.

After the revolution, in 1918, Andrei went back to school. Enters the Voronezh Railway Polytechnic School in the electrical engineering department. Inspired by new socialist ideas and trends, he participated in discussions of the Communist Union of Journalists, published articles, stories, poems in Voronezh newspapers and magazines (“Voronezh Commune”, “Red Village”, “Iron Road”, etc.). But the Civil War confused all plans and in 1919 he went to the front as an ordinary rifleman in a railway detachment, and also as a “journalist for the Soviet press and writer.”

After the end of the Civil War, Andrei Platonov entered the Polytechnic Institute. His first book. 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 revolutionary movement, where and when?" - "No"; “Have you been subjected to repression before 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.” At the same time, Andrei Platonov was even 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) was published - a collection of essays "Electrification", which asserted the idea that "electrification is the same revolution in technology, with the same meaning as October 1917." The following year, in Krasnodar, a collection of poems “Blue Depth” was published, a collection composed of his youthful pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary poems. After the first published books literary work for some time, Platonov’s plan fades into the background and he completely devotes himself 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 for Combating 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. At that time, he was seriously passionate about the task of transforming the entire agricultural system, and these were not some violent or demonstrative labor feats, but the consistent materialization of the views of Platonov himself, which he outlined back in the “Russian Kolymaga”: “The fight against hunger, the fight for The life of the revolution comes down to fighting 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.” Platonov of these years is a maximalist dreamer, a fighter against

elemental forces in nature and life, calling for the speedy transformation of Russia “into the country of thought and metal.” Later, as a technically educated and gifted person (having dozens of patents for his inventions), he will see the environmental danger of such a strategy. Despite his constant employment, in rare free moments Platonov continues to study literature. He publishes journalistic articles, stories and poems in Voronezh newspapers and magazines and even in the Moscow magazine “Kuznitsa”. He writes stories on themes of village life (“In the Starry Desert”, 1921, “Chuldik and Epishka”, 1920), as well as science fiction stories and novellas (“Descendants of the Sun”, 1922, “Markun”, 1922, “Moon Bomb” , 1926), in which faith in technological progress is combined with the utopian idealism of the artisan-inventor.

In 1926, Andrei Platonov All-Russian Congress ameliorators 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. “Part of this is 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, fantastic story“The Ethereal Tract” (1927), the story “Epifansky Locks” (about Peter’s transformations in Russia) and the first edition of “The City of Gradov” (a satirical interpretation of the new state philosophy).

Since 1927, Platonov and his family finally settled in Moscow: the writer in him defeated the engineer. The next two years, perhaps, can be called the most prosperous in his life as a writer, which was greatly facilitated by Grigory Zakharovich Litvin-Molotov. A member of the Voronezh provincial committee and the editorial board of the Voronezh Izvestia (he attracted the young Platonov to work in local newspapers), Litvin-Molotov then headed the Burevestnik publishing house in Krasnodar (where Plato’s collection of poems was published), and from the mid-1920s he became the chief editor of the publishing house

“Young Guard” in Moscow (where the first two collections of Platonov’s stories and stories were published). At this time, Andrei Platonov created a new edition of “The City of Gradov”, a cycle of stories: “The Hidden Man” (an attempt to understand

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 Origin of the Master" (1929). Also 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 Literature Consumers. MOPL", "Antisexus" (dialogue with LEF, Mayakovsky, Shklovsky, etc.).

At that time, everything in the writer’s life was going well: he was noticed by critics, and Maxim Gorky approved of him. Moreover, it was Platonov the satirist who liked Gorky: “In your psyche,” as I perceive it, “there is an affinity with Gogol. Therefore, try yourself at comedy, not drama. Leave drama for personal pleasure.” But Platonov did not listen to the recommendations, writing only a few satirical works. A critical turning point came in the writer’s fate in 1929, when critics of RAPP crushed his stories “Che-Che-O”, “State Resident”, “Doubting Makar”. “The Doubting Makar” was also read by Stalin himself (who, unlike subsequent leaders, read everything even more or less noticeable) - he did not approve of the ideological ambiguity and anarchic nature of the story. Publishers

immediately, for ideological reasons, they begin to reject all of his works. The set of the novel “Chevengur”, which had already been completed to layout, was scattered (the novel will be released after death of the writer, in 1972 in Paris).

However, a wave of criticism and even the threat of reprisals did not force Andrei Platonov to put down his pen. He also did not become a dissident, as supporters of perestroika tried to make him out to be after his death. In a letter to Maxim Gorky in those difficult times, he writes: “I am writing this letter to you not to complain - I have nothing to complain about... I want to tell you that I am not a class enemy, and no matter how much I have suffered as a result of my mistakes, I cannot become a class enemy and it is impossible to bring me to this state, because the working class is my homeland, and my future is connected with the proletariat... to be rejected by my class and to be internally still with it is much more painful, than to recognize oneself as an alien... and step aside.”

And it was during this period that Platonov’s new poetics, revolutionary aspiration for the future and declarative-illustrative representation crystallized utopian idea is replaced by the search for the deep meanings of life - the “substance of existence.” The author’s unique style is emerging, based on poetic techniques and the word-formation mechanism of the language, which reveals the hidden, primary meaning of the word. Platonov’s expressive tongue-tiedness (for which he is so valued by some, but cannot be accepted by other readers) has no precedents in Russian literature, partly relying on the traditions of symbolism, as well as processing the experience of the avant-garde and the newspaper vocabulary of his time.

In the fall of 1929, Andrei Platonov, on instructions from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, travels a lot to state farms and collective farms in Central Russia. Thanks to materials from these trips, he begins to work on the story “The Pit,” which will become one of his main masterpieces, but will never be published during the author’s lifetime (first published in the USSR in 1987)).

In the mid-1930s, Platonov was a writer who wrote mainly on the table. The situation is aggravated by everyday troubles: the family wanders for a long time in temporary apartments, until in 1931 they settle in the wing of a mansion on Tverskoy Boulevard (now the Herzen Literary Institute). But no matter what, the abundance of ideas overwhelms the writer. At this time, he wrote the novel “Happy Moscow”, the play “The Voice of the Father”, the folk tragedy “14 Red Huts” (about the famine in the Russian province during the time of “dekulakization”), articles on literature (about Pushkin, Akhmatova, Hemingway, Chapek , Greene, Paustovsky). Business trips from the People's Commissariat of Agriculture to collective and state farms of the Volga region and North Caucasus gave the writer material for the story “The Juvenile Sea” (1932).

After “Chevengur” and “The Pit,” the writer gradually begins to move away from large-scale social canvases into the world of ordinary universal human motives - emotional experiences and love dramas. But at the same time, the psychological modeling of the characters is enhanced; the ironic attitude towards love gives way to the depth of psychological reading. The collection of lyrical stories “The Potudan River” was the first to be published after a long period of oblivion. The book was published in 1937, but immediately after its release it was subjected to derogatory criticism. Paradoxically, it was at this time that the first and only monographic study of his work was written during the writer’s lifetime. It was a large accusatory article by A. Gurvich “Andrei Platonov” in the magazine “Krasnaya Nov” (1937, No. 10). Tracing the creative evolution of the writer, Gurvich determined that the basis artistic system Platonov is “religious soul order”. Essentially true, but against the backdrop of the “godless five-year plan” this was actually a political denunciation.

The situation is aggravated by another event - in 1938, Platonov’s fifteen-year-old son Tosha (Platon) was arrested and convicted under Article 58/10 (for anti-Soviet agitation) on a fabricated case. He was released only in the fall of 1940 thanks to the efforts of Mikhail Sholokhov (at that time a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR), who was friends with the Platonovs.

However, the joy was short-lived - the son returned terminally ill with tuberculosis and died in January 1943. Andrey Platonov, in futile attempts When my son left, he became infected with tuberculosis.

In 1936-1941, Platonov appeared in print mainly as a literary critic. Under different pseudonyms it is published in magazines" Literary critic", "Literary Review", etc.. Works on the novel "Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg" (its manuscript was lost at the beginning of the war), writes children's plays "Granny's Hut", "Good Titus", "Step-Daughter".

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War The writer and his family are evacuated to Ufa, where a collection of his war stories “Under the Skies of the Motherland” is published. In 1942, he volunteered to go to the front as a private, but soon became a front-line correspondent for Red Star. During the war, four more books by Platonov were published: “Spiritualized People” (1942), “Stories about the Motherland”, “Armor” (both 1943), “Towards the Sunset” (1945). At the end of 1946, one of the best stories Platonov - “Return”, in which the author uses the example of the “Ivanov family” (this is original title) reflects on the fact that war cripples people not only physically, but also morally. Critics immediately branded the story as slander against the “hero soldier” and, in fact, thereby putting an end to the writer’s lifetime publications.

In the last years of his life, the seriously ill writer was forced to earn his living by transcribing Russian and Bashkir folk tales. He's working on satirical play on the theme of American reality (with allusions to the USSR) "Noah's Ark", but never manages to finish it. How could he be supported by the writers Sholokhov and Fadeev (the latter, who once “on duty” criticized “Doubting Makar”). With the help of Sholokhov, it was possible to publish books of fairy tales “Finist - Clear Falcon”, “Bashkir folk tales"(both 1947), "The Magic Ring" (1949). At that time, Platonov lived in a wing of the A. M. Gorky Literary Institute. One of the writers, seeing him sweeping the yard under his windows, started a legend that he had to work as a janitor.

Tuberculosis, which he contracted from his son, makes itself felt more and more often, and on January 5, 1951, Andrei Platonov passed away. He was buried at the Vagankovskoye cemetery next to his son.

One of the most significant writers of the 20th century passed away unrecognized. He never saw his main works - the novel “Chevengur”, the stories “The Pit”, “The Juvenile Sea”, “Dzhan” - published. Only in the Khrushchev sixties did the first Plato books timidly begin to appear. His main works were published only in the late 80s, and the master’s bright originality aroused a wave of interest in him around the world. Ernest Hemingway in his Nobel speech named Platonov among his teachers.

Bibliography

1920 - story “Chuldik and Epishka”
1921 - story “Markun”, brochure “Electrification”
1922 - book of poems “Blue Depth”
1926 - story “Anti-Sexus”, story “Epiphanian Locks”
1927 - the story “City of Gradov”, the story “The Hidden Man” and
1928 - story “The Origin of the Master”, play “Fools on the Periphery” 1939 - story “The Motherland of Electricity”
1942 - “Under the skies of the motherland” (collection of stories), published in Ufa
1942 - “Spiritualized People” (collection of stories)
1943 - “Stories about the Motherland” (collection of stories)
1943 - “Armor” (collection of stories)
1945 - collection of stories “Towards the Sunset”, story “Nikita”
1946 - story “Ivanov’s Family” (“Return”)
1947 - books “Finist - Clear Falcon”, “Bashkir Folk Tales”
1948 - play “Lyceum Student”
1950 - “The Magic Ring” (collection of Russian folk tales)
1951 - (unfinished mystery play)

Film adaptations of works, theatrical performances

Fro (1964),
film by Rezo Esadze based on story of the same name.
Lonely voice of a man (1978)
film by Alexander Sokurov based on the works of Andrei Platonov “The Potudan River”, “The Hidden Man”, “The Origin of the Master”.
Three brothers / Tre fratelli (1981)
French-Italian film directed by Francesco Rosi based on the story “The Third Son”, the action of the story is moved to Italy.
Maria's Lovers(1984)
film by Andrei Konchalovsky based on “The Potudan River”, the location has been moved to the USA.
The beginning of an unknown century (1987)
Film almanac, which includes the short film “The Motherland of Electricity” by Larisa Efimovna Shepitko, based on the story of the same name
Cow (1990)
cartoon by Alexander Petrov based on the story of the same name.
I have to live again (2001)
film by Vasily Panin based on the stories "In a Beautiful and Furious World", "At the Dawn of Foggy Youth" and "The Hidden Man"
Random glance (2005)
a very strange film in the art-house style from Vladimir Mirzoev. It is alleged that the script is based on the story “The Pit” by Andrei Platonov
Father (2007)
film by Ivan Solovov based on the story “Return”.

Municipal educational institution

secondary school No. 56

Essay

Art world stories by Andrei Platonovich Platonov

Completed by: Elena Mitkina,

student of 8th grade "B"

Checked by: Revnivtseva O.V.

Industrial 2010

Introduction

The main part of “The artistic world of A. Platonov’s stories”

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The proposed work is dedicated to the artistic world of Andrei Platonov's stories. It is worth noting that it is only an attempt to analyze some of the artistic features of several of the writer’s stories that most interested the author, namely: “Return”, “In a Beautiful and Furious World”, “Fro”, “Yushka”, “Cow”. This topic was not raised by chance. In addition to the fact that Platonov’s stories themselves, their form and content are very unusual and interesting for analysis, there are several other reasons for choosing a topic for research.

Firstly, this topic seems quite complex and debatable. Researchers of the writer’s creativity evaluate his works differently; they are not easy to study.

Secondly, the study of the artistic world of A. Platonov is still actual problem domestic literary criticism, because his works for the most part became available to the reader only in the last 20 years. There is also no doubt about the relevance of the problems raised by the writer in his stories - these are the so-called “eternal” problems.

The purpose of the work is to analyze the artistic world of the above stories by A. Platonov.

Identify the main problems of the writer’s stories;

Describe the most striking artistic features the specified works.

In preparing the work, various literature was used: how school books, as well as individual articles dedicated to the work of A. Platonov, published in various periodicals.

The main part of “The artistic world of A. Platonov’s stories”

Books should be written - each one as if it were the only one, leaving no hope in the reader that something new, future book the author will write better! (A. Platonov)

Andrei Platonov sought to materialize spiritual concepts in stories, the saving value of which was never questioned; form for works of art he used to preach a few, basic, indisputable truths that have since ancient times accompanied man on his difficult historical path - truths constantly refreshed by history and human destinies.

Platonov's prose touched upon the most intimate feelings and thoughts of a person, those to which a person inevitably reaches on his own in dire circumstances and which serve him at the same time as consolation in fate, and as hope, and as the right to act exactly this way and not otherwise.

Surprisingly, although laconic, he describes nature. Of the natural elements, Andrei Platonovich loved a torrential thunderstorm, lightning flashing daggers in the darkness, accompanied by powerful peals of thunder. Classic designs He presented rebellious landscape painting in the story “In a Beautiful and Furious World.” After a cleansing rainstorm, furiously washing away the barren ashes of dust from trees, grass, roads and church domes, the world appeared renewed, solemn and majestic, as if the best of the light lost from creation was returning to it anew. Judging by the figurative plasticity and emotional intensity in Platonov’s prose, it is difficult to find other pictures of nature that would surpass his own descriptions of a thunderstorm. Blades of lightning stinging the darkness with thunderstorm faults flowing into the darkness is a state that corresponds to the writer’s internal structure, his understanding of the historical process, cleansing itself of filth in the furious moments of reality, in which evil is destroyed and the accumulation of good in the world increases.

One of the most important problems for a writer is family, home, children in the family. When Platonov returned to his native land in 1943, the city greeted him with ruins, smoke and ashes from home fires. Standing on the ashes of his native land, Andrei Platonovich thought about the people and the Motherland, which begin with mother and child, the most precious creatures, with the hearth, the “sacred place of man,” with love and loyalty in the family - without them there is neither a person nor a soldier . “The people and the state, for the sake of their salvation, for the sake of military power, must constantly take care of the family, as the initial center of national culture, the primary source military force, - about the family and everything that materially holds it together: about the family’s home, about the native material place. There are no trifles here, but very tender - material objects can be sacred, and then they nourish and excite the human spirit. I remember my grandfather’s Armenian, which remained in our family for eighty years; my grandfather was a Nikolaev soldier who died in the war, and I touched and even smelled his old army coat, enjoying my vivid imagination of my heroic grandfather. Perhaps this family heirloom was one of the reasons I became a soldier. A great spirit can be aroused by small, imperceptible reasons.” (“Reflections of an Officer”) These same thoughts are developed in many other stories by A. Platonov: they can be caught in works as different at first glance as “Return”, “Cow”, “Yushka” and many others. The same idea about the value of the family hearth, about its priority over all personal ambitions, about the “sacredness” of childhood and the great responsibility of the father for the fate of his children is heard at the end of the story “Return”, when main character, Ivanov, sees his son and daughter running after the train on which he is leaving: “Ivanov closed his eyes, not wanting to see and feel the pain of the fallen, exhausted children, and he himself felt how hot it became in his chest, as if his heart was imprisoned and what languished within him struggled for a long time and in vain all his life, and only now did it break free, filling his entire being with warmth and shuddering. He suddenly learned everything he knew before, much more accurately and effectively. Before, he felt another life through the barrier of pride and self-interest, but now he suddenly touched it with his naked heart.”

A person leaves a family to join a work team - the school of loyalty and love is enriched here - through a true work culture - with feelings of duty and honor. “In our country, the level of human upbringing was a strong place, and this is one of the reasons for the courage and perseverance of our wars. Finally, society - family, political, industrial and other ties based on friendship, sympathies, interests, views; and behind society stretches the ocean of the people, “common fatherhood,” the concept of which is sacred to us, because our service begins from here. The soldier serves only the whole people, but not part of it - neither himself nor his family, and the soldier dies for the incorruptibility of his entire people.”

“In them, in these links, in their good action,” Platonov believed, “the secret of the immortality of the people is hidden, that is, the power of its invincibility, its resistance against death, against evil and decay.”

“A working person seeks and necessarily finds a way out not only of his fate, but also the fate of peoples, of the state... A working person always has “secret” reserves and means of the spirit to save life from extermination” (A. Platonov) Like no other writer, perhaps , Platonov reveals the theme of the labor of a working person - it is present, perhaps, in all the stories we studied.

His creative manner is based on many features, of which it is important to note such as the symbolism of images, descriptions, and entire plot scenes; the predominance of dialogues and monologues-reflections of the characters over the action (since the true action of Platonov’s works is in the search for meaning human existence); roughness, “irregularity” of the language, special simplifications characteristic of folk speech - it seems that the word is, as it were, born anew through the painful labor of a common man. As an example, you can cite quotes from any story, for example, “In a Beautiful and Furious World”: “the work of a thunderstorm”, “bored of me like a fool”, “sat down on a chair tired”, “the feeling of the car was bliss” and many , a lot others. Or from the story “Cow”: “so that everyone... would benefit from me and do well,” “give strength into milk and work,” etc. Platonov's prose is filled with neologisms, bureaucracies, and various “official” phrases. Back in the 20s and 30s, many talked about the strange pathos of the writer’s writing - about the heroes, unexpected, ragged endings, about the impossibility of retelling the work based on the logic of the events reflected in it, without relying on the logic of the heroes. These features still amaze readers today.

Of course, the powerful artistic gift of the writer evokes admiration - the density of the narrative, the universality of generalization at the level of one phrase of the text, the colossal freedom in the linguistic element of the Russian language, capable of expressing even the painful muteness of the world and man.

Perhaps none of the writers of the 20th century brought together the tragic and humorous traditions of national culture into such an indissoluble unity as Platonov’s. The dialogues of his characters sparkle with the humor of the folk language. This humor digests the global ideological systems of the 20th century, turning them into waste slag. Platonov’s hero can “play the fool,” while first of all giving a new look at familiar objects and phenomena.

Humor is in the language itself, in the combination of its completely different lexical and syntactic layers: high and low, everyday and journalistic or clerical style. Platonov's heroes are afraid to speak, because as soon as they break the silence that is more natural for them, they immediately fall into the element of a clownish tale, grotesque, inversion and absurdity, confusion of causes and consequences. The superposition of the comedy of the plot on the comedy of the language produces a double effect. We are not only funny and sorry, but more often we are scared and hurt by this logic, which expresses the absurdity that is happening, the fantastic nature of life itself.

Plato's narrative is practically devoid of metaphors inherent in the “traditional” style of comparisons. Platonov, rather, uses the technique of “demetaphorization” and metonymic constructions. Each of the units of the text is built according to the laws of the whole, as if super-meaning. This integrity is achieved different ways. For example, by combining semantically incompatible units, conveying the syncretism of the hero’s perception, when the concrete and abstract merge in his consciousness. Platonov’s favorite syntactic construction is complex sentence with the excessive use of conjunctions “because”, “so that”, “since”, “in order”, fixing the reasons, goals, conditions of the image of the world that is created in the mind of the hero. (“When she was sitting, the watchman cried for her and went to the authorities to ask to be released, and she lived before her arrest with one lover who told her ... about his fraud, and then got scared and wanted to destroy her so that there would be no witness for him .” (“Fro”)

More than once attempts have been made to define the style and language of Plato's works. He was called a realist, socialist realist, surrealist, postmodernist, utopian and anti-utopian... And indeed, in the world recreated in Platonov’s work, one can find the features of the most different styles, poeticist, ideological systems. The structure of each narrative unit and the text as a whole is subordinated to a double task: firstly, to give specific manifestations existing world(real plan of the story), secondly, to express what should be (ideal plan). And the artist creates before us a new cosmos of a “beautiful and furious world” that does not need other people’s intervention, multifaceted, semi-precious. Therefore, language, Platonov’s word, is the same semi-precious, living element, as if it does not know the filters of “cultivation”, “normativity”. No wonder his prose is so difficult and slow to read. We stop before Platonov’s phrase: it seems wrong, we feel in it the viscosity, the originality of each word, living its own life, peering into the world around and forcing us, the readers, to “skip the phrase”, and to look through and unravel it, it is unusually controlled and words and parts of sentences are combined. Sometimes we want to correct a phrase or forget it: the compression of meaning is such that metaphors appear in our minds as physiological or psychological reactions - pain, pity, compassion for the whole world, for all life in its smallest details.

Let us dwell on the most striking, in our opinion, problems raised in the stories we have studied.

One of the most striking manifestations of love for one's neighbor in Platonov's literature is expressed in the depiction of the adoption of other people's children. The heroes of his stories are lonely, and own life their long-suffering.

Efim Dmitrievich, nicknamed Yushka (from the story of the same name), is also lonely, and we don’t know if he ever had a family. His adopted daughter is an orphan. “I was an orphan, and Efim Dmitrievich placed me, little, with a family in Moscow, then sent me to a boarding school... Every year he came to visit me and brought money for the whole year so that I could live and study.”

Yushka saved this money, denying himself literally everything. “he worked in a forge... as an assistant to the chief blacksmith... lived in the apartment of the owner of the forge... The owner fed him bread, porridge and cabbage soup for his work, and Yushka had his own tea, sugar and clothes; he had to buy them with his salary - seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month. But Yushka didn’t drink tea or buy sugar, he drank water, and wore the same clothes for many years without changing...”

At this price, Yushka got the money, which he gave in full so that his adopted daughter, whom he saw only once a year, “lived and studied”, covering a long distance on foot. Yushka adopted the girl because he could not imagine life other than love and mutual assistance. Therefore, when children mocked him, he was happy. “He knew why children laughed at him and tormented him. He believed that children love him, that they need him, only they don’t know how to love a person and don’t know what to do for love, and therefore they lose him.”

When adults, taking out their grief and resentment on him, beat him, he lay for a long time in the dust on the road, and when he woke up, he said: “The people... love me!” When the blacksmith’s daughter, having seen enough of his misadventures, said: “It would be better if you died, Yushka... Why do you live?”, “Yushka looked at her with surprise. He didn’t understand why he should die when he was born to live.”

All living things must live. A person is born in order to live and help others live. This is life philosophy Yushka, which he expressed by his existence. That's why Yushka adopted an orphan and gave all his money to her upbringing and education so that she could live. That’s why Yushka loved nature so much.

“Having gone far away, where it was completely deserted, Yushka did not hide his love for living beings. He bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them so that they would not be spoiled by his breath, he stroked the bark of the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and peered at their faces for a long time, feeling himself without them orphaned. But living birds sang in the sky, dragonflies, beetles and hard-working grasshoppers made cheerful sounds in the grass, and therefore Yushka’s soul was light, the sweet air of flowers entered his chest, smelling of moisture and sunlight».

Native land, native forest, native lake, dear person... For Yushka, all living things were dear and necessary. Necessary for the life of a little girl - an orphan, a little grasshopper, a little flower, because they all together are life, and they all cannot live without each other. Therefore, she herself, being a part of that life, was needed for others.

“I was assigned to live by my parents, I was born by law, the whole world needs me, just like you, without me too, which means it’s impossible... we are all equal.”

Yushka’s adoption of someone else’s child is participation in all living things, mutual self-affirmation with small creatures: “The whole world needs me too.”

If you pay attention to Yushka’s adopted daughter in the story, you can see how the influence of adoption is reflected in her fate.

Direction of all later life the girl doctor was identified thanks to her adoptive father. “She knew what Yushka was sick with, and now she herself has completed her studies as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart...

A lot of time has passed since then.

The girl doctor remained forever in our city. She began working in a hospital for consumptives, she went to houses where there were tuberculosis patients, and did not charge anyone for her work.”

It is interesting to dwell on some of the features and problems of the story “In a Beautiful and Furious World.”

Its main character, driver Maltsev, is a talented craftsman. The author tells us a story about how a young driver failed to even come close to the perfect art of driving a machine that Maltsev possessed. IN in this case the contrast emphasizes not only the virtuoso skill of driving the car. Maltsev is truly in love with the car and therefore does not believe that someone can love and feel it as much as he does. “He led the cast with the courageous confidence of a great master, with the concentration of an inspired artist who absorbed all external world into one’s inner experience and therefore has control over it.” Maltsev seems to merge with the living organism that he imagines the locomotive to be. He's like a professional musician who doesn't need to see the sheet music to play. Maltsev feels the car with his whole body, feels its breath. But not just the car. The hero feels and sees not only the locomotive, but also the forest, air, birds and much more. Maltsev senses that very world, which includes himself, nature, and the machine. It is on this occasion that the writer’s phrase about the “beautiful and furious world” in which a master virtuoso reigns sounds. But Maltsev, having lost his sight, does not leave the locomotive.

But why doesn’t the investigator understand Maltsev? Is this person really blind?

The figure of the investigator and his fatal mistake were introduced by the writer into the plot in order to show how conscious ordinary person, called upon to decide the destinies of people, is unable to perceive the special feelings and sensations that the hero experiences. So, is Maltsev blind? In the conversation between the driver and the hero-narrator, our attention is immediately drawn to the phrase: “I didn’t know that I was blind... When I drive a car, I always see the light...” This seems strange, since we know about Maltsev’s powers of observation, about his special and sharp vision. But it turns out that the hero is immersed in own world, where only he, the car and nature exist, where there are no traffic lights, no assistant, no fireman. Is it possible to explain this to the investigator? We see that the old driver lives in his own world, almost inaccessible to others, into which he does not even allow his assistant.

Here another face of the world arises, which is rarely depicted by writers in general, and especially by the romantic poets of the 19th century. Nature has always seemed beautiful, unattainably ideal, especially when writers compared it with the human world. What is the relationship between these worlds according to Platonov? Is it just beautiful and ideal? natural world in the story? Of course not. Nature appears as a beautiful element, which in spirit and content is hostile to man. Especially to those who have the gift of resisting it. Plato's hero struggles with the natural elements and the elements of his own misery. He tries to subjugate nature, to regulate it, just as he controls a steam locomotive. But it is precisely the beauty of this struggle, the feeling of being equal to the natural elements that fills the life and consciousness of the character in Andrei Platonov’s story with content. “I was afraid to leave him alone, like my own son, without protection against the action of the sudden and hostile forces of our beautiful and furious world.”

Platonov calls the world “beautiful” and “furious.” What is behind these definitions in the story? Beautiful – bringing the beauty of nature, the joy of creativity. Furious - trying to prevent a person from having power over himself, taking up arms against the most talented.

Many of Platonov's favorite thoughts are reflected in the story "Fro".

Its charm lies not only in the “fascination with the sense of life” of the story’s heroes, but in the extremely fully developed “self-expression” of its three main characters. All the previous, familiar Platonic characters are collected together in the story, combined in a natural, organic setting. Each of them is a fanatic of his “idea”, leading his worship of it to the point of complete dissolution of character, to one-sidedness. And at the same time, these one-sidedly developed people, far from comprehensively gifted, are extremely close to each other and form a wonderful community.

Old driver Nefed Stepanovich with his touching hope of being called to the depot. He goes to the hill in the evenings to look at cars, “live with sympathy and imagination,” and then imitate fatigue, discuss fictitious accidents and even... ask his daughter Frosya for Vaseline to lubricate his supposedly overworked hands. This game at work, continued active life allow Platonov to look into the hero’s entire previous life, as well as into his iron chest, where bread, onions, and a lump of sugar always lay. This life is serious, for real - both work and tired hands.

Fyodor, Frosya’s husband, seems to be repeating the path of the technically obsessed heroes of the story “In a Beautiful and Furious World.” He rushed off to Far East set up and put into operation some mysterious electrical machines, thereby limiting both himself and Frosya’s ability to reveal all the strength of his nature in love and care for him.

The real center of the entire group, all the paintings are “Assol from Morshansk” - Fyodor’s wife Frosya, with her impatient expectation of happiness in the present, love for her neighbor.

Platonov was not afraid to introduce some motifs from Chekhov’s story “Darling” into Frosya’s character and behavior. Frosya strives to live by imitation of her husband, a fanatic of technical ideas, begins to fill her head with “microfarads”, “relay harnesses”, “contactors”, she sincerely and naively believes that if there is a “third” between her and her husband, say a current resonance diagram, then Complete harmony of interests and feelings will reign in the family.

Love is the meaning of life for Fro. Given the apparent “narrowness” of her aspirations, petty-bourgeois limitations and naivety – this is what the heroine is afraid of! – suddenly her rare spiritual wealth is revealed. Funny, sad, living almost by the instinct of love, the continuation of the human race, Fro gives rise to an unexpected question: isn’t love itself life, beating against all obstacles, but still finding the opportunity for endless development?

plot creative writer Platonov

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to formulate the conclusions we have reached. They lie in the fact that, firstly, Platonov’s stories are devoted to many “eternal” themes in literature - such as family, children, love, work, conscience, good and evil, nature, relationships between people; secondly, the language and style of the writer’s works in general and stories in particular are original and have the features that were discussed in the main part of the work.

To summarize, we can say that the tasks set at the beginning of the work (to identify the main problems of the writer’s stories; to describe the most striking artistic features of these works) have been completed. Thus, the goal of the study has been achieved - an attempt has been made to analyze some of the features of the artistic world of A. Platonov’s stories.

Bibliography

1) Vasiliev V. “I was advancing..” Military prose Andrey Platonov || Literature, 1997, No. 10.

2) Zolotareva I. V., Krysova T. A. Lesson-based developments on literature. 8th grade – Moscow, 2004.

3) Kutuzov A.G. In the world of literature. 8th grade – Moscow, 2006.

4) Russian literature of the 20th century. Grade 11. Under the general editorship of V.V. Agenosov - Moscow, 1997.

5) Russian literature of the 20th century. Grade 11. Edited by V. P. Zhuravlev - Moscow, 2006.

6) Turyanskaya B.I., Kholodkova L.A. Literature in 8th grade - Moscow, 1999.

7) Turyanskaya B.I. Materials for literature lessons in 8th grade - Moscow, 1995.

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All about Andrey Platonov
Biography
Articles about Andrey Platonov:
Orlov V. Andrey Platonov: Recent years
Nagibin Yu. Fragment of the diary. Platonov's funeral
Rassadin S. Why the tyrant hated Zoshchenko and Platonov
Yuryeva A. The main biographers of Andrei Platonov were NKVD-OGPU informants
Andrey Platonov: Memories of friends and colleagues
The most important dates in the life and work of A. Platonov

Wikipedia
Joseph Brodsky about Andrei Platonov:
“Platonov was born in 1899 and died in 1951 from tuberculosis, having become infected from his son, whose release from prison he, after much effort, achieved, only for the son to die in his arms. A thin face looks at us from the photograph, simple as the countryside, looking patiently and as if willing to accept and overcome everything that comes our way.” (Brodsky I. “Disasters in the Air”)

Brief biographical sketch
From the book: Mikheev M.Yu. Into the world of Platonov through his language. Assumptions, facts, interpretations, guesses. M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 2002. 407 p.
“At the end of 1929, the writer was subjected to “ideological flogging” for publishing (together with B. Pilnyak) the essay “Che-Che-O”, and then, in 1931, for his own story “Doubting Makar” (published in the magazine October A. Fadeev, what Chief Editor immediately publicly repented and apologized, calling the story “ideologically unrestrained, anarchist”, for which, they say, he “got it right from Stalin.”

Insarov M. Andrey Platonovich Platonov (1899–1951). Life and creative path

Bolot N. Platonov Andrey Platonovich

Mikheev M.Yu. Notebooks and diaries (30s): Mikhail Prishvin, Pavel Filonov, Andrey Platonov, ...
The text is composed of lecture course, read at the Faculty of History and Philology of the Russian State University for the Humanities in 2002.
“When reading Plato’s notebooks to a reader familiar with his main key themes, sometimes the skeleton of a recognizable plot will flash, and sometimes an unknown variation of some already known character will suddenly appear. Or a thought that is not developed anywhere further, immediately torn off, will rush through, which in the future could be useful to the author and, in the event of a new return to it, would result, perhaps, in a story, tale, etc. But more often than not, it happens that in the notebook Platonov’s thought, not completed (as if “not thought through” and not presented to us, the readers, not understandable due to our lack of awareness), seems to have been stopped by the author halfway.” .

Kozhemyakin A. New pages in the life and work of writer Andrei Platonov
“As I see it, we should compare the activities of the hydromeliorator and electrifier Andrei Platonov with his first literary works.”

Simonov K. Through the eyes of a man of my generation. Reflections on I.V. Stalin
Fragment of the book by Konstantin Simonov (M., APN, 1989).

Kovrov M. Mystic of Russian victory (To the 100th anniversary of the birth of Andrei Platonov)

Dystopia is no worse than life
Conversation between correspondent G. Litvintsev and professor of Voronezh State University Vladislav Svitelsky, author of the collection of articles “Andrei Platonov Yesterday and Today.”
“It seems that if the author had ready-made answers, his works would not be so compelling and would not have such depth and power. He searched for the truth along with his heroes and his time. The crossroads of his thoughts are no less complex and tragic than the crossroads of history itself. Platonov lived in his questions and doubts. At the turn of the 20-30s, he carried out that necessary rethinking of the ideology and practice of the Soviet era, to which we have only broken through on a large scale today.”

Iovanovic M. Genius at the fork in the road
From the notes of a literary critic.
“The most painful thing for the “impatient” Platonov and his heroes was the question of questions - the search for happiness (universal happiness). Russian literature following Kant, who puts moral law above eudaimonia (the desire for happiness), did not know this category; her heroes behaved like Pushkin, seeking not happiness, but peace and freedom. Platonov wanted to evade this tradition, to “invent” happiness both for the individual and for entire nations.”

Gumilevsky L.I. "Fate and Life"
“It’s not difficult to assume that readers’ assessments will be different. Some will be attracted by colorful pictures of the past, recreated using seemingly mundane, but artistically meaningful details. Others will be more interested in portraits of writers (we especially note the pages dedicated to Andrei Platonov).”

Basinsky P. No violinist needed
“Someday, of course, it will be modern. Someday... on the day of the Last Judgment. When material grievances become meaningless, when it doesn’t matter where this day finds you, in a Merc or a Zaporozhets, when a shrimp seems no sweeter than a stale crust, and a luxurious car no smoother than a country road. When money won’t be needed.”

Malaya S. Platonov Andrey Platonovich

Works of Platonov

Electronic library "Librusek"
Most full meeting works by A. Platonov.

Library of Maxim Moshkov
Stories. Stories. Inhabitant of the State. Blue Depth (Book of Poems).

Classica.ru
Stories.
Stories: “The Pit”, “The Potudan River”, “The Hidden Man”, “The Juvenile Sea”.
Novels: “Happy Moscow”, “Chevengur”.

Fiction: online collection of works
“Anti-sexus”, “For future use”, “City of Gradov”, “State Resident”, “The Pit”, “Meadow Masters”, “Moscow Violin”, “Inanimate Enemy”, “Once in Love”, “Father-Mother” (script) , “Potudan River”, “Semyon”, “The Hidden Man”, “Happy Moscow”, “Doubting Makar”, “Fro”, “Chevengur”, “Juvenile Sea”.

Collection of rare texts
Once loved
Andrei Platonov in the documents of the OGPU-NKVD-NKGB.19301945 (Publication by Vladimir Goncharov and Vladimir Nekhotin)
Machinist (libretto)
Father-Mother (script)

In a beautiful and furious world (Machinist Maltsev)

Return (Ivanov Family)

City of Gradov

Pit
“Voshchev grabbed his bag and went into the night. The questioning sky shone over Voshchev with the tormenting power of the stars, but in the city the lights had already been extinguished, and whoever had the opportunity slept, having eaten his fill of dinner. Voshchev went down the crumbs of earth into the ravine and lay down there with his stomach down to fall asleep and part with himself. But sleep required peace of mind, trust in life, forgiveness of past grief, and Voshchev lay in the dry tension of consciousness and did not know whether he was useful in the world or whether everything would work out well without him? A wind blew from an unknown place so that people would not suffocate, and with a weak voice of doubt a suburban dog made its service known.”

• Fiction: online collection of works

Section “Platonic Studies” on the website of the CHRONOS project

• Dyrdin A. Journey into humanity. Sketch for the theme “Platonov and Prishvin”
• Dyrdin A. Horizons of the wandering spirit. Andrei Platonov and the apocryphal tradition
• Dyrdin A. Andrei Platonov and Oswald Spengler: the meaning of the cultural-historical process
• Dyrdin A. The image of the heart in the artistic philosophy of Andrei Platonov
• Rozhentseva E. Lyrical plot in the prose of A. Platonov 1927 (“Epifansky locks” and “Once in love”)
• Yablokov E.A. EROS EX MACHINA, or ON THE TERRIBLE WAYS OF COMMUNICATION (Andrei Platonov and Emile Zola)
• Yablokov E.A. Artistic philosophy of nature (the work of M. Prishvin and A. Platonov in the mid-1920s and early 1930s)

Articles about Andrey Platonov

• Bobylev B.G. Andrei Platonov about the Russian state idea: the story “City of Grads”
• Gordon A., Kornienko N., Yablokov E. The worlds of Andrey Platonov
• Ziberov D.A. Lightnings of a tender soul: Afterword to the collection of A.P. Platonov "Descendants of the Sun"
• Kornienko N.V. From “The Homeland of Electricity” to “Technical Novel”, and back: metamorphoses of Platonov’s text in the 30s