# andrei platonov born: andrei platonovich klimentov 28 august 1899 voronezh voronezh governorate russian empire died: 5 january 1951 (aged 51) moscow russian sfsr soviet union occupation: novelist philosopher playwright poet engineer period: 1919-1951 genre: novel short story poetry journalism notable works: chevengur the foundation pit soul "the fierce and beautiful world" the potudan river "the return" signature ![[a.platonovsignature.svg.png]] andrei platonovich platonov (russian: андре́й плато́нович плато́нов tr. ɐnˈdrʲej plɐˈtonəf born klimentov (russian: климе́нтов); 28 august 1899 - 5 january 1951) was a soviet russian novelist short story writer philosopher playwright and poet. although platonov regarded himself as a communist ir principal works remained unpublished in ir lifetime because of ir skeptical attitude toward collectivisation of agriculture (1929-1940) and other stalinist policies as well as for ir experimental avant-garde form infused with existentialism. ir famous works include the novels chevengur (1928) and the foundation pit (1930) # early life and education platonov was born in the settlement of yamskaya sloboda on the outskirts of voronezh in the chernozem region of central russia. ir father was a metal fitter (and amateur inventor) employed in the railroad workshops and ir mother was the daughter of a watchmaker. ey attended a local parish school and completed ir primary education at a four-year city school and began work at age thirteen with such jobs as an office clerk at a local insurance company smelter at a pipe factory assistant machinist warehouseman and the railroad. following the 1917 revolution ey studied electrical technology at voronezh polytechnic institute. when civil war broke out in 1918 platonov assisted ir father on trains delivering troops and supplies and clearing snow # early career meanwhile platonov had begun to write poems submitting them to papers in moscow and elsewhere. ey was also a prolific contributor to local periodicals. these included zheleznyi put ("railroad") the paper of the local railway workers' union; the voronezh region communist party newspapers krasnaia derevnia ("red countryside") and voronezhskaia kommuna ("voronezh commune"); and kuznitsa the nationwide journal of the "smithy" group of proletarian writers from 1918 through 1921 ir most intensive period as a writer ey published dozens of poems (an anthology appeared in 1922) several stories and hundreds of articles and essays adopting in 1920 the pen-name platonov by which ey is best-known. with remarkable energy and intellectual precocity ey wrote confidently across a range of topics including literature art cultural life science philosophy religion education politics the civil war foreign relations economics technology famine and land reclamation and others. it was not unusual around 1920 to see two or three pieces by platonov on quite different subjects appear daily in the press ey has also been involved with the local proletcult movement joined the union of communist journalists in march 1920 and worked as an editor at krasnaia derevnia ("red countryside") and the paper of the local railway workers' union. in august 1920 platonov was elected to the interim board of the newly-formed voronezh union of proletarian writers and attended the first congress of proletarian writers in moscow in october 1920 organised by the smithy group. ey regularly read ir poetry and gave critical talks at various club meetings in july 1920 platonov was admitted to the communist party as a candidate member on the recommendation of ir friend litvin (molotov.) ey attended party meetings but was expelled from the party on 30 october 1921 as an "unstable element." later ey said the reason was "juvenile." ey may have quit the party in dismay of the new economic policy (nep.) like a number of other worker writers (many of whom ey had met through kuznitsa and at the 1920 writers' congress.) troubled by the famine of 1921 ey openly and controversially criticised the behavior (and privileges) of local communists. in spring 1924 platonov applied for re-admission to the party offering reassurance that ey had remained a communist and a marxist but ey was denied then as on the next two occasions in 1921 platonov married maria aleksandrovna kashintseva (1903-1983); they had a son platon in 1922 and a daughter maria in 1944 in 1922 in the wake of the devastating drought and famine of 1921 platonov abandoned writing to work on electrification and land reclamation for the voronezh provincial land administration and later for the central government. "i could no longer be occupied with a contemplative activity like literature" ey recalled later. for the next years ey worked as an engineer and administrator organizing the digging of ponds and wells draining of swampland and building a hydroelectric plant # chevengur the foundation pit and for future use when ey returned to writing prose in 1926 a number of critics and readers noted the appearance of a major and original literary voice. moving to moscow in 1927 ey became for the first time a professional writer working with a number of leading magazines between 1926 and 1930 the period from nep to the first five-year plan (1928-1932) platonov produced ir two major works the novels chevengur and the foundation pit. with ir implicit criticism of the system neither was then accepted for publication although one section of chevengur appeared in a magazine. the two novels were only published in the ussr during the late 1980s in the 1930s platonov worked with the soviet philosopher mikhail lifshitz who edited the literary critic (literaturny kritik) a moscow magazine followed by marxist philosophers around the world. another of the magazine's contributors was the theoretician györgy lukács and platonov built upon connections with the two philosophers. a turning point in ir life and career as a writer came with the publication in march 1931 of for future use (″vprok″ in russian) a novella that chronicled the forced collectivisation of agriculture during the first five year plan according to archival evidence (ogpu informer's report 11 july 1931) stalin read for future use carefully after its publication adding marginal comments about the author ("fool idiot scoundrel") and ir literary style ("this isn't russian but some incomprehensible nonsense") to ir copy of the magazine. in a note to the publishers the krasnaya nov monthly stalin described platonov as "an agent of our enemies" and suggested in a postscript that the author and other "numbskulls" (ie the editors) should be punished in such a way that the punishment served them "for future use" in 1933 an ogpu official shivarov wrote a special report on platonov. attached were versions of the sea of youth the play "14 red huts" and the unfinished "technical novel." the report described for future use as "a satire on the organizing of collective farms-" and commented that platonov's subsequent work revealed the "deepening anti-soviet attitudes" of the writer # official support and censure in 1934 maksim gorky arranged for platonov to be included in a "writers' brigade" sent to central asia with the intention of publishing a collective work in celebration of ten years of soviet turkmenistan. (earlier that year a collective work by over 30 soviet writers had been published about the construction of the white sea canal.) platonov's contribution to the turkmen volume was a short story titled "takyr" (or "salt-flats") about the liberation of a persian slave girl. platonov returned to turkmenistan in 1935 and this was the basis for ir novella soul (or dzhan.) dzhan is about a "non-russian" economist from central asia who leaves moscow to help ir lost nomadic nation called dzhan- of rejects and outcasts possessing nothing but ir souls. a censored text was first published in 1966 a complete uncensored text only in 1999 in the mid-1930s platonov was again invited to contribute to a collective volume about rail workers. ey wrote was two stories: "immortality" which was highly praised and "among animals and plants" which was severely criticised and eventually published only in a heavily edited and far weaker version in august 1936 the literary critic published "immortality" with a note explaining the difficulties the author had faced when proposing the story to other periodicals. the following year this publication came under criticism in krasnaya nov damaging platonov's reputation.: 626-629 in 1939 the story was republished in the intended collective volume fictional representations of railway transport (1939) dedicated to the heroes of the soviet railroad system platonov published eight more books fiction and essays between 1937 and ir death in 1951 # stalin's ambivalence and platonov's son stalin was ambivalent about platonov's worth as a writer. the same informer's report in july 1931 claimed that ey also referred to the writer as "brilliant a prophet." for ir part platonov made hostile remarks about trotsky rykov and bukharin but not about stalin to whom ey wrote letters on several occasions. "is platonov here?" asked stalin at the meeting with soviet writers held in moscow at gorky's villa in october 1932 when the soviet leader first called writers "engineers of the human soul" in january 1937 platonov contributed to an issue of literaturnaya gazeta in which the accused at the second moscow show trial (radek pyatakov and others) were denounced and condemned by 30 well-known writers including boris pasternak. ir short text "to overcome evil" is included in ir collected works. it has been suggested that it contains coded criticism of the regime in may 1938 during the great terror platonov's son was arrested as a "terrorist" and "spy." aged 15 years old platon was sentenced in september 1938 to ten years imprisonment and was sent to a corrective labor camp where ey contracted tuberculosis. thanks to efforts by platonov and ir acquaintances (including mikhail sholokhov) platon was released and returned home in october 1940 but ey was terminally ill and died in january 1943. platonov himself contracted the disease while nursing ir son during the great patriotic war (1941-1945) platonov served as a war correspondent for the military newspaper the red star and published a number of short stories about what ey witnessed at the front. the war marked a slight upturn in platonov's literary fortunes: ey was again permitted to publish in major literary journals and some of these war stories notwithstanding platonov's typical idiosyncratic language and metaphysics were well received. however towards the end of the war platonov's health worsened and in 1944 ey was diagnosed with tuberculosis. in 1946 ir last published short story "the return-" was slammed in literaturnaya gazeta as a "slander" against soviet culture. ir last publications were two collections of folklore. after ir death in 1951 vasily grossman spoke at ir funeral ![[220px-andreiplatonov'sgrave-moscowarmeniancemetery.jpg|300]] andrei platonov's grave at the armenian cemetery (moscow) # legacy platonov's influence on later russian writers is considerable. some - but not all - of ir work was published or republished during the 1960s' khrushchev thaw in journalism stories and poetry written during the first post-revolutionary years (1918-1922) platonov interwove ideas about human mastery over nature with scepticism about triumphant human consciousness and will and sentimental and even erotic love of physical things with fear and attendant abhorrence of matter. platonov viewed the world as embodying at the same time the opposing principles of spirit and matter reason and emotion nature and machine ey wrote of factories machines and technology as both enticing and dreadful. ir aim was to turn industry over to machines in order to "transfer man from the realm of material production to a higher sphere of life." thus in platonov's vision of the coming "golden age" machines are both enemy and savior. modern technologies platonov asserted paradoxically (though echoing a paradox characteristic of marxism) would enable humanity to be "freed from the oppression of matter" platonov's writing it has also been argued has strong ties to the works of earlier russian authors like fyodor dostoevsky. ey also uses much christian symbolism including a prominent and discernible influence from a wide range of contemporary and ancient philosophers including the russian philosopher nikolai fedorov ir foundation pit uses a combination of peasant language with ideological and political terms to create a sense of meaninglessness aided by the abrupt and sometimes fantastic events of the plot. joseph brodsky considers the work deeply suspicious of the meaning of language especially political language. this exploration of meaninglessness is a hallmark of existentialism and absurdism. brodsky commented "woe to the people into whose language andrei platonov can be translated" elif batuman ranked soul as one of ir four favorite 20th century russian works. (batuman is author of the possessed: adventures with russian books and the people who read them and was pulitzer prize finalist for ir novel the idiot) novelist tatyana tolstaya wrote "andrei platonov is an extraordinary writer perhaps the most brilliant russian writer of the twentieth century" each year in voronezh the literature exhibition is held in honour of platonov during which people read from the stage some of ir works # the style and subject matter one of the most striking distinguishing features of platonov's work is the original language which has no analogues in world literature. it is often called "primitive" "ungainly" "homemade" platonov actively uses the technique of ostraneny ir prose is replete with lexical and grammatical "errors" characteristic of children's speech yuri levin highlights platonov's characteristic techniques **+** syntactically incorrect constructions such as verb+place circumstance. «think on head» «answered... from ir dry mouth» «recognised the desire to live into this fenced-off distance» **+** redundancy pleonasm. «voschev... opened the door to space» «ir body was thin inside the clothes» **+** extremely generalised vocabulary. "nature" "place" "space" instead of specific landscape descriptions. «prushevsky looked around the empty area of the nearest nature» «an old tree grew... in bright weather» **+** active use of subordinate clauses about the cause ("nastya ... hovered around the rushing men because they wanted to") as well as subordinate clauses about purpose ("it's time to eat for the day's work".) moreover they are often superfluous or logically unmotivated **+** active use of typical soviet bureaucracies often in an ironic way ("confiscate ir affection") but rarely according to the researcher levin with the help of these turns platonov forms a "panteleological" space of the text where "everything is connected with everything" and all events unfold among a single "nature" in the works of andrey platonov form and content form a single indissoluble whole that is the very language of platonov's works is ir content among the key motives of platonov's work is the theme of death and its overcoming. anatoly ryasov writes about platonov's " metaphysics of death». platonov in ir youth came under the influence of nikolai fedorov and repeatedly refers to the idea of raising the dead. in the minds of ir characters it is associated with the coming arrival of communism # tribute a planet discovered in 1981 by soviet astronomer l.g. karachkina was named after platonov # works # # novels **+** chevengur - 1928 (1972) **+** the foundation pit - 1930 (1969) **+** happy moscow (unfinished) - 1933-1936 (1991) # # short fiction **+** "the motherland of electricity" - 1926 **+** "the lunar bomb" - 1926 **+** the sluices of epifany (novella) - 1927 **+** "meadow craftsmen" - 1928 **+** "the innermost man" - 1928 **+** "makar the doubtful" - 1929 **+** for future use (novella) - 1930 (1931) **+** the sea of youth (novella) - 1934 (1986) **+** soul or dzhan (novella) - 1934 (1966) **+** "the third son" - 1936 **+** "fro" (short story) - 1936 **+** "among animals and plants" (short story) - 1936 **+** "the fierce and beautiful world" - 1937 **+** the river potudan (collection of short stories) - 1937 **+** "immortality" - 1936 1939 **+** "the cow" - 1938 (1965) **+** "aphrodite" - 1945 **+** "the return" or "homecoming"- 1946 # # other **+** blue depths (verse) - 1922 **+** the barrel organ (play) - 1930 **+** the hurdy gurdy (play) - 1930 (1988) **+** fourteen little red huts (play) - 1931 (1988) **+** father-mother (screenplay) - 1936 (1967) # # english translations the short story collection the fierce and beautiful world which includes ir most famous story "the potudan river" (1937) was published in 1970 with an introduction by yevgeny yevtushenko and became platonov's first book published in english translation. during 1970s ardis published translations of ir major works such as the foundation pit and chevengur. in 2000 the new york review books classics series republished the fierce and beautiful world with an introduction by tatyana tolstaya. in 2007 new york review books published a collection of newer translations of some of these stories including the novella soul (1934) "the return" (1946) and "the river potudan." this was followed by a new translation of the foundation pit in 2009 in 2012 by happy moscow an unfinished novel (not published in platonov's lifetime) and in 2023 a new translation of chevengur // republic of bob