Chevengur Andrey Platonov analysis. “The novel “Chevengur” is the only completed novel in Platonov’s work

Russian writer Andrei Platonov lived and worked in the first half of the last century - the most difficult period in the history of our country. It’s as if someone from above ordered to give the era of major social changes a chronicler unlike any previously known. Together with his people, A. Platonov survived both destructive wars and the Great October Revolution. He witnessed the industrialization of the country and the collectivization of the countryside, which became both a high achievement of the new society and a source of human suffering.

Recognizing life as the highest human value, Platonov, at the same time, did not consider every life worthy of a person. And the central theme of his work was the search for the true meaning of existence, “so that sad and unselfish suspicions about the expediency of man’s stay on earth would not arise.”

The writer’s most significant work was the novel “Chevengur,” which very accurately recreated the multi-structure of Russia during the period of transition from “war communism” to the NEP. According to its genre characteristics, the novel belongs to a social utopia with elements of satire.

“We will organize fountains, we will wet the ground in a dry year, the women will have geese, everyone will have feather and fluff - a flourishing business!” - this eternal dream of the poor about an earthly paradise, intertwined with revolutionary ideas, gave rise to a peculiar myth among the Chevengurians about the imminent joyful triumph of socialism and communism. In the summer of 1922, after the devastating Civil War, the heroes reflect, without recognizing any protests, about the need to “make socialism in time for the new year.” “Commander of the field Bolsheviks” - Kopenkin gives the command: “Finish socialism by summer!”, to which the newly-minted “transformers” cheerfully answer: “The rye will not yet ripen, but socialism will be ready!”

In order to “organize” socialism, the Chevengurians needed to liquidate the petty “bourgeoisie” by shooting them twice: “after the body, their soul was shot” in order to destroy not only “the flesh of the unearned elements”, but also “the reserves of captivated by age-old soulfulness.”

To make communism more authentic, all the poor and miserable people were gathered in Chevengur, who received the name “others.” According to Proshka Dvinov, they are “worse than the proletariat,” “not Russians, not Armenians, not Tatars, but nobody.” The image of “others” brings to mind sad thoughts about the future of Russia, about the tragedy of a nation that has destroyed its best part, leaving only “others”, “nobody”, people without kinship, memory and Fatherland.

Having thus created a new society, the Chevengurs began to live without doing anything, since “labor contributes to the origin of property, and property contributes to oppression.” Moreover, work is “a relic of greed and exploitation.” All week long, the townspeople “rest”, suffering from idleness, and once a week - on clean-up days, they “hand-carry” gardens and houses closer to the city center. For socialism in Che-vengur now only the sun works, “... declared... by the world proletarian.”

Chevengur's characters, like all Platonov's heroes, are philosophers. But their thinking, although quite imaginative, is not yet mature enough to solve pressing social issues. Here, for example, is Chepurnoy: “In his head, like in a quiet lake, floated the fragments of a world he had once seen and the events he had encountered.” These are poorly educated people; even the most active “Marxist” admits: “I myself have never read him (Marx). So, I heard something at rallies - so I’m campaigning.”

And it seems quite natural that Kopenkin, who arrived in the city, “has not yet... noticed obvious and obvious socialism in Che-Vengur...”. He arrests Chepurnov because he “did not provide communism” to the poor people.

Now, when the history of that time has been rethought, when everyone can have their own opinion about the events of those days, we can say that Platonov’s novel has become a kind of prophecy, a warning, showing in a grotesque form the future of a socialist country, built by the hands of the most recent and dispossessed proletariats. As according to the scenario, the flower of the nation was destroyed during the Stalin years, “who was nothing” became “everything”, the people were periodically announced, without any reason, about the imminent completion of the construction of communism. All this was already described by Platonov in his novel, created in 1929. But no one thought about the consequences of building “ideological” socialism, the fruits of which are being reaped to this day.

GENRE FEATURES OF ANDREY PLATONOV’S NOVEL “CHEVENGUR”

A. Khudzinska-Parkosadze

The work of Andrei Platonov constantly arouses keen interest among literary scholars and literature lovers. Literary studies are trying to find answers to the most basic questions concerning Plato’s poetics, such as, at least, determining the genre of the writer’s only completed novel, “Chevengur.” When solving this problem, scientists were divided into two main groups: the first considers this novel a dystopia, the second - a utopia. However, there is a third group that tries to classify this genre as both dystopian and utopian, despite their opposites.

On the one hand, critics emphasize that Chevengur, a “creepy place-mystery”, being outside of real space and time, meets the main feature of a utopian city: that is, a place that does not exist. This definition is supported by the utopianism of the very idea of communism 2, utopian ideals time, which Platonov embodied 3. Other terms are also used to define the genre of the novel: meta-utopia 4, trans-utopia 5, etc. A. Pomorski calls the work “Chevengur” a pre-Orwellian dystopia along with “We” by E. Zamyatin6.

On the other hand, criticism notes that Chevengur’s novel clearly highlights the features characteristic of dystopia: the idea of socialism and universal happiness on earth, when faced with a specific human fate, leads to a tragic ending7. O. Lazarenko sees the essential feature of the dystopia in Chevengur in Platonov’s recognition of the priority of eternal and natural life over the idea 8.

How adequate are such readings of Chevengur? In this regard, we agree with the opinion of V. Svitelsky, who notes that Platonov in Chevengur revealed the inevitability of the meeting of utopia with reality, expressed it in a “new, unprecedented, artistic synthesis.” Platonov in the work, according to

sacred real life, together with utopia, gave its discussion, its correction by reality. V. Svitelsky calls the novel Chevengur the tragic utopia of Platonov 9.

So, if Chevengur cannot be unambiguously called a utopia or a dystopia, then the question

about the genre remains open. Maybe Platonov played some kind of joke on the reader “and this way and back.” Perhaps it is no coincidence that Andrei Klimentov chose for himself a pseudonym similar to the name of one of his favorite philosophers - Plato 10. After all, Chevengur’s picture strangely resembles the ideal state that Plato wrote about in his treatise. The philosopher believed that in an ideal state there is no place for what is useless and harmful (including the sick, crippled, “pests” of society, etc.). This approach is reminiscent of the approach of the Chevengur Bolsheviks to the old Chevengurs and gives grounds to assert the genre orientation of the author of Chevengur towards Plato’s State.

Plato believes that in an ideal state, power should be concentrated in the hands of wise philosophers, “saviors” who know better than anyone what is good and what is bad. There is a vanguard, border guards and guardians of order. This is a kind of Fedorov’s “overseers”, that is, a true reflection of the image of the Chevengur Bolsheviks. They constitute the power elite and, according to Plato, must renounce their possessions and live like Spartans. Government officials understand the needs and wants of others better than anyone else. Those who are enemies of the new order, and thus the state and the gods themselves, will face a death sentence. For the good of the state, it is necessary to restrict freedom of thought and action.

Plato knew that in an imperfect world it was impossible to create an ideal state, but he was convinced that people should strive to realize the ideal. He founded his

the project of an ideal state is based on the belief that the ideal world (that is, the world of perfect ideas) has as its ultimate goal implementation in matter. Matter in Space becomes more perfect as it approaches the world of pure ideas, that is, the Universe. This desire for improvement through beauty Plato calls love 12. Plato writes about the need to unite all people with one goal for the sake of creating a fair state and raising a perfect person 13. However, as scientists note, in its details and methods of implementation, Plato’s theory disdains freedom and happiness of a person as an individual 14.

Plato's ideal state is considered a utopia 15 because it embodies the model of the “best” earthly structure. At the same time, the image of the Platonic state also corresponds to the model of a totalitarian system of power 16. From this we can conclude: the definition of Chevengur as a utopia or dystopia is connected with the riddle of the definition of the Platonic State. After all, utopias created in ancient times are myths, which in the twentieth century turned into dystopias. Utopia is a project of a rationally organized society. The sphere of dystopia is the private existence of an individual, something intimate and deeply individual. Its hero is a man who tries to build his existence according to ideas about spiritual harmony 17.

The influence of Plato’s ideas on Platonov’s worldview has been noted more than once by criticism. 18 They emphasized precisely the fact that Plato is the founder of utopia, and the fact that Platonov criticized idealism in one of his earliest articles in the newspaper “Voronezh Commune” dated 17 and October 20, 1920 under the title “Culture of the Proletariat”19. Plato's philosophy shines through not only through the genre form of Chevengur. As J. Shimak-Reiferova rightly noted, Plato’s influence also affected the ideas of the novel’s heroes about soul and body. They “feel” and “formulate” the world according to Plato 20. In our opinion, Platonic philosophy is largely based on the Platonic myth, the core of which is the dualistic model of the world order.

Mythologism of thinking is directly related to the issue of human perception of the world and the process of understanding it 21. Myth is a model for other literary genres. Researchers have long noted the connection between some rituals, tribal customs, and beliefs with the fairy tale genre. Most researchers have no doubt about the origin of the tale from a primitive myth 22.

The fairy tale plot reinterpreted mythological ideas, sometimes reproducing them in the literal sense. The most stable mythological motifs and themes that the fairy tale absorbed include the theme of paradise, the search for “another kingdom” (“the other world”), the theme of initiation and trials of the hero during his wanderings. Vladimir Propp traced the plot scheme of a fairy tale to two main cycles of mythological ideas. The first is associated with the rite of initiation, that is, the hero’s transition to a new status, and the second reflects ancient ideas about the place of the afterlife of souls and travel to another world 23. It should be emphasized here that it is difficult to draw a clear boundary between these cycles, since the rite of initiation and presentation “the other world” is inherent in many beliefs. The initiation rite was associated with the subsequent resurrection.

According to V. Propp, a fairy tale is distinguished primarily by the repetition of functions, that is, homogeneous actions of the characters that are important for the development of the plot 24. Hence the homogeneity of the composition. The scientist names several main motives that define the genre of fairy tales. Chevengur as a novel, and therefore a more complex genre in its structure, has two storylines, one relates to the fisherman father, and the other to Sasha. Nevertheless, both storylines meet the compositional requirements of a fairy tale.

Let's start with Sasha's father: temporarily leaving home can be understood as leaving this world for the world of death. Consequently, the prohibition here is the impermissibility of taking one’s own life. It is interesting that in relation to Sasha, this prohibition does not apply to him directly, but to other persons, that is, the prohibition of taking the lives of other people refers to the murder of old Chevengurs by the Bolsheviks, but to

and the murder of them by a gang of nomads. Although Sasha is not a violator of this ban, it is he who strives to overcome its ominous force - the element of death.

V. Propp considered the violation of the ban to be the main element of the beginning of the action and the beginning of the intrigue. Accordingly, the suicide of Sasha's father represents the beginning of the action and the beginning of Sasha's journey. According to the requirements of the fairy tale genre, its hero must become a type of seeker who is forced to leave home and go in an uncertain direction. Sasha is a seeker of the truth of existence, he is forced first to leave the house of his adoptive father Prokhor Abramovich Dvanov, then the grave of his fisherman father and, finally, the house of Zakhar Pavlovich. The hero of the novel goes first to beg, and then to look for communism.

Sasha Dvanov, like the hero of a fairy tale, is a type of peasant, he is the son of a fisherman. In the novel there is practically no external characterization of him. Sasha's main feature is nobility, based on his desire to help others. He also possesses another basic quality of a magical hero - the ability to sympathize with others. It is curious that in Russian fairy tales the character personifies love for his father, whose last request he fulfills as a sacred duty. Let us remember that Sasha decided to go to Chevengur after he saw his father in a dream and he told him: “Do something in Chevengur: why are we going to lie dead...”25. It is this episode of the novel that combines the fabulous function of a connecting moment and mediation.

It is symptomatic that in Platonov’s novel the function of a magical assistant and antagonist is performed by one hero - Sasha Dvanov’s adopted brother, Prosha Dvanov. The leading feature of the magical assistant is greater activity, compared to the passivity of the main character. For us, the fact that Sasha is guided in life by the call of his open heart, and Prosha, in contrast, by a cold-blooded mind, is of significant importance. It was this circumstance that formed the basis of the antagonistic relationship between these two characters.

By the same principle, the compositional axis of a fairy tale consists of two antagonistic kingdoms. In Chevengur, these kingdoms acquire truly ontological content - firstly, the earthly kingdom, that is, this world, and secondly, the kingdom of darkness, that is, that light. The city of Chevengur itself also refers to the symbolism of the kingdom of darkness, since it is in opposition to the “external” world around it. There “time was hopelessly running away from life” (Ch., p. 225); in Chevengur “it was difficult to enter<...>and it’s difficult to get out of it” (Ch., p. 231). Therefore, Chevengur turned out to be the place where the main character was tested.

The main functional feature of the test is that only those who possess the magical remedy can pass it. In Sasha’s case, the function of a magical remedy is performed by the motif of an open heart. Among all the heroes, only he experiences true love for all the people he meets, imbued with compassion and ready for self-sacrifice.

It is characteristic that, according to the compositional requirements of the fairy tale genre, the beginning of the action is realized through an episode of absence, that is, one of the family members must leave home. The story of Sasha Dvanov begins with the death of his fisherman father, who wanted to “live in death and return” (Ch., p. 8). However, despite his intentions, he violated the ban on suicide, since he died “not due to weakness, but due to his curious mind” (Ch., p. 9). By his death, he created a lack in the life of his son, who has since experienced a lack of happiness, understood within the framework of Plato’s “warmth.” Sasha hopes to find this “warmth” first in the house of Prokhor Abramovich Dvanov, but is unsuccessful. His fate changes when the antagonist Prosha agrees to bring his begging adoptive brother to Zakhar Pavlovich under the pretext of alms. The function of complicity is realized through Sasha’s obedient submission to Prosha’s will, despite the fact that he had previously committed an act of sabotage, calling him a “parasite” and driving his father Prokhor Abramovich out of the house. For the second time, Prosha caused the lack experienced by Sasha, the feeling of loneliness, longing for his own father and human “warmth”.

The function of testing and sacrifice is realized at two levels: preparatory and final. The first test refers to the first part of the novel, in which Sasha goes on a business trip to Russia and meets a detachment of anarchists. As a result of the anarchist attack, Sasha was wounded in his right leg. The symbolism of this injury is of great importance for an adequate understanding of this scene and the ending of the novel. A wound in the right leg means that the hero is at the very beginning of the spiritual path 26 and, having given part of himself as a self-sacrifice, became a demigod and acquired knowledge. Moreover, this symbolic scene of wounding brings the image of the hero closer to the image of Jesus Christ, since, aiming at Sasha, the anarchist says: “By the scrotum of Jesus Christ” (Ch., p. 69). Having been wounded, Sasha “rolled from the edge of the ravine to the bottom” (Ch., p. 69). Falling to the bottom is a symbolic descent into hell and symbolic death. Just as Satan “tested the strength of spirit” of Christ in the desert for forty days (Luke 4:1-15), so the incident with the anarchists was a test of Sasha’s strength of spirit and prepared him for the main sacrifice in the finale of the novel. The fact that Sasha was stripped naked and that at the same time he does not feel any anger, shame or humiliation also seems significant. For him, this turned out to be only physical humiliation, which in its essence should prepare the hero for the final spiritual test and sacrifice. This scene of the first test and the first sacrifice is also associated with the birth of the “magic remedy” - the compassionate heart. It must be emphasized that the parallel Sasha and Christ outlined by us should be understood in a philosophical, but not religious-dogmatic framework.

Sasha’s path to Chevengur corresponds to the spatial movement of the hero of a fairy tale between two kingdoms. As we have already said, the example of two antagonistic kingdoms in Plato’s novel constitutes the world of life and the world of death. The hero of the novel comes to Chevengur to make sure whether it is really the only place on earth where the final happiness of all mankind is located - communism. In Chevengur, the struggle between the protagonist and his antagonist will take place. Sasha, the owner of an “open heart”, and Prosha, a supporter of re-

solving life issues with the help of reason, they argue about what truth is and how people can find happiness. Prosha believed that truth should be sacrificed for the sake of general moderate happiness, which the chosen ones would allocate to the rest as rations. According to the hero, “every truth should be a little and only in the very end” (Ch., p. 247). Sasha, however, convinced him otherwise, proving the opposite.

The function of a brand, a mark, is performed by the kiss on the lips that Prosha received from Sasha at the beginning of their conversation about the truth. Sasha kissed him as a sign of forgiveness, “noticing in him a conscientious shame for his childhood past” (Ch., p. 245). This act of mercy transformed Ask from an antagonist into Sasha's helper and follower. Immediately after the fateful conversation with his brother, Prosha sets off in search of wives for the “others”, for the first time wanting to do something selflessly for others, and at the end of the novel he sets out on the road to look for Sasha out of longing for his disappeared brother.

Sasha wants to stay in Chevengur to live with the “others,” since only here he felt happy. This fact indicates the elimination of the deficiency previously experienced by the hero. However, Sasha's favorable stay in Chevengur is interrupted by the sudden invasion of a band of nomads, who exterminated all the Chevengurs except Sasha. He miraculously escapes the chase and is saved. On a horse, named by Kopenkin Proletarian Power, he returns to the beginning of his journey - to his native village. There his unrecognizable arrival will take place, since the only old man he met in the village, Pyotr Fedorovich Kondaev, does not recognize him.

The denouement of the novel is of a purely mystical nature. It is impossible to understand the final scene without reference to its meaning encrypted in mythological symbols. The main symbolic images in this episode are the lake as a chronotope of the kingdom of death and the ritual of self-sacrifice in the name of the common good. Consequently, the function of the usurper is assigned to the image of the water in Lake Mutevo, which “once calmed<...>father in her depths” (Ch., p. 306), and now she was worried and worried and pulled Sasha to her. He remembered that there was still “living body matter” left in her.

his father and it is there that “the whole homeland of life and friendliness” is located (Ch., p. 306). The unfounded claim of the usurper is explained by the fact that man must, in the Platonic manner, “make himself” and create in life and through life.

The essence of the difficult task facing Sasha is that he must find the road “along which his father once walked in curiosity about death” (Ch., p. 306), but go through it not into death, but into eternal life, while he must also expose the usurper. In order to fulfill what was planned, his death should not be an act of suicide, but, on the contrary, a sacred act of love and mercy. Therefore, the motif of the mark-mark, that is, the kiss, understood as an act of mercy towards the antagonist, plays an important role in this context. It is with the help of this act that the main dualism of the novel is overcome: heart / mind, life / death. Sasha “continues his life” (Ch., p. 306), plunging into the water of Lake Mutevo, because he dies “by virtue” of love. Thus, the hero’s transformation takes place and he defeats the main enemy - death. Sasha’s act of self-sacrifice to overcome the elements of death (the circle of death: the murder of old Chevengurs, the death of a child, the murder of new Chevengurs, etc.) takes on the meaning of ascension to the sphere of sacrum and unification with the absolute, and therefore fulfills the function of a wedding and ascension to the throne.

Yu.M. Lotman denies the possibility of applying the model developed by

V.Ya. Propp for a fairy tale. The literary critic sees a fundamental difference between fairy-tale and novel texts. The main ones are: strict hierarchical closure of the levels (the sum of the functions of a fairy tale), the detail-reality of the plot in a fairy tale is included only in the surface layer of the text (the exception is the “magic object,” that is, the tool with which a certain function is realized). But, on the other hand, Lotman admits that a characteristic feature of the Russian novel is the “mythology” of plots. 27 It seems that Chevengur Platonov’s novel is an exception to Lotman’s rule.

Chevengur's style also contains the characteristic properties of a fairy tale. In the light

This article is also important to the difference between a myth and a fairy tale. V. Propp emphasizes that myth, having lost its sociological significance, turned into a fairy tale. Outwardly, the beginning of this process is marked by the separation of the plot from the ritual. Consequently, the fairy tale loses the religious function of myth 28.

In the novel Chevengur, in our opinion, the composition and style of a fairy tale is enriched with philosophical and ontological content. Platonov raises questions about the meaning of life, about truth, about happiness. The answers and results of his searches are captured in universal mythological symbols that create a unified picture of the world. The purpose of the novel is not religious, but philosophical, since there are no obvious answers. The reader must find them himself. It seems that the genre of the fairy tale, which grew out of myth, can more adequately express the ideological and philosophical quest of the writer than others.

It is also significant that some call lyricism one of the main qualities of Plato’s stylistics. R. Chandler emphasizes that Platonov does not offer the reader a confident and clear perspective of the events described. The writer reconciles and heals his heroes with words of love 29.

The similarity of Chevengur with a fairy tale was already noted by Yu. Pastushenko, pointing out the similarity of Sasha Dvanov to the hero of the fairy tale, when he goes on a journey not on his own, but fulfilling the task of the ruler. Moreover, the researcher emphasizes that Sasha is a special hero in special circumstances, similar to those in fairy tales. Dvanov is a type of hero whose roots go back to the ancient Russian cultural tradition associated with the lives of saints, utopian legends and fairy tales 30.

M. Zolotonosov also drew attention to the complex transformation of folk fairy-tale ideas about the ideal structure in the “otherworldly kingdom.” According to the critic, in Chevengur the mutual influence of knowledge and faith is clearly visible in the example of the description of the economic system of “Chevengur communism”31.

Undoubtedly, A. Platonov consciously turned to the genre of a fairy tale and conceptualized it anew, giving it an ontological character. It is significant that after de-

mobilization from the army in 1946, A. Platonov spent the last years of his life working on fairy tales (The Magic Ring, 1950; Bashkir Folk Tales, 1949; Two Little Babies, 1948). The writer believed that a true artist, translating a work of folklore, recreates and thereby affirms in the popular consciousness the best version of all available versions of a given plot. Platonov wrote about the role of a writer who processes folk tales: “Writers further enrich and shape a folk tale with the power of their creativity and give it that final, ideal combination of meaning and form, in which the fairy tale remains for a long time or forever.”32 It is also natural that Platonov created his own individual genre - the ontological fairy tale, in which he combined the form of a fairy tale with ontological content.

Plato's heroes are fairy-tale philosophers. They walk barefoot along the road, but they touch “not the road dust and dirt, but directly the globe”33. They are the children of the Universe. Using the genre of a fairy tale, the writer fills the text with philosophical content. It is worth noting, however, that if a fairy tale usually told about some past events (“once upon a time”), then Platonov concentrates on the present and tells his contemporaries about their lives, exposing lies and pointing to the essence - the truth. After all, a fairy tale is the most accessible literary form of appeal to the people, to the most widely understood listener, not distorted by the experience of life.

The category of space is closely connected with the peculiar “poetics” of the name of the city, which is included in the title of A. Platonov’s novel. One of the first researchers to make an “approach” to clarify its source was O.Yu. Aleinikov. The critic suggests that this name can be deciphered as CheVENGUR - Extraordinary Military Invincible (Independent) Heroic Fortified Region, adjusted “for the writer’s disguised grin”34. The author of the above-mentioned article claims that this abbreviation was compiled taking into account the word formation models common in post-revolutionary times, which gravitated “to the formation of words

on the pronunciation of initial syllables or initial letters of several syllables”35. As an example, the researcher gives the following: Vikzhedor - All-Russian Executive Committee of the Railway Trade Union, Vsekoles - All-Russian Forestry Committee, etc.36

However, the method of forming the titles of other works of the writer shows that the above version of the decoding is atypical for A. Platonov, since the writer sought nominative simplicity. These titles are often a kind of slogans, that is, compressed but meaningful information: Pit, Doubting Makar, Symphony of Consciousness, etc.). Naturally, these names are often symbolic, two-dimensional, multi-valued, like the most Platonic works, which are simple in their origins.

A. Platonov already in 1922 (six years before Chevengur’s plan) wrote about himself “I am a singer, a wanderer and the bridegroom of the universe” in the poem Moonlight Rum, which, for reasons not fully known, was not included in the collection Blue Depth 37. In this In the poem we find the following lines:

Moonlight hum

The ringing groan of torn molecules, a universal battle of resistance and fire. By the way, when Sasha Dvanov first heard the word “Chevengur,” he liked it because “it sounded like the enticing roar of an unknown country” (Ch., p. 138). In the poem Moonlight Rum, Platonov also writes: I heard deep breathing in the world, the underground movement of water.

As a result, it should be noted that Platonov looks at space and man’s place in it not on the scale of the Earth alone, but on the scale of the entire Universe. Let us add that some researchers also drew attention to this feature of the “Platonic artistic universe”. For example, N.P. Khryashcheva in her book “The Boiling Universe” by A. Platonova claims that the writer initially thought in cosmic categories (meaning, first of all, the works of the “pre-Hungarian” period). As subtly noted in the work, it is no coincidence that in his articles and subsequent literary works projects of transformation are boldly developed.

developments on a planetary and even galactic scale. The researcher emphasizes that the writer believes so deeply in the immediate practical expansion of earthly life to the limits of the Cosmos that in his works the temporary boundaries between the possibilities of earthly human consciousness are actually removed. N.P. Khryashcheva considers the ways and means of the writer’s artistic construction of a new model of the Universe and the results of its testing for the possibility of becoming a happy home for humanity 38. N.M. Malygina also emphasizes that thoughts about man - the “inhabitant of the Universe”, the conqueror of the Cosmos, are embodied in Plato’s poetic formulas (man is the “beloved child” of the sky, people are the “descendants of the sun”), reflecting the essential features of A. Platonov’s philosophy of nature 39.

We believe that the title of the novel Chevengur can be deciphered as: Che-ven-gur, that is, Che - through, ven - universal, gur - province, or Through-universal-gul. This method of decoding also suggests the name of another work by A. Platonov (Che-che-o), which, by the way, was published in 1928, that is, when the author was intensively working on Chevengur. The title Che-che-o means: Through the Chernozem District, that is, the area through which the writer toured and then placed his impressions in the above-mentioned essay.

Let us assume that the last syllable “gur” means the word “province”. When explaining this judgment, we refer to the conclusions of M.A. Dmitrovskaya, who connects the image of Chevengur with the symbolic image of the “underwater” world and draws a parallel between this image and the scene of the death of Dvanov’s father in Lake Mutevo. The researcher emphasizes that Father Dvanov’s ideas about death coincide with the description of moonlit Chevengur: “... he saw death as another province, which is located under the sky, as if at the bottom of cool water, and it attracted him” (Ch., p. 8). Let us add that some researchers have drawn attention to the fact that the motive of the call is constant in Chevengur as a motive of labor. E.G. Muschenko sees the call not as a cause, but as a consequence of the call - work, case 40. The researcher notes that Sasha Dvanov

feels the pull of the earthly distance, as if all distant and invisible things were “calling him”41.

A. Livingston states that Sasha is first and foremost a “listener of the universe.” The literary critic is convinced that “Platonov himself wanted, in a sense, to discover his own language of the world (universe)”42. And the name “Chevengur” can be perceived in the text of the novel as the first known word of a song or language that Sasha Dvanov is looking for, that is, the own language of the Universe.

B.A. Chalmayev deciphered the name “Chevengur” as a word formed from two words “cheva” - bast shoe and “gur” (gurgling) - hum, bustle, roar. The result is a “hum from the paws”43. It is worth remembering, however, that the name “Chevengur” has an internal syllable “ven” and not “va”. Based on this decoding, the name “Chevagur” is obtained, and not “Chevengur”. In addition, the “hum from the bast shoes” refers more to the theme than to the problems and idea of the novel. In other words, to earthly reality, which does not exhaust the content of the work. In our opinion, A. Platonov was too attentive to the titles of his works in order to suspect him of such superficial syllables. In a similar way, the name “Chevengur” is interpreted by V.V. Vasiliev, who understands this word as a “grave of bast shoes” (from “cheva” - paw, cast-off bast shoe; “gur” - grave, tomb, crypt) is a symbol of the end of the original Russian truth-seeking, for in Chevengur, according to the Bolsheviks, the the end of history and the time of universal happiness 44. Naturally, our approach to trying to unravel the name “Chevengur” is only one of the options for deciphering the title of the novel, in our opinion, the most plausible, taking into account the “stylistics” of Plato’s works.

Platonov wanted to be understandable to everyone, he wrote with the thought of humanity as a whole, so it seems appropriate for him to use the genre of a fairy tale. After all, the fairy-tale “surface”, which to some extent is also inherent in parables, hides in its depths a truly philosophical depth. Platonov tried to extract from this depth the truth of human existence, to reveal the meaning of life to his contemporaries, to force them to

to think about the fact that they are involved and responsible for the life that happens before their eyes and which they themselves (consciously or unconsciously) create. These are not just fairy-tale stories about the struggle between good and evil in the distant past, but an understanding of what is happening, the essence of which is in the genre of an ontological fairy tale.

NOTES

2 Vasiliev V. Andrey Platonov. Essay on life and creativity. M., 1990. S. 141, 152.

3 Aleynikov O. A. Platonov’s story “The Juvenile Sea” in the social and literary context of the 30s // Platonov A. Research and materials / Ed. T.A. Nikonova. Voronezh, 1993. P. 72.

4 Gunter H. Genre problems of utopia and “Chevengur” by A. Platonov // Utopia and utopian thinking. M., 1991. P. 252.

5 Kovalenko V.A. “Demiurges” and “tricksters” in Platonov’s creative universe // Andrey Platonov. Problems of interpretation / Ed. T.A. Nikonova. Voronezh, 1995. P. 74.

6 Pomorski A. Duchowy proletariusz: przyczyne k do dziejów lamarkizmu spolecznego

i rosyjskiego komunizmu XIX-XX wieku (na marginesie antyutopii Andrieja Platonowa). Warszawa, 1996. S. 30.

7 Lazarenko O. The problem of the ideal in dystopia. “We” by E. Zamyatin and “Chevengur” by A. Platonov // Platonov A. Research and materials. P. 39.

8 Ibid. pp. 45-46.

9 Svitelsky V. Facts and speculation: On the problems of mastering Plato’s heritage // Ibid. pp. 87-88.

10 Sliwowscy W.R. Andrzej Platonow. Warszawa, 1983. S. 40. We, of course, are not trying to refute the fact that this pseudonym was also formed on behalf of the writer’s father, Platon Firsovich Klimentov. See: Vasiliev V.V. Decree. Op. S. 3.

11 Parniewski W. Szkice z dziejów mysli utopijnej (od Platona do Zinowjewa). -Lódz, 2000. S. 27.

14 Tatarkiewicz W. Historia filozofii. T. 1. Warszawa, 2002. S. 101. It is significant that Plato chose the Sun as a symbol reflecting the idea of good, that is, the eternal beginning. The sun, co-

according to Plato, illuminates things and makes their life and development possible.

15 Ibid. See also: Parniewski W. Op. cit. S. 27.

16 See: Popper K.R. The Open Society and Its Enemies. L., 1945. S. 140; Pieszczachowicz J. Wyspa Utopia i jej przeciwnicy // Literatura. 1990. No. 2. S. 45.

17 Zverev A. Mirrors of dystopias // Dystopias of the twentieth century. M., 1989. P. 337.

18 See: Semenova S.G. The ordeal of the ideal. Towards the publication of Andrei Platonov’s “Chevengur” // New World. 1988. No. 5. P. 219; Kantor K.M. It’s a shame to live without truth // Questions of Philosophy. 1989. No. 3. P. 14-16; Zolotonosov M. False sun. “Chevengur” and “Pit pit” in the context of Soviet culture of the 1920s // Questions of literature. 1994. Vol. 5. P. 12.

19 Zolotonosov M. Decree. Op.

20 Szymak-Reiferowa J. Rycerze Rózy Luksemburg // Andrzej Piatonow. Czewengur. Bialystok, 1996. S. 355.

21 Eliade M. Traktat o historii religii. -Lódz, 1993. S. 416. Eliade argues that at all levels of human perception of the world, the archetype is always used to comprehend human existence and with its help cultural values are created.

22 Wujcicka U From the history of Russian culture. Bydgoszcz, 2002. P. 211.

23 Propp V.Ya. Historical roots of fairy tales. L., 1986. P. 18. See also: Propp W. Morfologia bajki. Warszawa, 1976. S. 67-123.

24 Propp W. Nie tylko bajka. Warszawa, 2000. S. 91. All names of functions of a fairy tale are indicated in the text in italics.

25 Platonov A. Chevengur // Platonov A. Collection. cit.: In 5 vols. T. 2. M., 1998. P. 181. The following quotes are from this edition.

26 Julien N. Dictionary of symbols. Chelyabinsk, 1999. P. 448.

27 Lotman Yu.M. The plot space of the Russian novel of the 19th century // On Russian literature. Articles and research: history of Russian prose, theory of literature. St. Petersburg, 1997, pp. 712-729.

28 Propp W. Nie tylko bajka. Warszawa, 2000. S. 179-180.

29 See: Chandler R Between faith and insight // Philological notes. 1999. No. 13. P. 77; Pod-shivalova E.A. On the generic nature of A. Platonov’s prose of the late 20s - early 30s // Platonov A. Research and materials / Ed. T.A. Nikonova. Voronezh, 1993; Orlitsky Yu.B. The verse beginning in the prose of A. Platonov // Andrey Platonov. Problems of interpretation / Ed. T.A. Nikonova. Voronezh, 1995; Kedrovsky A.E. Christian and socialist ideals in A. Platonov’s story “Dzhan” // Realized opportunity: A. Pla-

tones and the 20th century / Ed. E.G. Muschenko. Voronezh, 2001; and etc.

30 Pastushenko Yu. Mythological symbolism in the novel “Chevengur” // Philological notes. 1999. No. 13. P. 30, 3S.

31 Zolotonosov M. Decree. Op. P. 6.

33 Ibid. pp. 124-125.

34 Aleynikov A.Yu. On the approaches to “Chevengur” (about one of the possible sources of the name) // Philological notes. 1999. No. 13. P. 182.

36 Ibid. pp. 182-183.

37 Platonov A. Blue depth // Platonov A. Collected works: In 5 volumes. T. i. M., 1998. P. 79.

38 Khryashcheva N.P. “Boiling Universe” by A. Platonov: Dynamics of image creation and world comprehension in the works of the 20s. Ekaterinburg, 1998.

39 Malygina N.M. Aesthetics of Andrey Platonov. Irkutsk, 1985. P. 23.

40 Muschenko E.G. The philosophy of “doing” by A. Platonov // Realized opportunity: A. Platonov and the 20th century / Ed. E.G. Muschenko. Voronezh, 2001. P. 19.

41 Ibid. P. 20.

42 Livingston A. Platonov and the motive of tongue-tiedness // Realized opportunity. P. 209.

43 Chalmaeva V.A. Andrey Platonov: (Comments) // Platonov A. Collected Works. T. 2. P. 534.

44 Vasilyev V.V. Decree. Op. P. 147.

A. P. Platonov’s novel “Chevengur” was created in 1926-1929, although its historical content is limited to the period 1921-1922. It was first published in 1972. In Russia, the novel was published in 1988.

At the beginning of the novel, one of the provincial towns with dilapidated huts is presented. The drought starved people and forced them to look elsewhere. Zakhar Pavlovich stayed because he could not give up his products.

The driver-mentor believed that steam locomotives are more gentle and defenseless than people. Therefore, he debated for a long time whether to take Zakhar to the depot when he found himself in the city.

Mavra Fetisovna Dvanova, who had 7 children, took the orphan in with her (his father drowned in Lake Mutevo, checking what kind of death she was). The orphan Sasha was first sent to beg, and then Prosha sent him out of the house completely, since Mavra gave birth to twins.

Over time, doubting the preciousness of the cars, Zakhar Pavlovich takes Daria Stepanovna as his wife and asks Proshka to bring Sashka for a ruble. The boy became a student at the depot.

The war has begun. Zakhar was sure that he could come to an agreement with the German. Sasha enrolled in courses. After the revolution they went to look for a party. Zakhar believed that a Bolshevik must have an empty heart in order for everything to fit there. Sasha "believed that the revolution was the end of the world." He was studying at the polytechnic school when the party “sent him to the front of the civil war - to the steppe city of Novokhopersk.” When he returned home, he had to endure difficulties: shelling, dismantled rails. Sasha was driving a steam locomotive for a short section of the road, but it collided with an oncoming one. 40 people died. Upon returning home, Dvanov was ill with typhus, and then told Sonya Mandrova about his dreams during his illness.

The pre-gubernia executive committee, Shumilin, guessed that socialism had already accidentally turned out somewhere. Therefore, Sasha was sent to inspect the provinces. Sonya and her friends were sent along with the Red Army detachments as teachers to a village where gangs of illiterate people gathered.

In a ravine in front of the village of Kaverino, Dvanov comes across a detachment that is singing a song about Soviet power. He is wounded in the leg. The leader of the anarchists is Mrachinsky. Nikitka helped Dvanov undress so as not to remove the clothes from the dead man. Since Alexander read the leader’s book - “The Adventures of Modern Agasfer”, he takes him with him to the Limanny farm.

In the village of Voloshino, Sonya Mandrova not only played the role of a teacher, but also helped everyone. The field Bolshevik commander Mrachinsky and Dvanov knocked on the school door. Stepan Kopenkin, who constantly does everything in the name of Rosa Luxemburg, saved Alexander from death. The school watchman was the man whom Stepan arrested for resisting the revolutionary people. That night Dvanov woke up in search of socialism, left and boarded the first train.

When Kopenkin, using his Proletarian Strength, finds Dvanov, he travels with him through the villages.

In one of the villages, citizen Ignatius Moshonkov, who called himself Fyodor Dostoevsky, on the advice of travelers, must complete the construction of socialism. When sharing with the cattle, the only one left is the one who has neither food nor the skill to look after them. Residents must also fight the devastation. Dvanov gets Ryzhov's trotter.

Then Sasha and Stepan end up with the forest warden. And having considered that more grain will be collected from one area than the benefit of the forest, they reach a verdict: cut down the forest. This will open two roads to socialism: space for building cities, free land for peasants. At the meeting of the board of the commune “Friendship of the Poor” in the south of Novoselovsky district, there are many things to do, including a “complication” that does not leave people time for plowing. Dvanov draws for them a design for a monument to the revolution: “A recumbent figure eight means the eternity of time, and a standing two-pointed arrow means the infinity of space.”

On the way, they came across the “Revolutionary Reserve of Comrade Pashintsev named after World Communism. Entrance to friends and death to enemies." Clad in the armor of a knight, he is confident that the purest proletarian will come to him in thousands. Dvanov suggested; “You exchange the village for an estate: give the estate to the peasants, and make a reserve in the village.”

In the Cherna Kalitva settlement there were about 100 “non-red” people, 20 guns, led by Timofey Plotnikov. The blacksmith began to drive away the travelers, because he was offended by the Soviet government because, in his opinion, the land had been given away, and now the grain was being taken away to the last grain. There was no government in Chernovka. The men decided that the allocation had been cancelled. Dvanov goes to the city, leaving Kopenkin in charge. Arriving in the city, Alexander thought that there were whites here. The city had a hearty feast: they ate crumpets and meat. He went to see his father. On the way to the party meeting, Shumilin reproaches him for inciting the men to cut down the Bitterman forestry.

Gopner and Fufaev, leaving the city council hall, discussed electric lighting. There was one issue on the agenda - the new economic policy. The secretary of the provincial committee, Molelnikov, “was partly pleased: he imagined the new economic policy as a revolution set forward by gravity.” The electricity in the hall went out for a while. One person was surprised by the name “new economic policy.” In his opinion, this is simply a street term for communism. He himself is called a Chevengurian and explains that there is such a point - an entire district center. “In the old days it was called Chevengur. Aya was, for now, the chairman of the revolutionary committee.” They have the end of the story, since it is not needed there. Dvanov transmits through the Chevengurian. Chepurny (Japanese) a note to Kopenkin, asking him to give his trotter to any poor person, and he himself would move on. In the note he asks Stepan to look into Chevengur, look at socialism and tell him.

Kopenkin in the Chernovsky village council spoke with the peasants about socialism. But one day he left there. On the way, he meets a sleeping man on a horse - Chepurny. Kopenkin goes with him to look at the “facts” of communism and the monument to Rosa Luxemburg. Father Alexey Alekseevich was looking for “cooperation in Chevengur - saving people from poverty and from mutual spiritual cruelty.” Chepurny advised him to read Marx.

The main difference between Chevengur is expressed in the words of the chairman: “It’s good here in Chevengur - we mobilized the sun for eternal work, and dissolved society forever.” Chepurny advised Prokofy not to think, but to formulate his thoughts. Having learned that Prosha has the last name Dvanov, Kopenkin decides to invite Sasha here. People did not work here, as this is a relic of greed. There were only subbotniks to move houses and gardens for a close and friendly life.

Chevengur pedestrian Misha Lui, who carried a letter to Dvanov, proposed making communism a journey. He himself decided not to return to Chevengur, but to go to Petrograd and join the navy there.

Kopenkin accidentally stumbles upon Pashintsev, who is now wandering, since his reserve has been removed. They go with Piusya to explore the city. We saw the graves of bourgeois whose souls were also shot. Prokofy tells Chepurny that the second coming must be declared and the city cleared for proletarian settlement. As a result, on Thursday night the bourgeoisie were shot in the cathedral square.

Prokofy concluded: since there is nothing about residual classes in Karl Marx’s book, then they cannot exist. All remaining semi-bourgeois were evicted. Ten people left. Chepurny sends Prokofy to gather the proletariat and others to live in Chevengur. Those who remain go to wash the floors and ventilate the houses from the smell of the bourgeoisie. The people that Prosha brought were called “fatherless.” He gives them a speech: “Although the city of Chevengur is given to you, it is not for the predation of the impoverished, but for the benefit of all the conquered property and the organization of a wide fraternal family for the sake of the integrity of the city.” Afterwards, various papers were sorted out at the meeting. One “old man” advised holding meetings at night so as not to miss a living person during the day. They also decided to redevelop and improve Chevengur.

Pashintsev liked it in Chevengur, “he lived here to accumulate strength and gather a detachment in order to later raid his reserve and take the revolution away from the general organizers sent there.” The Chevengurs ate “raw fruits of nature.” One woman's child cried, then he died. Chepurny, through the power of socialism, wanted to force him to live another minute so that his mother could remember him that way. But nothing worked out for him.

Gopner and Sasha Dvanov came to the city. Gopner decided that there was no point in living here, since there was no craft for a working person. Yakov Titych advises going for wives for the people. Sasha forgives I ask Dva-nova for the past. Prokofy invites Sasha to organize a family and make one courtyard out of the entire city. Chepurny advises recruiting women to be slightly different from men. Dvanov told Gopner: Dyudi is not a mechanism, so you can’t get them settled “until they get settled themselves.” Chepurny began to think about the international in order to settle the oppressed in Chevengur. Yakov Titych sits at home alone with a cockroach and does not go out to people. Gopner suggests turning the mill to make fire.

To Kopenkin’s question, Dvanov replies that there really is communism here. Everyone starts working for others. Gopner and Dvanov are repairing the old man's roof. Kopenkin draws a portrait of Rosa Luxemburg for Dvanov. Pashintsev cuts wood for the winter in advance. Dvanov and Piyusya are building a dam on the Cheven-Gurka River to prevent water from flowing past people. Gopner still manages to get fire using a water pump. Two gypsy women came to be hired as wives. Karchuk, it turned out, does not need women, but only the friendship of his comrades. Simon Serbinov recently returned to Moscow “from surveying socialist construction in the distant open plains of the Soviet country.” For four months he helped the local Bolsheviks “strike the life of a peasant from its yard roots.” On the tram he met a young woman, after whom he jumped out of the tram a little later. She suggested we meet sometime. While on the party committee, Simon received a business trip to a distant province: “to investigate the fact that the area under cultivation has been reduced by 20 percent.”

Serbinov had a diary where he wrote down his thoughts and curses: “Man is not meaning, but a body full of passionate tendons, gorges with blood, hills, holes, pleasures and oblivion.” He took a sheet as a memory of Sonya, which he used to wipe himself after washing. She asks him to say hello to a loved one who will meet him in that region. Simon comes to her again. Then he takes her to his mother's grave.

Kopenkin plowed on Proletarian Power for Dvanov’s future happiness. The Chevengurs decided to keep the fire going. Serbinov arrived in the city. He noted in the protocol that the sown area increased even by 1%. Then Simon wrote a letter to Sophia saying that he had met the man from her portrait. Dvanov came up with the idea of turning sunlight into electricity. Chevengurs, in their opinion, work not for benefit, but for each other. Simon decided to stay in the city and wrote a report to the provincial committee.

Prokofy arrived in a phaeton with a naked music player, and behind him walked barefoot women, about 10 people. The next day there was a review, but since there were few women, they chose. Klavdyusha reports to Prosha about the money she received for things. The money itself is kept by the aunt.

Chepurny made a clay monument to Prokofy, and now he will build one for Karchuk. Prosha decided to take over the city. To do this, he first goes to describe the property that he will later get. The city is attacked by enemies at night. Many died. Kopenkin also died. Dvanov leaves for the steppe on Proletarian Power. He drives past his native village, which now had prosperity. Near Lake Mutevo, the horse caught on his fishing rod, forgotten here in childhood. Sasha got off the saddle and walked along the road where his father had once gone. Proletarian Power returned to Chevengur. Karchuk brought a passing man, Zakhar Pavlovich, who came for Dvanov. Proshka, having cried, now agreed to bring Sashka for free.

Platonov's novel is considered a genuine folk epic. In it, the writer showed the “multi-structure” of Russia during the transition period from war communism to the new economic policy. Critics suggest that "Chevengur" may mean "grave of bast shoes." And it turns out that this is a symbol of the original Russian truth-seeking. The grave is also a kind of end to the story. Such social constructions in the country caused the writer fundamental fears for the fate of the people, the new society and its culture.

Composition

The originality of Plato's satire is that the main philosopher, who creates the concept of bureaucracy, Shmakov, performs a double function in the story: he is a militant bureaucrat, but he is also the main exposer of the existing order. Doubts overcome Shmakov, a “criminal thought” is born in his head:

“Isn’t the law itself or another institution a violation of the living body of the universe, trembling in its contradictions and thus achieving complete harmony?” The author entrusted him with saying very important words about bureaucrats: “Who are we? We are for the proletarians! Therefore, for example, I am the deputy revolutionary and the owner! Do you feel wisdom? Everything has been replaced! Everything has become fake! Everything is not real, but a surrogate!” The full force of Platonov’s irony was manifested in this “speech”: on the one hand, a kind of apology for bureaucracy, and on the other, the simple idea that the proletarians do not have power, but only his “deputies.” A practical bureaucrat with extensive experience, Bormotov confidently declares: “Destroy bureaucracy - there will be lawlessness!” That is, in principle, bureaucracy is indestructible, since power cannot exist without bureaucrats. This universal thought is also dear to Shmakov: “The office is the main force that transforms the world of vicious elements into a world of law and nobility.”

In the story, Platonov opens a specific “Gradov school of philosophy” (L. Shubin’s expression), and this philosophy is revealed in a special language, in which it is only possible to write about what he writes about. This is the language of pervasive irony, a paraphrase of templates expressing the narrowness and dullness of the thinking of Gradov's philosophers and practitioners of bureaucracy. The speech of each of the characters cannot be conveyed in standardized language - the whole meaning of the “expression” will be lost.

Platonov continues to appear as a master of characterizing minor characters - two or three lines are enough to create a vivid image. Expressive in this regard is the “speech” of the accountant Smachnev: “Nothing takes me - neither music, nor singing, nor faith - but vodka takes me! This means that my soul is so strong, it only approves of poisonous substances... I don’t recognize anything spiritual, that’s a bourgeois deception.” Such “solid souls” inhabit Gradov, creating their own philosophy of life, expressing an idea of its values. Here are a few expressions from the text: “Beloved brothers in the revolution”, “contradictory tired eyes”, “an eagle breathes in my heart, and a star of harmony shines in my head”, “that is, for every hero there is his own bitch”, etc. Landscapes in There is practically no “City of Gradov”, and this is consistent with Shmakov’s thought: “The worst enemy of order and harmony... is nature. Something always happens in her...”

The novel “Chevengur” was conceived in 1926 and written in 1927-1929. This is the only completed novel in Platonov’s work - a large work built according to the laws of this genre, although the writer, it seems, did not strive to strictly follow the canons of the novel. Its composition is complicated by various kinds of deviations from the main plot, seemingly unrelated to each other. But the internal unity of the novel is obvious: it has a main character, his fate from childhood to the last days of his life, there is a clearly designed frame, a roll call of motives for the beginning and ending, there is a complex of ideas that give the general meaning of the novel completeness and purposefulness.

The large expanse of text is not divided into separate chapters. But thematically, it can be divided into three parts. The first part was entitled “The Origin of the Master” and published in 1929, the second part could be called “The Wanderings of Alexander Dvanov”, the third is “Chevengur” itself - the story about him begins from the middle of the novel. This is the uniqueness of his composition, since in the first half of “Chevengur” there is no mention of Chevengur himself. But if modern criticism calls this work as a whole a dystopian novel, it is not only because of the story about the commune on the Chevengurka River, but also taking into account the fact that dystopian tendencies in the novel grow gradually and consistently. However, despite the author’s mercilessness in depicting Chevengur, this novel cannot be called an evil caricature of the ideas of socialism.

The main character of the novel, Sasha Dvanov, is close to the author in certain ways; Platonov gave him part of his autobiography, his thoughts of the early 20s. Dvanov's fate is bitter and tragic. As a child he was left an orphan. Sasha wandered around for a long time as a beggar until he found comfort and warmth with Zakhar Pavlovich, whose appearance has the features of the prototype - Platonov's father. He is shown as a worker by the very essence of his soul, as a philosopher who preaches a “normal life”, without the violence of human nature with ideas and power.

Sasha grew up, read a lot, and longing grew in his soul. He went to the same depot where Zakhar Pavlovich worked, to work as an assistant driver and to study to become a mechanic. “For Sasha - at that time of his early life - every day had its own, nameless charm, which would not be repeated in the future...” Quite a few pages, saturated with lyricism, are dedicated to Dvanov the young man. Love for Sonya Mandrova was born, interest in the world and truth was born. But Sasha remained defenseless: “At seventeen years old, Dvanov still had no armor under his heart - no faith in God, no other mental peace...” Dvanov’s image gradually became more complicated: Sasha was weak from longing for the truth and from kindness, but at the same time fearless, patient and enduring.

Having recovered from his illness, Alexander “agreed to look for communism among the initiative of the population.” He walked “through the province, along the roads of counties and volosts.” Everything he saw and experienced during his journey in search of communism made up the middle part of the novel. Everywhere he visited, Dvanov asked himself and the peasants the question: “Where is socialism?” Throughout the province, this word was understood differently: there really was complete “independent activity” in creating a new life, the features of a people’s utopia were clearly manifested. The most significant one, which determined his future fate, was the meeting with Stepan Kopenkin, a wandering knight of the revolution, a fanatical admirer of Rosa Luxemburg; Kopenkin saved Dvanov. snatching him from the hands of the anarchists of Mrachinsky's gang. Then Dvanov and Kopenkin travel together, actively acting and making speeches to move the people towards communism. But in his essence, Dvanov is more a contemplator and witness than a doer. The author ironically notes: “Therefore, Dvanov was pleased that in Russia the revolution had completely weeded out those rare places of thickets where there was culture, and the people, as they were, remained an open field... And Dvanov was in no hurry to sow anything...”

Finally, Alexander heard about a place where “there is socialism.” This is Chevengur. Everything that was scattered in the villages and towns of the province - excesses, experiments, violence - was concentrated in Chevengur: the expectation of the immediate arrival of Paradise, the idea of communism as a life based on complete idleness, the destruction of values and property as a relic, complete the elimination of exploitation, understood as the elimination of bourgeois elements (kulaks, merchants, wealthy people in general), belief in a miracle - with a new life, the dead can be resurrected, the community of wives - “comrades-in-arms”.

How do Chevengurs live and the reason for the collapse of Chevengur?

Due to the surviving remnants of food from the damned past and also from the sun - from its “extra strength”, emaciated, in rags, without morality, without worries, “the people eat everything that grows on the earth,” bypassing the “surrounding steppes.” Instead of camaraderie, there is a disintegration of all normal human relationships, “the city is swept away by the subbotniks into one heap, but life in it is disintegrating into little things, and every little thing doesn’t know what to cling to in order to hold on.”

Descriptions of tragicomic scenes taking place in Chevengur are interspersed with discussions by commune leaders: what is communism, what did they “build”? And the leaders are the fanatical Chepurny, the cunning and calculating Prokhor Dvanov, the cruel Piusya and others. Kopenkin also came here, and then Alexander Dvanov and Gopner came. “Tired and trusting,” Alexander looked for communism in Chevengur, but “didn’t see it anywhere.” And here is the finale: the Cossacks attacked Chevengur, and he. powerless, helpless, could not defend himself and was defeated. Kopenkin and almost all the defenders of the commune died heroically. Alexander and Prokhor Dvanov survived. But Alexander, on Proletarian Strength - Kopenkin’s horse - went to Lake Mutevo, where his father died, trying to find out what death is; The Proletarian Power entered the water, and Alexander “himself descended from the saddle into the water - in search of the road along which his father walked in curiosity about death...”

The death of Alexander Dvanov is not just a consequence of his fateful destiny to follow his father’s path. It symbolizes the collapse of hopes, despair from the destruction in practice of the “great idea,” hopeless sadness from the loss of one’s comrades. Platonov did not restrain himself in depicting the dark sides of human life and gloomy episodes of the era; in the novel there is often a nerve-wracking naturalism in the description of individual scenes: for example, the scene of Alexander’s torture by Mrachinsky’s gang, the terrible scene in Chevengur - Chepurny’s attempt to resurrect the child, the difficult to explain (even using Freudianism) episode - Serbinov and Sonya in the cemetery, etc. Platonov is fearless in describing the death of people - and there are many deaths in “Chevengur”. The descriptions of nature and the environment surrounding the characters in the novel are laconic, succinct and filled with a feeling of melancholy and anxiety. There is no one to contemplate the landscapes; even Alexander Dvanov is convinced that “nature is still a business event.” Nevertheless, images of nature and space in the novel are often found in the form of “overview landscapes,” sometimes as author’s remarks commenting on the course of events or the mental state of the characters, or as image-symbols of “eternal life,” not soiled by human existence. Sometimes Platonov, in two or three phrases, gives a general idea of the tragic state of the world in a difficult era for the people: “Horse fat burned in the skull with the tongues of hell from county pictures; People were walking along the street to abandoned places in the surrounding area. The Civil War lay there in fragments of the people's heritage - dead horses, carts, bandits' zipuns and pillows."

The image-symbol of the sun is expressive. It is presented in the novel as a cross-cutting motif in the description of the “new life” in Chevengur. Undoubtedly, the stable phrase of the revolutionary era “the sun of new life” is played out here. The meaning of the symbol of the sun as a cruel force is especially clearly revealed in the scene where Piusya watches the sun rise and move across the sky.

The reason for the collapse of Chevengur is not only that its organizers made idleness and immoral behavior their ideal. Later, in the “Pit”, one can see a seemingly completely different situation - people work fiercely, continuously. However, the work remains fruitless. The writer examined two principles in understanding the role of labor in human society, and both turn out to be abnormal and inhuman. “Work is conscience” (701), wrote Platonov. When the meaning and goals of labor are divorced from the individual, from the human soul, from conscience, labor itself becomes either an unnecessary appendage to “complete freedom” or a cruel punishment.

“Chevengur”, as one of the novels of the 20th century, has a complex structure that incorporates different novel trends: it is a “novel of the formation of man”, and a “novel-journey”, and a “novel-test” - a test of a person and an idea (Bakhtin’s terminology) . M. Gorky called “Chevengur” a “lyrical satire” and expressed the opinion that the novel was “dragged out” - this is hardly fair: in essence, it is difficult to find episodes that could be discarded in order to shorten the text. But he is right that the novel is full of lyricism and has a “tender attitude towards people” - such is the nature of Plato’s humanism.

He turned to the dystopian genre. In his work he combined utopia and dystopia. This is characteristic of all his work. At the beginning, his work was associated with his passion for utopia. Then he turned to dystopia. He received a psychological education, like Zamyatin.

He entered literature as a “proletarian writer.”

22 g – collection “Blue Depth” - poems.

1927 is the year of the writer’s approval in Russian literature. He publishes stories - “City of Grads”, “The Hidden Man”, “Ethereal Path”, etc.. They reconsider the ideas of unlimited human power over nature. Moving away from science, the theme of the little man sounds. Ideas of Russian philosophy.

"Pit"

Andrei Platonov became known to a wide circle of readers only recently, although the most active period of his work occurred in the twenties of our century. Platonov, like many other writers who opposed their point of view to the official position of the Soviet government, was banned for a long time. Among his most significant works are the novel “Chevengur”, the stories “For Future Use” and “Doubting Makar”.

I would like to focus my attention on the story “Pit”. In this work, the author poses several problems. The central problem is formulated in the very title of the story. The image of the pit is the answer that Soviet reality gave to the eternal question about the meaning of life. Workers are digging a hole to lay the foundation of a “common proletarian house”, in which a new generation should then live happily. But during the work it turns out that the planned house will not be spacious enough. The pit had already squeezed out all the vital juices from the workers: “All the sleepers were as thin as the dead, the tight space between the skin and bones of each was occupied by veins, and the thickness of the veins showed how much blood they must let through during the stress of labor.” However, the plan required expanding the pit. Here we understand that the needs for this “house of happiness” will be enormous. The pit will be infinitely deep and wide, and the strength, health and labor of many people will go into it. At the same time, work does not bring these people any joy: “Voshchev peered into the face of the unrequited sleeper - did it not express the unrequited happiness of a satisfied person. But the sleeping man lay dead, his eyes were deeply and sadly hidden.”

Thus, the author debunks the myth of a “bright future”, showing that these workers live not for happiness, but for the sake of the foundation pit. From this it is clear that the genre of “The Pit” is a dystopia. Horrible pictures of Soviet life are contrasted with the ideology and goals proclaimed by the Communists, and at the same time it is shown that man has turned from a rational being into an appendage of the propaganda machine.

Another important problem of this work is closer to the real life of those years. Platonov notes that for the sake of industrialization of the country, thousands of peasants were sacrificed. In the story this is very clearly seen when the workers stumble upon peasant coffins. The peasants themselves explain that they prepare these coffins in advance, as they foresee imminent death. The surplus appropriation system took everything away from them, leaving them with no means of subsistence. This scene is very symbolic, as Platonov shows that new life is built on the dead bodies of peasants and their children.

The author especially dwells on the role of collectivization. In his description of the “organizational yard,” he points out that people were arrested and sent to re-education even for “fell into doubt” or “crying during socialization.” “Education of the masses” in this yard was carried out by the poor, that is, power was given to the most lazy and mediocre peasants who were unable to run a normal economy. Platonov emphasizes that collectivization hit the backbone of agriculture, which were the rural middle peasants and wealthy peasants. When describing them, the author is not only historically realistic, but also acts as a kind of psychologist. The peasants’ request for a short delay before being accepted into the state farm in order to comprehend the upcoming changes shows that the village could not even get used to the idea of not having their own allotment of land, livestock, and property. The landscape corresponds to the gloomy picture of socialization: “Night covered the entire village scale, the snow made the air impenetrable and tight, in which the chest was suffocated. A peaceful blanket covered the entire visible earth for the coming sleep, only around the barns the snow melted and the earth was black, because the warm blood of cows and sheep came out from under the fences.”

Voshchev's image reflects the consciousness of an ordinary person who is trying to understand and comprehend new laws and foundations. He has no thoughts of opposing himself to others. But he started to think, and so he was fired. Such people are dangerous to the existing regime. They are needed only to dig a pit. Here the author points out the totalitarianism of the state apparatus and the lack of true democracy in the USSR.

The image of a girl occupies a special place in the story.. Platonov's philosophy here is simple: the criterion of social harmony in society is the fate of the child. And Nastya’s fate is terrible. The girl did not know her mother’s name, but she knew that there was Lenin. The world of this child is disfigured, because in order to save her daughter, her mother inspires her to hide her non-proletarian origin. The propaganda machine has already penetrated her consciousness. The reader is horrified to learn that she advises Safronov to kill the peasants for the cause of the revolution. What kind of person will a child whose toys are kept in a coffin grow up to be? At the end of the story, the girl dies, and along with her, a ray of hope for Voshchev and other workers dies. In a peculiar confrontation between the pit and Nastya, the pit wins, and her dead body is laid at the foundation of the future house.

The story “The Pit” is prophetic. Its main task was not to show the horrors of collectivization, dispossession and the severity of life in those years, although the writer did it masterfully. The author correctly identified the direction in which society will go. The pit became our ideal and main goal. Platonov's merit is that he showed us the source of troubles and misfortunes for many years. Our country is still floundering in this pit, and if the life principles and worldview of people do not change, all efforts and resources will continue to go into the pit.