Although platonov was a communist, his works were banned in his own lifetime for their skeptical attitude toward collectivization and. Facing the question of communism by combining epic and satire, the. Andrei platonov books list of books by author andrei. Andrei platonov was the pen name of andrei platonovich klimentov, a soviet russian writer, playwright, and poet, whose works. A companion to andrei platonovs the foundation pit oapen. To read gurvich without the context of time, audience and motivation is to read high praise. Gurvich, doing the partys work, wrote beautifully in condemnation. Orthodox easter, quickly and easily merged with the symbolism and. Most of platonovs works he wrote novels, stories, poetry and plays. Platonovs reputation as one of russias most important twentiethcentury writers is confirmed by this new translation of his novel, the foundation pit. Controversy exists about the actual date of birth, however, and some experts fix it at 28 august 16 august, old style.
Andrei platonov 18991951 pseudonym of andrei klimentov. View andrei platonovs profile on linkedin, the worlds largest professional community. Chevengur, the country of unreal communism the october. In the early 1920s he changed his surname klimentov to platonov. Moreover, stalin once said that death is the solution to all problems, and i dont think. Yet what is quite clear is that platonov did not advocate brutality or dictatorship. Master and margarita 196667 and andrey platonovs dark pictures of rural and semiurban russia, the foundation pit 1973 and chevengur 1972. After giving her sons a bountiful, healthy life, she had retained for herself only a tiny frugal frame, which she had sustainedeven in its most pitiful formfor as long as she could, in order to love her sons and be proud of them, until she died. He was a student of konstantin bestuzhevryumin, who recommended that he be given the opportunity to prepare to be a professor. Andrei platonov article about andrei platonov by the. The son of a railroad shop metalworker, platonov began working at the age of.
Andrey platonov, history, machines, nature, revolution, technology. Written in 192930, it remained unpublished in platonovs russian homeland until 1987 26 years after his death but had previously been published in russian in the usa in 1973. In his mature works platonov described ordinary people living on. The river potudan 1937, should introduce the student of russian to the complex thought and ideas that writers like platonov, despite the severity of the times, were able, and brave enough, to convey. Andrei platonov pluhtawnawf, the pseudonym of andrei platonovich klimentov, was a fiction writer, dramatist, poet, and critic. It would be hard to imagine a writer who better embodied the ambitions and ambiguities, energies and tensions, of the first three decades of soviet literature than andrei platonov. Andrei platonov chevengur pdf stalin called him scum. Andrei platonovs fluid antiutopia the university of. The foundation pit is a dystopian work a distorted mirror image of the soviet production novel of the 1920s and 30s but it would be wrong to see platonov as an antisoviet writer or a satirist. The foundation pit translated by robert and elizabeth. Andrei platonov, 28 august 1899 5 january 1951 was the pen name of andrei platonovich klimentov, a soviet author whose works anticipate existentialism. His achievements are many, but a commonplace shared by almost all critics and readers is that he is a difficult writer joseph brodsky famously compared him to joyce. Andrei platonov was one of the most original russian writers of the first half of the 20th century.
The return and other stories isbn 9781846553387 pdf epub. The river potudan 1937, should introduce the student of russian to the complex thought and ideas that writers like. Andrei platonovs face, looking out from one of his last photographs, is the face of a tired russian worker. His denunciation of the soviet bureaucracy led to severe rebuke by the stalinist authorities and the suppression of his work, rediscovered in the poststalin thaw. Andrei platonov was the pen name of andrei platonovich klimentov russian. His prose is very unusual, abounding in plentiful symbols that are sometimes not easy to fathom.
Andrey platonovs bleak vision of the central asian desert, soul, has been brought back to life by robert chandlers team of translators david isaacson. Find andrei platonov movies, filmography, bio, co stars, photos, news and tweets. His mission becomes a search for happiness, but his success goes only so far. Andrei platonovich klimentov was born on 20 august 1 september 1899 into. He graduated from the voronezh railroad polytechnicum in 1924. Platonov, sergei fedorovich born june 16 28, 1860, in chernigov. Although platonov was a communist, his works were banned in his own lifetime for their skeptical attitude toward collectivization and other stalinist policies. In a dusty little town, a worker named voshchev is fired from his job at a small machine factory.
Memory and wholeness in the work of andrei platonov. Soviet readers knew him mainly for a few short stories and, above all, his semisatirical account of collectivization, for future use. Igor platonov 19341995, ukrainiansoviet chess grandmaster. The management says he just stands around thinking while everyone else is working.
Petersburg until 1878 when he went to the department of history and philology of st. Andrey platonov, dialectical proposition, and the phenomenology. Platonov, or the disinherited is jay scheibs remix of the traditions of shakespeareinthepark, the ribald nostalgia of the driveinmovie, and the unpredictability of liveonlocationbroadcasting to create a new livecinema performance. Andrei platonov celebrity profile check out the latest andrei platonov photo gallery, biography, pics, pictures, interviews, news, forums and blogs at rotten tomatoes. The return and other stories epub adobe drm can be read on any device that can open epub adobe drm files. Andrei platonov, valentin rasputin and andrei tarkovskii. Sholokhov, gorky, pasternak, and bulgakov all thought he was the bees knees. The people prove that they have their own ideas about where. Andrei platonov, on the first socialist tragedy, nlr 69. Andrei platonov immortality after midnight, on the approach to red peregon station, the fd locomotive began to shout and weep. Platonov, sergei article about platonov, sergei by the. Andrei platonov 18991951, real last name klimentov is a writer about whom you will often see the words, the best writer youve never read. Indeed, there is a tyrant in the novel, the khan of khiva, who the dzhan rise up against, and who struck me as perhaps a standin for stalin. The old woman had been dead for three days, yet her neat body, emaciated by a long illness, didnt smell of death.
The eldest of eleven children, he began work at the age of thirteen. He is viewed as one of the great outsiders of soviet literature. Platonovs writing focuses on the threat industrialization poses to human and spiritual values. The writer we know as andrei platonov was born andrei platonovich. Voshchev tries to defend himself, saying that he is trying to work out a plan for life. See all books authored by andrei platonov, including the foundation pit, and soul, and more on.
See the complete profile on linkedin and discover andreis connections and jobs at similar companies. The foundation pit by andrei platonov 1930 my body gets weak without truth. In a small town shortly after the revolution, workmen and lowlevel bureaucrats work on the foundation for an enormous building intended to house the entire town. Soviet readers knew him mainly for a few short stories and, above all, his semi. As an adult, he is sent back to his birthplace as a kind of missionary. Petersburg in 1882 and became a professor there in 1899. His early writings, such as the novel the city of gradov 1927, satirized communist bureaucracy and pitted machinery against nature. Born in central asia, chagataev, the hero of soul, goes on to be educated in moscow.
Although platonov was a communist, his works were banned in his own lifetime for their skeptical attitude toward collectivization and other stalinist. Andrei platonov ukraine professional profile linkedin. Platonov was born in chernigov and attended a private gymnasium in st. On the first socialist tragedy, by andrei platonov. Introducing andrei platonov by yevgeny yevtushenko the. This is a title in the bristol classical press russian texts series, in russian with english notes, vocabulary and introduction. The year 1934, his thirtyfifth, was a significant watershed in the life of andrei platonov. These are questions which sprang to mind as i read andrey platonovs recently retranslated novel. But when andrei platonov died in poverty, misery and. The foundation pit portrays a group of workmen and local bureaucrats engaged in digging the foundation pit for what is to become a grand general building. In marx there was embodied a new type that merged creative thought.
The influence of andrey platonov 18991951, a gifted writer of the soviet era, has pervaded soviet and russian literature since the 1950s. Kliemtov born on 1 september 1899 20 august, old style in voronezh. The foundation pit distresses the russian language, showing it splayed and shattered by the demands of. He had already written the foundation pit and chevengur, the novels for which he is today best known, but neither had been published in full. It has not a trace of affectation, no hint of what is called artistic temperament, no monumental profundity, no oracular brilliance in the eyes. To that end, i read the trope in the works of andrei platonov, dziga. Andrei platonov, august 28, 1899 january 5, 1951, was the pen name of andrei platonovich klimentov, a soviet author whose works anticipate existentialism. The functional significance of interruption as it appears in this narrative is double. Counting andrei platonov among the greatest russian prose writers of this century, joseph brodsky considered him to be quite untranslatable, and, in one sense, thats a good thing. The foundation pit has a complex publishing history.
745 1485 903 563 339 278 1033 774 1283 544 1036 1113 1272 664 1358 589 1304 1357 1061 1138 1578 1241 620 760 763 52 1262 875 1289 598 1291 1450 804 1599 1012 923 554 1051 850 1470 1358 511 1397 1049 689 159 80