Andrei Platonov (Russian: Андрей Плато́нов) (September 1, 1899-January 5, 1951) was the pen name of Andrei Platonovich Klimentov, a Russian writer of the Soviet period whose works anticipate existentialism. Platonov was one of the early writers who emerged after the Russian revolution. Although he was a Communist, his works were banned in his own lifetime for their skeptical attitude toward collectivization and other Stalinist policies. His famous works include Chevengur, a dystopian novel. September 1 is the 244th day of the year (245th in leap years). ... 1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... Motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Russian: Workers of the world, unite!) Anthem: The Internationale (1922-1944) Hymn of the Soviet Union (1944-1991) Capital Moscow Largest city Moscow Official language(s) None; Russian de facto Government Federation of Soviet Republics Establishment October Revolution  - Declared 30 December 1922   - Recognized 1... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that is generally considered a study that pursues meaning in existence and seeks value for the existing individual. ... The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a series of political events in Russia, which, after the elimination of the Russian autocracy system, and the Provisional Government (Duma), resulted in the establishment of the Soviet power under the control of the Bolshevik party. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... In the Soviet Union, collectivisation was a policy introduced in the late 1920s, of consolidation of individual land and labour into co-operatives called collective farms (Russian: колхоз, kolkhoz) and state farms (sovkhozes). ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ... A dystopia (or alternatively cacotopia) is a fictional society, usually portrayed as existing in a future time, when the conditions of life are extremely bad due to deprivation, oppression, or terror. ... Daniel Defoes Robinson Crusoe; title page of 1719 newspaper edition A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ...

Life

The son of a metalworker and the eldest of ten children, Platonov was born in a village near the town of Voronezh. After spending his adolescence in various trades and serving in the Red Army, he became an engineer in 1924, writing short pieces for newspapers. He began publishing stories and poems in the early 1920s, while working as a land reclamation expert in central Russia. Here he witnessed the disease and upheaval caused by forced collectivization. By 1927 he went to Moscow to write full-time. He was a peripheral member of the Pereval peasant writers group, and produced the short story collection The Locks of Epiphany. Voronezh (Воро́неж) is a large city in the south of Central Russia, not far from Ukraine. ... The short forms Red Army and RKKA refer to the Workers and Peasants Red Army, (in Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия - Raboche-Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya), the armed forces first organized by the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War in 1918. ... Collective farming is an organizational unit in agriculture in which peasants are not paid wages, but rather receive a share of the farms net output. ... For other uses, see Moscow (disambiguation). ...

He produced his two major works, the novels 'Chevengur' and 'The Foundation Pit', between 1926 and 1930, overlapping slightly with the beginning of the first Five-Year Plan in 1928. These works, with their implicit criticism of the system, drew much official criticism, and although a chapter of 'Chevengur' appeared in a magazine, neither were published in full. Other short stories which did appear contributed even more to the decline of his reputation. Five-Year Plans for the National Economy of the USSR or Piatiletkas (пятилетка) were a series of nation-wide centralized exercises in rapid economic development in the Soviet Union. ...

In the Stalinist Great Purge of the 1930s, Platonov's son was arrested at the age of fifteen, and exiled to a labor camp where he contracted tuberculosis. When he was finally returned, Platonov himself contracted the disease while nursing him. During the Great Patriotic War (World War II), Platonov served as a war correspondent, but his disease grew worse, and after the war, he ceased to write fiction, instead putting out two collections of folklore. He died in 1951. The Great Purge (Russian: ) is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. ... It has been suggested that Antituberculant be merged into this article or section. ... The History of the Soviet Union begins with the Russian Revolution of 1917 in an effort to implement socialism, eventually leading to communism by Vladimir Lenin on a large scale, until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 when its central government was dissolved. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, the use of images on this page may require cleanup, involving adjustment of image placement, formatting, size, or other adjustments. ... A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories first-hand from a war zone. ...

Although he was relatively unknown at the time of his death, his influence on later Russian writers has been considerable. Some of his work was published or reprinted during the 1960s' Khrushchev Thaw. Because of his political writings, perceived anti-totalitarian stance, and early death of tuberculosis, some English-speaking commentators have called him "the Russian George Orwell". In Soviet history, Kruschevs Thaw or Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period between the end of 1950s and the beginning of 1960s, when repressions and censorship reached a low point. ... Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903 — January 21, 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a British author, and journalist. ...

Writing

Platonov's writing has strong ties to the works of earlier Russian authors like Fyodor Dostoevsky. He also uses much Christian symbolism, including a prominent and discernable influence from a wide range of Contemporary and ancient philosophers, including the Russian Christial philosopher Nickolai Fedorov. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (Russian: Фёдор Миха́йлович Достое́вский, Fëdor Mihajlovič Dostoevskij, sometimes transliterated Dostoyevsky ) (November 11 [O.S. October 30] 1821 – February 9 [O.S. January 28] 1881) is considered one of the greatest Russian writers, whose works have had a profound and lasting effect on twentieth-century fiction. ... Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on Jesus of Nazareth, and on his life and teachings as presented in the New Testament. ...

His '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. Joseph Brodsky Joseph Brodsky (May 24, 1940 – January 28, 1996), born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (Russian: ) was a poet and essayist who won the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987) and was chosen Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992). ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that is generally considered a study that pursues meaning in existence and seeks value for the existing individual. ... Absurdism is a philosophy stating that the efforts of humanity to find meaning in the universe will ultimately fail because no such meaning exists (at least in relation to humanity). ...

Although his works generally take a materialist stance, denying the importance or existence of the soul, he is stylistically very distinct from Socialist Realism, which focused on simple language and straightforward plots. In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... Roses for Stalin, Boris Vladimirski, 1949 Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style of realistic art which has as its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism. ...

List of works

• The Sky-Blue Depths (verse)
• Locks of Epiphany (short stories)
• Meadow Craftsmen
• The Innermost Man
• Chevengur (novel)
• The Foundation Pit (novel)
• The Sea of Youth (novel)
• Fourteen Little Red Huts (play)
• Soul, or Dzhan (novella)
• The Potudan River (short stories)
• Happy Moscow (unfinished novel)
• The Fierce and Beautiful World (short stories)

References

• The Literary Encyclopedia: [1]
• Mirra Ginsburg, translator's introduction to The Foundation Pit, 1975.

External links

• Some texts by Andrei Platonov in the original Russian