© A. Khudzinska-Parkosadze, 2007

GENRE FEATURES OF THE NOVEL BY ANDREY PLATONOV "CHEVENGUR"

A. Khudzinska-Parkosadze

The work of Andrei Platonov constantly evokes a keen interest of literary critics and literature lovers. Literary criticism is trying to find answers to the most basic questions regarding Plato's poetics, such as, at least, the definition of the genre of the only completed novel by the writer "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 enroll this genre at the same time as dystopia and utopia, despite their opposite.

On the one hand, critics emphasize that Chevengur, an "eerie mystery place", 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, embodied by Platonov 3. Other terms are also used to define the genre of the novel: metautopia 4, transutopia 5, etc. A. Pomorski calls the work "Chevengur" a prerewellian dystopia along with "We" by E. Zamyatin6.

On the other hand, criticism notes that in Chevengur's novel, the features inherent in dystopia are clearly distinguished: the idea of ​​socialism and universal happiness on earth, colliding with a specific human destiny, leads to a tragic ending 7. O. Lazarenko sees the essential feature of dystopia in Chevengur in Platonov's recognition of the priority of eternal and natural life over the idea.

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 a meeting of utopia with reality, expressed it in a “new, unprecedented, artistic synthesis”. Platonov in a work

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

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

about the genre remains open. Maybe Platonov played some kind of joke with the reader, "and so and vice versa." Perhaps it was no coincidence that Andrei Klimentov chose for himself a pseudonym similar to the surname of one of his favorite philosophers - Plato 10. After all, Chevengur's picture strangely resembles the ideal state about which Plato wrote in his treatise. The philosopher believed that in an ideal state there is no place for that which is useless and harmful (including the sick, cripples, "pests" of society, etc.). This approach resembles the approach of the Chevengur Bolsheviks to the old Chevengurians and gives grounds to assert about the genre orientation of the author Chevengur to the State of Plato.

Plato believes that in an ideal state, power should be concentrated in the hands of wise philosophers, “saviors” who know best of all what is good and what is bad. There is a vanguard, border guards and law enforcement officers. This is a kind of a kind of Fedorov's "overseers", that is, a faithful reflection of the image of the Chevengur Bolsheviks. They constitute the power elite and, according to Plato, must give up property and live like a Spartan. The authorities are the best at understanding the needs and requirements of others. Those who are the enemies of the new order, and by the very state and the gods, face a death sentence. For the good of the state, it is necessary to restrict freedom of thought and action p.

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

the project of an ideal state on the belief that the ideal world (that is, the world of perfect ideas) has as its ultimate goal implementation in matter. Matter in Cosmos becomes more perfect as it approaches the world of pure ideas, that is, the Universe. This striving for perfection through beauty Plato calls love 12. Plato writes about the need to unite all people with one goal in order to create a just state and educate 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 a person 14.

Plato's ideal state is considered a utopia 15 because it embodies the model of the "best" earthly order. 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 that 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 antiquity are myths that turned into dystopias in the twentieth century. Utopia is a project of a rationally organized society. The sphere of dystopia is the private being of a person, something intimate and deeply individual. Its hero is a person who tries to build his existence according to the ideas of spiritual harmony 17.

The influence of Plato's ideas on Platonov's worldview has already been noted more than once by criticism.18 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 from 17 to 17 October 20, 1920 under the title "The Culture of the Proletariat" 19. Plato's philosophy shines through not only through Chevengur's genre form. As Y. Shimak-Reiferova justly noted, the influence of Plato also affected the ideas of the heroes of the novel about the soul and body. They “feel” and “formulate” the world according to Plato 20. In our opinion, Plato's philosophy is largely based on the Plato myth, the core of which is the dualistic model of the world order.

The mythology of thinking is directly related to the issue of human perception of the world and the process of its comprehension 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 do not doubt the fact of the origin of the tale from the primitive myth 22.

The fairy tale plot reinterpreted mythological ideas, sometimes reproducing them in a literal sense. The most stable mythological motives and themes that the fairy tale absorbed in itself include the theme of paradise, the search for "another kingdom" ("the other world"), the theme of the hero's initiation and trials during his wanderings. Vladimir Propp traced the plot of the fairy tale to two main cycles of mythological representations. The first is associated with the initiation rite, that is, the transition of the hero to a new status, and the second reflects the ancient ideas about the place of the afterlife of souls and the journey to another world.23 It should be emphasized here that it is difficult to draw a clear line between these cycles, since the rite of initiation and representation "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, first of all, by the repeatability of functions, that is, the 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 a fairy tale. Chevengur as a novel, which means it is a more complex genre in its structure, has two storylines, one refers to the fisherman father, and the other to Sasha. Both storylines, however, fit the compositional requirements of a fairy tale.

Let's start with Sasha's father: a temporary departure from home can be understood as a departure from this world to the world of death. Consequently, the prohibition here is the inadmissibility of taking one's own life. Interestingly, in relation to Sasha, this prohibition does not apply to him directly, but to other persons, that is, the prohibition of the deprivation of the life of other people refers to the murder of old Chevengurians by the Bolsheviks, but to

the murder of their own gang of nomads. Although Sasha is not a violator of this prohibition, it is he who seeks to overcome his sinister power - the element of death.

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

Sasha Dvanov is, like the hero of a fairy tale, a type of man, he is the son of a fisherman. In the novel, its external characteristics are practically absent. The main feature Sasha is noble, based on his desire to help others. He also has 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 recall 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 the connecting moment and mediation.

It is symptomatic that in Platonov's novel the function of a magic assistant and antagonist is performed by one hero - Sasha Dvanov's adoptive brother, Prosh Dvanov. The leading feature of the magic assistant is greater activity, compared to the passivity of the protagonist. 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 essential importance. It was this circumstance that formed the basis for the antagonistic relationship of these two characters.

By the same principle, the compositional axis of a fairy tale is made up of two antagonistic kingdoms. In Chevengur, these kingdoms acquire a truly ontological content - first, the earthly kingdom, that is, this world, and secondly, the kingdom of darkness, that is, that light. The city of Chevengur itself also belongs to the symbolism of the kingdom of darkness, since it is in opposition to the surrounding "outside" world. There “time was hopelessly leaving back to life” (Ch., P. 225), Chevengur “was difficult to enter<...>and it is difficult to get out of it ”(Ch., p. 231). Therefore, Chevengur turned out to be the test site of the protagonist.

The main functional feature of the test is that only the one who possesses the magic means can pass it. In Sasha's case, the function of a magical means is performed by the open heart motive. Among all the heroes, only he feels 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 genre of a fairy tale, the outset 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 father, a fisherman, who wanted to “live in death and return” (Ch., P. 8). However, despite his intentions, he violated the prohibition of suicide, since he died “not because of weakness, but because of his curious mind” (Ch., P. 9). By his death, he created a shortage in the life of his son, who since then has experienced a lack of happiness, understood in terms of Plato's "warmth". Sasha hopes to find this "warmth" first in the house of Prokhor Abramovich Dvanov, but unsuccessfully. His fate changes when the antagonist of Prosh agrees to bring his begging adoptive brother to Zakhar Pavlovich under the pretext of charity. The function of aiding is realized by Sasha's submissive submission to Prosha's will, despite the fact that he had previously committed an act of sabotage, calling him a "parasite" and expelling his father Prokhor Abramovich from the house. For the second time Prosha caused Sasha's shortage, a feeling of loneliness, longing for his own father and human “warmth”.

The function of trial and sacrifice is realized on 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 attack of the anarchists, Sasha was wounded in his right leg. The symbolism of this wound 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 self-sacrifice, became a demigod and acquired knowledge. Moreover, this symbolic scene of injury brings the image of the hero closer to the image of Jesus Christ, since, aiming at Sasha, the anarchist says: "On 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 the spirit" of Christ in the wilderness for forty days (Luke 4: 1-15), so the incident with the anarchists was a test of the strength of the spirit of Sasha and preparing him for the main sacrifice in the finale of the novel. It is not without significance that the fact that Sasha was stripped naked and that at the same time he does not feel anger, shame or humiliation. For him, this turned out to be only a physical humiliation, which in its essence should prepare the hero for the final spiritual test and sacrifice. This scene of the first trial and first sacrifice is also associated with the birth of a "magic remedy" - a sympathetic heart. It should be emphasized that the parallel we have outlined Sasha - Christ should be understood in a philosophical, but not a religious-dogmatic framework.

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

solving life questions with the help of reason, they are arguing 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 small and only in the very end” (Ch., P. 247). Sasha, however, convinced him, proving the opposite.

The function of a stigma, a mark, is performed by a kiss on the lips, which Prosh 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 turned Proshu from an antagonist into an assistant and follower of Sasha. Immediately after the fateful conversation with his brother, Prosha sets out in search of wives for the “others,” for the first time wanting to do something disinterestedly for others, and at the end of the novel sets off to look for Sasha out of longing for his missing brother.

Sasha wants to stay in Chevengur and live with the “others”, because only here he felt happy. This fact testifies to the elimination of the shortage experienced by used to be a hero... However, Sasha's favorable stay in Chevengur is interrupted by a sudden invasion of a gang of nomads, which exterminated all the Chevengurians, with the exception of Sasha. He miraculously escapes the pursuit and escapes. On a horse named by Kopenkin the Proletarian Force, 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 Kondayev, does not recognize him.

The denouement of the novel has a purely mystical character. It is impossible to understand the final scene without reference to its meaning encoded in mythological symbols. The main images-symbols 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 his depths ”(Ch., p. 306), and now she was worried, worried and drew Sasha to her. He remembered that there was still "living substance of the body"

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 a person must "do himself" in the Platonic way 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 the curiosity of death” (Ch., P. 306), but go through it not into death, but into eternal life, while he must still expose the usurper. In order to accomplish what was planned, his death should not become an act of suicide, but, on the contrary, a sacred act of love and mercy. Therefore, an important role in this context is played by the motive of the mark-mark, that is, a kiss, understood as an act of mercy towards the antagonist. 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 “out of love”. Thus, the transformation of the hero takes place and he triumphs over the main enemy - death. The act of Sasha's self-sacrifice to overcome the elements of death (the circle of death: the murder of old Chevengurians, the death of a child, the murder of new Chevengurians, etc.) takes on the meaning of ascension into the sphere of sakrum and unification with the absolute, and therefore performs 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 the fairytale and novel texts. The main ones are: strict hierarchical isolation of 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 a "magic object", that is, a 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

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

In Chevengur's novel, in our opinion, the composition and style of a fairy tale is enriched with a philosophical and ontological content. Platonov raises questions about the meaning of life, about truth, about happiness. The answers and results of his searches are embodied in universal mythological symbols that create a single 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 a 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 of the main qualities of Platonic stylistics call lyricism. 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.

Pastushenko noted the similarity of Chevengur to a fairy tale, pointing to the likeness of Sasha Dvanov to the hero of a fairy tale, when he goes on a journey not by himself, but fulfilling the task of the ruler. Moreover, the researcher emphasizes that Sasha is a special hero in special circumstances, similar to those of a fairy tale. 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.

M. Zolotonosov also drew attention to the complex transformation of folk fairytale ideas about the ideal arrangement in the "unearthly kingdom". According to the critic, in Chevengur one can clearly see the mutual influence of knowledge and faith on the example of describing the economic system of “Chevengur communism” 31.

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

mobilization from the army in 1946 A. Platonov all last years of his life he worked on fairy tales (Magic Ring, 1950; Bashkir folk tales, 1949; Two crumbs, 1948). The writer believed that a true artist, shifting a work of folklore, recreates and thereby affirms in the popular consciousness the best version of all available versions of this plot. Platonov wrote about the role of a writer processing folk tales in the following way: “Writers additionally enrich and decorate folk tale by 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 - an ontological tale, in which he combined the form of a fairy tale with ontological content.

Platonic heroes are fabulous philosophers. They walk barefoot along the road, but touch “not the road dust and dirt, but directly the globe” 33. They are children of the universe. With the help of 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 ("lived-were"), Platonov concentrates on the present and tells his contemporaries about their lives, exposing the lie and pointing out the essence - the truth. After all, a fairy tale is the most accessible literary form of addressing the people, the most widely understood listener, not perverted by the experience of life.

A kind of "poetics" of the name of the city, which is included in the title of the novel by A. Platonov, is closely related to the category of space. One of the first researchers who made an “approach” to finding out 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 disguised grin of the writer" 34. The author of the aforementioned article claims that this abbreviation was compiled taking into account the word-formation models that were common in post-revolutionary times, which tended “to form words

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

However, the way of forming the names of other works of the writer shows that the above variant of decoding is not typical for A. Platonov, since the writer was striving for nominative simplicity. These titles are often a kind of slogans, that is, concise, but meaningful information: Pit, Doubting Makar, Symphony of Consciousness, etc.). Naturally, these names are often symbolic, two-dimensional, ambiguous, like the most Platonic works, in their origins are simple.

A. Platonov already in 1922 (six years before Chevengur's plan) wrote about himself “I am the singer, the wanderer and the bridegroom of the universe” in the poem Lunar rumble, which, for reasons unknown to the end, was not included in the collection Blue Depth 37. In this in the poem we find the following lines:

Moonlight rumble

Ringing groan of torn molecules, -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 hum of an unknown country” (Ch., P. 138). In the poem Lunar rumble, 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. We add that some researchers also drew attention to this feature of the "Platonic artistic universe". For example, N.P. Khryascheva in her book "The Boiling Universe" by A. Platonova asserts that the writer initially thought in terms of cosmic categories (meaning, first of all, 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

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 the earthly human consciousness... N.P. Khryashcheva examines the ways and means of artistic design by the writer of a new model of the Universe and the results of its testing for the possibility of becoming a happy home for mankind 38. N.М. Malygina also emphasizes that thoughts about man - "inhabitant of the Universe", conqueror of the Cosmos, are embodied in Platonic poetic formulas (man - "beloved child" of the sky, people - "descendants of the sun"), reflecting the essential features of the philosophy of nature A. Platonov 39.

We believe that the name of the Chevengur novel can be deciphered as: Che-wen-gur, that is, Che - through, ven - universal, gur - province, or Through-universal-hum. 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 traveled, and then put his impressions in the above essay.

We 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 Chevengur drenched in moonlight: "... 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. eight). We add that some researchers drew attention to the fact that the motive of the call is constant in Chevengur as a motive for 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 attraction of the earthly distance, as if all distant and invisible things "called him" 41.

A. Livingston claims that Sasha is primarily a "listener to the universe." The literary critic is convinced that "Platonov himself, in a sense, wanted to discover his own language of the world (universe)" 42. And the name "Chevengur" in the text of the novel can be perceived 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. Chalmaev deciphered the name "Chevengur" as a word formed from two words "cheva" - bast shoe and "gur" (gurgle) - hum, vanity, rumble. The result is a "rumble from paws-cha" 43. It is worth remembering, however, that the name “Chevengur” contains the inner syllable “veins”, not “va”. Based on this decoding, the name "Chevagur" is obtained, and not "Chevengur". In addition, the “rumble of bast shoes” refers more to the subject matter than to the problematics 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 a superficial syllable. 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" - lapovishche, a bast shoe; "gur" - a grave, tomb, crypt) is a symbol of the end of the primordial, Russian truth-seeking, for in Chevengur, according to the Bolsheviks, came 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 variants of decoding 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 expedient to use the genre of a fairy tale. After all, the fabulous "surface", which is to some extent 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 make them

think that they are involved and are responsible for the life that is happening before their eyes and that they themselves (consciously or unconsciously) create. These are not just fabulous 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 work. M., 1990.S. 141, 152.

3 Aleinikov O. A. Platonov's story "Juvenile Sea" in the social and literary context of the 30s // Platonov A. Research and materials / Ed. T.A. Nikonov. Voronezh, 1993.S. 72.

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

5 Kovalenko V.A. "Demiurges" and "tricksters" in the creative universe of Platonov // Platonov Andrey. Interpretation Problems / Ed. T.A. Nikonov. Voronezh, 1995.S. 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. S. 45-46.

9 Svitelsky V. Facts and conjectures: On the problems of mastering the Platonic heritage // Ibid. S. 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: V.V. Vasiliev. Decree. Op. P. 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 that reflects the idea of ​​good, that is, the eternal principle. Sun, co-

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

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.S. 337.

18 See: S.G. Semenova. The ordeal of the ideal. Towards the publication of "Chevengur" by Andrey Platonov // New World. 1988. No. 5. S. 219; Kantor K.M. It's a shame to live without truth // Problems of Philosophy. 1989. No. 3. S. 14-16; Zolotonosov M. False sun. "Chevengur" and "Pit" in the context of Soviet culture of the 1920s // Voprosy literatury. 1994. Issue. 5, p. 12.

19 Zolotonosov M. Decree. Op.

20 Szymak-Reiferowa J. Rycerze Rózy Luksemburg // Andrzej Píatonow. 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.S. 211.

23 Propp V.Ya. The historical roots of the fairy tale. L., 1986. S. 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. Sobr. cit .: In 5 volumes. T. 2. M., 1998. S. 181. Further quotations are given from this edition.

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

27 Lotman Yu.M. The Subject Space of the Russian Novel of the 19th Century // On Russian Literature. Articles and research: history of Russian prose, theory of literature. SPb., 1997.S. 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. Nikonov. Voronezh, 1993; Orlitskiy Yu.B. The verse beginning in A. Platonov's prose // Platonov Andrey. Interpretation Problems / Ed. T.A. Nikonov. Voronezh, 1995; A.E. Kedrovsky Christian and socialist ideals in A. Platonov's story "Jan" // Realized opportunity: A. Platonov

tones and XX century / Ed. E.G. Muschenko. Voronezh, 2001; and etc.

30 Pastushenko Y. Mythological symbolism in the novel "Chevengur" // Philological notes. 1999. No. 13.P. 30, 3S.

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

33 Ibid. S. 124-125.

34 Aleinikov 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. S. 182-183.

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

38 Khryascheva N.P. A. Platonov's "Boiling Universe": Dynamics of Image Creation and Worldview in the Works of the 1920s. Yekaterinburg, 1998.

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

40 Muschenko E.G. A. Platonov's philosophy of "business" // Realized opportunity: A. Platonov and the XX century / Ed. E.G. Muschenko. Voronezh, 2001.S. 19.

41 Ibid. P. 20.

42 Livingston A. Platonov and tongue-tied motive // ​​Realized opportunity. P. 209.

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

44 Vasiliev V.V. Decree. Op. P. 147.

A.P. Platonov

An essay based on the work on the theme: The artistic world of the utopian novel "Chevengur" by A. Platonov.

"Chevengur" is a big novel that I have been working on for several years.
The novel talks about October revolution in the central provinces of Russia, about the people who defended the revolution in the civil war, about the "builders of countries", about their ideas, thoughts, experiences. Platonov shows not only how ideas took possession of the masses, but also how these masses mastered new ideas. The accelerated assimilation by the popular masses of a new worldview, along with the revolution of these masses, gave rise to contradictory, utopian ideas about socialism. Platonic heroes, “ready to inevitably die in the everyday life of the revolution,” absorbed the ideas of socialism, fancifully combining them with old concepts and views.
In the novel, the utopian hopes of rebuilding the world "according to the communist dictates" and "the will of the masses" collide with the need for daily painstaking work. His heroes naively hope that "socialism somewhere will inadvertently come together out of fear of disasters and for the consolation of need."
The main character novel - Alexander Dvanov. He is an orphan, a master (an important concept for Platonov), a communist. This hero, reflective, gifted with the property of empathy ("sympathized with any life") was most in line with the writer's intention. Sasha Dvanov, a "self-created" people's intellectual, goes through death, corpses, melancholy, he himself almost dies of hunger, pneumonia. He goes to the city of Chevengur, where complete communism was formed, on the way he meets Stepan Konenkin, who freed Sasha from the hands of the bandits. Konenkin is a former commissar of the “field Bolsheviks”, and now a lonely pilgrim to the tomb of Rosa Luxemburg, a selfless knight of the idea of ​​universal equality and complete emotional comradeship, and equality is understood as physical, mental, spiritual identity. Such equality would make impossible any development; if it was achieved, life itself would become impossible. Kopenkin goes to distant Germany to free the dead body of Rosa Luxemburg from the “living enemies of communism”.
Kopenkin and Dvanov pass the village of Khansky Dvoriki, where the commissioner renamed himself Fyodor Dostoevsky, and after him the entire asset was baptized, some in Christopher Columbus, some in Franz Mehring. Then they end up in the "Friendship of the Poor Man" commune. All members of her board hold positions and carry long and responsible titles.
No one plows, sows, so as not to take himself away from a high position. The same touching and childish compensation for the former humiliation as the renaming into Dostoevsky and Columbus. Finally they reach Chevengur, where Chepurny and his comrades established communism. Chevengurians live in an evangelical way, carefree, they do not want to work, they strive to bring real communism closer by the power of faith alone, but for now the focus is on absolute equality, adoration of comrades, their souls.
The role of the ideologist is played by Prokofiy Dvanov, a cunning man. In the large family of his parents, the foster child Sasha lived for some time, until in a hungry year he was kicked out of the house by the same little Proshka, who already then was distinguished by a cruel resourceful mind and character. A difficult life honed these qualities, exacerbated self-interest. In Chevengur, Prokofy sat down as a literate and clever man, an ideological assistant under Chepurny. "Prokofy, who had all the works of K. Marx for personal use, formulated the whole revolution as he wanted - depending on the mood of Klav-duchy and the objective situation."
It was Prokofy who was responsible for the idea of ​​the total destruction of the “thick silk bourgeoisie” that inhabited the city. Platonov leads to a terrible paradox: grief initially with the ideals of "spiritual equality", world brotherhood, its representatives ended up with a total division into "clean" (proletarians, barefoot) and "unclean" (bourgeois, etc.), and life and soul are kicked out of of all the bourgeoisie of Chevengur. The communards act with confidence and enthusiasm, but longing arises in their souls, despite the fact that it is drowned out by the thought of the impending advent of communism: it seems that they did everything for the wrong thing, they killed all the reptiles, destroyed the property, the “bare place” is ready, there are only comrades left and waiting for the first morning of the "new century". But it turns out that the intensity of faith alone cannot cause a miracle. The offensive of communism cannot be declared, just as death cannot be abolished. A groundless idea drowns, and Chevengur is destroyed by some terrible enemy detachment, which symbolizes the self-destruction of society, lost in the forest of misunderstood ideas.
The grotesque novel ends with a road, an openness to the future, and hope. Platonov calls for such a structure of being, where each person is "not too far" (inseparability) from one another and "not too close" to the future stellar structure of real brotherhood and love.
Own assessment of the Chevengur manuscript: “It is not published, they say that the revolution in the novel is portrayed incorrectly, that the whole work will be understood even as counter-revolutionary. I worked with completely different senses. the novel contains an honest attempt to portray the beginning of a communist society. ” There is no doubt about sincerity, as well as about the fact that it was not an idyllic fairy tale that was displayed, but a cruel and terrible reality: the gift of an artist breaks through where a person is blind or wants to be blind.
And here is what Gorky says about “Chevengur”: “Whether you wanted it or not, you gave the sanctification of reality a lyric-satirical character.” “You write strong and bright, but this is even more so. the irreality of the novel's content is emphasized and reflected, and the content borders on gloomy delirium, ”Gorky writes, but only later.

On October 25 (November 7, new style), 1917, one of the most significant events in Russian and world history took place - the October Revolution.

Today, information about it has turned into a mess for many: the official Soviet historiography, which tried to present everything exclusively in heroic tones, faced the liberal anti-Bolshevik propaganda of our time, creating in the imagination of citizens dozens of the ugliest cliches that had nothing to do with reality.

Largely because of this, the memory that the Revolution gave rise to a phenomenal explosion of social creativity is gradually being erased. Hundreds of people from a wide variety of backgrounds rushed en masse to create new things - works of art as well. This, in turn, leads to its own local revolutions in cinema, painting, music, architecture, theater and, of course, literature.

The author of these lines will not hide the fact that the Soviet literature of the 20s of the twentieth century is personally closest to his soul. Sholokhov, Leonov, Babel, Fadeev, Platonov and others - all these are names that are fundamentally different from most of their predecessors from previous eras. They have a truly revolutionary freshness. That is why I undertake to start my activity on the Hobbibook resource from this period of Russian literature. I am glad to present - A.P. Platonov, "Chevengur".

It is advisable to consider any work inseparably from the fate of its author in order to discover the origins and motives of writing, to better understand the issues raised. Chevengur is no exception.

Brief biography of A.P. Platonov

As in the case of many other writers, Andrei Platonovich Klimentov took a creative pseudonym and became Andrei Platonov. In what follows, I will refer to it that way.

The writer was born on the threshold of the twentieth century, in 1899. He came from a completely proletarian family - his father worked as a railway worker, his mother was the daughter of a watchmaker. Andrei spent his youth at work: he worked as a simple day laborer, and an assistant driver, and a foundry worker, and a craftsman. Apparently, the young man planned to continue his life as a technical specialist - he entered the railway school in the city of Voronezh, but the Revolution and the subsequent Civil War radically changed his plans.

Platonov Andrey Platonovich

During the war, Andrei Platonovich worked as a front-line correspondent for some time. Probably, it was this experience that led Platonov to the first literary experiments.

Throughout the 1920s, Andrei Platonov has been combining his basic engineering profession with active literary work. In both areas, this person is very productive. In literature, he is also extremely daring. He writes the stories "Epifanskie sluices", "The Secret Man", "Yamskaya Sloboda", stories "The State Resident", "Doubted Makar", etc.

The most important work of the 1920s for Platonov is "Chevengur" - the only completed novel in his work. We have to talk about him in detail now. We will return to the continuation of Platonov's biography.

Summary of "Chevengur"

Before proceeding directly to the plot of the novel, I would like to express my concern regarding the modern practice of studying literature - short retellings should not absorb, destroy the work itself in our perception.

If only read summary"Chevengur" does not mean at all that "Chevengur" itself has been read.

roman chevengur

In the best case, the plot is clarified (and then, in the case of Platonov, this is unlikely to be of any use). Literature, like any other art, needs to be emotionally lived, felt, gone through the mental path together with its author - only then is it possible to come closer to understanding a single work.

To myself, such a simple truth was revealed quite late, which I regret.

Well, I had to state my position and now I turn to the plot with a clear conscience.

The history of "Chevengur" dates back to the pre-revolutionary years, in the Russian provinces.

The main character of the novel, Sasha Dvanov- the son of a village fisherman, who, by his eccentricity, decided to drown himself out of curiosity ( "He saw death as another province, which is located under the sky, as if at the bottom of cool water - and she attracted him"). The boy's orphaned childhood takes place in a foster family, and every day the hunger and poverty of the Russian peasantry of tsarist times is revealed to him.

In parallel, the line of the village self-taught master Zakhar Pavlovich, who admires any machine, is developing. The master later takes Dvanov to him when he became a young man. Together they work in the railway depot, caring for the locomotives (clearly an autobiographical moment from the life story of Platonov himself). Both of these people are close to an inquisitive mind unusual for local inhabitants, an attempt to understand the world, to understand its mechanics, although this is combined with philistine naivety.

Soon, somewhere far from these places, the Revolution is taking place. First one (February), then another (October). There is turmoil all around, and Sasha and Zakhar Pavlovich are now trying to figure out who and how will rule the country. Zakhar Pavlovich offers Dvanov to go to the Bolsheviks "for a test".

This predetermined the choice of Sasha's side during the outbreak of the Civil War. He was enrolled in the ranks of the Red Army *.

For reference

* Red Army - Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army, the armed forces of Soviet Russia.

However, Platonov "Chevengur" is clearly not writing to depict large-scale battles and fratricidal bloodshed. In general, as such, the policy, the ideological positions of the parties, historical figures the author is not interested. Therefore, the war itself is present in the novel only in small fragments, designed to quickly show Sasha Dvanov other people, to put the hero in situations that are unusual for him.

In the post-war period, Dvanov returned to the village to Zakhar Pavlovich, and began a peaceful life. But it was not there. The local executive committee sends Sasha to study the mood of the masses around the district, and find out if "socialism has happened somewhere by accident."

Probably all the previous events were invented by the author in order to send Dvanov on such a strange journey, like the Odyssey, in which he is destined to meet the strange Red Army soldier Stepan Kopenkin, another key character in the novel.

This is where the most curious part of the novel begins. Like the heroes of a medieval legend, Dvanov and Kopenkin wander the Soviet land in search of socialism. And together they will find themselves in the mysterious settlement of Chevengur, in which, as if real communism is really being created ...

"Chevengur" - analysis of the work

I have not disclosed any special details of the course of the plot. Of course, it is no coincidence. One of the reasons has already been named at the beginning of the previous section, but the motive is also that I would like to separately focus on many of the most interesting elements of the literary phenomenon that Platonov called "Chevengur".

It is important to note that any good book is characterized by more than a plot. The same, if not more, mention should be made of the writer's manner of expressing thoughts, artistic techniques, the ensemble of characters, the genre of the novel, in the end. I propose to talk about them now.

Language

Any more or less detailed article about A.P. Platonova in one way or another refers to the unique language of presentation used by the writer. Someone calls it primitive and awkward, someone notes the abundance of deliberate mistakes in the construction of a sentence. I would personally say that Platonov's language is mystical.

“Kopenkin watched the darkness outside the window worried. Sometimes a pale fading light ran through her, smelling of dampness and boredom of a new unsociable day. Perhaps it was morning, or maybe this is a dead wandering ray of the moon. " .

“From the station, an orchestra walked across the field and played sad music. Dvanov felt sorry for Nekhvoraiko, because it was not his mother and father who cried over him, but music alone, and people walked after him without feeling on their faces, themselves ready to inevitably die in the everyday life of the revolution. "

« – The river is flowing, the wind is blowing, the fish is swimming, ”Lui began long and calmly,“ and you sit and rust with grief! You move somewhere, the wind will breathe thought into you - and you will learn something. "

“- What are you muttering? - asked Zakhar Pavlovich.
- I'm talking about the family: my woman has five pounds of petty-bourgeois ideology for a pood of live meat. Here is what a counterweight hangs! "

Some readers are frankly annoyed by this manner of dialogues - they seem to them excessively common people, dirty. I suppose this is from habit, because definitely the heroes of Platonov (like the heroes of Sholokhov, Babel or any other writer of the first decade of the Land of the Soviets) speak at all differently from the heroes of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy or Chekhov. Therefore, in such cases, it might be worthwhile to slightly change the angle of view. Look at the words as an expression of the spirit of the people, the salt of the earth, if you like. After all, the characters of Soviet writers often "did not finish the academies."

Characters (edit)

For me personally, the most interesting element of Chevengur is the characters. Each of them represents almost the whole universe. And for the most part they are all great idealists. Platonov paints a world of harsh and rude men who innocently and empirically struggle to build new world, a world of universal happiness for the working people. And here, of course, it is necessary to dwell on a few of the most noticeable ones.

Sasha Dvanov- in many respects written off by the author from himself a young man. He understands technology, he has a desire to transform the world around him into something more beautiful. At the same time, Dvanov is prone to reflection and despondency. Perhaps this trait was inherited from his drowned father, and the soul of the parent always accompanies the guy through life in some kind of echo. Kopenkin becomes his best friend.

Stepan Kopenkin- in my subjective opinion, the most phantasmagoric hero of "Chevengur". Some kind of echo of chivalrous novels: he wanders on his faithful horse, nicknamed Proletarian Power, carrying Kopenkin to where he is most needed; he is in love with the already deceased Rosa Luxemburg *, whose portrait he always carries with him and whose grave he is looking for everywhere. Even the very name of the Rose for him is synonymous with the Revolution. In the character of Stepan, in an amazing way, severe anger towards any enemy of communism and kind-hearted credulity merge. Some experts call the image of Kopenkin with the proletarian Don Quixote, and with good reason.

For reference

* Rosa Luxemburg is a German revolutionary, a representative of Marxism. Killed as a result of the suppression of the Berlin workers' protest in 1919.

Zakhar Pavlovich- a master who met the Revolution as a very old man. He has been studying various mechanisms all his life, and the whole world, including every person in him, looks to the master only as a complex technical device that can certainly be understood. No wonder he has been working with trains for a long time. Zakhar Pavlovich has an almost religious reverence for technology. True, life with Sasha Dvanov in many ways changes the views of the old man. He treats Dvanov like a beloved son.

Chepurny- the main "builder of communism" in the village of Chevengure. This person is selflessly devoted to revolutionary ideals, while, in fact, he does not know anything about communism as a political or social phenomenon. For him, communism is an empirical, sensual phenomenon, and is also perceived as absolute happiness for everyone. Except, of course, the bourgeois class. He understands life according to an extremely simplified logic: it is necessary to destroy the bourgeoisie, and communism will be established on earth, because there will be nothing else to establish itself. In a sense, Chepurny looks more like a sincere religious sectarian than a Bolshevik.

In Platonov's text, we will also meet a huge scattering of the brightest minor characters... For example, Pashintsev, wearing knightly armor instead of clothes and frightening everyone with disarmed grenades. Or Ignatiy Moshonkov, authorized by the Volost Revolutionary Committee, who took the name of Fyodor Dostoevsky for himself, in order to do now "something outstanding." Finally, there is even a rural blessed one with an uncomplicated nickname God, who deliberately decided to eat only on the earth and did not die at the same time.

Anyone who opens a book with the words “Platonov. "Chevengur" will immediately plunge into the bizarre universe of amazing people.

genre

The genre of the novel causes fierce controversy in literary circles. Someone sees in him a utopia, someone is a dystopia, someone is an ideological novel, someone is a philosophical work, or even a folk epic. I think that each of the interpreters has reason to believe that they are right. I do not exclude that Andrei Platonov himself wrote "Chevengur" outside the categories of the genre - it was something like the flight of his feelings, fantasy, no matter how pathetic it sounded. However, if I was asked how I would generally characterize "Chevengur", I would answer that it is an epic work. It has a true degree of emotion, a sense of the tragic and global. Even though I'm not an expert, of course.

And again about the creative path ...

Chevengur may have expressed the sum of Andrei Platonov's reflections on the Revolution and Communism over the years, and this is an unambiguously sublime work.

But very little time will pass, and the Stalinist era will come with all the ensuing consequences: an abrupt change of course, tightening of control, comprehensive censorship, etc. The writer immediately reacts to the changing situation and writes his most famous work. The story "Pit". She also uses elements of the fantastic, but is already deprived of the "Chevengur" flight, ruthlessly presenting the reader with the complete darkness and futility of efforts to build a new beautiful world. One day Comrade Stalin will say about Platonov: "A talented writer, but a bastard."

And in the writing career of the hero of our article, a solid black stripe begins. He is almost not allowed to be published, and if they do publish, then the criticism is always pejorative. The son of Plato is subjected to repression. Even during the Great Patriotic War when the author again serves as a war correspondent, his articles do not find understanding.

At the end of his life, Andrei Platonov was only engaged in editorial activities. He died in 1951 from tuberculosis. He contracted it while caring for his dying son - he returned sick from prison.

Life prepared Andrei Platonov an extremely bitter fate. Unique in his creative method and style, for a long time, even under the USSR, he remained an almost unknown writer. Only Perestroika opened his work for us again. But today, along with everything Soviet, to some extent there is a new negation of Platonov. Is it correct?

In addition, it does not matter whether the Bolsheviks were such monsters, as the liberal intelligentsia seeks to prove to us, or not - they contributed to the fact that people from various social strata, representatives of various professions could begin to massively engage in creativity. How can today's era boast of this?

Composition

The peculiarity 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 overwhelm Shmakov, a "criminal thought" is born in his head:

"Is it not the law itself or another institution - a violation of the living body of the universe, trembling in its contradictions and so reaching total harmony?" The author entrusted him with saying very important words about bureaucrats: “Who are we? We stand for the proletarians! So, for example, I am the deputy revolutionary and the owner! Do you feel the wisdom? Everything is replaced! Everything has become fake! Everything is not real, but a surrogate! " All the power of Platonov's irony was manifested in this "speech": on the one hand, as if an apology for bureaucracy, and on the other, the simple idea that the proletarians do not have power, but only his "deputies". Bormotov, a practitioner-bureaucrat with great experience, declares with conviction: "Destroy bureaucracy - there will be lawlessness!" That is, in principle, bureaucracy is indestructible, since power cannot exist without bureaucrats. This universal thought is dear to Shmakov: "The Chancellery is the main force that transforms the world of vicious elements into a world of law and nobility."

In the story, Platonov discovers a specific "city school of philosophy" (expression by L. Shubin), 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 all-pervading irony, a paraphrasing of templates expressing the narrowness and dullness of thinking of the Gradov philosophers and practitioners of bureaucracy. The speech of each of the characters cannot be conveyed in a standardized language - the whole meaning of "expression" will be lost.

Platonov continues to appear as a master of characterization of secondary characters - two or three replicas are enough to create a vivid image. In this regard, the “speech” of the accountant Smachnev is expressive: “Nothing takes me - not music, not singing, not faith - but vodka takes me! This means that my soul is so solid, only it approves of a poisonous substance ... I do not recognize anything spiritual, then it is a bourgeois deception. " Such "hard souls" inhabit Gradov, creating their own philosophy of life, expressing an idea of ​​its values. Here are some expressions from the text: “Beloved brothers in the revolution”, “contradictory tired eyes”, “an eagle is breathing in my heart, and a star of harmony is shining in my head”, “in other words, every hero has his own bitch,” etc. Landscapes in There is practically no “city of Gradovo”, and this is consistent with the thought of Shmakov: “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 only completed novel in Platonov's work is 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 all sorts of deviations from the main plot, seemingly little connected with each other. But the internal unity of the novel is obvious: it contains the main character, his fate from childhood to the last days of his life, there is a well-defined frame, the overlapping of the motives of the beginning and end, there is a complex of ideas that give the generalized meaning of the novel completeness and purposefulness.

A large space 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 was 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 originality of his composition, since in the first half of "Chevengur" there is no question of Chevengur himself. But if modern criticism calls this work as a whole a dystopian novel, then not only because of the narrative about the commune on the Chevengurka River, but also taking into account the fact that dystopian tendencies in the novel are growing gradually and consistently. However, despite the author's ruthlessness in portraying 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 some ways; Platonov gave him a part of his autobiography, his thoughts of the early 1920s. Dvanov's fate is bitter and tragic. As a child, he became an orphan. For a long time Sasha wandered like a beggar until he found comfort and warmth at Zakhar Pavlovich, in whose appearance there are features of the prototype - Platonov's father. He is shown as a worker by the very essence of his soul, as a philosopher preaching “ normal life”, Without the violence of human nature with ideas and power.

Sasha grew up, read a lot, and melancholy grew in his soul. He went to the same depot where Zakhar Pavlovich worked, work as an assistant driver and study to be a locksmith. “For Sasha - at that time of his early life - every day had its own, nameless charm, which would not be repeated in the future ...” Many pages saturated with lyricism are dedicated to the young Dvanov. Love for Sonya Mandrova was born, interest in the world and in truth was born. But Sasha remained defenseless: "At the age of seventeen, Dvanov still had no armor under his heart - neither faith in God, nor any other mental peace ..." fearless, patient and hardy.

Having recovered from his illness, Alexander "agreed to seek communism among the self-employed population." He went "through the province, along the roads of counties and volosts." Everything that he saw and experienced during his journey in search of communism formed the middle part of the novel. Wherever he visited, Dvanov asked himself and the peasants the question: "Where is socialism then?" Throughout the province, this word was understood in different ways: there really was complete "initiative" in the organization of a new life, the features of a popular utopia were clearly manifested. The most significant, 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. having snatched it from the hands of the anarchists of the Mrachinsky gang. Then Dvanov and Kopenkin ride 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 remarks: "Therefore, Dvanov was pleased that in Russia the revolution cleaned out those rare places of thickets where there was culture, and the people, as they were, remained a clean field ... And Dvanov was in no hurry to sow anything ..."

Finally, Alexander heard about the place where "there is socialism." This is Chevengur. Everything that was in the villages and settlements of the province in a scattered form - 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, a community of wives - “comrades-in-arms”.

How do the Chevengur people live and the reason for the Chevengur crash?

At the expense of the surviving remnants of food from the accursed past and also from the sun - from its "extra power", emaciated, in rags, without morality, without worries, "the people eat everything that grows on earth", bypassing the "surrounding steppes." Instead of camaraderie - the disintegration of all normal human relationships, "the city was swept away by subbotniks in one heap, but life in it is decomposed into trifles, and every trifle does not know what to grapple with in order to hold on."

Descriptions of the tragicomic scenes taking place in Chevengur are interspersed with the reasoning of the leaders of the communes: what is communism, what did they "build"? And the leaders are fanatical Chepurny, cunning and calculating Prokhor Dvanov, cruel Piyusya and others. Kopenkin also came here, and then Alexander Dvanov and Gopner came. "Tired and gullible" Alexander was looking for communism in Chevengur, but "I have not seen it anywhere." And here is the ending: the Cossacks swooped down on Chevengur, and he. powerless, helpless, unable to defend himself and was defeated. Kopenkin and almost all the defenders of the commune died heroically. Alexander and Prokhor Dvanov survived. But Alexander on the Proletarskaya Force - Kopenkin's horse - rode to Lake Mutevo, in which his father died, trying to find out what death was; The proletarian Power entered the water, and Alexander "himself got off the saddle into the water - in search of the road along which his father walked in the curiosity of death ..."

The death of Alexander Dvanov is not just a consequence of the fateful destiny to follow his father's road. It symbolizes the collapse of hopes, despair from the destruction of the "great idea" in practice, hopeless sadness over the loss of his comrades. Platonov did not restrain himself in portraying the dark sides of human life and the dark episodes of the era; In the novel, naturalism that beats on the nerves is often found in the description of individual scenes: for example, the scene of Alexander's torture by the Mrachinsky gang, the eerie scene in Chevengur - Chepurny's attempt to resurrect a child, an episode that is difficult to explain (even using Freudianism) - Serbinov and Sonya in the cemetery, etc. Platonov is fearless in his descriptions of the death of people - and there are many deaths in "Chevengur". Descriptions of nature and the surrounding characters of the situation in the novel are laconic, capacious and saturated with a feeling of longing and anxiety. There is no one to glimpse 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 either in the form of "landscapes-reviews", or as author's remarks commenting on the course of events or the state of mind of the heroes, or as images-symbols of "eternal life" not tainted 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 district pictures; people walked along the street to the abandoned places of the surroundings. The civil war lay there as fragments of the national property - 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 motive in the description of the "new life" in Chevengur. Undoubtedly, the stable phrase of the revolutionary era "the sun of new life" is played up here. The meaning of the symbol of the sun as a cruel force is especially clearly revealed in the scene where Piyusya watches the sunrise and its movement across the sky.

The reason for Chevengur's downfall is not only that its organizers made idleness and immoral behavior their ideal. In the future, in the "Pit", you can see a seemingly completely different situation - people are fiercely, continuously working. However, labor remains fruitless. The writer explored two principles in understanding the role of labor in human society, and both turn out to be abnormal, inhuman. "Labor is conscience" (701), wrote Platonov. When the meaning and goals of labor are torn away from the personality, from 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 various novel tendencies: it is a "novel of the formation of a man", and a "novel-journey", and a "test-novel" - a test of a person and an idea (Bakhtin's terminology) ... M. Gorky called "Chevengur" "lyrical satire" and expressed the opinion that the novel would be "drawn out" - this is hardly fair: in fact, it is difficult to find episodes that could be thrown out in order to shorten the text. But he is right that the novel is full of lyricism and in it "a tender attitude towards people" - such is the nature of Plato's humanism.

On both sides of utopia. Contexts of A. Platonov's creativity Gunther Hans

1. Questions of the genre and typology of utopia in the novel "Chevengur"

When comparing Chevengur with such famous dystopias as Zamyatin's We or Orwell's 1984, the much more complex genre structure of Plato's work is striking. In "Chevengur" there is no unequivocally negative depiction of utopian thought, characteristic of Orwell and Zamyatin, who have " wonderful world"Is exposed from the inside," through the feelings of its individual inhabitant, undergoing its laws and placed before us as a neighbor. "

Plato's novel is not just an inversion of a utopian intention: here a new genre emerges and, one might say, unique in its complexity in the literature of the 20th century, the main features of which require special explication. One of its features is the procedural nature of the plot, which is characteristic both for the novel "Chevengur" and for the stories "The Pit" and "Juvenile Sea". In this respect, the predecessor of Platonov can be considered H. Wells, the author of the novel The Time Machine (1895), who argued that the utopia of modernity should not be static, but kinetic. As Platonov's stories and novellas of the first half of the 1920s show, his dynamization initially bore the features of science fiction, but then the center of gravity shifts to social and historical processes. This is evidenced in particular by the novel "Chevengur" and the story "The Foundation Pit". Unlike classical dystopias, in which the ideal stage in the development of society already exists in a finished form, the utopian structure in Plato's works is in the making - and at the same time in decay. One gets the impression that Platonov is constantly writing "failed" utopias. All of his characters strive for a better world, but the contours of the ideal future do not have time to be clearly defined.

Reflecting certain stages of Soviet history, Platonov's utopian genre incorporates structural features of the “construction novel” genre widespread in Soviet Russia. Plot schemes in Platonov are confirmed by a huge amount of documentary material - from newspapers, party documents, etc. Thus, in Platonov, the framework of the genre of utopia is constantly adapting to new situations.

Many of Platonov's utopian texts are based on a peculiar concept of cyclical historical “waves”. In his article "Future October" (1920), the writer asserts that "communism is only a wave in the ocean of eternity of history." The novel "Chevengur" is a clear illustration of this idea, according to which utopian "explosions" are occasionally born, aimed at reaching the end of time, at the final deliverance from eternal return. The Chevengurians strive precisely to "put an end to the movement of unhappiness in life." But the "evening of history" that came in Chevengur testifies to the fact that hopes for overcoming the time were deceived. Chevengur returns to the vicious circle of history, but the longing for a better world does not fade away at all, it only goes from the surface to the depths - just like Sasha Dvanov in the novel's finale descends into the lake “in search of the road along which his father once walked” ... From this point of view, Dvanov's immersion in the water of Lake Mutevo, in which his father drowned in search of the truth, can be interpreted both as death and as rebirth. The utopian "wave" is temporarily diminishing, and in the depths of the "ocean of history" a new upsurge is being prepared. A similar meaning is contained in Platonov's note about another work: "The dead in the pit are the seed of the future in the hole of the earth."

Platonov's works are distinguished by a peculiar effect of contradictory movements within the plot structure. On the one hand, the mechanism of progress inherent in the utopian genre is at work, achieving ever new technical and social successes, and approaching an ideal goal. On the other hand, in the course of the actual implementation of construction tasks, this ascending line is constantly undermined. The result is a dialectic of opposing tendencies typical of Platonic. The further the action develops and the more achievements, the brighter the descending line appears. In "Chevengur" all the conditions for communism seem to have been fulfilled - and at the same time the opposite of what was intended is being realized. They want to build in the "Pit" big house- and it turns out a pit-coffin. In his "Notebook" for 1930, Platonov writes: "When building houses, a person upsets himself, a person diminishes. With construction, man is destroyed. " In the "Juvenile Sea" the growing grandeur of the plans is matched by the progressive collapse of agriculture. Platonov's prose moves on both sides of utopia - on the verge between hope and disappointment, construction and decay, order and chaos. In the presence of only an unambiguously negative tendency in the development of the plot, the works would not differ with the paradoxical mixture of satire and tragedy characteristic of Platonov.

It is worth mentioning one more property of Plato's utopia - its self-reflectiveness. In most of his works, there is a philosophizing "seeker of truth" who is close to the author's semantic position and continuously comments and evaluates the course of events. Related to this is the travel chronotope, typical of Platonov, which has a long tradition in the utopian genre. For Platonov, the journey takes the form of wandering, which allows the free movement of the reflecting hero in search of truth. The aspiration of this hero is aimed at rebuilding the world, but at the same time he is rooted in a kind of "ontological" structure based on folk mythological ideas about human life, nature and space. Many works have been devoted to the study of this layer of the Platonic world. In our opinion, it performs an extremely important function of correction and measurement in relation to utopian intention and social action. If the vector of utopia is directed forward, into the future, then the natural-cosmic layer refers to the eternal structure of the world. The future must justify itself in front of the past, in front of memory, in front of the stable being of the world. If a utopian explosion violates the basic laws of existence, it means that it has failed. The theme of many of Platonov's works is testing utopia in the light of cosmic values.

The central reflective hero of Platonov is closely connected with the basic ideas about the world, but at the same time he is filled with a thirst for a technical and social revolution and tries to reconcile these two principles. He wanders across Soviet soil, and his voice is constantly superimposed on the voices of other characters. Thus, reflection on what is happening in Platonov turns out to be more important than the action itself. The pace of the development of the plot slows down, always developing in the form of alternating separate scenes. There is no episode in which there would be no intense discussion of action from different positions. From this point of view, we can call the novel a metautopia - utopia and dystopia in it enter into an unfinished dialogue.

Plato's utopia is not only at the intersection of different literary genres, but also combines different kinds utopian thinking. On the basis of general spatial and structural features, two elementary utopian chronotopes can be distinguished - “city” and “garden”. A common feature of all utopias is their spatial or temporal remoteness and pronounced marking of borders, so a remote island is often chosen as the scene of action. Campanella's "City of the Sun" and Zamyatin's "United State" are separated from the surrounding world by a wall, and the name of the Garden of Eden (in Greek ??????????, in Latin paradisus) derives its genealogy from the ancient Iranian word, which means a place fenced off from all sides.

The contours of an ideal city can form a square - for example, New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse or the "almost square" city of Amarot Thomas More - or be rounded (such is the City of the Sun laid down by concentric circles). The symmetry of geometric shapes symbolizes unsurpassed harmony and perfection that cannot be improved. In all utopian constructions, there is a coincidence of aesthetic and functional aspects. A similar phenomenon is typical, for example, for the utopian topos of a machine, which in the modern era often performs the function of a model of man and society. Here the beautiful and the useful form an indissoluble harmonious unity. The glitter of the machine almost perfectly embodies the seduction that emanates from all utopian designs.

The space of the garden differs significantly from the urbanistic utopias, oriented towards the model of the archaic city. As the Old Testament concept of paradise or the ancient idea of ​​the Golden Age shows, the garden space does not have a radial and functional geometric shape. The garden is based on the ideal of cultivated nature. From this stems a kind of attractiveness of the "garden", suggestively described by Dostoevsky in Versilov's dream about Claude Lorrain's painting "Assis and Galatea", with which he coined the name "The Golden Age". If in the center of attention in the image of the city are the socio-state and technical and civilizing aspects of life, then the garden version embodies the ideal of man's archaic closeness to nature, relaxed family life... In the first case, we are dealing with a rationally developed, planned space, in the second - with the initial harmony between people and nature. The development of the urban type subsequently leads to rationalistic social and technical utopias, while the version of the Garden of Eden, reflecting ancient mythological ideas, underlies the pastoral and idyllic genres.

City and garden as basic utopian chronotopes in their original form are purely descriptive and plotless. They do not represent events, but everyday ritualized actions. Eventfulness leads, as a rule, to the destruction of utopian harmony, as evidenced by the genre of dystopia. Along with spatial utopias, which are characterized by a cyclical temporal structure or achony, that is, the absence of time, there are also temporary utopias. Their main feature is stages, the division of history into the necessary sequence of phases. Temporary utopias often include one of the spatial chronotopes mentioned. At the end of the movement, time “cools down”, stops, and a timeless structure arises, which leads to the end of the stage-by-stage “leaps”. This end-time model comes in two flavors, as it can be both "progressive" and apocalyptic. In addition, there is also a degrading type of temporary utopia, for which Bakhtin uses the concept of historical inversion. This type of utopia comes from an ideal primitive state, after which various stages of deterioration occur: the Golden Age is followed by the Silver Age, the Copper Age and, finally, the Bronze Age.

A widespread version of a temporary utopia is chiliasm (or millenarianism), that is, a religiously grounded dream of a millennial kingdom. Millenarianism arose in the Middle Ages as a secularization of the New Testament apocalypticism, which presupposes the catastrophic death of the old world and the advent of the Kingdom of God. Paradigmatic significance is assigned here to the teaching of Joachim of Flores, who distinguished three epochs of history - the epochs of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The prophecies of Joachim of Flora (according to which the birth of the Antichrist and the coming new era were supposed to take place in 1260) not only contributed to the emergence of a variety of heretical directions late middle ages, but also played a big role in the process of "making utopia" more familiar in general. The social utopias of the industrial period of the 18th – 19th centuries, including Marxism, generally follow a triadic model.

But how and to what extent could Platonov have had detailed information about the history of heretics in the West? Proceeding from the writer's undoubted closeness to the ideas of proletarian culture, it can be assumed that he was familiar with A. Lunacharsky's book Religion and Socialism, which gave him access to the history and ideology of early Christian and medieval chiliasm. The third and fourth chapters of the second volume are of particular importance. Describing the aspirations of the early Christians, Lunacharsky explains the expectation of the end of the world and the coming consumer communism as a consequence of social oppression. He finds an apology for poverty and criticism of wealth primarily in the Gospel of Luke. Even more interesting in our connection are reflections on the Christian socialism of the Middle Ages. Considering the teaching of Joachim Floorsky about the future Kingdom of the Spirit, distinguished by contemplation and monastic asceticism, Lunacharsky presents the further development of these ideas in the Eternal Gospel of Gerard di Borgo San Domino, as well as in Dolcino, Thomas Münzer and many others. In Lunacharsky's book, Platonov could find many examples of the conjugation of apocalyptic rhetoric with the revolutionary anger of the proletariat. Let us recall, for example, the frightening image of the god of hosts in the Chevengur church. Lunacharsky distinguishes between two faces of Christian God - the punishing and avenging God of the Old Testament, whose terrible features are reborn in the Christ of the Last Judgment, and the meek, all-forgiving Christ of the New Testament.

But even more important for Platonov could be another source, to which Lunacharsky often refers in his book. This is the work of the German socialist K. Kautsky "Precursors of Modern Socialism", which has been published many times in Russian translation. In the first part of his book From Plato to the Anabaptists, Kautsky sets out in detail the history of European messianism from early Christian communism to the Czech Taborites, Anabaptists and the Reformation in Germany. The preface to the Russian edition of the book points out the connection between the chiliasm of the European Middle Ages and Russian sectarianism. Kautsky writes: “What is for us in Western Europe is only of historical interest, then in Russia it is a means for comprehending a certain portion of the present. On the other hand, in Russia all life, all the present gives the key to a completely different understanding of the Christian oppositional sects of the past. " And in Lunacharsky we find the idea that “Russia is facing a revolution in religious rather than frankly economic clothing, for in terms of its quantity, the peasantry will play in it. the main role and put his seal on it. "

Kautsky's theses on the analogy between medieval Western European chiliasm and the spirit of Russian sectarianism, as well as on the position of Russia at the stage of transition from peasant-sectarian protest to social revolution, should have been of great interest to Platonov. Thus, in "Chevengur" there is a peculiar layering and interweaving of three thematic layers - Russian sectarianism, medieval chiliasm and the Bolshevik revolution. Between these layers there is "not only similarities, but direct, albeit hidden, succession." It seems to us that in the novel one can even find a direct allusion to the analogy between Bolshevism and its historical predecessors: “Where are you from? - thought the overseer about the Bolsheviks. - You, probably, have already been once, nothing happens without a likeness to something, without the theft of something that existed.

Both in the genre aspect and in relation to the typology of utopian thought, the novel "Chevengur" turns out to be a complex construction, consisting of different ideological layers. His closeness to the model of the chiliastic trends of the late European Middle Ages is striking. This was pointed out by V. Varshavsky, for whom Platonov's novel is "a mad, terrible and pitiful eschatological drama." The protagonists of the novel, imbued with an apocalyptic spirit, believe in the cosmic nature of the revolution and in the need for the destruction of the rich by "God's people" for the sake of the coming Kingdom of God. Varshavsky calls Chevengur the Russian Munster by analogy with the Westphalian city, in which the Anabaptists erected their New Zion in 1534-1535.

There are many similarities between Chevengur and the events of Munster during the reign of the Anabaptists. As in Münster, after the proclamation of New Zion, the atheists were expelled and their property taken away, so in Chevengur, after the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat and others occupy empty houses and eat up food supplies. In Münster, all books are burned except the Bible, and only the authority of religious leaders is trusted - in Chevengur, representatives of the revolutionary avant-garde are listened to, referring to the works of Karl Marx. In Münster, a kind of polygamy is introduced, since poor women choose their patrons - poor women are brought to the city of Chevengur, despite sectarian asceticism. In the end, Munster fell under the onslaught of the bishop's landsknechts - and, like him, Chevengur was defeated by the troops attacking the city.

In Platonov's novel, we also find numerous parallels with the history of the Bohemian taborites of the 15th century. However, a remarkable inversion in the course of historical events is striking. While among the Taborites, after the absence of the expected second coming of Christ in 1419-1420, peaceful Adventism is abruptly replaced by revolutionary chiliasm, in Platonov's novel the action develops just the opposite: after the liquidation of the bourgeoisie, the activity of the Chevengurians cools down, giving way to a fatalistic expectation of the end of time.

The fate of the Taborites is described in some detail by Kautsky. After the burning of Jan Hus in 1415, supporters of various groups, under the influence of radical preachers, began to implement their egalitarian ideas. Since they could not stay in the "City of the Sun" Plzen, they moved to Tabor, based on one of the Luzhnitsky hills. The name of this settlement, which served as the center of the Taborite movement after 1420, recalls Mount Tabor, where the Transfiguration of Christ took place. The Taborite faith in the millennial kingdom was based on Joachimistic and apocalyptic beliefs, as well as on the legends of the Golden Age. Prague, "the great harlot" and "Babylon", in their eyes was doomed to destruction. The Taborites hoped that after the destruction of Prague and other cities, after the destruction of the rich and noble, an eternal kingdom would come without property, domination and social disasters, in which the "children of God" would live as brothers and sisters. There will be no suffering in the new kingdom, and the children born in it will not die. Words of John the Evangelist “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more; there will be no more crying, no outcry, no sickness ”(Revelation 21: 4) were accepted by them as a description of a really existing new society. Against this background, it becomes clear, for example, that Yakov Titich's illness and the death of a child are a turning point that heralds the end of the Chevengur utopia.

The city of Tabor attracted crowds of people from all over Europe, quite comparable to the "international proletariat" and "others" arriving in Chevengur. In Tabor, the dream of the Kingdom of God is dying because of the growing contradictions between the poor and the rich, the city becomes bourgeois. In Platonov's novel, this tendency manifests itself in the image of Prokofy Dvanov with his lasciviousness and thirst for hoarding. An eyewitness account for Tabor in 1451 paints a sad picture. Residents of the city have appropriated other people's property, but they are not able to preserve it, adobe houses are randomly in disarray. This picture is recalled when one reads about the state of Chevengur, in which there was a "voluntary damage to the petty-bourgeois heritage": and weeds grew in the gorges between the houses. " The very end of Chevengur is similar to the end of Tabor: in the battle of Lipany, the Taborites suffer a bloody defeat from the army of feudal lords.

Since the question of the meaning of the ideas of Joachim Floorsky for the medieval chiliastic movement has already been under way, it would not be superfluous to point out some similarities between his teachings and "Chevengur". The "comradeship" of the Chevengurians in many ways resembles the monastic ideal of Joachim. In his three-term scheme, three statuses of a person are distinguished: “The first was the slavery of servants, the second was the service of sons, the third was freedom. The first is in sorrow, the second is in action, the third is in contemplation. The first is in fear, the second is in faith, the third is in love. " The "contemplative" and comradely state is just realized in Chevengur, where the sun is mobilized "for eternal work", declared a "world proletarian." The idea of ​​the alternation of six eras (etates), corresponding to the six days of creation, expresses the same idea. The last era is the "sabbat" that was given to God's people "so that they can rest from the need and suffering that they endured all six times." And in Chevengur came the "sabbat" of history, during which "its inhabitants rested from centuries of oppression and could not rest." According to the teachings of Joachim, in the pre-Christian era, people lived in the flesh, and at the present time, until the era of pure spirituality comes, they live between flesh and spirit, the coming church is represented in the image of the Virgin Mary. Chevengur also values ​​the ideal of chastity and celibacy - only Klavdyusha, Proshka Dvanov's mistress, embodies the kingdom of the future in a compromised form. The alternation of historical epochs occurs in Joachim in accordance with cosmic cycles: “The first state is in starlight, the second is in the sunrise, the third is in full daylight. The first occurs in winter, the second in early spring, and the third in summer. " The Chevengur Utopia is associated with the sun, the eternal symbol of utopias, and with summer. Chevengur's catastrophe finds its symbolic expression in the fact that the sun, "the luminary of communism, warmth and comradeship" is replaced by the moon, "the luminary of the lonely, the luminary of vagabonds wandering in vain", and the warmth of summer gives way to a cold autumn.

Yu. V. Domansky. Archetypal motives in Russian prose of the XIX century. The experience of constructing a typology in Tver The concept of "archetype", introduced by K. G. Jung, was fixed in many scientific fields, including literary criticism, where the archetype is understood as a universal plot or

Looking into the new world ("Chevengur") The writer gazed intently at the process of building a new world, seeing that a turning point gives rise to new relationships between people, that the usual way of life is shifted, and people in search of truth rush to the path (one of the leading