st. Voroshilova, 18, Voronezh, Voronezh Region, Russia, 394006
In 1918, Platonov entered Voronezh railway vocational school, realizing his interest in machines and mechanisms that had manifested in him since childhood, and graduated from it in 1921 at the end of hostilities.
Gallery of Andrei Platonov
1921
Andrei Platonov among the delegates of the Provincial Congress of Journalists.
st. Voroshilova, 18, Voronezh, Voronezh Region, Russia, 394006
In 1918, Platonov entered Voronezh railway vocational school, realizing his interest in machines and mechanisms that had manifested in him since childhood, and graduated from it in 1921 at the end of hostilities.
(The Foundation Pit portrays a group of workmen and local ...)
The Foundation Pit portrays a group of workmen and local bureaucrats engaged in digging the foundation pit for a grand building where all the town's will live happily and "in silence".
(People are on the move in all ten stories in this collect...)
People are on the move in all ten stories in this collection, coming home as in "The Return", leaving home as in "Rubbish Wind", travelling far away from their country as in "The Locks of Epiphan", trying to improve their lives and those of others, running away, searching, fleeing. Their journeys are accompanied by two motives which characterize the writing of Andrey Platonov: optimism and faith in the goodness of humanity, and abject despair at the cruelty, randomness, and apparent senselessness of our existence. The protagonists are torn between these poles and sometimes a synthesis shines through the mists of the apparent naivety of faith and the blackness of despair: the hope against hope that a better life is still possible.
(This collection of Platonov's short fiction brings togeth...)
This collection of Platonov's short fiction brings together seven works drawn from the whole of his career. It includes the harrowing novella Dzahn ("Soul"), in which a young man returns to his Asian birthplace to find his people deprived not only of food and dwelling, but of memory and speech, and "The Potudan River", Platonov's most celebrated story.
(Moscow in the 1930s is the consummate symbol of the Sovie...)
Moscow in the 1930s is the consummate symbol of the Soviet paradise, a fairy-tale capital where, in Stalin's words, "life has become better, life has become merrier". In Happy Moscow Platonov exposes the gulf between this premature triumphalism and the harsh reality of low living standards and even lower expectations. For in Stalin's ideal city there is no longer a place for those who do not fit the bright, shining image of the new men and women of the future. The heroine, Moscow Chestnova, is an Everywoman, both virgin and whore, who flits from man to man, fascinated by the brave new world supposedly taking shape around her.
Andrei Platonov was a Soviet Russian author, screenwriter, and playwright. He was one of the most distinctive Russian writers of the first half of the XX century, whose works anticipate existentialism. Among his most prominent works are "Falcon Prince: A Russian Folktale", "Fro and Other Stories", and "The Foundation Pit".
Background
Andrei Platonov was born as an Andrei Platonovich Klimentov on the 20th of August, 1899 in Yamskaya Sloboda, on the outskirts of Voronezh, Russian Empire (nowadays the Russian Federation); the eldest son in the family of railway mechanic Platon Firsovich Klimentov and Maria Vasilyevna.
Education
From 1906 to 1914 Platonov studied at the parish and city schools. In 1918, Platonov entered Voronezh railway vocational school, realizing his interest in machines and mechanisms that had manifested in him since childhood, and graduated from it in 1921 at the end of hostilities.
Andrei began working from the age of fourteen. He had many jobs at that time - he was a messenger in an insurance company, an assistant locksmith, a foundry worker, and an assistant to a machinist. He volunteered for the Civil War, where he served as a front-line correspondent. In 1921, his first book "Electrification" was published.
In 1922, Andrei Platonov was appointed Chairman of the provincial Commission for Hydrofication. After that, he served as a land reclamation engineer, a specialist in the electrification of agriculture at the Voronezh Provincial Administration in 1923-1926. He headed the electrification department and led the construction of three power plants and three years later he moved to Moscow, and from 1927 Platonov devoted himself entirely to literary work.
From 1926 and 1930, Andrei produced "Chevengur" and "The Foundation Pit". In 1936, The Literary Critic (Literaturny Kritik), the journal published Platonov's short story "Immortality".
During the Great Patriotic War, the writer volunteered to the front as a soldier. But soon became a war journalist, with the rank of captain where he served as a correspondent for the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.
From that time Andrei wrote "V Storonu Zakata Solntsa" in 1945, "Soldatskoe Serdtse" in 1946. His main works were published posthumously, among them are "Izbrannye Rasskazy" in 1958, "Odukhotvorennye liudi: Voennye Rasskazy" in 1963, "Izbrannoe" in 1977, "Volshebnoe Sushchestvo" in 1967, "Smerti Net! Rasskazy" and "Razmyshleniia Chitatelia" in 1970, "Techenie Vremeni" in 1971, "Masterskaia, Izd-vo" in 1977, "V Prekrasnom I iarostnom mire: Povesti, Rasskazy" in 1979, "Vprok: Povesti, Serebrianyi Vek" in 1982, "Povest', Rasskazy, 1934-1941" in 1985, "Iuvenilpnoe More; Kotlovan: Povesti i Rasskazy" in 1988, "Zapisnye Knizhki: Materialy k Biogrfii" in 2000.
As a screenwriter and playwright Andrei Platonov wrote “Fro and Other Stories” that was made into a movie in 1964, “Three Brothers”, “Maria's Lovers”, “The Return” and many others.
Despite the general upheaval caused by the paradigm shifts of industrial infiltration and the Revolution of 1917, Platonov managed to focus his creative attention on the strength and pulchritude of the human spirit in the face of uncertain circumstances. Considering the dire social and political environment that served as his proverbial canvas, he sought to uphold a sense of optimism in his writing.
Quotes from others about the person
"I can state with certainty that there is not an educated reader in the U.S.S.R. who does not know Platonov, and not a single professional writer alive in this country who would not pay tribute to his mastery". - Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
Connections
Andrei Platonov was married to Maria Aleksandrovna Kashintseva. They had two children, Platon and Maria.