Andrey Platonov: A life beyond history

Abstract

S. Martianov describes the attempt at screen adaptation of Platonov’s Chevengur by the Sverdlovsk film studio in 1989, offers a summary of the concept for the novel’s interpretation and analyses his own experience of working with Platonov’s text. The article’s literary plot centres on reminiscences about the meeting with the writer’s daughter Maria Platonova in 1989. Martianov found the key to unlocking the novel’s meaning in the scene where the protagonist A. Dvanov is killed in a train crash and then miraculously brought back to life. The screenwriter argues that the problem of Chevengur’s film adaptation lies in its incompatibility with traditional genres, sensual symbolism, and an unreal type of reality, all of which disrupt conventional cultural codes. The article suggests that, in order to solve the genre-related and stylistic problems of the novel’s screen adaptation, one must create an artistic image of ‘an empty heart,’ free from love of open spaces, where dear old huts and rivers are replaced with nature and weather, heroes and enemies — with drab faces and exhausted bodies, and beauty and amusements — with simplicity and the sensory clarity of intellectual cravings.