The innermost men of Andrei Platonov: the typology of artistic, historical-literary and cultural context

Abstract

Types and characters of Andrei Platonov, his skill in creating artistic images, forms and ways of presenting the author's world – a topical historical and literary problem, which is considered in the context of modern research of Russian literature in the 1920s-1930s. This work is devoted to “innermost men” – Platonov author's discovery, certain artistic types, individualised, original and archetypal at the same time. They appeared as the result of Platonov's thought-making and language-making, superimposed on the colour of the epoch, historical, literary and cultural traditions. These and other difficult-to-grasp connections, intersections, and interactions were characterised in the course of research, which is based on the methodology of mythopoetic reconstruction of textual structures and discursive practices. Folklore and mythopoetic archetypes were established, and Platonov's creative motives were systematised. The most significant results of the work are the following. The existing ideas about the type of Platonov's artistic thinking are supplemented; the historical, literary and cultural context of the author's position formation is revealed; the functional side of mythopoetic motifs and archetypes in the creation of images is shown; new assessments of the content and form of a number of well-known works are given. Skill of Platonov is meaningful in the context of contemporary Russian prose of the 20th century, of neonatologists and word creation; augmented scientific understanding of complex phenomena in Russian literature of the first half of the 20th century.