THE PITCH-BLACK WORLD AS DEPICTED BY NEKRASOV AND PLATONOV (TO THE QUESTION)

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: This article attempts to trace the typological connections between N. Nekrasov’s poem Who Can Be Happy and Free in Russia and A. Platonov’s novel Chevengur. The parallels between the two texts are determined primarily by the orientation of both authors towards folklore and literary traditions. Thus, the structure of both the poem and the novel is based on the repetition of a plot link as in a cumulative fairy tale — the search for a lucky man who “can be happy and free in Russia”, or the “three-ninth kingdom”, the place where “communism arose among the self-activity of the population”. Besides, the typological similarity of both texts is explained by the fact that they were created in similar specific historical circumstances (and were the creators’ reaction to the profound social upheavals in the life of Russia — the abolition of serfdom and, later, the revolution of 1917). At moments of such serious “tectonic shifts” in society, the absurdity, the senseless “pitch darkness” of life is especially obvious. In the 19th century the absurd of history was artistically interpreted by Saltykov-Shchedrin and Nekrasov, and in the 20th century this theme was picked up and developed by Platonov. Whereas in Nekrasov the absurd, the abnormal, the ugly are concentrated in several episodes of the poem (the fragments “The Peasant Woman” and “Тhe Last Pomeshchik”), in Platonov the absurd is dissolved in the entire text of the novel, since it is included in the very “substance of being”, that is, in the very life of the Russian people. According to Platonov, the absurd is one of the constants, the deep components of life, and comes to the surface in critical moments of the country’s history. The parallels between the images of a ruined home and a distorted world in the works of Platonov and Nekrasov help the authors show, on the one hand, the contradictions of Russian national character, and on the other hand, to emphasize their timeless, philosophical essence.