The story of the excavation analysis is brief. Analysis of the "Pit" Platonov. Some interesting essays

Our brief retelling of "The Pit" can be used for a reader's diary.

The text of this story by Andrei Platonov (see his brief biography) is divided into 11 parts, which have neither subtitles nor numbering. In our article, these parts are conditionally called "chapters". The Pit is written in a typical Platonic style, with elements of surrealism, symbolism and a kind of "black humor". The story gives a picture of the era of Stalin's industrialization and collectivization.

On our website you can also read the full text of The Pit, with important, rarely published fragments in printed editions, which were excluded at one time by the author not for artistic, but for censorship reasons. Vivid examples of the original, figurative literary language of Andrei Platonov are given in Platonov's article "The Pit" - quotes.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 1 - summary

On the day of his 30th birthday, the worker Voshchev was fired from the factory: feeling empty in his soul, he often began to think about the meaning of life right at the workplace, and this led to a drop in labor productivity. Having lost his job, Voshchev goes to a pub, and then to a neighboring town. On its outskirts, near the forge, he meets the legless disabled beggar Zhachev. Night falls, and Voshchev goes to sleep in the grass on a wasteland. But soon the mower comes there. Having finished to Voshchev, he wakes him up and sends him to fill up in a neighboring barrack, where the workers of the pit sleep.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 2 - summary

Construction is going on all over the city. The most important object is a huge pit for the construction of a "general proletarian house" - a gigantic building where it is planned to resettle the entire local working class, leaving small "individual dwellings" to overgrow with weeds. This pit in Platonov's story appears as a kind of symbol of the industrialization of the first five-year plan.

In the morning, the digger workers wake up in the barracks. The wasteland where Voshchev slept has already been marked out for the future foundation pit. The inhabitants of the barracks begin to dig it. Voshchev, who lost his job at the factory, joins them.

Voshchev meets the members of his new artel: its leader, the sincere but narrow-minded Safronov, the hardworking strong man Chiklin, and the sick weakling Kozlov, whom his comrades dislike.

Andrey Platonov. Pit. Audiobook Part 1

Platonov "Pit", chapter 3 - summary

The designer of the foundation pit, engineer Prushevsky, dreams that in 10 or 20 years a tower will be erected in the middle of the world, where the working people of the whole earth will enter into an eternal, happy settlement. Despite such bold dreams, Prushevsky, like any intellectual, is tormented by doubts: will the growth of production lead to a simultaneous increase in the additional product of the soul? Mental torments bring the engineer to insomnia, he even has the thought of suicide.

The next morning, the workers continue to dig the pit. To inspire them comes the chairman of the regional trade union council, Pashkin, who points out that the pace of digging is too slow for socialism. The weak Kozlov stalks around Pashkin with slander and denunciations.

The digger Chiklin examines the neighboring ravine and comes to the conclusion that they started digging the foundation pit in the wrong place. It is better not to dig it from scratch, but to use a ravine under the foundation pit: it will only have to be slightly expanded. The engineer Prushevsky, called to the place of work, takes soil samples and agrees with Chiklin.

In the evening, the legless invalid Zhachev drives up on his cart to the rich apartment of the chairman of the regional trade union council Pashkin and loudly resents the prosperity of this official and his small pension. Fearing to spoil relations with the proletariat, Pashkin orders his beefy wife to take out a package of food for Zhachev. Zhachev goes to the barracks of the excavation workers and has supper with Safronov and Chiklin.

Voshchev spends the same evening in sorrow: his hope to find the meaning of life in tireless work on the foundation pit is not fulfilled. And Chiklin and Prushevsky each think of their old young love. Chiklin recalls how one day, before the revolution, he was suddenly kissed by the daughter of the owner of the tile factory where he then worked, and Prushevsky - about a beautiful unfamiliar girl who once passed by his house on a warm summer evening. The engineer no longer remembers her face, but since then he has been peering at all the women, trying to recognize that one ...

Platonov "Pit", chapter 4 - summary

Not wanting to work hard on the foundation pit, Kozlov decides to switch to "public work" in order to "guard the working class from petty-bourgeois rebellion." The rest continue to stubbornly dig a pit, but the trade unionist Pashkin still finds the pace of production "quiet".

Chiklin, in his memories of the past, goes to the same tile factory where he was once kissed by the owner's daughter. The plant is now abandoned. Walking inside it among the ruins, Chiklin suddenly discovers a hidden room in which lies a dying woman. Her little daughter rubs a lemon peel over her mother's lips. Chiklin recognizes in the woman the same daughter of the former owner. She dies before his eyes, instructing the baby before her death not to tell anyone about her bourgeois origin. Chiklin takes the girl with him to the workers' barracks.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 5 - summary

The diggers of the foundation pit are given a radio, which incessantly calls for the mobilization of all resources for socialist construction. Zhachev and Voshchev do not like the radio, but Safronov does not allow it to be turned off, because it is necessary "to throw everyone into the brine of socialism, so that the skin of capitalism peels off and the heart pays attention to the heat of life around the fire of the class struggle."

The girl Nastya, brought by Chiklin, settles in the barracks, becoming the object of universal love. Safronov inspires her with the foundations of communist ideology.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 6 - summary

The chairman of the regional trade union council, Pashkin, on his own initiative, decides to increase the size of the pit by 6 times. Kozlov, who made his way into trade union activists, now travels to the foundation pit with Pashkin in a car and scolds the workers as "opportunists in practice" for the "low pace of work." However, soon he had to go with Safronov to collectivize a neighboring village.

Safronov and Kozlov are killed there by "kulaks". Upon learning of this, Chiklin and Voshchev set out for the village. The rural activist who is in charge of the creation of the collective farm enrolls Chiklin and Voshchev in the "mobilized cadres".

Andrey Platonov. Pit. Audiobook part 2

The bodies of Safronov and Kozlov lie in the village council, covered with a red banner. Chiklin spends the night next to them. When a village peasant accidentally enters the village council, Chiklin takes him for the murderer of his comrades and kills him with blows of his fist.

The "Organization Yard" on the edge of the collective farm is full of arrested people. The activist gathers the "advanced" peasants and tells them to go agitating with flags for collectivization in neighboring villages. The peasants see the end of the world in the collective farm. Some of them lie down in pre-prepared coffins and try to die by themselves. The village priest, out of fear of reprisals, cuts his hair like a foxtrot, applies for admission to a circle of atheists, gives the proceeds from the sale of church candles to tractors, and writes down everyone who dared to cross himself in the church on a memorial sheet for denunciation to the Activist.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 7 - summary

Chiklin, Voshchev and three "conscious" peasants, on the instructions of the Activist, are building a raft on which the local "kulak sector" will be sent along the river to the sea. The activist gathers all the inhabitants at the "Organization Yard" and demands from them "to stop standing between capitalism and communism", that is, to join the collective farm. The people ask for the last night of respite, but the Activist agrees to wait only until the end of the raft construction: everyone who does not go to the collective farm will sail on it into the ocean.

Weeping and wailing rise up through the village. Expecting the imminent "socialization", the peasants have long ceased to feed the horses, and in recent days they have also slaughtered livestock, overeating beef to the point of vomiting. No one wanted to give their living creatures to "collective farm imprisonment".

Now, at the “Organization Yard”, before entering the collective farm, the peasants say goodbye to each other, as before death - kissing and hugging, releasing each other mutual sins.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 8 - summary

Prushevsky, sent there as a "cadre of the cultural revolution", and Zhachev, who arrived of his own free will as a freak, come to the new collective farm. They bring with them Nastya, who in the city managed to resemble a Soviet kindergarten and now demands "to liquidate the kulak as a class."

Chiklin discovers in the list of villagers a certain oppressed farm laborer, who all his life from his youth, almost for nothing, works in local yards and in the smithy. He goes to the blacksmith to save this proletarian from exploitation. The laborer turns out to be a forest bear who knows how to inflate furs and hit an anvil with a hammer.

Chiklin takes a bear with him so that, like a poor proletarian, he can show him the houses where the kulaks live. Having reached the hut of the next "world-eater", the bear begins to growl furiously, and Chiklin comes in to dispossess kulaks. One fist, smiling, prophesies that today the workers have "liquidated" him, and tomorrow they will also "liquidate" them - and " one of your main people will come to socialism". The fists driven onto the raft are floated into the river and, downstream, into the sea.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 9 - summary

After the rafting of the kulaks, the Activist sets up a radio mouthpiece on the porch of the OrgDom, and the entire collective farm, to the march of the great campaign, joyfully marks time. Even socialized horses, having heard the music, come to the Orgyard to neigh. The march on the radio gives way to calls to procure willow bark. The trampling and dancing on the spot continues until midnight - until the invalid Zhachev starts, rolling up in a wheelchair, knocking people to the ground to rest.

The compassionate dreamer Voshchev wanders around the village and collects all the orphaned rubbish in a bag. He pities these useless objects, like lonely, forgotten people. When Voshchev returns to the Orgdvor, the Activist busily brings the rubbish from his bag into the receipt sheet of collective farm property, and then, against signature, gives it to little Nastya as toys.

Chiklin, passing by the smithy, hears from there the energetic blows of a bear-hammer. The blacksmith explains to him: Misha, having learned about the creation of a collective farm and seeing how a red revolutionary slogan was hung on a nearby wattle fence, began to “buzz” on the iron with such enthusiasm that now there is no way to stop him.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 10 - summary

Waking up in the morning, the entire collective farm gathers to the forge, from where the blows of the hammer do not cease to be heard. Next to the slogan “For the Party, for fidelity to it, for hard work that breaks through the doors to the future for the proletariat” hanging on the wattle fence, the bear continues to tirelessly strike the iron. Chiklin helps him.

The men notice that the blows are too strong. Chiklin and the Bear crush iron as an enemy of life, and they harden it incorrectly - horseshoes and teeth for harrows turn out to be brittle. But in the heat of the proletarian labor impulse, the forgers do not notice this. Only by the threat of being expelled from the collective farm can they be driven away from the anvil.

Engineer Prushevsky, with his usual sadness, ponders at the wattle fence that even the conquest of the stars is unlikely to change the essence of human life: in the bowels of distant planets there are the same copper ores, and the Supreme Economic Council will still be needed there. He is brought out of his thoughts by the exclamations of the local youth, who call him to the reading room to start a cultural revolution.

Platonov "Pit", chapter 11 - summary

Having caught a cold during the collective farm trampling on the spot under the march of the great campaign, Nastya becomes seriously ill. A rider on a hot horse flies into the village with directives from the district. One of them severely accuses the Activist: he has run into the leftist swamp of right-wing opportunism and therefore is a wrecker of the party, an objective enemy of the proletariat and must be immediately removed from the leadership forever. Realizing that he will never again take a district post, the Activist immediately loses the desire to serve the masses. He even takes off his jacket from the sick Nastya, which he had previously allowed to cover her. In response, Chiklin gives the Activist a blow with his powerful hand, like a sledgehammer. The activist falls and dies. Voshchev is elected the new head of the collective farm. The body of the Activist is thrown into the same river, along which he himself recently rafted his kulaks.

Chiklin, Zhachev and Prushevsky return to the city, taking Nastya with them. They see that the foundation pit is already covered with snow, and their hut is empty. Zhachev, after a new run-in with Pashkin, takes out a bottle of cream and two cakes for Nastya. But the girl cannot be saved: she dies. Voshchev, who arrived from the village with the entire collective farm on socialized horses, is late to see Nastya alive. Chiklin, trying to stifle his longing for the girl, digs deep into the snow-covered ditch all night. All the kolkhoz peasants join him.

For Nastya, Chiklin hollows out a special grave in stone and carefully buries it, covering it with a granite slab.

They died anyway, why do they need coffins!

A. Platonov. foundation pit

A. Platonov's story "The Pit" was written in the difficult years for the Soviet country (1929-1930), which remained in the memory of many as the time of the final ruin of the peasantry and the formation of collective farms, which changed not only life, but also people's consciousness. These and many other accompanying processes (the eternal search for truth, an attempt to build a happy future, etc.) are reflected in the story with the help of a monolithic alloy of comic form and essentially tragic content.

Humor Platonov me

It seems to be something akin to Bulgakov's humor: it is not just “laughter through tears”, but laughter from the understanding that it should not be like this, as it is, a kind of “black humor”.

The reality of the period of collectivization was so absurd that it seems that the sad and the funny have changed places. And that is why we feel uneasy when we laugh at a village peasant who gave his horse to the collective farm and then lies with a samovar tied to his stomach: “I’m afraid to fly away, put ... some load on your shirt.” Not only a smile, but also an aching longing is evoked by the indignant exclamation of the little girl Nastya before the funeral of Kozlov and Safronov: “They died anyway, why do they need coffins!” Indeed, why do the dead need coffins, if now the living builders of the “bright future” sleep so well in them, and if children's toys feel so comfortable there?!

The grotesque situations created by the author (or time itself?) amazingly combine the real and the fantastic, lively humor and bitter sarcasm. People are building an incomprehensible House of Happiness that no one really needs, and things are progressing no further than digging a common mass grave - a foundation pit, because few survive in the poverty, hunger and cold that surround people in the present. Amusing and scary at the same time is the episode with the peasant who “just in case” prepared to die: he has been lying in a coffin for several weeks and periodically pours oil into a burning lamp on his own. It seems that the dead and the living, the inanimate and the conscious have switched places.

What can I say, if the main and respected enemy of the kulaks and friend of the proletarians is the bear Medvedev, the hammer from the forge. Intuition never fails the beast, working for a "happy future" on an equal footing with people, and he always correctly finds the "kulak element."

Another inexhaustible source of Platonov's humor and sarcasm is the speech of the characters in the story, which fully reflects another area of excesses and nonsense of this awkward time. The parodic rethinking and ironic play on the political language saturates the characters' speech with cliched phrases, categorical labels, and makes it look like a bizarre combination of slogans. Such a language is also inanimate, artificial, but it also causes a smile: “milk was promoted from the carts”, “the question arose as a matter of principle, and we must put it back in the whole theory of feelings and mass psychosis ...” The terrible thing is that even the language of little Nastya is already turns out to be a monstrous fusion of speeches and slogans that she hears from the ubiquitous activists and propagandists: “The main one is Lenin, and the second is Budyonny.

When they were not there, and only bourgeois lived, then I was not born, because I did not want to. And as Lenin became, so I became!”

Thus, the interweaving of the comic and the tragic in A. Platonov's story "The Pit" allowed the writer to expose many distortions in the social and economic life of the young Soviet country, which painfully responded to the lives of ordinary people. But it has long been known: when people no longer have the strength to cry, they laugh ...

(No Ratings Yet)

Which of the characters are the heroes of A. Platonov's story "The Pit"? - What problem is the basis of all the work of A. Platonov? a. Fathers and children b. Fight for freedom c. The essence of the life of Mr. Intelligentsia and revolution - What is the concept of nature in the work of A. Platonov? a. Harmonious world b. Beautiful and furious world c. Rampant elements 3. In which [...] ...
A pit is a depression in the ground for laying the foundation of some structure, ”we read in the explanatory dictionary. In Platonov's story, the word "pit" takes on a much greater meaning. The foundation pit is an echo of pagan myths. According to the custom in ancient times, the very first stone, which was laid in the foundation of a house under construction, had to be sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed animal. In the story, the foundation pit is “sprinkled” [...] ...
In the center of the story is the story of the protagonist of the worker Voshchev. Having retired from the factory, he finds himself in a team of diggers preparing a foundation pit for the foundation of a common proletarian house. The workers of the foundation pit, inspired by the idea of complete collectivization, take part in the dispossession of peasants from nearby villages. Real events take fantastic forms. The peasants, not expecting anything good from the Soviet government, build coffins for themselves during their lifetime. Dispossessed […]...
The fate of A.P. Platonov as a writer was tragic: his view of the world, his style, the harsh truth of life in his works first met with misunderstanding, and starting from the end of the 20s led to persecution, political vilification in the press and bans. In the late 20s and 30s he reached the pinnacle of his work in the novel "Chevengur", the stories "The Pit", "Juvenile […]...
Andrei Platonov became known to a wide range of readers only recently, although the most active period of his work fell on the twenties of the XX century. The writer reflected in his works the life of the first post-revolutionary decades with unusual completeness and foresight. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Platanov’s most important works were created: the novel “Chevengur”, the novels “For the future”, “The Doubter […]...
What is the main theme in the early work of A. Platonov? In the early work of A. Platonov, the main theme is the relationship between man and nature. Establishing harmony between them is the meaning of the life of the early heroes of the writer. This theme is revealed in the stories “The Origin of the Master”, “The Beautiful and Furious World”, “The Ethereal Path”, “The Hidden Man”. How to understand Plato's definition of nature as “beautiful and furious [...] ...
The main theme of A. Platonov's story "The Pit" is the construction of socialism in the city and countryside. In the city, as the author shows, it is carried out through the erection of a new building, “where the entire local class of the proletariat will enter the settlement.” In the countryside, the construction of socialism consists in the creation of a collective farm named after the General Line, and also in the destruction of the kulaks. The implementation of this single project is busy, [...] ...
In the story of A.P. Platonov "The Pit" one of the most important problems of Russian literature of the 20th century is raised - the problem of introducing a person to a new life. The hero of Platonov, Voshchev, falls into the brigade, which is supposed to dig a foundation pit. The reader will learn that Voshchev used to work at a factory, but was fired from there because he thought about the "plan for a common life." Thus, in […]
UTOPIC WORLD IN AP PLATONOV'S STORY "THE PIT" From the pages of A. Platonov's works we see a strange, anomalous, unnatural world. This is a world of power directed against a thinking person, who “doubts”, who wants to independently decide his own destiny. The forced unification of people with the elimination of those who disagree turns society into a huge barracks. One family, in one huge house, proletarians should live - people [...] ...
Andrey Platonov became known to a wide range of readers only recently, although the most active period of his work fell on the twenties of our century. Platonov, like many other writers who opposed their point of view to the official position of the Soviet government, was banned for a long time. Among his most significant works are the novel "Chevengur", the novels "For the future" and "Doubting Makar". I […]...
A. Platonov is a unique phenomenon in Russian literature. This is a writer with a naked heart, sincerely worried about all of humanity. He is the first Russian writer of the 20th century who noticed the decay of the “socialist soul”, the loss of individuality in a person and sounded the alarm. Platonov's artistic vision contributed to the creation of a new poetics, absolutely unlike anything that existed in literature before. The story […]...
It is impossible to find an analogue for the Platonic style in Russian literature. The writer worked in accordance with the stylistic trends of the 20s. New times demanded new poetics. The writer invented a language that went against all literary norms. Platonov's story "The Pit", with its images, symbols, metaphors, is fully consistent with the spirit of the times. As a result of a mixture of lexical and syntactic relations, the story is written in a broken language, [...] ...
Andrey Platonov's story "The Pit" is a work filled with deep meaning and, like an iceberg, hiding all the most intimate thoughts deep under the "top". In order to study and understand the meaning of the Platonic text, it is not enough just to read it: first of all, you need to try to comprehend the psychology and philosophy of the author himself. Andrei Platonov for his era was a "shaky and unstable element." Most likely, […]...
CLASSICS AP PLATONOV THE ORIGINALITY OF AP PLATONOV'S STORY "The Pit" Andrey Platonov wrote the story "The Pit" in 1929-1930s. These were the years of a great turning point - the collapse of the NEP, industrialization and collectivization. The era, symbolized by Lenin, has ended, and a new era has begun - Stalin's. According to W. Churchill, Stalin "took Russia with a bast shoe, and left her with atomic weapons." […]...
The work of Andrei Platonov helps the modern reader understand the events that took place in Russia in the 20-30s of the 20th century, during the period of strengthening Soviet power in our country. Among the works that truthfully reflected the events of that time is his well-known story “The Foundation Pit”. Platonov began to write it in December 1929, at the very peak of the “great turning point”, […]...
“The Pit” is Platonov’s story, completed in the early 1930s and tells about the peak of collectivization. During the life of the writer, the work was not published. In the Soviet Union, it was first published only in 1987. A brief history of creation Often, the period from December 1929 to April 1930 is indicated as the time of writing the "Pit". The dates were put down by Platonov himself on [...] ...
Andrei Platonov is one of those few Soviet writers who, in their understanding of the new era, managed to move from accepting communist ideas to rejecting them. Platonov believed in the revolutionary reorganization of the world sincerely, almost fanatically - and in this sense did not differ from most of his contemporaries. It seemed to him that for the first time in history, there was finally an opportunity to defeat [...] ...
Andrey Platonov wrote the story "The Pit" in 1929-1930s. These were the years of a great turning point - the collapse of the NEP, industrialization and collectivization. The era, symbolized by Lenin, has ended, and a new era has begun - Stalin's. According to W. Churchill, Stalin "took Russia with a bast shoe, and left her with atomic weapons." Such a sharp change speaks of the extreme importance of this period of Russian [...] ...
One word of truth will win over the whole world. Folk proverb Creating a completely “non-classical” picture of the utopian world in the story “The Foundation Pit”, Platonov focused on classical themes and motifs that helped him to depict an absurd reality even more vividly. The protagonist of the story, Voshchev, is a man who knows how to think and critically evaluate what is happening to him and around him. Through his eyes, we […]
Whistling, roar, clanging, movement - drowned out Living human speech, Made prayer, Conversation, reflection unthinkable; turned the King of the universe into a wheel greaser. M. Voloshin. "Steam" Writer Andrey Platonovich Platonov was from the workers. A participant in the civil war, then a selfless worker in the recovery period. He understood mechanisms, he built power plants. He was very fond of steam locomotives. He often described them in stories, and they came out from [...] ...
The life of A. Platonov fell on the first half of the 20th century - the most difficult time in the history of the country. Recognizing life as the highest value, Platonov, however, did not consider any life worthy of a person. The writer sought to comprehend the meaning of existence, the purpose of man. In labor - endless, exhausting - the life of the heroes of his works passes. But is every work good? Are the proclaimed […] ...
“In the evenings, Voshchev lay with his eyes open and longed for the future, when everything would become common knowledge and placed in a mean feeling of happiness.” A. Platonov. "The Pit" A. Platonov's story "The Pit" was written in "the year of the great turning point" (1929-1930), when the Russian peasantry was finally ruined and driven into collective farms. And the author spoke here about all the absurdities and criminal excesses [...] ...
Plan I. Non-standard vision of the era of “building a brighter future”. II. Philosophical question of self-realization. 1. Search for happiness and truth. 2. Substitution of concepts. 3. Forward and up ... to the pit. 4. Chiklin's thoughtless fanaticism. 5. Vain dreams. III. Time for a real test. A.P. Platonov is one of the writers who most deeply, fully and figuratively reflected his vision of the contemporary era [...] ...
The creativity of A. Platonov is absolutely not amenable to unambiguous assessments, it is difficult to equate it with something already known in the literature. Platonov is a special and “original” writer. Only towards the end of the 20th century, after Platonov’s repeated return to the reader and the persistent study of his work by literary critics, especially intensive since the mid-1980s, it became possible to understand the scale of the genius of this writer and thinker, […]...
The works of Platonov and Zamyatin were written at about the same time. The twentieth century was not an easy time for the country: people's lives were constantly changing, the issue of social problems was quite acute. It is strange that during the life of the authors, the novel “We” and the story “The Pit” were not recognized by the public, but now they are read with interest. Those hard times […]
“The Pit” (1930) is the title of Platonov's story, dedicated to the construction of a new, unprecedented House of light and high human relations. Platonov stops at the very beginning of construction - at earthworks that ensure the success of construction, so that the house is strong, the foundation pit must be reliable. From the first to the last line of the story, there is an argument about how to break through to the future from this [...] ...
The description of events in the novels and other works of A. Platonov does not at all lend itself to unambiguous assessments; it is difficult to equate it with something already known in the literature. Platonov is a special and “original” writer. Only towards the end of the 20th century, after Platonov’s repeated return to the reader and the persistent study of his work by literary critics, especially intensive since the mid-1980s, it became possible to understand […]...
Plan 1. Contradictions of the era of “building a brighter future”. 2. Difficulty in perceiving the ongoing social upheavals. 3. The story "Pit" - a requiem for the simple Russian people. A.P. Platonov in one of his most significant works - the story "The Pit" - reflected all the contradictions of the contemporary era of "building a bright future", looking at this era through the eyes of the common people. All the characters in the story [...]
An incorrigible idealist and romantic, A.P. Platonov believed in “the vital creativity of the good”, in “peace and light” stored in the human soul, in the “dawn of the progress of mankind” on the horizon of history. A realist writer, Platonov saw the reasons forcing people to “save their truth”, “turn off their consciousness”, “move from inside to outside”, without leaving a single “personal feeling” in their souls, “lose their sense of themselves”. He […]...
Tale (1930) “On the day of the thirtieth anniversary of his personal life, Voshchev was given a calculation from a small mechanical plant, where he obtained funds for his existence. In the dismissal document, they wrote to him that he was removed from production due to the growth of weakness in him and thoughtfulness amid the general pace of work. Voshchev goes to another town. In a wasteland in a warm hole, he settles down on [...] ...
Each work of art, one way or another, reflects the time in which it is created. The author rethinks some historical phenomenon and on the pages of his creation gives his own vision of what is happening. In the story "The Foundation Pit" A. Platonov casts doubt on the correctness of the path chosen by Soviet Russia. The "Pit" with a deep socio-philosophical content in allegorical form tells about the construction of a huge building - happiness. More precisely, […]...
“Let life go now, like a flow of breath, but by means of building a house it can be organized for the future - for future immovable happiness and for childhood,” wrote A.P. Platonov. The story “The Pit” tells about the construction of a huge “house of happiness”, a “general proletarian house”, where the working people of the whole city will live. While the initial work is being carried out: a foundation pit is being dug under the foundation of this [...] ...
This is a brilliant Russian thought that has soared above its time. E. Evtushenko The works of Andrei Platonov are always interesting, original and rich in philosophical insights about the meaning of life. The history of society in the 20-30s of the last century is little known to us, young readers, and I think it is impossible to pass over this period in silence, especially since we are talking about the social and moral delusions of the people in [...] ...
The meaning of the name. “A ditch is a depression in the ground for laying the foundation of some structure,” we read in the explanatory dictionary. In Platonov's story, the word "pit"; takes on much more meaning. The foundation pit is an echo of pagan myths. According to the custom in ancient times, the very first stone, which was laid in the foundation of a house under construction, had to be sprinkled with the blood of a sacrificed animal. In the story [...]
A. Platonov's story "The Pit" tells about the construction of a symbolic structure - a "general proletarian house" for the settlement of the workers of the whole city. A lot of people are going to build the pit, led by Chiklin's brigade. The story opens in the image of Voshchev. This hero is only 30 years old, but he, according to his life experience and pessimistic attitude, seems much older than his years. “On the day of the thirtieth […]
“Then he stopped and looked around. The collective farm followed him and did not stop digging the ground, all the poor and average peasants worked with such zeal of life, as if they wanted to be saved forever in the abyss of the pit” A.P. Platonov. In the story "The Foundation Pit" A.P. Platonov depicted the construction of a "general proletarian house" in which all the working people of the city would live. "Construction of socialism" […]...
The story of Andrei Platonovich Platonov "The Pit" combines a social parable, philosophical grotesque, satire, lyrics. The writer does not give any hope that in the distant future a “garden city” will grow on the site of the foundation pit, that at least something will rise from this hole, which the heroes are constantly digging. The pit expands and, according to the Directive, spreads over the ground - first fourfold, and then, thanks to an administrative decision [...] ...
The path of a schoolboy into the world of Andrey Platonov is not easy: he belongs to those artists who demand by no means random meetings. Peaks such as "Kotlovan", "Chevengur" can be taken by the reader only with a leisurely, gradual ascent, mastering Platonov's "school of reading". In literary criticism, the idea of \u200b\u200bthe unique integrity, the “unity” of what was written by Platonov with a constant repetition of ideas, motives, images hidden for the author, was established. […]...
Satire is a favorite technique of Russian writers. Works created by Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov are considered textbook satirical. These writers were concerned about the problems of power, the people, the intelligentsia, the little man in the big world. The same problems are touched upon by M. A. Bulgakov in his story “Heart of a Dog”. Bulgakov is a wonderful writer. He is not just a talented satirist, but also a deep philosopher, a subtle mystic. Bulgakov [...]
The life of A. Platonov fell on the first half of our century - the most difficult time in the history of the country. Recognizing life as the highest value, Platonov, however, did not consider any life worthy of a person. The writer sought to comprehend the meaning of life, the purpose of man. In labor - endless, exhausting - the life of the heroes of his works passes. But is any work good? Are the proclaimed […] ...

Tragic and comic in A. Platonov's story "Pit"

Analysis of an episode from A.K. Platonov's story "The Pit"

On the story of A.K. Platonov "For the future" I.V. Stalin wrote: "Bastard." And here in front of me is an excerpt from another work of this "bastard" - the story "The Pit". I would like to understand why the writer deserved such a sharp assessment of the "leader of all peoples."

The story was written in the period from December 1929 to April 1930, that is, not in the wake of the most important historical events, but during them: - during accelerated industrialization and complete collectivization.

It is known that the attitude to these events at that time was far from unambiguous. What is the point of view of Andrey Platonov?

A kind of overture to understanding the author's position for me was the first paragraph of the proposed passage. Somehow I suddenly thought, why does the action take place in a lane, that is, as the dictionary testifies, a short street that serves to connect longitudinal (that is, parallel?) Streets? One of these streets is the old, pre-revolutionary road of life, and the other is that happy future, in the name of which the revolution was made? Platonov will say that no one passed through the alley, because it ran into the blank wall of the cemetery. (!!!). There now “deserted”, there is no one, only “one unknown old man”. Why so affectionately, lovingly, with sympathy: the old man OK ? Is it because he was about to goback to the old days?

Apparently, A. Platonov is not an ardent supporter of revolutionary changes.

The motive of the road, stated in the first paragraph, is repeated several times in the same vein. They usually go forward and up. Chiklin, on the other hand, "with the strength of shame and sadness" entered the old building and "fell somewhere into the lower darkness." A woman passes away because she "became bored", she was "tired".

I pay attention to the lexical repetition of the word now: "me now almost don't care", "I now I didn’t feel sorry for you and I don’t need anyone”, “bourgeois women are all are dying now", "today every last one, and that one, walks in leather pants ”... You don’t feel happiness and stormy jubilation about the present, do you?

In addition to the present, there is also the past. It is described in detail, with admiration and longing for the loss of it in the inner speech of an unknown peasant with yellow eyes:His dreary mind imagined a village covered in rye, and the wind rushed over it and quietly turned a wooden mill, grinding daily, peaceful bread. He lived like this in recent times, feeling satiety in his stomach and family happiness in his soul; and no matter how many years he looked from the village into the distance and into the future, he saw at the end of the plain only the merging of the sky with the earth, and above him he had sufficient light of the sun and stars.A clear desire, like that unknown old man, to goback to the old days!

And what about the image of the future? Why don't Platonov's heroes aspire to him with enthusiasm, even the activist Safronov even dreams that "enthusiasm would occur." So it doesn't exist? What is there? "Conservation"? Zhachev dreams about the future: “Even in the morning, Zhachev decided that as soon as this girl and children like her mature a little, he will finish all the big inhabitants of his area; he alone knew that in the USSR there were quite a few solid enemies of socialism, egoists and vipers of the future world, and secretly consoled himself with the fact that someday soon he would kill all of them, leaving only proletarian infancy and pure orphanhood alive. For Voshchev and other diggers, the future is "a calm land full of their bones." A bleak picture ... something does not want to live in such a future ... Probably, this was not what they dreamed of. “Zhachev, and along with him Voshchev, became unreasonably ashamed of long speeches on the radio; nothing seemed to them against the speaker and instructor, but only more and more felt private a shame". Perhaps that is why Chiklin "reluctantly" says that he is from the proletariat? And he dreams of explaining the whole world to a child, "so that he knows how to live safely."

The motive of fear, which is clearly manifested in the story, testifies to the brilliant insight of its author, who managed to feel and predict terrible events long before the year 37. Fears make the wise old man fold "his reverent face for an attentive expression." Fear for the fate of her daughter dictates her mother's dying words: “Don't tell anyone that you were born from me…” “…I'm afraid! Otherwise, he would have left long ago, ”the unknown old man repeatedly repeats.

("Back to the old days", remember?) And the girl, this sprout of the future, "she knew that she was present in the proletariat, and guarded herself, as his mother used to say for a long time." “An unknown peasant with yellow eyes whined in the corner of the barracks about the same grief, but did not say why it was, but tried to please everyone more” ...

Who are the heroes so afraid of? This passage does not contain their names or their positions. But they exist, I am also afraid of them, because they will “freeze”, “arrest”, “touch” in such a way that it will not seem enough, they will “say” such that you get tired of making excuses ... There are only four verb-predicates in indefinitely personal sentences, but those whom the writer had in mind recognized themselves, they recognized themselves! Hence the ban on the publication of the novel. It is known that for the first time "Pit" was published only in 1987.

The more you read this work of Platonov (as, indeed, his other books), the more weighty, more informative each of his words seems. It reveals something that I hadn't noticed before. For example, Chiklin, in a conversation with Nastya, declares that he is "nothing." And in my ears I have a bravura melody and the words: “We are ours, we will build a new world, whoever was nothing will become everything!”. Maybe this is what the author was counting on and this is nothing but the so-called allusion?

The episode ends with an idyllic picture of admiring Nastya, this sprout of the future, (after all, this small creature will dominate their graves and live on a calm earth stuffed with their bones)such different people: thoughtful Voshchev, excavators tired to the point of exhaustion, Zhachev who hates everyone, an activist... They were all united by a dream of a brighter future. Will it just come? It is unlikely, even if by joint efforts the heroes “as suddenly as possible” complete the construction of the foundation pit.

Platonov, as it were, anticipates the finale of the work, putting into the mouth of Safronov the following words: “an actual resident of socialism” lies before them “without consciousness”, “rests” ...

And I remember Blok’s: “God rest the soul of your servant…”

And it’s not in vain: the ending of the novel is known ...

Tragic and comic in A. Platonov's story "Pit"

Following the usual logic of things, the tragic and the comic should be considered as components of an eternal antithesis: the presence of one excludes the possibility of the appearance of the other. The paradox of Plato's prose, however, is that even the darkest and most tragic pages of it can cause the reader not only despair or horror, but can also make him laugh. If there were a frequency dictionary of Platonov's language, then the words "patience", "boredom", "sadness", "sorrow" would probably be the first in it. A world in which “tired patience”, “anguish of futility”, “sadness of a great substance” reigns, it would seem, should be impervious to laughter. However, it cannot be argued that in Platonov's prose, the tragic and the comic are "two things that are incompatible": the element of laughter permeates the entire narrative, invading its most terrible and tragic episodes.

Out of context, individual episodes of The Foundation Pit could be perceived as excerpts from some comedy film about the life of Russia in the late 1920s. Here, for example, is a village peasant who gave his horse to the collective farm and is now lying on a bench with a samovar tied to his stomach: "I'm afraid to fly away, put ... some load on your shirt." Here is a tragicomic "talk show", the participants of which are the "sad freak" Zhachev and the representative of the "maximum class" Pashkin (whose very name - Lev Ilyich - becomes a comic combination of the names of Trotsky and Lenin); sitting in a flower bed with roses, Zhachev categorically declares to the trade union activist: “Are you a bourgeois, or have you forgotten why I put up with you? Do you want to get heaviness in the caecum? Keep in mind - any code is weak for me "

The literary “double” of Father Fyodor from the novel “The Twelve Chairs” looks like a Platonic priest, “cut like a foxtrot” and collecting a nickel in the church for a tractor for an activist. Comic, absurd transformations permeate the entire scene of the conversation between the priest and Chiklin: the pillars of faith become "sub-kulak saints", memorial sheets become lists of "unreliable" people who dared to be baptized and pray in the church, and the priest's immediate political task is to enroll in a circle of godlessness. However, the last word - "godlessness" - in this episode of "The Pit" sounds not just like another logical dissonance (and not just as a more accessible synonym for the scientific word "atheism"). The final remark of the priest returns the original meaning to the word: “It is useless for me, comrade, to live ... I no longer feel the charm of creation - I was left without God, and God without man ...” A farcical episode that - potentially - could become a detente in a tense and tragic action story, turns into a spiritual drama of a person and receives an existential dimension in the context of the story.

The complex synthesis of the tragic and the comic, which distinguishes Platonov's prose, determines the character of the grotesque in "The Pit" - the most important artistic device used by the writer in the episodes of dispossession of "prosperous dishonor". The starting point of "solid collectivization" in the story is the village smithy (a kind of proletarian enterprise in the countryside), in which the main enemy of all kulaks, the bear Medvedev, works. In the system of characters in the story, he is assigned the role of an "active class" - on a par with an activist or Chiklin. The bear performs punitive functions with the help of "class instinct" - the beast smells the "kulak element" with its nose and unmistakably leads Chiklin to the homes of those who have made good with laborers' flesh. A literal reading of the ideological formula - "class instinct" - underlies the grotesque transformation of the beast into a "conscious fellow", and a series of his "visits" to the kulak population turns into a series of surreal illustrations for the concept of "solid collectivization".

However, the phantasmagoria does not end there: to the sound of the radio roaring "the march of the great campaign", the collective farm throws itself into a terrible fantastic dance - the dance of death. Those who were alive “systematically swam away on ... dead water”, and those who remained alive became like the dead, circling in a wild round dance: “Elisha ... went to the middle place ... and danced on the ground, not bending at all ... he walked like a rod - one among the standing ones, - clearly working with the bones and torso." The heroes of the "Pit" only once appear before the reader amused - but this fun becomes creepy! It is no coincidence that the ghosts jostling in the moonlight will be called dead on the page later: “Zhachev! Chiklin said. - Go stop moving, they died, or something, from joy: they dance and dance.

Contrary to common sense, Chiklin's absurd remark actually expresses the essence of what is happening very clearly: the living and the dead in the "Pit" have changed places. Outside of the Platonic context, such a remark could cause a cheerful bewilderment - in "The Pit" it captures a terrible reality.

Alogism is generally one of the main sources of comedy in Platonov's prose. His "smart fools" regularly resort to alogism as a means of self-defense against the obsessive demagogy of "activists". It is enough to recall Nastya's explanations about her social origin: “The main one is Lenin, and the second is Budyonny. When they were not there, and only bourgeois lived, then I was not born, because I did not want to. And as Lenin became, so I became! The revolutionary phraseology of the hegemonic class is used by Nastya "creatively": politically correct vocabulary becomes the basis of an absurd construction from the point of view of logic.

Of particular note is the importance of alogism in the most tragic situations - dying and death: it is these episodes that are most saturated with comic effects. The death of Safronov and Kozlov is accompanied in the story by Nastya's indignant exclamation: "They died anyway, why do they need coffins!" The girl's remark seems to be nonsense (since the time of Pushkin's "The Undertaker" it has been known that "the dead does not live without a coffin"), if you do not take into account the plot context of the "Pit": in one of the coffins, now intended for the dead, Nastya slept, and the other served her "red corner" - it kept her toys.

One of the following scenes of the story also looks tragicomic: next to the bodies of the two dead (Safronov and Kozlov), a “fourth extra” corpse is found! It is the fourth, since to the village peasant, "unplannedly" killed by Chiklin, another one is added, who "came here himself, lay down on the table between the deceased and personally died."

A very special sphere of comedy in the story is the political language of the era of the "great turning point". Numerous ideological clichés and political slogans are subjected in the mouths of the characters (and the speech of the narrator) to parodic rethinking and reformulation. An activist, for example, enters the things brought by Voshchev into a special ... column called "List of the kulak liquidated to death as a class by the proletariat, according to the property-escheat balance." Stereotypical formulas are read literally and ironically played up in puns: “The question arose as a matter of principle, and we must put it back in the whole theory of feelings and mass psychosis ...”

Trust in metaphor, so characteristic of the political phraseology of the era, is also fixed in the language of the story. However, the implementation of the metaphor in Platonov's text reveals the hidden absurdity of party clichés, and their meaning is embodied in a chain reaction of puns: "We no longer feel the heat from the fire of the class struggle, but the fire should be: where then should active personnel warm themselves." Turned into abstract concepts of "bonfire" and "heat", the direct meaning was returned, and the result of the "exposing" of the official formula becomes a comic effect.

Thus, the tragic and the comic are combined in Platonov's prose into an inseparable whole. The image of one of the most tragic episodes of Russian history is built on the basis of the grotesque and combines the terrible and the funny, the fantastic and the real. Plato's world - a world on the verge of an apocalypse - the presence of laughter is allowed, but the smile on the reader's face freezes into a grimace of horror. In this world, the funnier - the scarier ...

Despite the variety of themes in the works of A.P. Platonov, who was concerned about the problems of electrification and collectivization, the civil war and the building of communism, all of them are united by the writer's desire to find the path to happiness, to determine what is the joy of the "human heart". Platonov solved these questions by referring to the realities of the life around him. The story "The Pit" is dedicated to the time of industrialization and the beginning of collectivization in the young Soviet country, in the bright communist future of which the author believed very much. True, Platonov

More and more I began to worry that in the "plan of a common life" they practically did not leave a place for a specific person, with his thoughts, experiences, feelings. And with his works, the writer wanted to warn overzealous "activists" from fatal mistakes for the Russian people.

The scene of dispossession in the story "The Pit" very clearly and accurately reveals the essence of the collectivization carried out in the Soviet countryside. The perception of the collective farm is shown through the eyes of a child - Nastya. She asks Chiklin: “Did you set up a collective farm here? Show me the farm!” This innovation is understood as a completely new life, a paradise on earth. Even adult “strangers” expect “joy” from the collective farm: “Where is the collective farm good - or did we go for nothing?” These questions are caused by disappointment from the true picture that opened up before the eyes of the wanderers: "The outsider, the alien people settled down in heaps and small masses around the Orgdvor, while the collective farm was still sleeping in a general cluster near the night, faded fire." The “night, faded fire” and the “general accumulation” of collective farmers look symbolic. Behind the simple unsettledness of these people (comparable to the “strong, clean huts” of the “kulak class”), their facelessness is also hidden. Therefore, their main representative is shown as a hammer-bear, half-man, half-animal. He has the ability to productive work, but is deprived of the most important thing - the ability to think and, accordingly, to speak. Thinking is replaced in the bear by "class instinct". However, after all, this was exactly what was required in the new Soviet society, “one ... the main person” could think for everyone. It is no coincidence that Chiklin takes his breath away and opens the door “so that freedom is visible” when the “reasonable peasant” calls on him to consider the expediency of dispossession. The easiest way is to simply turn away from the truth and let others decide for themselves, shifting the responsibility to the faceless “we”. "None of your business, bitch! Chiklin answers the kulak. - We can appoint a king when it will be useful for us, and we can knock him down with one breath ... And you - disappear! But for some reason, Chiklin screams "from the gnashing strength of his heart," probably protesting inside himself against the right taken from him to think and make decisions independently.

Both Nastya and Nastya are sympathetic to the hammer fighter as to the “most oppressed farm laborer” (“He is also suffering, so he is ours, right?”), And the bureaucrat Pashkin (“Pashkin was completely sad about the unknown proletarian of the region and wanted to deliver him from oppression as soon as possible." But if the girl sees in the bear, first of all, a suffering creature and therefore feels kinship with him, then the representative of the authorities, instead of a good desire, “to find a residual farm laborer here and, having provided him with a better share of life, then dissolve the district committee of the union for the negligence of servicing the membership mass”, hurriedly and in bewilderment, he “departed by car back”, formally not seeing the possibility of classifying the bear as an oppressed class. The author objectively depicts the situation of the poor in the countryside, forced to work almost for nothing for wealthy fellow villagers. Through the image of a bear, it is shown how people like him were treated: “The hammerman remembered how in the old years he uprooted stumps on the lands of this peasant and ate grass from silent hunger, because the peasant gave him food only in the evening - what was left of the pigs, and the pigs lay down in the trough and ate the bear's portion in their sleep." However, nothing can justify the cruelty with which dispossession took place: “... the bear got up from the dishes, hugged the man’s body more comfortably and, squeezing it with force, so that acquired fat and sweat came out of the man, shouted into his head in different voices - from malice and hearsay, the hammer fighter could hardly speak.

It is terrible that children were brought up on such hatred, who then had to live in a country free from hostility. However, the ideas about our own and others, which have been instilled since childhood, are unlikely to disappear in adulthood. Nastya is initially opposed to those whom the bear “sense” refers to as fists: “Nastya strangled a fat kulak fly on her hand ... and also said:

“And you beat them like a class!”

About a boy from a kulak family, she says: “He is very cunning,” seeing in him an unwillingness to part with something of his own, his own. As a result of such upbringing, all those sailing on a raft for a child merge into one person - “bastards”: “Let him ride the seas: today here, and tomorrow there, right? - said Nastya. “We’ll be bored with the bastard!” Chiklin's words about the party, which, in theory, should stand guard over the interests of the working people, seem ironic to us: "You don't recognize it in person, I can hardly feel it myself."

When analyzing Platonov's works, close attention is drawn to their language. This is the style of a poet, satirist, and, above all, a philosopher. The narrator most often comes from a people who have not yet learned to operate with scientific terms and are trying to answer important, pressing questions of being with their own language, as if “experiencing” thoughts. Therefore, such expressions arise as “due to the lack of my mind I could not say a single word”, “organized people should not live without a mind”, “lived with people - so I turned gray with grief”, etc. The heroes of Platonov think with those linguistic means that they own. The special atmosphere of the 20s of the 20th century is emphasized by the abundance of clericalism in the speech of Platonov’s heroes (“Chiklin and the hammerer witnessed at first economic secluded places”), the vocabulary of slogans and posters (“... Pashkin decided to throw Prushevsky at full speed on the collective farm as a frame of the cultural revolution ...” ), ideologicalisms (“... point out to him the most oppressed farm laborer, who for almost a century worked for nothing in the propertied yards ...”). Moreover, the words of different styles are randomly mixed in the speech of the Platonic wanderers, they often do not understand the meaning of the words they use ("Empty the laborers' property!" Chiklin said to the recumbent. "Away from the collective farm and do not dare to live in the world again!"). One gets the impression that thoughts, ideas seem to collide with each other, attracting and repelling. So, following the traditions of Russian literature, Platonov uses landscapes to convey the general mood of the depicted. But even here we feel roughness, clumsiness and a combination of words of different styles in the descriptions: “The snow, which hitherto fell from time to time from the upper places, now began to fall more often and harder, - some kind of incoming wind began to produce a blizzard, which happens when winter sets in. But Chiklin and the bear walked through the snowy secant frequency in direct street order, because it was impossible for Chiklin to reckon with the moods of nature ... ".

The final scene of sending fists on a raft is ambiguous. On the one hand, we are imbued with sympathy for Prushevsky, who looks with sympathy at the "kulak class", "as if it has lost its way." But there is some truth in the words of Zhachev, who remarks about the sailors: “Do you think these people exist? Wow! This is one outer skin, we have a long way to go to people, that's what I feel sorry for! Let's take a look at the pronoun "we". Zhachev also ranks himself among the "tired prejudices." He pins all his hopes on future generations: “Zhachev crawled after the kulaks in order to ensure him a reliable sailing into the sea with the flow and to calm down more strongly that there will be socialism, that Nastya will receive him as her maiden dowry, and he, Zhachev, rather perish like a tired prejudice." However, as we are convinced, the author's view of the future of Nastya is quite pessimistic. Even childhood happiness cannot be built on someone else's suffering.

(! LANG: The story of the foundation pit analysis briefly. Analysis of the "Pit" by Platonov. Several interesting essays