CC BY
36
LITERATURE AND CULTURE: HISTORIC AND CONTEMPORARY DOI: 10.24411/2470-1262-2019-10056
УДК (UDC) 82-311.4
Vassili Bouilov, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Helsinki, Finland
For citation: Bouilov Vassili, (2019).
Andrei Platonov and his Anti-Utopian Writing from Inside
Utopian and Totalitarian System.
Cross-Cultural Studies: Education and Science Vol. 4, Issue 4 (2019), pp. 6-19 (in USA)
Manuscript received 12/10/2019 Accepted for publication: 25/11/2019
The authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
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ANDREI PLATONOV AND HIS ANTI-UTOPIAN WRITING FROM INSIDE UTOPIAN AND TOTALITARIAN SYSTEM
АНДРЕЙ ПЛАТОНОВ И ЕГО АНТИУТОПИЙСКИЕ ПИСЬМА ИЗ ВНУТРЕННЕЙ УТОПИЧЕСКОЙ И ТОТАЛИТАРНОЙ СИСТЕМЫ
Abstract
One of the main features of Andrei Platonov's language is concerned with the reflection of all typical elements of the language of the Soviet epoch. This quasi-language of utopia can be relatively distinguished as "an annex" to the literary Russian language created for an exceptional purpose in a certain political and ideological socium. This is a language of declarations and prescriptions, slogans and propaganda posters - a convenient language for the proclamation of a new "ideal society". The natural cognitive process of creating thoughts turns into a mechanical substitution of planned a limited set of ideological, communicative and behaviorist clichés. Platonov, in order to identify in the narrative space of the short story The Foundation Pit the possibilities and ways of development of the world, figuratively confronts Utopia and Anti-Utopia in their mutual influence and rigid collision. Platonov's specific word usage which is based on bizarre semantic and syntactic deformations in his "coded" language makes it possible to speak about an anti-utopian nature of his principal prosaic texts. Platonov's talent reflects this "zombie
effect" in one of the most representative examples of his mature style - in the short novel The Foundation Pit (written in 1929-1930). The Foundation Pit semiotically interacts with other texts, including other Platonov's poetic and prosaic texts. This process can be defined by the term "intertextuality" that designates the establishment of the relation "text in text". Platonov's characters can be considered as "guinea pigs" by means of which he introduced ideas in order to test them in the symbolic space of a fictional text. In the text of The Foundation Pit the symbolism of Platonov's early works and other literary sources are converted into a conceptually new, full-scale semiotic system.
Keywords: genre dualism, Utopia, Anti-Utopia, literary collision, implicativeness, inter-textuality, intertextual play, concept decoding.
The article is written In Memoriam to Andrei Platonov and is devoted to his 120th Birthday Anniversary (28.08.1899-28.08.2019)
Platonov is a writer of a major importance - an acknowledged phenomenon and one of the most prominent writers in Russian literature of the XX century. In contrast to Orwell or Zamjatin, Platonov lived and wrote inside the existing utopian and totalitarian system that he allegorically or openly criticized in his literary works.
In a totalitarian society people are forced to use ready phrases "stored up" by their political leaders. This language acts as a lexically and stylistically marked signal which helps to select the ideologically loyal people from the political aliens. It acts as "a blotting", "a ticket" for passing into the determined, isolated zone of class and ideological communication. Only selected people are permitted to think, but all others must work. Only certain people can contrive ideas and thoughts: others must learn and use them mechanically. By creating "the language of utopia" they indirectly, or more often attentively, frustrate the national literary language. In the language of utopia the complex process of the production of a speech as a process of the gradual realization of the semantic, grammatical and pragmatic rules, which are being formed on the basis of natural cognitive structures, turns into a mechanical substitution of "ready-made" semanticized images, limited ideological, communicative and behaviorist clichés. Such most famous anti-utopists as Orwell, Huxley, Zamyatin and Platonov reflect in their literary works the key elements of this language.
One of the main features of Andrei Platonov's language is concerned with the reflection of all the typical elements of the New Language of the Soviet epoch (Novoyaz), of the clichéd speech of ideology. This quasi-language of utopia can be relatively distinguished as one of two basic components of the Russian national linguistic diaglossia, as a secondary semiotic system - "an annex" to the literary Russian language created for an exceptional purpose in a certain political and ideological socium. The new Soviet language was generated by the usage of a limited set of communicative and ideological clichés. This is a language of declarations and prescriptions, slogans and propaganda posters - a convenient language for the proclamation of a New Ideal Society. By compelling people to act and think in that manner the ideologists succeed in the formation of a human "normalized" mass (the expression of Platonov) that is vulnerable to any kind of manipulation and directed programming. In his works Platonov reflects this "zombie
effect" at a large scale. Platonov's use of the ideological cliches in the capacity of the stylistic device gives rise to a strong anti-utopian effect. In using them, Platonov severely criticizes the primitiveness of the propaganda, the mythologisation of ideology, the collectivist, stereotyped, cliched way of speaking and thinking. He defines the basic reason of such mass mental and language deformations which lies in the nature of the Soviet utopia.
Platonov's short novel entitled Котлован (The Foundation Pit) - a ledger work of his ontology and one of the most representative examples of his mature style - has been written in 1929-1930. In The Foundation Pit Platonov's inter-world acquires its own spatial and temporal dynamics and relies on a system of symbols, on the semiotic system of interdependent and interrelated iconic concepts. In The Foundation Pit Platonov's special inter-world operates on two levels: (1) the macro-level of his text in its semiotic functioning; (2) the micro-level of the linguistic elements of his text.
In the semiotic system of The Foundation Pit one can see certain elements which spiritually bring together his creative method with aesthetic system of Pavel Filonov's painting, and what permit to call Platonov the "Filonov of literature". Philosophically Filonov's concept of "the analytical art" is very close to Platonov's method of writing: the composition is organized out of the chaos of elementary particles, by analogy with the birth of life, giving rise to new descriptive means and figurative forms. Platonov creates his text from the particular to the general, from small fractions to the overall structure, where every "atom" can be seen in detail. He creates a world in which his semiotically coded language of an Anti-Utopia served as the means of expression for a complicated semiotic and philosophical system.
Many of Platonov's principal works has been banned in the Soviet Union, and the short novel «Котлован» was published in his own country for the first time only in the late 1980s. In spite of that fact, the English translation of the short novel entitled The Foundation Pit has been made by Thomas P. Whitney in 1973 and was published in USA in the bi-lingual edition with the original text [1]. In the present article the extracts from aforementioned Thomas Whitney's translation will be taken for quoting.
The Foundation Pit was written in December 1929 - April 1930. This means that approximately ten years passed after the appearance of Platonov's early poems. He published his first poetic collection Голубая глубина (The Blue Deep) [4] in 1922. Since that time a lot has changed in Platonov himself and in the life of real prototypes of his characters. The romanticism of the first revolutionary years turned into a harsh daily existence. Labour became the main and the only component of dull human existence, reinforced time after time by ideological and destructive, apocalyptic economical campaigns organized by the Center. For the characters of the short novel such "an apocalypse" was the collectivization.
The Foundation Pit semiotically interacts with other texts, including other Platonov's poetic and prosaic texts. This process can be defined by the term intertextuality that designates the inclusion of one text in another and, as a result, the establishment of the relation text in text. Such insertion can associate, or "tie together," texts of different epochs, various languages and diverse genres. Dominant texts "attract" previous texts and affects subsequent texts not only during the
period of literary creation but also in the process of a reader's interpretation. The associative combinations of cooperating texts and their interacting semiotic symbols results in the appearance of an additional, generalized sense and new connotations. In the dominant text of The Foundation Pit the symbolism of Andrei Platonov's early works and other literary sources are converted into a conceptually new, full-scale semiotic system with the author's critical attitude towards its key concepts. His characters can be considered as "guineapigs" by means of which he introduced ideas in order to test them in the symbolic space of a fictional text. He uses the semiotics and the quasi-language of the totalitarian system as the key elements of his anti-utopia to expose and fight the existing totalitarian system.
In his first published poetry collection, The Blue Deep Andrei Platonov symbolically reflects the ideas of revolution and collectivism as a young proletarian poet and communist believer. It was the last year of the protracted Civil War, and revolution continued its bloody "harvest" on a large scale. At the same time, the Soviet system persistently and successfully created its own semiotic "Olympus" by trying to replace the idea of God with its own communist "religion". Not only did the names of communist leaders gain sacred significance, but even the main revolutionary word-symbols and word-slogans became holy: words such as Party, Revolution, Socialism, Communism, etc. Generally known words and philosophical categories are used here in the new ideological word combinations: Class consciousness, Class solidarity, Socialist motherland, Soviet people, Socialist art, Socialist realism.
To present in English the examples of Platonov's early revolutionary symbolism, I have translated into English one of the principle poems from Andrei Platonov's early poetry (the original poem in Russian was taken from the publication: Platonov 2004 [6, p. 400-401]:
The crowds are moving in my soul... Their tramping, their joyful tramping is As the rumble of slipping stones. Without limits, without border, without counting
They build a mysterious city -
Higher - where it is more terrifying, where there is mystery and coldness -Stone upon stone, city upon city... Go marching, crowd after crowd Across your burning soul. History will not fall out of step anymore, The world of mysteries and matter is burning in an engine.
В душе моей движутся толпы... Их топот, их радостный топот, Как камней сползающих грохот. Без меры, без края, без счета Строят неведомый город, -Выше, страшнее, где тайна и холод -Камень на камень, город на город...
Ступайте толпа за толпою
По жаркой, по вашей душе, История больше не даст перебоя, В машине сгорает мир тайн и вещей.
Love is a virgin, a whisper,
But the sound of tramping is heard at
night,
Любовь - это девушка, шепот, Но ночью там движется топот, Идут по душе моей толпы.
The crowds are trampling on my soul.
* * *
A. Platonov, Tramping, 1920-1921 English translation by V. Bouilov
А. Платонов «Топот», 1920-1921 [6, p. 400-401]
The concept human mass, crowd dominates in the analyzed Platonov's extract: The crowds are moving in my soul.../Go marching, crowd after crowd/ the crowds are trampling on my soul. This concept symbolizes a class idea of collectivism. Here "We" consists not of a separate individual "I" but of a great number of "particles", "screws" of a huge human "monolith". Although here Platonov praises the "crowd", the last poetic line The crowds are trampling on my soul could mean the reflection of his doubts, which in future will bring him from utopia to anti-utopia. But it will happen later, in his prose of the late 20s - early 30s.
The certain semiotic links exist between the early Platonov's poetry and the external literary sources. For instance, as a result of Platonov's serious infatuation with Proletcult, the ideas and the images of the Proletarian Culture movement (Proletcult) and Proletcult poetry evidently participated in the process of forming his semiotic system.
To present in English the examples of external literary sources, I have translated some principle fragments from the poems which represent the association of proletarian poets Smithy. The poets of Smithy (Кузница) also praise a human mass, a collective, the We-like psychology. Here the concept of human mass, crowd dominates also in their poetry (the fragments from original poems in Russian were taken from the following publication: Ezhov, Shamurin, 1991 [2]:
The mass is - hearths,
The mass is - blast-furnaces,
It is creating convulsively, persistently,
It is creating a paradise tirelessly.
Масса — это горны, Масса — это домны,
Творящая судорожно, упорно Творящая рай неуемно.
I.G. Filipchenko, the extract from the poem И.Г. Филипченко «Массы», 1918, из
Masses, 1918, the poetry collection The Era of сборника «Эра славы» [2, p. 483] Glory
English translation by V. Bouilov
We are countless, menacing legions of Labour
We have conquered the spaces of seas, oceans and mainlands,
We lighted cities by means of artificial suns, Our proud souls are burning with the conflagration of revolts.
We are in the power of rebellious, impassioned drunkenness;
Let them scream to us: "You are the executioners
Мы несметные, грозные легионы Труда
Мы победили пространства морей, океанов и суши,
Светом искусственных солнц мы зажгли города,
Пожаром восстаний горят наши гордые души.
Мы во власти мятежного, страстного хмеля;
Пусть кричат нам: "вы палачи
of beauty",
In the name of our Tomorrow - we shall incinerate the canvases of Raphael,
We shall destroy museums, we shall crush the
flowers of art.
красоты ,
Во имя нашего Завтра - сожжем Рафаэля,
Разрушим музеи, растопчем искусства цветы.
V.T. Kirillov, the extract from the poem We, 1922, the poetry collection The Iron Messiah English translation by V. Bouilov
В.Т. Кириллов «Мы», 1922, из сборника «Железный мессия» [2, p. 447]
Platonov, in order to identify in the narrative space of the short story The Foundation Pit the possibilities and ways of development of the world, figuratively confronts Utopia and Anti-Utopia in their mutual influence and rigid collision. In comparison with the symbolism of Platonov's early poetry, the concept of human mass, crowd in The Foundation Pit is decoded and transformed into the concept of the normalized mass. "Normalized" - the term sarcastically introduced by Platonov. Ten years of Soviet history were enough to "normalize" the people, to drive their romantic enthusiasm into abnormal totalitarian frames of wage-levelling and repression. Conditionally all the characters in The Foundation Pit can be divided into 3 main social categories:
I. The human mass, crowd or the normalized mass. All they are ordinary people - Soviet workers, kol-hosniks, diggers, etc.
II. The representatives of the Communist Party and the administrative "elite", as well as the political activists - so called "deputy proletarians" (the expression of Platonov), who imposed on the people the present political regime and successfully accommodate themselves to these conditions.
III. The representatives of intelligentsia, so called old regime specialists, as well as Platonov's romantic human characters and children as the symbols of the Future (for instance, the girl Nastja with her mother, the engineer Prushevski). Their language and style are highly cultivated and corresponds to the norms of the literary Russian.
Thus, in the short novel The Foundation Pit the representatives of the human normalized mass have no right to express their opinions or even cannot dare to think (!). The appearance and behavior of the "normalized mass" are totally standardized.
In the present article here and later the quotations of extracts with page numbers from Andrei Platonov's source text and aforementioned Thomas Whitney's translation target text will be taken for quoting from the following publications: Платонов 1988 [5]; Platonov 1973 [1]:
...their faces were indifferent and bored, and a sparse thought exhausted ahead of time illuminated their longsuffering eyes. (15) Although they possessed the meaning of life, which is the equivalent of eternal happiness,
...их лица были равнодушны и скучны, редкая, заранее утомленная мысль
освещала их терпеливые глаза. [5, р. 20] ...Хотя они и владели смыслом жизни,
nonetheless their faces were gloomy and thin; что равносильно вечному счастью, од-and instead of the peace of life they had нако их лица были угрюмы и худы, а exhaustion.\1, p. 16] вместо покоя жизни они имели из-
мождение. [5, p. 22]
The people live under the conditions of totalitarian wage-levelling. Natural human feelings are violently restricted. They are defenseless before the authorities and ideological precepts. The following phrases expressively indicate the level of their self-consciousness:
- That's something I don't know, little one; I am nothing — saidChiklin... [1, p. 65]
- You have become like me now — I too am nothing. [1, p. 114]
...you see how everything has now become nothing... [1, p. 92]
- я этого, маленькая, не знаю: я же — ничто! - сказал Чиклин. [5, р. 48]
- Вы стали теперь, как я, я тоже ничто. [5, р. 74]
...видишь, нам все теперь стало ничто... [5, р. 63]
The people have no right to act independently. Moreover, they are afraid to act independently. To reflect this degree of a humiliation in The Foundation Pit Platonov actively and deliberately introduces into the text such elements of satire as sharp irony and sarcasm, as well as the elements of grotesque, allegory, menippea, carnavalization and even surrealism:
But the people themselves could not stop Народ же остановиться не мог, пока until the activist said: "Stand still until the активист не сказал: Стой до очередного next sound!" [1, p. 128] звука! [5, p. 82]
The people completely lost their dignity. Humiliation is the usual state of these "disheveled" human beings:
The people standing there did not let the Стоявшие люди ни на мгновенье не опускали activist out of their sight for a moment, and из вида активиста, ближние же ко крыльцу those nearer to the porch stared at the leader глядели на руководящего человека со всем with full desire in their unblinking eyes so желаньем в неморгающих глазах, чтобы that he should see their ready mood. [1, p. он видел их готовое настроение. [5, p. 70] 106]
Natural human feelings are strictly regulated:
...Safronov was afraid of forgetting the ...Сафронов боялся забыть про обязан-obligation of gladness... [1, p. 63] ность радости ... [5, p. 47]
...grief is supposed to have been annulled in . ..скорбь у нас должна быть аннулиро-our country! [1, p. 70] вана! [5, p. 50]
The "collective" consciousness is the only ideologically "accepted" form of intellectual activity: ...nothing violated the collectivized property ...ничто не нарушало обобществленного and the quiet of the collective con- имущества и тишины коллективного со-sciousness. [1, p. 85] знания. [5, p. 59]
- Comrades! - Safronov began to define — Товарищи! — начал определять Сафронов the general feeling. [1, p. 70] всеобщее чувство. [5, p. 51]
The people are defenseless before the authorities and their ideological precepts. They live in conditions of totalitarian wage-levelling:
He lived and he gazed with his eyes only be- Он жил и глядел глазами лишь оттого, cause he had the documents of a middle что имел документы середняка, и его peasant, and his heart was permitted by the сердце билось по закону. [5, p. 59] law to beat. [1, p. 86]
As created by Platonov, the concept of the normalized mass refers to those who have no right to think or to discuss, and symbolizes a class idea of collectivism: there are no individuals - all of them are only "particles", "screws" of a huge human "monolith". Platonov's certain characters, human beings are totally mechanized. They are treated as more or less perfect machines in an endless line of matching "normalized" automatic devices stuffed with "normalized" thoughts. Platonov wrote about that in 1920 in his early publicistic article Normalized worker ("Нормализованный работник") [3]:
The purpose...of Revolution is to destroy individualities and to give birth through their deaths to a new living creature - to the Society, to the Collective - a unified organism of the living surface. (Platonov 1920; English translation by V. Bouilov)
«... Дело... революции - уничтожить личности и родить их смертью новое живое существо — общество, коллектив, единый организм живой поверхности» (А. Платонов. Нормализованный работник. "Воронежская коммуна", 1920, 29 декабря) [3].
In the next example Platonov shows, by use of the synecdoche, the atmosphere of fear and the zombi-type depersonalization in which the normalized kolkhozniks lived in the Soviet countryside:
... someone knocked at the door softly and in the ...в дверь постучала чья-то негромкая sounds of that hand could be heard fear as a рука, и в звуках той руки был еще слышен vestige of the former order. [1, p. 131] страх-пережиток. [5, p. 85]
In the translation of this fragment Thomas Whitney partly preserves the metonymical "nature" of
13
the source text: the Russian metonymical construction is translated literally by use of the equivalent English metonymical construction in the sounds of that hand.
One of the main features of Platonov's language is concerned with the reflection of all the typical elements of the language of the Soviet epoch. This quasi-language of utopia can be relatively distinguished as one of two basic components of the Russian national linguistic diaglossia, as a secondary semiotic system - "an annex" to the literary Russian language created for an exceptional purpose in a certain political and ideological socium.
This is a language of declarations and prescriptions, slogans and propaganda posters - a convenient language for the proclamation of a New Ideal Society and for the formation of a human Normalized Mass that is vulnerable to any kind of manipulation and directed programming. The natural cognitive process of creating thoughts turns into a mechanical substitution of limited ideological, communicative and behaviorist clichés. In The Foundation Pit Andrei Platonov's talent reflects this "zombie effect" at a large scale.
Platonov's characters are incapable of expressing themselves and usually they cannot speak connectedly. They can pronounce only separate phrases, but they cannot assemble them into a comprehensive speech. They think very seldom, if they can think at all. Platonov determined the physical and intellectual condition of this poor, exhausted "normalized" people in such a way:
He could think only with difficulty, and he
was greatly grieved about that fact - willy-nilly it was his lot only to feel and silently to be troubled. [1, p. 46]
Думать он мог с трудом и сильно тужил об этом - поневоле ему приходилось лишь чувствовать и безмолвно волноваться. [5, р. 37]
Chiklin had a small stony head, thickly grown over with hair, and therefore all his life he had been either a blockhead or else dug with his spade, and he never ever managed to think and did not elucidate to Safronov his doubts. [1, p. 44]
...tired, unthinking people. [1, p. 27]
...Yelisei...because of the absence of his mind
he was unable to say even one word. [1, p. 115]
Чиклин имел маленькую каменистую голову, густо обросшую волосами, потому что всю жизнь либо бил балдой, либо рыл лопатой, а думать не успевал и не объяснил Сафронову его сомнения. [5, р. 36]
...усталых, недумающих людей. [5, р. 28]
...Елисей...от отсутствия своего ума не
мог сказать ни одного слова. [5, р. 75]
This mental state of them can be considered as a sort of a communicative "aphasia": Platonov's characters are disabled, incapable of thinking, literally - unthinking people. And, as a result, in the absence of thoughts and intentions they have nothing to express in their speech. The situation "simulated" by Platonov in his text could be understood in two different ways:
I. They cannot think at all - they are trained by the political system and accustomed not to think. And what is more, they prefer and, perhaps, even enjoy not to think themselves at all;
II. They cannot think in the required ideological way. And since they are not allowed to think in a different way - they have nothing to do but only to feel (the expression of Platonov).
In their turn, the representatives of the Party and administrative elite, "the deputy proletarians" (the grotesque expression of Platonov), who imposed on the people such communicative and mental regime; successfully accommodate themselves to these conditions:
... having memorized the formulations, slogans, verses, precepts, all kind of words of wisdom, the theses of various formal statements, resolutions, verses of songs et cetera he then made his rounds of organs and organizations where he was known and respected as a politically active social force - and there Kozlov used to frighten the already frightened employees with his scientificalness, his breadth of outlook, and his well groundedness in politics. [1, p. 78]
...запомнив формулировки, лозунги, стихи, заветы, всякие слова мудрости, тезисы различных актов, резолюций, строфы песен и прочее, он шел в обход органов и организаций, где его знали и уважали как активную общественную силу, - и там Козлов пугал и так уже напуганных служащих своей научностью, кругозором и
подкованностью. [5, р. 55]
Platonov defines the basic reason of such mass mental and language deformations which lies in the nature of the Soviet utopia. The people are needed to work but are not required to think and express orally their opinions. This is the main precondition for the secured existence and safety of any totalitarian society whosepurpose...is to destroy individualities:
- To you, Voshchev, the state has given an extra hour for your pensiveness. You used to work eight and now you work seven. You would have done better to go on living and keep your mouth shut! If all of us all at once were to start to ponder, who would act? [1, p. 6]
- Тебе, Вощев, государство дало лишний час на твою задумчивость - работал восемь, теперь семь, ты бы и жил -молчал! Если все мы сразу задумаемся, то кто же действовать будет? [5, р. 16]
Only selected people are permitted to think, but all others must work. Only certain people can contrive ideas and thoughts: others must learn and use them mechanically. In a totalitarian society people are forced to use ready phrases "stored up" by their political leaders. This "language acts as a lexically and stylistically marked signal which helps to select "the ideologically loyal people" from the political aliens. It acts as "a blotting", "a ticket" for passing into the determined, isolated zone of class and ideological communication.
By creating the language of utopia they indirectly, or more often attentively, frustrate the national literary language. The new Soviet language of ideology was generated by the usage of a limited set of communicative and ideological clichés. The complex process of the production of speech as a process of the gradual realization of the semantic, grammatical and pragmatic rules
which are being formed on the basis of natural cognitive structures presupposes orientation, planning and a final realization of any oral or written expression. In the language of utopia this process is replaced by a mechanically organized substitution of ready-made semanticized images.
The language of utopia in Platonov's prose encompasses the rhetoric of Marxist-Leninist political dogma, the language of political propaganda and Soviet bureaucratese. Platonov uses the language and the symbolism of the totalitarian system in the extremely ironical and critical context. For example, in the next fragment the irrelevant and redundant confusion of ideological clichés and the words of the different styles produces a sharp satirical effect. Platonov deliberately impregnated his text with the grotesque and absurd ideological falsity:
Safronov, observing the passive silence, began to act in place of the radio:
- Let us put the question; where did the Russian people originate from? And let us reply: from out of bourgeois smallfry! The Russian people might have been born from somewhere else, but there was other place. And therefore we must hurl everyone into the brine of socialism so that the hide of capitalism will come off them easily and so their hearts will pay attention to the heat of life around the bonfire of class struggle, and so enthusiasm should take place!... [1, p. 63]
Сафронов, заметив пассивное молчание, стал действовать вместо радио: - Поставим вопрос: откуда взялся русский народ? И ответим: из буржуазной мелочи! Он бы и еще откуда-нибудь родился, да больше места не было. А потому мы должны бросить каждого в рассол социализма, чтоб с него слезла шкура капитализма и сердце обратило внимание на жар жизни вокруг костра классовой борьбы и произошел бы энтузиазм! ... [5, р. 47]
In stylistically using this confusion, Platonov severely criticizes the primitiveness of the propaganda, the mythologisation of ideology, the collectivist, stereotyped, clichéd way of speaking and thinking.
Thus, the principal peculiarity of the ideologized speech used in Platonov's text lies in its oral, public character. The communication between the producers of ideological speech and the collective, mass addressees consists of the unilateral predominance of the former over the latter. Although this speech is spontaneous it is formed by using limited communicative and ideological clichés. Using these clichés allows the speakers to exclude the creation of abstract thoughts. The function of this unilateral predominance makes its actual character monological, despite the external visible dialogical character of communicative situations.
The varieties of radical semantic and syntactic deformations which Platonov introduces into the text should also be included in the complex cooperation between extra-linguistic and linguistic components of Andrei Platonov's idiostyle. They include the expansion of valance, contamination, paronomasia, rough truncation of expressions, tautology, metonymy, illogical transposition of elements within expressions, etc. There exists an effective mechanism for furthering the cooperation of the elements of the text on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic levels as well as their cooperation with the semiotic macro-level of that text.
In Platonov's occasional analytical constructions the author's nonnormative separate expression of lexical and grammatical meanings results in the connotation of unnatural, strained, stilted, puppet-like behavior of the representatives of the Party and administrative elite - "the deputy proletarians":
..Chiklin...struck the yellow-eyed peasant a blow in the face to make him begin to live politically aware. [1, p. 88]
- Нечаянно! - произнес Чиклин и сделал мужику удар в лицо, чтобы он стал жить сознательно. [5, р. 60]
Chiklin, without a quaver of his torso gave the priest a conscientious blow on his cheek bone. [1, p. 103]
Чиклин, не колебнувшись корпусом, сделал попу сознательный удар в скуло. [5, p. 69]
Thereupon Chiklin calmly gave the activist a Далее Чиклин покойно дал активисту blow with his fist in the chest... [1, p. 146] ручной удар в грудь... [5, p. 91]
In the context of the ideological struggle, the use of the occasional analytical constructions helps Platonov to expose in a very expressive and grotesque way the impulsive and mechanical, unconscious and instinctive, and extremely aggressive nature of their behavior and the repressive, totalitarian nature of the Stalinist "normalized" life as a whole. In this case, the English word for word translation of Platonov's analytical constructions does not lead to the connotation of the source text. The problem can be explained by the fact that in English the use of analytical constructions in the same context is in line with syntactical norms.
Platonov, with the purpose of producing such a satirical effect, also uses different word-formative elements in Russian. The words with derivational suffixes -ец, -щик in the new Soviet language express a negative attitude to objects, events and persons which, according to A.M. Selischev [7, p. 156], are nominated by these words. Thomas Whitney, the author of this translation of The Foundation Pit, also tried to derive new occasional words in English by violating the norms of this language by analogy with the source text. He effectively used the rich opportunities provided by an absence of normative frames in the language of Platonov:
- Does that mean that I am an overdoer? - the trade union representative was frightened, ever more clearly divining the situation.
- We have in our trade union bureau a certain overpraiser and so I, it seems, am an overdoer, am
I? [1, p. 19]
- Значит, я переугожденец? - все более догадываясь, пугался профупол-номоченный.
- У нас есть в профбюро один какой-то аллилуйщик, а я, значит, переугожденец? [5, р. 23]
The new translator's occasionalisms overdoer (instead of переугожденец) and overpraiser (instead of аллилуйщик) sound very unusual. One can also feel their negative and ironical semantic inflection.
In the next example Platonov, with the purpose of a grammatical realization of his pragmatic intentions, activates the constructions shock labor - to break open.
Next to the smithy hung a slogan on a banner: Около кузни висел на плетне возглас, нари-
"For the Party, for loyalty to it, for shock labor сованный по флагу: "За партию, за вер-
which is breaking open the door into the future ность ей, за ударный труд, пробивающий
for the proletariat." [1, p. 136] пролетариату двери в будущее..." [5, p. 86]
In Platonov's attributive construction 'shock labor' the "reviving" of the internal form of the attribute 'shock' - 'striking' brings to the actualization of the latent predicativity of the adjective 'shock', and results in a radical semantic expansion of the expression. Thus, here is the 'shock labor' which is literally "striking and breaking open the doors into the future for the proletariat".
The poetics of utopia finely reconstructed in Platonov's text is characterized by an artificial and stylistically incorrect confusion of clichés (shock labor) and words of high style (the door into the future). It successfully expresses the emotional and logical substance of Soviet propaganda slogans and demonstrates the author's critical and ironic interpretation of the quasi-language of utopia.
The language of Platonov provides a fascinating puzzle in that it is a semiotically coded language of an anti-utopia. He uses this language in its iconic, semiotic function. He uses the semiotics and the quasi-language of the totalitarian system to expose and fight the system. In his writing Platonov is interested not in the external and formal, "visible" functioning of the plot, but in its internal philosophical and moral "nature." The creation of certain human types is not the main purpose of Platonov as a writer. On the contrary, and as it was accentuated before, Platonov's characters can be considered as "guinea pigs" by means of which he introduced ideas in order to test them in the symbolic space of a fictional text. This fact explains the peculiarities of the compositional structure in The Foundation Pit. This is not a narration of action, but a narration of the author's doubts and desires materialized in the dialogic-monologue space of the verbal intercourse of his characters. In The Foundation Pit Platonov turns the plot into the myth.
In The Foundation Pit the language serves as the means of expression for a complicated se-miotic and philosophical system of concepts in which everything has a common conceptual sense. This literary collision of Utopia and Anti-Utopia, where individual objects, characters, concepts and events are both highly idealized and at the same time serve as objects of acute author's irony, is a direct manifestation of the genre dualism of The Foundation Pit. Thus, strengthening of this contradiction is also mainly achieved through the input of "a game of words", built on their non-equivalent replacement and the collision of their meanings. This is how Platonov artistically realizes one of the most important features of his prose text, related to its implicativeness. The essence of Andrei Platonov's author's approach is to create an artfully modeled conflict by intersecting and colliding with Utopia and and Anti-Utopia as two positions and postulates of the dialectics of the development of society, two value systems and two worldview forms.
References:
1. Platonov A. (1973). Котлован. The Foundation Pit. A bi-lingual edition. Michigan: Ann Arbor.
2. Yezhov I.S., Shamurin E.I. (1991). Russian poetry of the 20th century. The anthology of Russian lyrics of the first quarter of the 20th century. Moscow: Amirus.
3. Platonov A.P. (1920). A Normalized Worker. "Voronezhskaya kommuna", December 29, 1920.
4. Platonov A.P. (1985). "The Blue Depth". Collection of works. Volume 3. Moscow: Sovetskaya Rossiya, pp. 487-518.
5. Platonov A.P. (1988). The Foundation Pit. Selected Prose. Moscow: Knizhnaya Palata.
6. Platonov A.P. (2004). Works. Scientific publication. Volume I, Book 1, ed. N.V. Kornienko. Moscow: IMLI, Russian Arademy of Science.
7. Selishchev A.M. (1968). Selected works. The language of the revolutionary epoch. Moscow: Prosveschenie, pp. 141-158.
Information about the author:
Vassili Bouilov (Helsinki, Finland) - PhD, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), Senior lecturer of Russian Language and Translation, Joensuu, Finland (the author permanently lives in Helsinki, Finland), e-mail:vassili.bouilov@ueffi
Contribution of the author. The author contributed equality to the present research.
