THE STRATEGY OF GENRE IN A. PLATONOV’S SHORT NOVELS OF THE 1930

Abstract

The article analyzes a writer’s genre strategy based on the materials of A. Platonov’s short novels of the 1930s (“Th e Foundation Pit” [“Kotlovan”], “For future use” [“Vprok”], “Bread and reading” [“Hleb i chtenie”], “Juvenile sea” [“Uvenil’noe more”], “Dzhan”). These short novels became a link between his two novels “Chevengur” (1926—1928) and “Happy Moscow” (1933—1936). The comprehensive analysis of the short novels of the 1930s in the dialectics of genre development allows us to understand Andrei Platonov’s artistic world, the role of genre in the implementation of his creative idea, the specifi cs of genre thinking, and to identify the relationship between the genre and utopian/dystopian strategies of the writer. The article concludes that the short novels of the 1930s constitute a cycle and are united by a usual plot of “test”, the type of a hero (a worker-wanderer), the poetics of the conclusions. The recon-struction of the author’s model of the genre and its dynamics in the works of one of the distinguished writers of Russian and World literature of contemporary history leads to a deeper understanding of the artistic nature, role and genesis of the short novel in genre analysis of 20th century-literature

Keywords

• A. Platonov
• the short novels of the 1930s
• creative strategy
• genre
• principles of forming a genre
• short novels
• the plot of “test”