THE ICON IN WAR STORIES BY A. PLATONOV

Abstract

The article deals with the role of icon in the world of war stories by Andrei Platonov (Nikodim Maksimov, Recovery of the Fallen) as compared with his early prose of the 1920s-30s (The Homeland of Electricity) on the basis of archival research and the texts of Platonov's wartime works. In his early texts the icon, while described at length, is re-coded into the anti-icon both visually and semantically. Our analysis has shown that in his stories written in 1941-1945 Platonov moves away from lengthy descriptions of icons and also from their artistic re-coding and destruction. In the poetics of his war stories, the icon appears at strategically important narrative positions (title, buildup, main plot focus) and acts as a sacral sign witnessing the renewal of religious memory, the profundity and power of people's faith. During the Second World War addressing the spiritual experience of the past, including its religious dimension, was vitally important for the Russian people and the Russian writer Andrei Platonov.

Keywords

• icon
• story
• poetics of genre
• A. Platonov
• World War II literature