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Abstract:

The publication provides the first description of Platonov’s library, stored in the Manuscript Department of the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The total composition of the library includes 339 titles. Published sections of the library include lifetime articles about Platonov in periodicals and works by other authors (176 storage units in total with chronological scope from 1872 to 1950). The publication does not reproduce that library’s part (163 storage units) that contains books, collections, journals and newspapers with publications of the writer himself: these lifetime sources will be described in the history of the corresponding texts in the Collected Works of Platonov, which is in preparation now. The annotations contain owner’s and dedicatory inscriptions (among the donors are L. Gumilevsky, I. Sats, A. Novikov, B. Pilnyak, P. Skosyrev, N. Tikhonov, V. Bokov, and other writers); all text and non-text notes of Platonov are described in detail; an indication is given of the presence of droppings from other persons. The introduction of information about Platonov’s home library into scientific circulation is only the first step towards reconstructing the writer’s reading circle, which requires further search for the books that belonged to him.