About ex.editor:
Natalia V. Kornienko, DSc in Philology, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director of Research, Head of the Department of Modern Russian Literature and Literature of the Russian Abroad, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia
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Acknowledgments:
The publication is carried out with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation under the project “Academic collected works of A.P. Platonov”.
Abstract:
IWL RAS has published the 4th volume of “Works” by Andrey Platonov. It includes works written by the author from the summer of 1928 to the summer of 1932, and consists of 2 books. The first includes novels: “For the Future” (1930), “The Pit” (1930) and “Juvenile Sea” (1932); the second includes stories and essays, non-fictional “correspondent’s notes”, plays, scripts for silent films, literary-critical articles, sketches, technical projects and texts for the factory’s newspaper, which is a trace of Platonov’s participation in the work of the writing team, which helped to eliminate the “breakthrough” on one from factories of the country. 1928–1932 turned out to be significant both for the country and for the literary community in general and Andrei Platonov in particular. In the history of the country, this was the time of its enormous “breakdown” – the first five-year plan, which became the “five-year plan in four years” (late 1928–1932) and the most dramatic stage of collectivization and industrialization; the first high-profile political trials over “pests”: “Shakhty Trial” (1928), public trials over the so-called “Industrial Party” (1930) and “Union Bureau of Mensheviks” (1931), etc. For literary associations and writers themselves the same time has passed under the sign of the dictatorship of the RAPP. During the period of turbulent historical transformations of the first five-year plan, the direction of the writer’s talent, which he will talk about at his recital at the All-Union Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on February 1, 1932, was especially acutely manifested: “... from the very beginning of my literary work, I clearly understood and always wanted to be precisely a political writer...”. Works of 1928–1932 embraced everything essential in the policy of the young Soviet state: collectivization, industrialization, processes over “pests”. And literary fate accumulated what writers lived with: attacks from the RAPP, work for newspapers, radio and cinema, participation in the elimination of “breakthroughs” in production, trips to factories, plants and collective farms in search of the heroes of the five-year plan. The texts included in the 4th volume were scientifically prepared taking into account all the surviving sources: autographs, typescripts, and lifetime publications. The dating of a number of works has been updated. All works are provided with detailed commentary. The volume is largely based on new archival searches concerning the biography and work of Platonov, and also includes materials from the writer's family archive (which is currently in the collections of the Department of Manuscripts of the IWL RAS). Some of these archival materials were previously published in special editions accompanying the Collected Works of A. Platonov, but the reader will see some for the first time in this volume. Acknowledgments: The publication is carried out with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation under the project “Academic collected works of A.P. Platonov”.