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Abstract:

The article proposes a hypothesis according to which the concept of the global energy revolution, put forward by Nikola Tesla in his Manifesto and a number of other publications in the 1900s and 1920s, had a significant impact on the formation of Platonov’s creative credo and the ideology and poetics of a large number of his works. A number of Tesla’s discoveries and inventions are vividly reflected in the writer’s works, including the “generator-transformer,” the method of transmitting electricity without wires, the use of electric charge to saturate the soil with energy, and others. In fact, Platonov supported Tesla’s idea of overcoming wars and social problems through the energy saturation of human civilization in his scientific, technical, and literary works. The idea of a global energy revolution was put forward by Tesla in his “Manifesto,” as well as in his article “Wireless Transmission of Energy as a Means of Establishing Universal Peace” (“Electrical World,” 1904), which was translated into Russian by S.M. Maizel in a publication of the same name in the journal “Electricity” (1905, no. 9–10, pp. 136–138). It presents the idea of overcoming the political strife and social ills of humanity by changing the energy and, consequently, the ontological and moral position of man in the universe. This concept of a socio-energy world revolution is extremely close to the views and ideas that Platonov nurtured throughout his life, which are at the core of the plots in his works and form the basis of the ideology of his philosophical characters.