Hail to New York Review Books.
The most important thing I can convey here is that this recently published NYRB edition is a gem, superbly translated by Richard Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler (reader will be familiar with Richard Chandler's translation of Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman). This edition also includes a most informative 16-page Introduction, a Chronology, and The History of Chevengur: An Excerpt from an Early Draft of Chevengur. Additionally, there's a 26-page essay by Vladimir Sharov titled Platonov's People, along with over 40-pages of detailed notes. All together, any reader will be provided with enough material to grasp the social, historical, and social context of this classic work of Soviet literature.
And what a novel it is. Andrey Platonov penned his work in 1928, a tale set in the brutal, horrific years (1910s-early 1920s) in the south of Russia, where famine, disease, and the ravages of violence and civil war are all too prevalent. His novel angered the Soviets; Stalin even referred to Platonov as a bastard. Consequently, the first complete version of Chevengur wasn't published in his home country until 1988.
Chevengur is the name of a district center where a stark form of communism has taken hold. However, the tale doesn't unfold in Chevengur until midway into the novel's 477 pages. Before that, in the pre-Chevengur chapters, a reader will come across many memorable characters and scenes. Here's a batch of bits to serve as a taste:
Life Most Brutal - Bouts of famine spread across the south of Russia beginning in the late 19th century. There's drought and crop failure in the novel's opening pages. How bad are things in the poor village Platonov writes about? Half the villagers escape to the cities or the mines. The other half run off to the forest to live wild, eating raw grass, leaves, and bark. “The people who left were nearly all adults – the children had either taken care to die in advance or had run off to live as beggars. As for the unweaned babies, their mothers had left them to gradually wither away, not allowing them to suck their fill.” Obviously, if these people survive to hear about proposed social changes, they will be all ears.
Perfect Communism - Zakhar Pavlovich, who was raised as an orphan, remained alone in the village. Readers come to know the mindset and habits of this sweet older man. However, there comes a time when even Zakhar must hit the road and head for the city. Before he sets out, he sits down for a smoke and gazes at some ants. “Just give us the minds of ants or mosquitoes and we'll set our lives straight in no time at all! When it comes to communal life, these little creatures are master craftsmen. Man's nowhere near as skilled as an ant.” A prime philosophic conundrum confronting thinkers who proposed radical social change during these tumultuous, revolutionary times is: What is natural and what is unnatural for humans? Can humans create a harmonious communal life that will endure?
Machines On The Move - A mile outside the city, our sweet older man perches on a rooftop and looks out at a railyard, “where impetuous rail way trains sometimes passed by. The rotation of the locomotive's wheels and its fast breathing made Zakhar Pavlovich's body buzz with joy, and his sympathy with the engine made his eyes moisten with light tears.” Most especially in those early decades of the 20th century, machines, particularly trains, claimed a critical, central role in the shaping of the future for humankind and society. Initially, Zakhar loves and highly respects all the machinery associated with these grand railway locomotives and takes a job as an assistant in the yard. But eventually Zakhar has reservations. “Somehow he began to doubt whether artifacts and machines truly were more precious than any human being.” Yet another philosophic quandary revolutionaries were forced to ponder: How and to what extent should machines and technology be employed to effect sweeping social change? And is a human nothing more than an imperfect cog in a giant social machine?
Russian Saint - “Sasha had no consciousness of himself as a solid and self-sustaining object – he was always imagining something or other with his heart, and this left no room for any representation of his own self.” Meet Sasha Dvanov, the novel's young Christ-like hero, who himself is an orphan, son of a fisherman who drowned himself to see what death was like when Sasha was a mere lad. Sasha is a voracious reader of Marxism and the literature of the revolutionaries. Sasha believes revolution means the end of the world that will create a future where things like anxiety will be instantly annihilated, a future that “could only be made; it couldn't be hold in words.” Sasha is surely among the most interesting and compelling of Platonov's characters.
Extreme Ideologies - “With us everything is decided by the majority. And, since nearly everyone is illiterate, the day will come for the illiterate to decree that the literate should unlearn their letters – in the name of universal equality. All the more so, since getting a few to unlearn their letters will be a lot simpler than teaching everybody from the beginning.” So proclaims a comrade Kopionkin in conversation with Sasha. Such radical thinking serves as a foretaste of the violence to take place in the near future. Any guesses how Chevengur will fare?
Andrey Platonov had a keen eye to detect the absurdities and follies of what was to evolve into the Soviet nation. And he unflinchingly portrayed the brutality, cruelty, and horrors of the Soviet utopia (or dystopia) by the name of Chevengur. Read all about it in his epic novel.
Andrey Platonov, 1899-1951
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