The Great Patriotic War left a mark in the soul of every Russian person. A lot has been written about her in different ways, but in the first post-war years, everything basically boiled down to exalting the image of a hero-soldier returning to his relatives after a long separation. In principle, no one argued with this, but there was another side to this joyful event. A. Platonov devoted his story to this. The "Return", a brief summary of which is given here, has become a work that made us take a fresh look at how hard it was for yesterday's soldiers to get used to peaceful life.
Scandalous publication
The authorities have long been wary of creativity. The situation worsened after the Novy Mir magazine published his new work, The Ivanov Family, in 1946 (later the name changed and became more capacious). “The most vile slander against the Soviet people,” such a characterization was received a few months later in an article by V. Yermilov, the story “Return”. Platonov (a brief summary of the text will show this) portrayed Alexei, who returned from the front, not at all in a heroic halo. Moreover, some of his actions cause condemnation from the reader, which is contrary to the established tradition. Let's see what's so special about the story.
Long awaited mobilization
It was September 1945. The captain of the guard with the common surname Ivanov (this fact is not accidental) got the opportunity to go home. For four years he did not see his little daughter either. sent a telegram in advance and began to prepare for a meeting with his family. So begins the story "The Return" of Platonov.
The unexpected meeting of the hero with Masha is an important moment. Alexei's train was delayed for the second day when he saw a friend at the station. The girl served in the dining room, and now she was also heading home. They quickly got along, as both were afraid of meeting with a past life, which they had lost the habit of during the war years.
On the way home: a summary
Platonov's "Return" continues with a story about a short relationship that arose between Alexei and his friend. When the train entered the city where Masha lived, Ivanov suddenly left with her. The twenty-year-old girl was very grateful to her companion, as she was afraid of the future. Her parents were driven away by the Germans, and she felt lonely. Aleksey also experienced incomprehensible confusion. He should have gone home, but he kept putting off meeting his family.
Family meeting
At home, Alexei Alekseevich had been waiting for the sixth day. The wife took time off from the brick factory and went out to the train three times. On the day of arrival, twelve-year-old Petrusha (or Peter, as Platonov called him in the story "The Return" in the story "The Return") was waiting for his father at the station. The summary of the dialogue that emerged and the description of their meeting is as follows. The father saw in his son a little peasant, accustomed to everyday problems. Yes, he acted like an adult. He asked in detail about why he had been driving for so long and how many orders he had received, then he took a duffel bag and headed towards the house.
Lyubov Vasilievna was waiting on the porch. She had already cleaned the house, and only one thought bothered her - Semyon Evseevich, who had lost his family and now became attached to her children.
Alexei hugged his wife and felt the "familiar warmth". Little Nastya, who did not remember her father at all, grabbed him by the leg and tried to pull him away from his mother.
We entered the house. While his wife and children busied themselves with preparing dinner, Ivanov looked around the room and seemed to get to know her anew. The smell of his native home and the observation of the bustle that was taking place evoked pleasant and at the same time disturbing thoughts in him - the author gives a brief summary of them.
Platonov's "return" is more of a description of Alexei's "getting used" to a new life. He seemed to see his family in front of him, but for some reason he did not feel joy from the meeting. Lyubov Vasilievna, who had become unaccustomed to him, was shy and behaved as in her youth. The daughter did simple housework. Petrushka gave commands in his usual tone and somehow resembled a grumbling old man.
Alexei looked at them and tried to understand how they lived without him. And he felt ashamed that he did not have a strong fatherly feeling for his son.
First family dinner
Finally, everyone gathered at the table. Parsley ate a piece of the pie and collected all the crumbs. On the offer to take, he seriously replied that he was full. His words: "I want you to get more" - made the parents shudder. Pushed her piece and Nastya. She said it was for Semyon Evseevich. Alexei tensed - this moment was the beginning of a difficult conversation between the spouses. Lyubov Vasilievna tried to get away from the topic, briefly answering that the man had lost his family and now he comes to them to tinker with the children. She is calmer because of this: she works late, and the guys are supervised. However, Ivanov did not like the answer.
Petrushka, sensing something was wrong, turned the conversation to the weather, then gave orders about the next day. They also concerned the father, who urgently needed to register and receive cards. Aleksey suddenly felt shy in front of his early grown-up son.
They ate cabbage soup in silence, as if trying to enjoy quiet family happiness - this is how A. Platonov concludes the story about dinner.
"Return": the content of the night conversation
Lyubov Vasilievna was looking forward to the evening so that she could be alone with her husband. But the conversation didn't work. Awakened Petrushka heard the loud voices of his parents. Aleksey accused his wife of being in touch with Semyon Evseevich, and she tried to explain that there was nothing between them. Lyubov Vasilievna spoke about the difficult life with two small children - Petrushka did not immediately become a housekeeper. The fact that she always thought only of her husband. And only once did she succumb to feelings, when it was already unbearable to endure both the hardships of life and the endless loneliness. But she immediately noticed that the meeting with the instructor of the district committee made her understand how much she lived after that with the hope of his return. Platonov (a summary of the conversation cannot convey all the feelings of the heroine) draws attention to a woman who did not feel guilty, but was also unable to convince her husband of this. The sound of cracked glass on the lamp - Alexei crushed it - made his son intervene in the conversation. He stood up for his mother and told a story about a local peasant Khariton. While he fought, his wife lived with others. When he returned, he was angry at first, and then came up with a story that he also had women. Now they are doing well. Ivanov was embarrassed: “I thought he would say about my Masha ...”.
Unexpected insight
What happened in the morning can be called "the real return." Platonov - the summary and the full text of the finale of the story prove this - meant by this word not just the arrival of the hero home.
Waking up, Petrushka saw Nastya. She said that her father took the bag and left. The boy understood everything, grabbed his sister by the hand and ran to the station.
Alexei at this time entered the vestibule of a moving train: he was thinking about Masha. Suddenly Ivanov saw children running after the train. They fell, but rose and again moved forward, now to the crossing. Suddenly, Alexey realized that it was Petrushka and Nastya. It became hot in his chest, and his whole being was filled with "warmth and shudder." An unusual sensation seized the hero. “Before, he felt another life through the barrier of pride and self-interest, and now he suddenly touched her with a bare heart.”
He dropped the bag on the ground and got off the train...
An analysis of Platonov's "Return" makes it possible to understand how difficult was the process of getting used to the peaceful life of yesterday's soldier, who for a long time saw only death and destruction.
In this lesson, you will get acquainted with A. Platonov's story "Return". We will analyze the text of the story, consider its subtext and the symbolic meaning of the artistic images that the author uses. Let's talk about the lost generation.
Platonov was born in Voronezh, in the family of a railway worker. There were eleven children in the family, Andrei was the eldest. Platonov began to work very early, at the age of thirteen. It was necessary to feed the family, help raise brothers and sisters. In 1918, the future writer entered the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute in the electrical department. And already in 1919, he began active cooperation with many newspapers as a poet and correspondent.
Soon he begins to write prose - stories, novels, novels. Platonov's work was perceived with hostility by the Soviet authorities, many of his works were criticized. The fact is that Platonov wrote honest prose about a person, and this contradicted the ideology of socialist realism.
Platonov's literary activity begins with poetry. In his poems, the poet creates images of little people deprived of fate. Here, for example, are a few lines about a blind man:
You are alive, you are alive, you are the only one
And the wall is just smoke before our eyes,
You are blind, but there is a mysterious light in you,
You are the only one in the world."
In 1922, the first collection of Platonov's poems "Blue Depth" was published. Platonov's poems received high marks from critics. In particular, the poet of the Silver Age V. Bryusov wrote: "... he has a rich imagination, a bold language and his own approach to topics."
Socialist realism (Sotsrealism) is an artistic method in literature and art, officially encouraged by the party bodies of the USSR, built on the socialist concept of the world and man.
The method was formulated by Soviet cultural figures under the leadership of Stalin in 1932. It covered all areas of artistic activity: literature, drama, cinema, painting, sculpture, architecture. M. Gorky was recognized as the leading writer of socialist realism. (Fig. 2.)
Rice. 2. Maxim Gorky and Joseph Stalin ()
Gorky wrote: “It is vitally and creatively necessary for our writers to take a point of view, from the height of which - and only from its height - all the dirty crimes of capitalism, all the meanness of its bloody intentions are clearly visible, and all the greatness of the heroic work of the proletariat-dictator is visible."
During the Great Patriotic War, Platonov, a correspondent captain, worked for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. His war stories appear in print. At the end of 1946, Andrei Platonov publishes the story "Return". The working title of the story was The Ivanov Family. In 1947, the writer was criticized and persecuted for this story. What was the reason for this?
In the story "Return" A. Platonov tells how a soldier returns from the war. With the theme of victory, each of us is associated with joyful emotions, associations with spring, with the triumph of life. However, in Platonov's narrative we do not see this joy. The action in the story takes place in autumn, everything around is gloomy and dull. The artist Platonov outlined the landscape with just a few strokes, but he did it masterfully. Autumn is the time of the year, which is associated with the period of withering, dying. Autumn in the story is a symbol of war. And even those who survived this war are experiencing autumn in their souls. They have already forgotten what real full-fledged happiness and joy are. They live content with simple joy at hand, little moments of little happiness that they can find in the conditions of war. Thus, Platonov through the landscape conveys the mood of the protagonist Alexei Ivanov, a soldier returning from the war.
At first, we do not understand the reasons for the autumn mood of the hero. It would seem that the soldier himself is intact, they are waiting for him at home, all his relatives are alive and well, but the hero is in no hurry to go home. First, Alexei returns to the unit because the train was late, and then he leaves the station with his fellow soldier and spends several days with her. And his wife and children are waiting for him home, go to the station and meet the trains. Reading this, we begin to condemn Alexei Ivanov, because it is easier to condemn than to understand.
In the story, Platonov wanted to show that for a soldier who spent four years in the war, there is no longer a concept of a peaceful life. He forgot what it was, a military unit became his family, and fellow soldiers became his relatives. That is why the soldier Ivanov feels orphaned without an army. A soldier cannot suddenly break with his military past and therefore stops for a few days with his fellow soldier Masha. Then he remembers for a long time that her hair smells like autumn. Because Masha is part of his military life, and in civilian life everything is unfamiliar, everything has long been forgotten. It is these feelings that a soldier experiences when he returns home.
“Ivanov examined all the objects of the house in order - a wall clock, a cupboard, a thermometer on the wall, chairs, flowers on the windowsills, a Russian kitchen stove ... They lived here for a long time without him and missed him. Now he returned and looked at them, reacquainting himself with each of them, as with a relative who lived without him in melancholy and poverty. He breathed in the settled, familiar smell of the house - smoldering wood, warmth from the bodies of his children, burning on the stove. This smell was the same before, four years ago, and it did not dissipate or change without it. Ivanov did not feel this smell anywhere else, although he visited hundreds of dwellings in different countries during the war; there smelled of a different spirit, in which, however, there was no property of a native home.
Household items remained the same, and the smell of the house is the same, but this is perhaps the only thing that has been preserved from that distant, past life, and everything else has changed.
Initially calling the story "The Ivanov Family", the author wanted to emphasize the main task of the story, to show that the war destroys and destroys everything in its path, and even the spiritual connection between loved ones. Alexei Ivanov met with his wife and children, as with strangers, strangers to him. All these four years, the Ivanov family lived a difficult military life. They have their own view of the war, for them it is first of all - hard and exhausting work, devastation, hunger, cold. The trouble they experienced apart from their father changed them and alienated them from him.
“Strange and still not entirely clear was Ivanov's home. The wife was the same - with a sweet, shy, although already very tired face, and the children were the same that were born from him, only grown up during the war, as it should be. But something prevented Ivanov from feeling the joy of his return with all his heart - he was probably too unaccustomed to home life and could not immediately understand even the closest, dearest people. (Fig. 3.)
Rice. 3. Frame from the film based on the story ()
Wife Lyuba does not complain to her husband, does not tell all the details of the harsh working military everyday life. However, we learn a lot from snippets of conversation. All these years, Lyuba worked hard and took care of the children, giving them the last. She herself was malnourished, she altered her husband's clothes so that the children would not be cold, she sold her coat and went in winter in a short padded jacket. She did everything for the children to survive in this war. In return, children pay their mother with love and care, they are very attached to her. Their father became a stranger to them. The eldest son Peter did not even recognize him, and little Nastya does not remember her father at all. It hurts Ivanov to realize how much a stranger he has become for his family.
“... he was too unaccustomed to home life and could not immediately understand even the closest, dearest people. He looked at Petrushka, his grown-up first-born son, listened to him give orders and instructions to his mother and little sister, watched his serious, preoccupied face, and shamefully admitted to himself that his paternal feeling for this little boy, attraction to him as to son is not enough. Ivanov was even more ashamed of his indifference to Petrushka from the realization that Petrushka needed love and care more than others, because it was a pity to look at him now. Ivanov did not know exactly the life that his family lived without him, and he could not yet clearly understand why Petrushka had such a character.
Reading the story, we understand that the war forced the son of Petrushka to grow up early. This is what the father notices when he meets the boy at the station.
“He was met by his son Peter; now Petrushka was in his twelfth year, and the father did not immediately recognize his child in a serious teenager who seemed older than his age. Father saw that Peter was a small and thin boy, but big-headed, with big foreheads, and his face was calm, as if already accustomed to worldly cares, and his small brown eyes looked at the white light gloomily and displeasedly, as if they saw everywhere one mess. Petrushka was neatly dressed and shod: his shoes were worn, but still fit, his trousers and jacket were old, altered from his father's civilian clothes, but without holes - where necessary, mended there, where necessary, a patch was put there, and all Petrushka looked like small, poor, but serviceable peasant.
Having become more familiar with the character of Petrushka, we involuntarily recall the lines from the song of Bulat Okudzhava:
“Ah, war, what have you done, vile:
our yards became quiet,
our boys raised their heads,
they have matured for the time being ... "
Looking at his early grown-up children, Ivanov understands that his task is to help them begin to live a peaceful life.
“He needs to get down to business as soon as possible, that is, go to work in order to earn money and help his wife raise their children properly, then gradually everything will go for the better, and Petrushka will run around with the guys, sit down with a book, and not command with stag by the stove.
It seems that the soldier understands everything, but four years of war continue to stand between him and his family. At the moment when Ivanov begins to reproach his wife for not devoting enough time to raising children, her son Petrushka defends her.
“- Why are you crushing the glass of the lamp? Why are you scaring your mother? She is already thin, she eats potatoes without oil, and gives oil to Nastya.
- Do you know what mother did here, what she did? - in a plaintive voice, like a little one, cried the father.
- Alyosha! Lyubov Vasilyevna turned meekly to her husband.
- I know, I know everything! Petrushka said. - Your mother was crying for you, she was waiting for you, and you came, she is also crying. You do not know!
- Yes, you still do not understand anything! - angry father. - Here we have a shoot.
“I understand everything perfectly,” answered Petrushka from the stove. - You don't understand. We have a business, we have to live, and you swear, how stupid you are ... "
After a quarrel with his wife in the morning, Ivanov decides to leave. He did not say anything to his wife or son, only kissed little Nastya, who woke up early. The soldier came to the station, got on the train, the train started moving. Ivanov looks out the window and sees the road.
“The railroad track here was crossed by a rural dirt road that went to the city; on this earthen road lay bundles of straw and hay that had fallen from wagons, wicker and horse dung. Usually this road was deserted, except for two market days a week; rarely, it happened, a peasant would drive to the city with a full load of hay or return back to the village. So it was now; the village road lay empty.
Study this quote carefully and think about the meaning of the description. The road is a symbol of a person, his life path. It is deserted, except for two market days a week. Remember what we said about improvised, temporary joy and full, real joy. Platonov through the landscape conveys not just the mood of the hero, but his attitude to life. And on this empty and deserted road, two fragile figures appear. Ivanov recognizes them as his children, he sees how they run after the train, stumble and fall. At this moment, the soldier realizes that he has one common road with his children and it depends on him, as a father, what their life will be like. It was at this moment that Ivanov seemed to break free from the shackles of war, and all his real and sincere feelings broke through.
“Ivanov closed his eyes, not wanting to see and feel the pain of the fallen, exhausted children, and he himself felt how hot it became in his chest, as if the heart, enclosed and languishing in him, had been beating long and in vain all his life and only now it broke free , filling his entire being with warmth and shudder. He suddenly learned everything that he knew before, much more accurately and more effectively. Previously, he felt another life through the barrier of pride and self-interest, and now he suddenly touched her with a bare heart.
Alexei Ivanov jumped off the train. It was at this moment, at the end of the story, that the soldier truly returned home, and now everything will work out in this family. The father will start working, the children will study, and the wounds left by the war will gradually heal. This family is sure to be happy.
And how many families did not wait for their fathers, husbands, brothers after the war! Semyon Evseevich is mentioned in the story. He has lost his entire family and has no one to return to. That is why he comes to Lyuba's children, plays with them, reads fairy tales to them - he warms up with his soul. It is unfair that Ivanov is jealous of Lyuba for Semyon, nothing connected them except friendship and support.
In 1936, in the magazine Krasnaya Nov, Platonov published a story called The Third Son. This story becomes known outside the country. A year later, the English publisher O'Brien included the novel by the Soviet writer in the collection of the best stories of the year.
Ernest Hemingway, after reading the story, suggested that Platonov is one of those writers who have a lot to learn.
Here is a story written by Andrey Platonov. The writer showed great skill here, the ability to conclude a deep philosophical and psychological meaning in each image. After all, even Platonov does not choose the name of the hero by chance.
The Ivanov family personifies many families who waited for their loved ones from the fronts and faced the problem of disunity by the war. Platonov does not condemn people, he blames the accursed war.
Bibliography
- Korovina V.Ya . Literature, 8th grade. Tutorial in two parts. -2009 .
- Vakhitova T.M. Platonov and Leonov. 1930 Object world // Creativity of Andrey Platonov. Research and materials. - SPb., 2004. Book. Z. - S. 214-226.
- Davydova T.T. Return of Andrey Platonov // Novy Mir, 2006. No. 6.
- Dissercat.com().
- Xz.gif.ru ().
- lit-helper.com().
Homework
- Write an essay: Review of A.P. Platonov's story "Return"
- Answer the questions:
1. Who are the heroes of the story?
2. What is the meaning of the episode with the woman in the padded jacket whom Ivanov wanted to help, but then forgot about her?
3. How did Ivanov meet his wife, Lyubov Vasilievna?
4. How did the father view things in the house? How do you understand Ivanov's thoughts about them: "For a long time they lived here without him and missed him"?
- Describe the image of Alexei Ivanov.
Andrei Platonovich Platonov is a famous Russian writer of the twentieth century, according to many literary critics, one of the best. His work became widely known only at the end of the 20th century, after the death of the writer. During his lifetime, he was not recognized, and the reaction of critics to his books was often negative. Platonov did not fit into the ideology of the socialist state, and the principles of socialist realism and other frameworks in creativity were alien to him. He was a patriot, a philosopher and a demanding artist, but he was never a servant of the authorities, he never embellished reality. Of art, Platonov said that it "consists in expressing the most complex by the simplest means."
The story "Return" is an example of just such an attitude towards art. Its plot is simple, the characters are clear and vital, the language is deliberately simple, and at the same time the meaning is deep. The hero of the story is the demobilized captain Ivanov. The most common surname in Russia, and the first name is Alexey Alekseevich. It is not known whether Platonov had in mind the meaning of this name - "protector", but the name of his wife, Love, and son, Peter (meaning stone) seem to be chosen not by chance.
The story is simple: returning from the front, Captain Ivanov learns that his wife Lyuba was unfaithful to him. He wants to leave, but returns, having jumped off the train, when he sees children running after the train from the vestibule window.
The exposition tells that on the way home Ivanov met the girl Masha and stayed with her for two days, for some reason postponing the joyful and anxious hour of meeting with his family. The feelings of the captain and Masha for each other are simple and natural and do not cause condemnation in the reader. Returning home, Ivanov found himself in an environment that had changed a lot during the four years of the war, "he breathed the real home smell of the house," hugged his wife and felt "quiet joy in his heart and calm contentment." However, "Ivanov's home was strange and still not entirely clear." Particularly surprising is the behavior of his son, eleven-year-old Peter. This “short, thin boy” looks gloomy and displeased, grumbles all the time, like a little old man, commands not only his little sister, but also his mother.
The theme "children and war" is a special theme for Platonov. In one of his military stories, the writer, through the lips of a hero who watched how children, playing, bury clay men, says: “We must wean those who taught children to play death from life.” So it is in this story: the adult and judicious Petrushka evokes both respect and pity at the same time.
Platonov's children are sensitive, subtle creatures. Eleven-year-old Petya feels very well what is happening between his parents. Waking up at night from their disturbing voices, Petrushka feels sorry for her crying mother, who was so hard during the war. He knows better than his father. Petya's involuntary eavesdropping on the explanation between the parents is not accidental. When the offended father shouts: “Wake up the children ... I will tell them what kind of mother they have! ...”, the son says: “Why are you scaring your mother? She is already thin, she eats potatoes without oil, and she gives oil to Nastya. It is Petrushka who feels that her mother loves her father: “Mother cried for you, she was waiting for you, and you arrived, she is crying too.” It is Petrushka, and not the angry father, who understands that they have a job to do, they need to live. The story that the son tells his father about Uncle Khariton and his wife Anyuta surprises Ivanov: the son seems to him so insightful that he is about to tell about Masha. The author completely refrains from commenting on the act of his hero. The fact that Ivanov decided to go to Masha, whose “hair smelled of nature”, leaving Lyuba and the children, is also not commented on. However, the hero’s internal monologue that “there is no forgiveness in him for a person who kissed and lived with another, so that the time of war and separation from her husband would not be so boring, not alone,” clearly conflicts with the words of the wise and sensitive Petrushka. Platonov comments on the feelings of Ivanov, who realized that the exhausted children running to the move and falling down were his own: “Ivanov ... felt how hot it became in his chest, as if his heart, imprisoned and languishing in him ... only now broke free ... ". A man who always lived in his own interests suddenly touched life with a renewed heart.
Love for life, overcoming, rising above one's egoistic feeling - this is how one can characterize the moral evolution of the Platonic hero.
The peculiar artistic method of the writer did not fit into the rigid framework of socialist realism, his skill was not appreciated by his contemporaries: neither critics nor readers. The writer's work received wide recognition only in the 60s of the twentieth century, when his novel "Chevengur" and the story "The Pit" were published. Published in 1960 on the pages of the Novy Mir magazine, the story Ivanov's Family (Return) was no exception: a wave of criticism fell upon the writer. At that time it seemed inappropriate, untimely to write about what Platonov wrote about. The colossal freedom of the writer in the element of the Russian language was perceived as tongue-tied.
Understanding Platonov was hindered not only by ideological prohibitions, but also by the reader's own insufficient spiritual potential. According to the contemporary writer Andrey Bitov, “Platonov is only just appearing to us. It's still ahead of us."
In this lesson, you will get acquainted with A. Platonov's story "Return". We will analyze the text of the story, consider its subtext and the symbolic meaning of the artistic images that the author uses. Let's talk about the lost generation.
Platonov was born in Voronezh, in the family of a railway worker. There were eleven children in the family, Andrei was the eldest. Platonov began to work very early, at the age of thirteen. It was necessary to feed the family, help raise brothers and sisters. In 1918, the future writer entered the Voronezh Polytechnic Institute in the electrical department. And already in 1919, he began active cooperation with many newspapers as a poet and correspondent.
Soon he begins to write prose - stories, novels, novels. Platonov's work was perceived with hostility by the Soviet authorities, many of his works were criticized. The fact is that Platonov wrote honest prose about a person, and this contradicted the ideology of socialist realism.
Platonov's literary activity begins with poetry. In his poems, the poet creates images of little people deprived of fate. Here, for example, are a few lines about a blind man:
You are alive, you are alive, you are the only one
And the wall is just smoke before our eyes,
You are blind, but there is a mysterious light in you,
You are the only one in the world."
In 1922, the first collection of Platonov's poems "Blue Depth" was published. Platonov's poems received high marks from critics. In particular, the poet of the Silver Age V. Bryusov wrote: "... he has a rich imagination, a bold language and his own approach to topics."
Socialist realism (Sotsrealism) is an artistic method in literature and art, officially encouraged by the party bodies of the USSR, built on the socialist concept of the world and man.
The method was formulated by Soviet cultural figures under the leadership of Stalin in 1932. It covered all areas of artistic activity: literature, drama, cinema, painting, sculpture, architecture. M. Gorky was recognized as the leading writer of socialist realism. (Fig. 2.)
Rice. 2. Maxim Gorky and Joseph Stalin ()
Gorky wrote: “It is vitally and creatively necessary for our writers to take a point of view, from the height of which - and only from its height - all the dirty crimes of capitalism, all the meanness of its bloody intentions are clearly visible, and all the greatness of the heroic work of the proletariat-dictator is visible."
During the Great Patriotic War, Platonov, a correspondent captain, worked for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper. His war stories appear in print. At the end of 1946, Andrei Platonov publishes the story "Return". The working title of the story was The Ivanov Family. In 1947, the writer was criticized and persecuted for this story. What was the reason for this?
In the story "Return" A. Platonov tells how a soldier returns from the war. With the theme of victory, each of us is associated with joyful emotions, associations with spring, with the triumph of life. However, in Platonov's narrative we do not see this joy. The action in the story takes place in autumn, everything around is gloomy and dull. The artist Platonov outlined the landscape with just a few strokes, but he did it masterfully. Autumn is the time of the year, which is associated with the period of withering, dying. Autumn in the story is a symbol of war. And even those who survived this war are experiencing autumn in their souls. They have already forgotten what real full-fledged happiness and joy are. They live content with simple joy at hand, little moments of little happiness that they can find in the conditions of war. Thus, Platonov through the landscape conveys the mood of the protagonist Alexei Ivanov, a soldier returning from the war.
At first, we do not understand the reasons for the autumn mood of the hero. It would seem that the soldier himself is intact, they are waiting for him at home, all his relatives are alive and well, but the hero is in no hurry to go home. First, Alexei returns to the unit because the train was late, and then he leaves the station with his fellow soldier and spends several days with her. And his wife and children are waiting for him home, go to the station and meet the trains. Reading this, we begin to condemn Alexei Ivanov, because it is easier to condemn than to understand.
In the story, Platonov wanted to show that for a soldier who spent four years in the war, there is no longer a concept of a peaceful life. He forgot what it was, a military unit became his family, and fellow soldiers became his relatives. That is why the soldier Ivanov feels orphaned without an army. A soldier cannot suddenly break with his military past and therefore stops for a few days with his fellow soldier Masha. Then he remembers for a long time that her hair smells like autumn. Because Masha is part of his military life, and in civilian life everything is unfamiliar, everything has long been forgotten. It is these feelings that a soldier experiences when he returns home.
“Ivanov examined all the objects of the house in order - a wall clock, a cupboard, a thermometer on the wall, chairs, flowers on the windowsills, a Russian kitchen stove ... They lived here for a long time without him and missed him. Now he returned and looked at them, reacquainting himself with each of them, as with a relative who lived without him in melancholy and poverty. He breathed in the settled, familiar smell of the house - smoldering wood, warmth from the bodies of his children, burning on the stove. This smell was the same before, four years ago, and it did not dissipate or change without it. Ivanov did not feel this smell anywhere else, although he visited hundreds of dwellings in different countries during the war; there smelled of a different spirit, in which, however, there was no property of a native home.
Household items remained the same, and the smell of the house is the same, but this is perhaps the only thing that has been preserved from that distant, past life, and everything else has changed.
Initially calling the story "The Ivanov Family", the author wanted to emphasize the main task of the story, to show that the war destroys and destroys everything in its path, and even the spiritual connection between loved ones. Alexei Ivanov met with his wife and children, as with strangers, strangers to him. All these four years, the Ivanov family lived a difficult military life. They have their own view of the war, for them it is first of all - hard and exhausting work, devastation, hunger, cold. The trouble they experienced apart from their father changed them and alienated them from him.
“Strange and still not entirely clear was Ivanov's home. The wife was the same - with a sweet, shy, although already very tired face, and the children were the same that were born from him, only grown up during the war, as it should be. But something prevented Ivanov from feeling the joy of his return with all his heart - he was probably too unaccustomed to home life and could not immediately understand even the closest, dearest people. (Fig. 3.)
Rice. 3. Frame from the film based on the story ()
Wife Lyuba does not complain to her husband, does not tell all the details of the harsh working military everyday life. However, we learn a lot from snippets of conversation. All these years, Lyuba worked hard and took care of the children, giving them the last. She herself was malnourished, she altered her husband's clothes so that the children would not be cold, she sold her coat and went in winter in a short padded jacket. She did everything for the children to survive in this war. In return, children pay their mother with love and care, they are very attached to her. Their father became a stranger to them. The eldest son Peter did not even recognize him, and little Nastya does not remember her father at all. It hurts Ivanov to realize how much a stranger he has become for his family.
“... he was too unaccustomed to home life and could not immediately understand even the closest, dearest people. He looked at Petrushka, his grown-up first-born son, listened to him give orders and instructions to his mother and little sister, watched his serious, preoccupied face, and shamefully admitted to himself that his paternal feeling for this little boy, attraction to him as to son is not enough. Ivanov was even more ashamed of his indifference to Petrushka from the realization that Petrushka needed love and care more than others, because it was a pity to look at him now. Ivanov did not know exactly the life that his family lived without him, and he could not yet clearly understand why Petrushka had such a character.
Reading the story, we understand that the war forced the son of Petrushka to grow up early. This is what the father notices when he meets the boy at the station.
“He was met by his son Peter; now Petrushka was in his twelfth year, and the father did not immediately recognize his child in a serious teenager who seemed older than his age. Father saw that Peter was a small and thin boy, but big-headed, with big foreheads, and his face was calm, as if already accustomed to worldly cares, and his small brown eyes looked at the white light gloomily and displeasedly, as if they saw everywhere one mess. Petrushka was neatly dressed and shod: his shoes were worn, but still fit, his trousers and jacket were old, altered from his father's civilian clothes, but without holes - where necessary, mended there, where necessary, a patch was put there, and all Petrushka looked like small, poor, but serviceable peasant.
Having become more familiar with the character of Petrushka, we involuntarily recall the lines from the song of Bulat Okudzhava:
“Ah, war, what have you done, vile:
our yards became quiet,
our boys raised their heads,
they have matured for the time being ... "
Looking at his early grown-up children, Ivanov understands that his task is to help them begin to live a peaceful life.
“He needs to get down to business as soon as possible, that is, go to work in order to earn money and help his wife raise their children properly, then gradually everything will go for the better, and Petrushka will run around with the guys, sit down with a book, and not command with stag by the stove.
It seems that the soldier understands everything, but four years of war continue to stand between him and his family. At the moment when Ivanov begins to reproach his wife for not devoting enough time to raising children, her son Petrushka defends her.
“- Why are you crushing the glass of the lamp? Why are you scaring your mother? She is already thin, she eats potatoes without oil, and gives oil to Nastya.
- Do you know what mother did here, what she did? - in a plaintive voice, like a little one, cried the father.
- Alyosha! Lyubov Vasilyevna turned meekly to her husband.
- I know, I know everything! Petrushka said. - Your mother was crying for you, she was waiting for you, and you came, she is also crying. You do not know!
- Yes, you still do not understand anything! - angry father. - Here we have a shoot.
“I understand everything perfectly,” answered Petrushka from the stove. - You don't understand. We have a business, we have to live, and you swear, how stupid you are ... "
After a quarrel with his wife in the morning, Ivanov decides to leave. He did not say anything to his wife or son, only kissed little Nastya, who woke up early. The soldier came to the station, got on the train, the train started moving. Ivanov looks out the window and sees the road.
“The railroad track here was crossed by a rural dirt road that went to the city; on this earthen road lay bundles of straw and hay that had fallen from wagons, wicker and horse dung. Usually this road was deserted, except for two market days a week; rarely, it happened, a peasant would drive to the city with a full load of hay or return back to the village. So it was now; the village road lay empty.
Study this quote carefully and think about the meaning of the description. The road is a symbol of a person, his life path. It is deserted, except for two market days a week. Remember what we said about improvised, temporary joy and full, real joy. Platonov through the landscape conveys not just the mood of the hero, but his attitude to life. And on this empty and deserted road, two fragile figures appear. Ivanov recognizes them as his children, he sees how they run after the train, stumble and fall. At this moment, the soldier realizes that he has one common road with his children and it depends on him, as a father, what their life will be like. It was at this moment that Ivanov seemed to break free from the shackles of war, and all his real and sincere feelings broke through.
“Ivanov closed his eyes, not wanting to see and feel the pain of the fallen, exhausted children, and he himself felt how hot it became in his chest, as if the heart, enclosed and languishing in him, had been beating long and in vain all his life and only now it broke free , filling his entire being with warmth and shudder. He suddenly learned everything that he knew before, much more accurately and more effectively. Previously, he felt another life through the barrier of pride and self-interest, and now he suddenly touched her with a bare heart.
Alexei Ivanov jumped off the train. It was at this moment, at the end of the story, that the soldier truly returned home, and now everything will work out in this family. The father will start working, the children will study, and the wounds left by the war will gradually heal. This family is sure to be happy.
And how many families did not wait for their fathers, husbands, brothers after the war! Semyon Evseevich is mentioned in the story. He has lost his entire family and has no one to return to. That is why he comes to Lyuba's children, plays with them, reads fairy tales to them - he warms up with his soul. It is unfair that Ivanov is jealous of Lyuba for Semyon, nothing connected them except friendship and support.
In 1936, in the magazine Krasnaya Nov, Platonov published a story called The Third Son. This story becomes known outside the country. A year later, the English publisher O'Brien included the novel by the Soviet writer in the collection of the best stories of the year.
Ernest Hemingway, after reading the story, suggested that Platonov is one of those writers who have a lot to learn.
Here is a story written by Andrey Platonov. The writer showed great skill here, the ability to conclude a deep philosophical and psychological meaning in each image. After all, even Platonov does not choose the name of the hero by chance.
The Ivanov family personifies many families who waited for their loved ones from the fronts and faced the problem of disunity by the war. Platonov does not condemn people, he blames the accursed war.
Bibliography
- Korovina V.Ya . Literature, 8th grade. Tutorial in two parts. -2009 .
- Vakhitova T.M. Platonov and Leonov. 1930 Object world // Creativity of Andrey Platonov. Research and materials. - SPb., 2004. Book. Z. - S. 214-226.
- Davydova T.T. Return of Andrey Platonov // Novy Mir, 2006. No. 6.
- Dissercat.com().
- Xz.gif.ru ().
- lit-helper.com().
Homework
- Write an essay: Review of A.P. Platonov's story "Return"
- Answer the questions:
1. Who are the heroes of the story?
2. What is the meaning of the episode with the woman in the padded jacket whom Ivanov wanted to help, but then forgot about her?
3. How did Ivanov meet his wife, Lyubov Vasilievna?
4. How did the father view things in the house? How do you understand Ivanov's thoughts about them: "For a long time they lived here without him and missed him"?
- Describe the image of Alexei Ivanov.
Moral problems of A. Platonov's story "Return"
"There is a time in life when it is impossible to avoid one's happiness. This happiness comes not from kindness and not from other people, but from the strength of a growing heart, warming with its warmth and meaning."
War stories always leave an indelible mark on our souls. Many well-known writers addressed the topic of war. Surely you have read V. Astafiev's story "The Shepherd and the Shepherdess", the story "The Horse with a Pink Mane" and "The Photograph Where I'm Not", remember B. Vasiliev's work "The Dawns Here Are Quiet", heard about M. Sholokhov's novel "They fought for their country." Today we will talk about a short story by our fellow countryman - writer A. Platonov "Return". Is the title of the story symbolic? What do you associate the word "RETURN" with? (Home, family, love, motherland). It's always nice to come back, isn't it? Andrei Platonov wrote the story in 1946, but it was published under the title "The Ivanov Family". Critics have spoken out against the story. Yermilov wrote: “Platonov always loved mental slovenliness, had a dirty imagination, he had a craving for everything ugly and dirty, in the spirit of bad Dostoevism, he turned even an 11-year-old hero into a preacher of cynicism” The critic said that the hero is shown as just the most ordinary , a mass person, it is not for nothing that he was given such a multimillion-dollar surname Ivanov. This surname carries a demonstrative meaning in the story: they say that many families are like that. By changing the title, Platonov strengthened those aspects of the story for which he was scolded. He showed what war does to a person, how it kills the soul, forcing them to break away from the family, from the most important values of humanity.
- There is no open description of the war in the work, but it is present here. Through what details, perhaps, the landscape? (In the surrounding autumn nature, everything was sad and depressing at that hour ...)
- Is the main character in a hurry to go home or is he slow? Why?
- Why does Ivanov go after Masha?
- How is Masha's condition described? Does she want to go home? Where are her family members? (And now Masha was somehow unusual, strange and even afraid to go home to her relatives, from whom she had already lost the habit).
- Can we say that Masha and Alexey are people who understand each other? They found solace in their fellowship.
- How is Ivanov received at home? How many days are his wife and children waiting for him?
- The son meets the father. Find his portrait. Read. What does the boy's appearance tell us? ( He was met by his son Peter ...)
- The return of the hero takes place in the house. He feels “a quiet joy in his heart and a calm contentment. The war is over." How does the father look at the objects in the house? Why? (He gets acquainted with objects, remembers smells. This helps him feel like a family among his own, warms his soul).
- Who is in charge of the house? (Petka). How does he run the business?(Episode about the stove, about potatoes). “I’m not angry, I’m on business ... You need to feed your father, he came from the war ...”. The boy understands how hard it was for his father, in the house he became the owner out of need, and not at will.
- What is Lyubov Vasilyevna's job? She does everything for the sake of her children, for the sake of her family. Why is she crying over the pie?(I thought about if my husband was killed)
- Alexey does not understand why Peter behaves like an old grandfather, why the children matured early, and the face of his daughter Nastya is “focused” not at all childish. Why do you think Alexei does not see the troubles of his family, perceives the house as it was before the war?
- Alexei cannot understand Semyon Evseevich, who came to play with Nastya and Petya. What is the personal tragedy of Semyon Evseevich himself?(The jealousy of the hero is unfounded, because the war united people, united their common misfortunes, destroyed families. A person wants to feel needed by other people.)
- Does the reader empathize with the Ivanov family? Pay attention to details such as clothes, children's shoes, their food? What is their life? Do they have a farm?
Father and mother sort things out, not understanding who is right and who is wrong. After all, there are no right and wrong ones. There is a human life that must be lived with dignity. Petya tells about this - about the relationship between Khariton and Anna. In difficult times, the heart of a person needs comfort. But the father does not understand the son. In what works have we already come across images of father and son? (Quiet Don, Food Commissioner, Mole).
- At the end of the story, the railroad appears before us again. This is the path symbol. But which one: new or old? The father of the family wants to leave the house. What is Ivanov thinking about?(about Masha).
The theme of the railway in Platonov is found in many works, because the writer's life was connected with trains. And now the rails carry Ivanov away from his native hearth, his heart hardened. Read the final episode(Two children…)
- Why is Petka, always so neat, wearing different shoes?(Hurries to return the father).
- Did Ivanov manage to transgress through his own vanity? How did the war make him? (AND estkm, incredulous, rude). Can we say that Alexei, after getting off the train, returns to his real self? Souls crippled by war can only be cured by love and understanding.
- What is the meaning of the story's title?
- What do you think, what would be the further fate of the Ivanov family?
- What meaning can the reader, who has become acquainted with the work of A. Platonov, endure for himself?
What did the war teach people?
War is an evil that destroys destinies, breaks lives, families. But a person, despite the circumstances, must remember his destiny, must be able to open his heart to meet warmth and love. By returning to his present self, the hero thereby destroys the hatred, evil and doubt that tormented his heart.
