TURKMEN THEME IN WORKS OF ANDREY PLATONOV

Annual International Platonov’s Art Festival, which is named after one of original Russian writers of the XX century Andrey Platonov (1899 – 1951), is held in Russia. The festival is held in the birthplace of the writer in Voronezh from June 2011 and is the main cultural project of the region, which gives opportunity to Russian people to see outstanding achievements in various arts. Around 100,000 people visit the event every year. The festival is held in “Music”, “Theater”, “Visual Art” and Literature” categories.

Andrey Platonovich Platonov (Klimentov is his original surname) is a Russian writer, poet and publicist, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, military reporter, engineer and inventor. He was an outstanding person, who Yosef Brodsky compared with Dostoevsky.

One of interesting pages in complicated life and art fortune of Andrey Platonov was related to Turkmenistan. Asian country, where life was different from Russia, its nature and people amazed imagination of the writer with subtle nature, which prone to philosophic thinking. He has come to Turkmenistan in spring of 1943 in a group of 20 Soviet writers sent by Moscow to write collective art book dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the republic.

The impression of two-month trip to Turkmenistan were reflected in the story “Takyr”, which is dedicated to life of people in the desert. The story is optimistic and contains life-affirming beginning even in hard episodes. A. Platonov wrote “…lonely tree is growing somewhere and small, puny bird is sitting on its branch and singing its song. Camels’ caravans walk by the bird, horsemen ride and train goes to Turan. The bird continues singing quietly as no one knows who will win in life whether birds or caravans and trains”.

The story was published and Andrey Platonov was sent on another visit at the request of the government of Turkmenistan. The writer stayed in Turkmenistan and worked on “Jan” novella from the end of January to beginning of March 1935. The novella was finished in the spring of the same year and published in “Red Novelty” and “Two Five-year Periods”. However, it has never been published completely when the author was still alive.

In 1968, famous Turkmen movie director Bulat Mansurov have made movie “ Salve Girl” based on the story of Andrey Platonov “Takyr”. The movie has won special diploma of Kazakhstan and Central Asia Cinematography Review (1970) to director of the movie B. Mansurov and the prize of the fourth All-Union Festival (Minsk, 1970) to art director Sh. Akmuhamedov.

Ogulgozel Rejepova

Turkmen theme in works of Andrey Platonov (turkmenistan.gov.tm)