Andrei Platonov, Chevengur

Philip Ross Bullock (University of Oxford)
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In Andrei Platonov’s novel

Chevengur

(written 1926-29), Aleksandr Dvanov, the work’s main hero, explains the significance of the symbol of the revolution that he has invented: “the recumbent figure eight represents the eternity of time, and the upright arrow with two ends, the infinity of space.” Dvanov’s insistence on the centrality of time and space uncannily anticipates Mikhail Bakhtin’s famous definition of the literary chronotope (from his “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel”, 1937), which might have been written to describe

Chevengur

:

In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space

2622 words

Citation: Bullock, Philip Ross. "Chevengur". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 April 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14448, accessed 19 March 2024.]

14448 Chevengur 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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