"A Mixture of Living Creatures": Man and Animal in the Works of A.

Platonov
Author(s): Hans Günther and Sergey Levchin
Source: Ulbandus Review , 2011/2012, Vol. 14, Andrei Platonov: Style, Context, Meaning
(2011/2012), pp. 251-272
Published by: Columbia University Slavic Department

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 "A Mixture of Living Creatures":
Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov

Hans Günther

Bielefeld University

Translated from the Russian by Sergey Levchin

1.

A certain contemporary of Platonov recalls that Andrei Platonovich was

extremely upset and anguished after a crow was shot and killed in his
presence.1 According to this eyewitness, Platonov "loved animals and
believed in their humanity."2 Of course, there is evidence beyond this
particular incident to support such claims. An analysis of Platonov's
works reveals a broad spectrum of philosophical and aesthetic motifs
dealing with the relationship between man and animal. The various
instances of anthropomorphism, zoomorphism and metamorphosis are
underpinned by Platonov's conviction that the difference between the
two is one of degree, not kind. In this view, the transition from one state
to the other has nothing fantastical about it. In his Zapisttye kni^hki
( Notebooks ), Platonov emphasizes the kinship between man and animal,
writing: "Animals and plants are always our contemporaries; it is not a
matter of atavism, but one of friendship and spiritual hygiene"
(«Животные и растения - всегда наши современники, и дело
совсем не в атавизме, а в дружбе, в санитарии души»).3 And
elsewhere in the text he writes: "Not an evolutionary ladder, but a
mixture of living creatures, a conglomerate" («Не лестница эволюции,
а смешение живых существ, общий конгломерат»).4 The gradualness
of the transitions between man, animal, plant and mineral, i.e. between
substances in different states, was one of the fundamental theses of
Vladimir Vernadsky's Biosfera ( Biosphere , 1926), a book with which
Platonov had been acquainted.5

1 This article was originally published in Russian. See Khans Giunter, "'Smeshenie
zhivykh sushchestv* - chelovek i zhivotnoe u A. Platonova," in Po obe storony utop iL
Kontě ks ty tv ore he s tv а Л. Platonova (Moscow: NLO, 2012), 145-161 and Khans
Giunter, '"Smeshenie zhivykh sushchestv' - chelovek i zhivotnoe u A. Platonova,"
No voe literaturnoe о borre nie 111 (201 1): 91-105.
2 Andrei Platonov, Vospom inaniia so v rem ennikov: Materialy k biografii (Moscow:
Sovremennyi Pisatel', 1 994), 65.
3 Andrei Platonov, Zápisny e kni^hki. Materialy k biografii, ed. N. V. Kornienko
(Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2000), 1 55.
4 Ibid., 213.
5 See K. A. Barsht, "Platonov i Vemadskii: nesluchainye sovpadeniia," in "Strana
filosofov" Andreia Platonova: problémy tvorchestva vyp. 5, ed. N. V. Komienko

Ulbandus 14(2011/2012)

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 252 Hans Günther

But before we proce

interaction between m
to glance over the t
"anthropozoological" f
major theme in Russi
Undoubtedly, the hors
According to Vladimir
symbol of human suff
and its suffering thus
greater aesthetic powe
well-known verses of
with a backbreaking load

Вся дымясь, оседая н

Лошадь только взды
И глядела ... (так лю
покоряясь неравным

All steaming, slumpin

the horse could only s
and stare. . . (as people
submitting to unequa

In his various accoun

cruelty and compas
Raskolnikov's dream, a
scrawny nag.8 In Brati'
Zosima comments on
"...look at their faces,
beats them merciless

(Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2003),

nezhivogo' A. Platonova," in "Str
vyp. 4, ed. N. V. Kornienk
6 V. Markov, "O poetakh i
1955), 75.
7 N. A. Nekrasov, Po Ino e sobrante stikhotvorenii ' v 3 t. (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel',
1967), vol. 2, 170.
8 F. Dostoevskij Polnoe sobrante sochinenii, v 30 t. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1972-1988),
t. 6, 45-49. Cf. Merezhkovskii's allegorical interpretation of Raskolnikov's dream in his
negative review of the "Vekhi" almanac. (D. S. Merezhkovskii, "Sem' smirennykh," in
Vekhi. Pro et contra [St. Peters butg: Iz-vo Russkoi Khristianskoi gumanitarnoi akademii,
1998], 100. ) Merezhkovskii equates the cart to Russia and the horse to the Russian
intelligentsia, whom Vekhi contributors are finishing off with an iron bar. Cf. also
Rozanov's response to Merezhkovskii. (V. V. Rozanov, "Merezhkovskii protiv Vekh ," in
Vekhi, 111-116.)

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 253

beauty!" («Какая кротость, какая привязанность к человек

бьющему его безжалостно, какая незлобивость, какая дове
и какая красота в его лике»).9
In the Russian theological and philosophical traditions, we
find man chided for his unfounded superiority over animals
Fedorov notes that the idea of progress implies superiority no
preceding generations, but over animals as well. Since man's p
about his capacity for abstract thought and his advan
knowledge prove inconsequential in the face of Nature's blin
they cannot justify his placing himself above animals. I
tvorchestva ( The Meaning of the Creative Act), Nikolai Berdi
that the fall of man brought about the fall and the mortifica
the inferior strata of nature, since man, as its highest rung
responsible for the whole cosmic order. He emphasizes Paul's
"the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together
(Romans 8:22) awaiting its liberation.10
The Dukhobor sect had great respect for cows, believing th
souls were reincarnated in them. Refusing to exploit animal l
pulled their own plows and carts.11 We can assume that Tolsto
Kholstomer, wherein a horse is shown to be morally superior
reflects similar sectarian sentiments. Its erotic themes are doubtless
linked with the castration doctrine of the Khlysty sect,12 but its polemic
against private property is most likely borrowed from the teachings of
the Dukhobors. It is certain, at any rate, that the idea of redemption of the
whole of creation appears prominently in the heterodox sectarian milieu,
while mainstream philosophical and theological traditions emphasize a
fundamental distinction between the human and animal natures.13
The modernist era sees a heightened interest in animal nature. The
"rise" of the animal takes place against the background of the critique of
anthropocentrism, rationalism and the philosophy of progress. In
contradistinction, the animal is hailed as an exponent of a primordial lost
paradise, pre-logical wisdom and higher intuitive knowledge. It is said
that Nietzsche, upon seeing a carriage driver cruelly mistreating his horse

9 Dostoevskij, PSS, t. 14, 267. English translation from Fyodor Dostoevsky, The
Brothers Karamazov, trans. Constance Garnett (New York: McMillan, 1922), 31 1.
10 N. Berdiaev. Fi/osofíia /vombestva. fea/'/urv i tssAusä'a (Moscow: Iskusstvo. 19941. 89.
11 Л. Siniavskii, Iran-durak. Orierk russkoi narodnoi rery (Moscow: Aiaaf, 2001 ), 401 .
12 A. lit kind, Kblyst. Sekty, literatura i rev о äutiia (Moscow: NLO, 1998), 98- 99.
13 See G. Agamben, Das Offene. Der Mensch und das Tier (Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 2003). We find evidence of this also in the definitions of animal nature supplied
by Hegel and Heidegger. (On Hegel and Heidegger, see, respectively: O. Timofeeva,
"Zvetinets dukha," No voe lite rat umo e o bórrenle 107 (2011): 164-175; O. Timofeeva,
"Bednaia zhizn': Zootekhnikh Visokovskii protiv filosofa Khaideggera," No voe
¡iteraturnoe obot^renie 106 (2010): 96-1 13.

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 254 Hans Günther

in Turin in 1 889, thr

brother!" The motif o
the poets and artists o
toward primitivism.
following epitaph to b
between the human an
noble animal species o
(«Он не видел разли
видами и стоял за ра
заповеди и ее действи
And Esenin's lyrica
beastly kind, our you
(«зверье, как братьев наших меньших, / Никогда не бил по
голове»).15 The motif of man's estrangement from Nature in the course
of the evolutionary process and the unfortunate consequences of his
assuming dominion of the earth recurs frequently in Khlebnikov's
writing. The poem "Zverinets" ("Menagerie") laments "the demise of
some kind of magnificent potential" of the caged animals: «погибают
какие-то прекрасные возможности».16 The same theme resurfaces in
Khlebnikov's "Utes iz budushchegp" ("A Cliff from the Future"):

Человек отнял поверхность земного шара у мудрой

общины зверей и растений и стал одинок: ему не с кем
играть в пятнашки и жмурки в пустом покое, темнота
небытия кругом, нет игры, нет товарищей. С кем ему
баловаться? Кругом пустое "нет". Изгнанные из туловищ
души звери бросились в него и населили своим законом
его стены. Построили в сердце звериные города.

Man has taken the surface of Planet Earth away from the
wise community of animals and plants and now he is lonely;
he has no one to play tag or hide-and-seek with. In his empty
room, surrounded by the darkness of nonbeing, there are no
playmates and no games. Who can he play with? He is
surrounded by an empty no. The souls of animals banished
from their bodies have invaded him, and the plains of his
being are now subject to their law. They built animal cities in
his heart.

14 V. Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel', 1986), 577. Engjish

translation from Velimir Khlebnikov, Collected Works of Ve lim ir Khlebnikov , trans. Paul
Schmidt, ed. Ronald Vroon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1 987), vol. 1 , 1 96.
15 S. Esenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vit. (Moscow: Nauka; Golos, 1977), vol. 1,
227.
16 Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia , 187.

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 255

The text then ends with an image of a renewed paradise:

Зверям и растениям было возвращено право на ж

прекрасный подарок. И мы снова счастливы: вот лев
у меня на коленях, и теперь я курю мой воздушный об

The beautiful gift of the right to live has been given ba

animals and plants. And once more we are happy: a lio
curled in my lap, asleep, and I sit here smoking my sup
air.17

The theme of the superiority of animal over man continues in

Khlebnikov's poem about the Horsekingdom, from the cycle "Voina v
myshelovke" ("War in a Mousetrap"):

где конь звероокий с волной белоснежной

Стоит, как судья у помоста
И дышло везут колесницы тележной
Дроби преступные, со ста.
[...]
Мы стали лучше и небесней,
Когда доверились коням.
О, люди! Так разрешите вас назвать!

Where a wide-eyed white-maned stallion

stands like a judge on his platform,
and the tongue of the wagon is hitched
to the criminal fraction, one to a hundred.
[...]
We were better people, closer to heaven,
when we let horses be our guides.
'Teople" - why do we call ourselves that? 18

And in the long poem "Ladomir" (translated into English as "Lightland")

one discerns the Utopian wish for the redemption and humanization of
animals in a future life:

И идут люди, и идут звери

На бошроды современниц.
Я вижу конские свободы
и равноправие коров.

17 Khlebnikov, Tv о renna,. 567; Khlebnikov, Collected I Vorks, v. 1, 399.

18 Khlebnikov, Tvoreniia.y 464; Khlebnikov, Collected Works , v. 3, 55.

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 256 Hans Günther

. . .and beasts and pe

the Divine Birth of w
I see horse- freedom
and equal rights for cows.19

Mayakovsky's well-known poem "Khoroshee otnoshenie к loshadiam"

("Good Treatment of Horses/' 1918) is built around the act of
identifying with an animal.

И какая-то общая
Звериная тоска
Плеща вылилась из меня
И расплылась в шелесте.
«Лошадь, не надо.
Лошадь, слушайте - чего вы думаете, что вы их плоше?
Деточка, все мы немножко лошади, каждый из нас по
своему лошадь».20

Some sort of general

animal longing
poured out of me, splashing,
and dissolved in the rustle.
"Horse, don't.
Horse, listen to me - you think they're any better than you?
Baby, all of us are a little bit horses, each of us in his own
way horse."

The theme of the dying horse also appears in a poem by Brecht,

recounting - from the horse's perspective - an assault by a band of
starving men, intending to cut a piece of meat from its bones.21 The
German poet naturally puts his own peculiar spin on the situation: since
it is hunger that drives men to such extremes, Brecht calls for a social
order that excludes mass hunger. A similar incident - without the
comforting social outlook - receives an entirely different treatment in
Khlebnikov's hands: "A dying horse, covered with burlap, had gathered a
crowd. The spectacle of death that gathers flies is always splendid and
wrathful" («Умирающий конь, покрытый рогожей, собрал толпу.

10 Khlebnikov, Tvorenüa^T№' Khlebnikov, Collected Works, v. 3, 176.

20 V. Maiakovskii, Po Ino e sobrante sochinenii (Moscow: Gos. izd-vo khudozh. Lit,
1956), vol. 2,11.
21 B. Brecht, G e s am m e Ite Werke (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1967), Bd. 8,
61-62.

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 257

Зрелище смерти, что собирает мошек, всегда прекрасно и

гневно»).22
In this context, the poetry of Nikolai Zabolotsky holds a prominent
position, for it highlights the contradiction between the spiritual richness
of the animal world and its mournful existence in the service of man.
The suffering of horses is given special place in Zabolotsky's writings. So,
in the poem "Litso konia" ("Face of a Horse," 1 926) we read:

Лицо коня прекрасней и умней.

Он слышит говор листьев и камней.
Внимательный! Он знает крик звериный
И в ветхой роще рокот соловьиный.
И зная все, кому расскажет он
Свои чудесные виденья?
[...]
И если б человек увидел
Лицо волшебное коня,
Он вырвал бы язык бессильный свой
И отдал бы коню. Поистине достоин
Иметь язык волшебный конь!23

The face of a horse is more beautiful and more intelligent.

He hears the murmur of leaves and stones.
Attentive! He knows the animal cry
and the nightingale's warble in the antic grove.
And knowing all, whom shall he tell
his marvelous visions?
[...]
And if man saw
the magical face of the horse,
he would tear out his impotent tongue
and hand it over to the horse. Verily, he is worthy
of having a tongue, the magical horse!

But since the horse lacks a tongue its grief goes unnoticed, and the next
day man compels it to serve him:24

22 V. Khlebnikov, Sobrante sochinenii (Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo pisatelei v Leningrade,

1933), t. 5,1 35.
23 N. Zabolotskii, Polnoe sobrante stikhotvorenii i poem (St. Petersburg:
Akademicheskii proekt, 2002), 104.
24 A similar fate befalls the ox in Zabolotsky's poem "Progulka" ("A Stroll," 1926):
"Animals have no name. / Who bid them to be named? / Uninterrupted suffering - / is
their invisible lot" («У животных нет названья./ Кто им зваться повелел? /
Равномерное страданье - / Их невидимый удел».) (Ibid., 1 06.)

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 258 Hans Günther

И лошадь в клетке из
Повозку крытую влач
Глядит покорными г
В таинственный и не

And the horse, in his c

dragging a covered wa
casts his submissive eye
upon a mysterious and

The lack of human sp

Zabolotsky and Platon
animals by emphasizing
in particular. There is,
animals communicate
zemledeliia" ("The Triu
"fluent conversation"
The "Horse Institute" of
the account of the ass, of

Осел, товарищем вед

Приходит, голоден и
Его, как мальчика, пит
Ума растенье развива

The ass led by his com

comes, hungry and lam
They nurse him like a c
and cultivate his mind.

The poem ends with a Utopian picture of a golden age free from man's
violence over nature. Liberated from hard, indentured labor, men and
animals - including the enlightened ass - hail the triumph of fertility:

В хлеву свободу пел осел,

Достигнув полного ума. 28

25 Ibid., 105.
26 Timofeeva argues that "Platonov's animals are disguised men, tormented by what is
in them inexpressible, unacknowledged, hidden in the mind's flesh." (Timofeeva, "Bednaia
zhizn'"104.)
27 Zabolotskii, Polnoe sobrante stikho tv o re nii i po e m , 152.
28 Ibid., 157. Naturally, the figure of the ass outraged Soviet censors and was
interpreted as calumny against collectivization.

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 259

The ass, now full of wits,

sang freedom in his stall.

Various themes associated with the exaltation of animal nature

pervade the visual artworks of the German Expressionist movement.
Franz Marc, famous for his numerous depictions of animals, opposes the
anthropocentric worldview with a demand for the "animalization of the
arts" with this question: "Is there a more mysterious idea for an artist
than to imagine how nature is reflected in the eyes of an animal? How
does a horse see the world, how does an eagle, a doe, or a dog?"29 The
artist feels that he must paint the forest or the horse not as seen by
human eyes, but "as they really are .,x3°
Similar ideas are characteristic of the Russian painter Nikolai
Filonov: "Man probably appears very different to animal eyes than he
does to our own. A picture of a man drawn by an animal would astonish
us. Nothing painted by a child or a savage could come close, it seems."31
But in practice Filonov approached the problem in a manner quite
different from Marc's. While the German painter depicts idealized horses
and roe deer in natural surroundings as the embodiment of a higher
spiritual state, Filonov's animals are closely linked to human society and
urban civilization. Kovtun emphasizes the humanity of Filonov's
animals, citing Khlebnikov:

Я со стены письма Филонова

Смотрю, как конь усталый, до конца.

И много муки в письме у оного,
В глазах у конского лица.32

I gaze down from Filonov's painting

like a tired old horse, to the end.
And there is much suffering in his painting,
in the eyes on the horse's face.

In connection with this, Kovtun underscores the "anthropomorphism of

horses' heads and, on the contrary, the appearance of animal features on

29 Franz Marc, "How Does a Horse See the World," trans. Robert Goldwater, in
Artists on Arty ed. Robert Goldwater and Marco Treves (New York: Pantheon, 1945)
445-6.

30 Ibid., 446, italics in original.

31 M. V. Matiushin, "Tvorchestvo Pav la Fib no v a," in Pave l Filo now und seine Schule.
Katalog (Köln: DuMont, 1 990), 81 .
32 E. F. Kovtun, "P. N. Filonov. 1883-1941," in Filonov P. N. Katalog vystav ki
Gosudarstvennogo Russkogo m u%e ia (Leningrad: Avrora, 1988), 24.

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 260 Hans Günther

human faces."33 Filonov - like Platonov - was interested in the

evolution of life on earth and the interaction of organic and inorganic
forms. The painter was familiar with the biological monism of the
German philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who sought to reconcile science and
theology.34 Filonov's conception of the world as a homogenous
continuum, and its corollary rejection of a hierarchical division of the
world35 to a great extent resembles Platonov's view of the continuous
transition between states of matter, mentioned above. This model of the
world holds out wide-ranging implications for the coexistence of man
and animal, including the Utopian conception of their kinship and the
possibility of a future life of equality.36

2.

How does Andrei Platonov fit into the tradition of animal

representation sketched out above? What sort of relations between m
and animal appear in his writings? It has been noted that the peculia
anthropomorphic conception of animals in his works is associated wit
child's perspective .37 Platonov points to the close bond between chi
and animal when he writes: "a child is man in the beginning, i.e. anim
(«ребенок - это человек вначале, т. е. животное»).38 This is w
animal anthropomorphism is especially evident in his children's storie
That these stories were written with an adult audience in view becomes
clear on closer analysis - for instance of the story "Volchok," where the
erotic element reaches far beyond the scope of its boy-narrator. In the

33 Ibid. For Filonov's views on Khlebnikov, see Kovtun, 24-26. On the meeting
between youngZabolotsky and Filonov, whose paintings had had a strong influence on the
poet, see the introductory article "Metamorfozy zreniia" by E. Stepanian in Zabolotskii,
Polnoe sobrante s tikh о tv o re nii i p о e m , 7.
34 V. Krieger, Kunst als Neuschöpfung der Wirklichkeit . Die Anti-Asthetik der
russischen Moderne (Köln, Weimar, and Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2006), 1 54.
35 See E. N. Gavrilova, "Andrei Platonov i Pavel Filonov. O poetike pověsti
'Kotlovana,'" Literaturnaia ucheba 1 (1990): 52-73; Zh. Dimeshi, "Nekotorye aspekty k
sopostavleniiu tvorchestva Andreiia Platonova i Pavla Filonova," in Russkaia literatura
me^hdu Vostokom iZapadom (Budapesht: Vengerskii institut rusistiki, 1999), 138- 154.
36 Kovtun, "P. N. Filonov. 1 883-1 941 ," 38.
37 К A. Barsht, "Chelovek, zhivotnoe, rastenie, minerai. Antropologicheskaia
kontseptsiia A. Platonova," Europ a Orientalis 19 (2000), 147.
38 A. Platonov, Sochineniia, t. 1 (Moscow: IMLI RAN, 2004), kn. 2, 125. Freud
makes a similar remark in Totem and Taboo : "The relation of the child to animals has
much in common with that of primitive man. The child does not yet show any trace of the
pride which afterwards moves the adult civilized man to set a sharp dividing line between
his own nature and that of all other animals. The child unhesitatingly attributes full equality
to animals; he probably feels himself more closely related to the animal than to the
undoubtedly mysterious adult..." (Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo [New York:
Moffatt, Y ard, & Co., 191 8], 209.)

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 261

boy's eyes, his favorite dog Volchok resembles a human

physically and emotionally. He not only has meek human e
"a human's round pensive head, not at all like a dog's"
почти человеческая круглая задумчивая голова»).39 Moreov
sometimes see similar dreams. The boy does not regard Volc
and for this the dog loves him, with a love that Platonov eq
of a parent. The boy and the dog are united by one and th
Volchok does not know that he is a male, and will not cha
dog Chaika, while the boy also understands that truth
reproduction - is the key to happiness.
In the short story "Korova" ("The Cow"), the boy Vasia
sympathy for a cow that has lost her calf in a railroad ac
longing for her "son" is described through the boy's eyes. H
her despair, "which was irreparable and could only increase
grief she could console in herself neither with word nor co
friend, nor a diversion, as man might" («которое было без
могло только увеличиваться, потому что свое горе она не умела в
себе утешить ни словом, ни сознанием, ни другом, ни
развлечением, как это может делать человек»).41 And he observes how
the cow "gazed out into the darkness with her great, swollen eyes, but
could not cry with them, to exhaust herself in grief' («глядела во тьму
большими налитыми глазами и не могла ими заплакать, чтобы
обессилить себя в горе»).42
Even in works that do not feature a child's perspective,
anthropomorphized animals often occupy a prominent place. In the
novella D?$an43 - to give but one example - men and animals suffer
equally, and both are destroyed by the harsh conditions of a pitiless
nature. The suffering of animals, told in the mute language of their
expressive eyes, is seen even more vividly than that of men. The animal's
grief and pain is made all the more profound because it lacks the ability
to cry. The camel, dying without food and water, 'looked with its black
eyes, like an intelligent, melancholy man" («глядел черными глазами,
как умный грустный человек») and closed his eyes because he did not

39 Andrei Platonov, Sobrante , 8 vols (Moscow: Vremia, 2009-11), vol. 6: Sukhoi

khleb. Rasskaty d lia detei. Russkie ska^ki. Bashkirskk ska^ki (Moscow: Vremia, 2011),
257.
40 Cf. Esenin's poem "Korova" ("The Cow"), where a cow "thinks a mournful
thought" («думает грустную думу») because "a mother did not get her son" «не дали
матери сына»). (Esenin, Po Ino e sobrante so с bine nit, vol. 1,119.)
41 Platonov, Sukhoi khleb.AA.
42 Ibid.
43 See S. Kuznetsova, "Priroda i chelovek v rasskazakh Platonova 1930-x gg," in
"Strana filo sofo v" Andreia Platonova: problémy tvorchestvay vyp. 3 (Moscow: IMLI
RAN, 1999), 297-302.

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 262 Hans Günther

know how to cry" («п

particular defect rea
brutality of predatory b

Они не могут плак

сердца находить се
действуют, желая
внутри мертвого т
(187).

They cannot cry, to find in tears and their heart's exhaustion

comfort and forgiveness for their enemy. They act, wishing to
fatigue their suffering in struggle, in the enemy's corpse or in
their own death.

On various occasions the protagonist of D^han tries to penetrate

into the animals' psyche, to track the patterns of their thought. This
recalls Franz Marc's and Filonov's insistence on animals' higher
intelligence, and their interest in the animal's peculiar perception of man
and Nature.45 When Chagataev encounters a turtle, which "looked
wearily with her black tender eyes at a prone man" («томительно
глядела черными нежными глазами на лежавшего человека», 135),
he tries to divine what must be passing through its consciousness:
"Maybe the magical thought of curiosity toward a mysterious, giant man,
maybe the sorrow of a slumbering intellect" («Может быть, волшебная
мысль любопытства к таинственному громадному человеку, может
быть, печаль дремлющего разума», 135). The pensiveness Chagataev
sees in the eyes of the turtle conveys to him the dignity of its existence,
which needs no human soul to complete it. He imagines they need only
"a little help" («небольшая помощь») from man, "but mastery,
condescension or pity they do not need..." («но превосходство,
снисхождение или жалость им не нужны... », 212). Similarly he tries
to intuit the feelings of a hungry dog, whose eye "welled up with the
tears of despair" («стояли слезы отчаяния», 151)46 and who "looked at
men with greed and sorrow. Her dark, difficult hope was in the wish to
eat all men when they die" («жадно и грустно глядела на людей.

44 A. Platonov, Sobrante у vol. 4: Schasthaia Moskva . Ocherki i rasska^y 1930-x

godov (Moscow: V remia, 2010), 133. Further quotations from this work will be cited
parenthetically within the body of the text.
45 From a scientific perspective the anthropocentric approach is highly doubtful, and
must yield to an objective inquiry, one that is not distorted by psychological speculation.
(See J. von Uexkiill, Um welt und Inneniv elt der Tiere [Berlin: Springer, 1909], 6.)
46 This rare mention of an animal's tears serves evidently to underscore its
anthropom orphis m .

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 Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 263

Темная, трудная надежда ее была в желании съесть все

когда они умрут», 199).
In the novels Kotlovan ( The Foundation Pit ) and Cheve
anthropomorphizing of animals serves very specific ends. In
the anthropomorphic representations of collectivized hors
blacksmith-bear ironically blur the boundaries between man a
The nationalized horses of the kolkhoz "march in step"
шагом») down into the ravine, where they drink "their
норму»), after which they return "maintaining formation an
among themselves" («не теряя строя и сплочения межд
enter the common yard, depositing fodder collected along the
single pile, and eat together "collectively at peace without m
(«организованно смирившись без заботы человека»).47 Vos
perplexed by "the serenity of the champing livestock, as thou
horses had been thoroughly convinced of a collectivized meani
while he alone lives and suffers worse than a horse" (
спокойствие жующего скота, будто все лошади с точностью
убедились в колхозном смысле жизни, а он один живет и мучается
хуже лошади», 485). The ironic parallelism draws the reader's attention
to the fact that the horses are more organized and more principled than
the humans.48 The depiction of the collectivized livestock contrasts with
the mournful image of their "private" comrades, dying of hunger in their
stalls, because the peasants will not feed them in the face of
collectivization. One owner addresses his half-dead horse so: "Then
you've died? So be it - I'll be dead soon also, we'll be in peace"
(«Значит, ты умерла? Ну ничего - я тоже скоро помру, нам будет
тихо», 496).
We may also recall the ideologically conscientious horse Proletarskaia
Sila (The Strength of the Proletariat) from Chevengur ,49 which became
accustomed to the rousing cry "Rosa!" and "independently preferred one
route over another, and always came out wherever there was need for
the armed hand of Kopenkin" («самостоятельно предпочитала одну
дорогу другой и всегда выходила туда, где нуждались в
вооруженной руке Копенкина»), who "operated without plan or
roadmap, but by chance and at the horse's will" («действовал без плана
и маршрута, а наугад и на волю коня»).50 Traditionally, the horse

47 Andrei Platonov, Sobrante, vol. 3: Chevengur. Kotlovan (Moscow: Vremia, 2009),

485. Further quotations from this work will be cited parenthetically within the body of the
text.

48 Scholars have often pointed out the connection to the kingdom of intelligent and
virtuous horses in Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
44 E. A. Iablokov, "Na beregu neba." Roman Andreia Platonova "Chevengur''
(Moscow: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2001), 1 82-1 85.
50 Platonov, So branie, vol 3, 1 1 0.

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 264 Hans Günther

symbolizes a noble cre

qualities.51 So, accordin
the viewer "a sensitivit
things."52 With Kopen
gives way to the ideolo
knight Georgii fights to
furious Kopenkin wages battle against the hydra of the
counterrevolution in the name of his Rosa. Platonov deliberately appeals
to the classic prototype of Cervantes' Rocinante to lampoon the noble
image of the horse. The ironic description of that horse's supposedly
astonishing "superhuman" intellect operates as a kind of inversion of the
pervasive exalted image of the horse, as a creature endowed with the gift
of prophecy.54 It is no accident that the horse is treated ironically in
exactly those Platonov works where ideological thinking is taken to the
limits of the absurd - Kotlovan and Chevengur,
Evidently Platonov favored certain humbler creatures over the
horse: cows, dogs, turtles, even unsightly rodents. We might also add to
this list the symbolically ambiguous fish, associated through its muteness
with the kingdom of death, on the one hand, and with truth, on the
other.55 The sparrow, as the bird of the poor, is given particular
prominence.56 Small creatures are exalted in the short story 'Tiuten',
Vitiuten' i Protegalen." Vitiuten considers himself:

пророком последней, гонимой, ненавидимой всеми и

пожираемой твари - червей мошек, рыбок, травы и
тающих облаков, ибо и они пожираются в небе ветром.57

51 There is a wealth of material on the horse motif in avant-garde art, and on

Khlebnikov's writings in particular, in the work of J. Holthusen. (See J. Holthusen,
Tiergestalten und m etam orphe Erscheinungen in der Literatur der russischen Avantgarde
(1 909-1 923) [München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 19741.)
52 V. Kandinskii, кфгаппуе trudy po teorii iskusstva, 2-е izd., t. 1 (Moscow: Nauka;
Golos, 1995), 327.
53 According to О. Timofeeva, Platonov's communists "literally recognize themselves
in animals and project onto them their revolutionary zeal." (Timofeeva, "Bednaia zhizn',"
104.)
54 C. G. Jung, Sym bole der Wandlung (Zürich: Rascher, 1 952), 474.
55 Iablokov, "Na bere pu neba," 185-190.
56 N.V. Kornienko, "Dobrye liudi v rasskazakh A. Platonova kontsa 30-40-kh," in
Tvorchestvo Andreia Platonova: Is s le do v aniia i materially kn. 2 (St. Petersburg: Nauka,
2000), 6. All of these may be found in such works as Chevengur, "Nuzhnaia rodina" (A
Necessary Homeland"), "Alterke," "Liubov' k Rodine" ("Love for the Homeland"),
"Puteshestvie vorob'ia" ("Sparrow's Travels"), "Moskovskaia skřipka" ("Moscow
Violin").
57 Platonov, So branie , vol. 6, 325.

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 265

a prophet of the lowest creatures, hounded, despise

devoured by all others - the worm, the gnat, the little f
the grass blades and the withering clouds, because the
are devoured up there by the wind.

Here, as in many other stories, the paltry creatures are asso

children, since the beatific Vitiuten believes that "the small
shall take the world for themselves" («малые мира возьмут с
The little creatures personify a despised, defenseless existe
especially precious to Platonov.59
The game on the border of human and animal nature is
the character of the blacksmith-bear from Kot lo v an , w
dekulakif^ation campaign alongside little Nastya. He wields
"humanly" («человечески») and looks forward to a good nig
he is promised vodka after a day's work. This bear, which h
proletarian face" («утомленно-пролетарское лицо») and
gray from sorrow, because he had lived among peop
"delivered from oppression as soon as possible" («как мо
избавить от угнетения», 500). Clearing the village of ku
settling the score for various past mistreatments, and - rem
"so enraged he could almost speak" («мог почти разго
злобы», 505).
Naturally, the little girl and the bear share a special bond:

Ей было хорошо, что животное тоже есть рабочий класс,

- а молотобоец глядел на нее как на забытую сестру, с
которой он пожировал у материнского живота в летнем
лесу своего детства (503).

She felt good that the animal is also working class - while the
hammerer gazed at her as though she had been a forgotten
sister, with whom he fattened at the mother's belly in the
summer forest of his childhood.

The commingling of the human and the animal principles often assumes
an openly parodie character. When Nastya is told that the bear is also
pro-Stalin, she responds with "Animals can feel it too!" («Звери тоже
чуют!», 502). Those words are echoed by Chiklin in his praise of the
activist: "You feel, the classes like an animal" («Ты чуешь классы, как
животное», 507). The child and the animal are characterized by the
same relentless naïveté in their fight against the kulaks. In Kot lo v an the

58 Ibid., 326.
59 Brei', "KuPturnye konteksty poetiki 'zWvogp-nezhivogo' A. Platonova," 240.

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 266 Hans Günther

ambivalent play wit

horrific. Like the "o
conscientious than Vos
animal is working har
while he stands at the
the future" («что з
вблизи, а он стоит н
519).
The theme of "conscientious" ( so^nateTnye ) animals resurfaces in the
novella "Iuvenil'noe more" ("The Juvenile Sea"), where it is suggested
that the cows be tended not by shepherds, but by bulls, since "a bull is a
brain, if he learns responsibility: subjectively the bull will be a protector
of cows, and objectively he will be our shepherd!" («бык это умник,
если его приучить к ответственности: субъективно бык будет
защитником коров, а объективно - нашим пастухом!»).60 The
engineer Vermo, who makes this proposal, appeals to the authority of
the animal technician Visokovsky, who believes:

что эволюция животного мира, остановившаяся в

прежних временах, при социализме возобновится вновь
и все бедные, обросшие шерстью существа, живущие
ныне в мутном разуме, достигнут судьбы сознательной
жизни. ... Пропасть между человеком и любым другим
существом должна бьггь перейдена... (379, ellipses mine).61

that the evolution of the animal world, which had come to a

halt in the past, will be resumed with the coming of socialism
and all the poor, shaggy creatures, now living in hazy reason,
will attain the fate of a conscientious life. ... The abyss
between man and all other creatures must be crossed. . .

At first glance, it appears that the two citations from "Iuvenil'noe more"
contradict one another. One seems to refer to a Utopian vision of the
future, while the other seems to reflect this vision in the distorted mirror
of practical application. The second citation reflects Platonov's wish for
an "evolution of the animal world," while the first evidently parodies the
official discourse of the times. The goal of this apparent contradiction, as
it is so often in Platonov's work, is to direct the reader's attention to the

60 A. Platonov, So branky vol. 2: Efirnyi trakt (Moscow: V remia, 2009), 417-418.

61 I. Makarova points out many parallels between this novella and the views of N.
Zabolotsky. (See I. Makarova, "Khudozhestvennoe svoeobrazie pověsti A. Platonova
'I u v enil'noe m ore," 'in Andrei Plato nov: Mir tv ore he s tv a , 355-372.)

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 267

grotesque abyss separating the lofty ideals of socialism and it

in Soviet society.
The zootechnician's ideas about the evolution of the animal world is
consistent with Platonov's (and Zabolotsky's) conviction that the
evolution of life on earth - propelled by social and scientific effort -
ought to lead to an integration of the various species of living creatures.
Consequently, there is a common thread running through the whole of
Platonov's oeuvre that we might call progressive metamorphosis . Even
in the early "Rasskaz o mnogikh interesnykh veshchakh" ("Tale of Many
Interesting Things"), the brotherly relations between man and animal are
presented as a future ideal. Its young hero Ivan Kopchik, founder of the
storybook city Novaia Surzha, wants to lodge horses and cows along
with humans in the same house:

Более зверей и людей не будет - будут и близко друг к

дружке телесами и душою. Зверь, брат, тоже большевик,
но молчит, потому что человек не велит. Придет время
вскоре, заговорят и звери, остепенятся и образумятся ...
Это дело человека. Он должен сделать людьми все, что
дышит и движется. Ибо в кои-то веки он наложил на
зверя гнет, а сам перестал быть зверем. Это потому, что
еды мало было. Теперча еды хватит на всех, и зверя
можно ослобонить и присоединить к человеку. . .62

There will be no more men and beasts - they will be close to

one another in flesh and soul. The beast, brother, is also a
Bolshevik, but keeps quiet, because man won't let him. Soon
a time will come when the beasts shall speak, get wise and
respectable... That is man's business. He must make men of
everything that breathes and moves. Because in time
immemorial he laid a yoke on the beast, and himself ceased
to be a beast. That was because there was little to eat.
Nowadays there is enough for everybody, and the beast can
be relieved and united with man. . .

Ivan's origins likewise stress the connection between man and animal: he
was conceived by a "nearly non-existent" («почти не существующий»)
man-wolf, "cattle and wolf in appearance, but in his soul, his heart and
his eyes - a wanderer and a naked beating heart" («по обличию - скот
и волк, по душе, по сердцу, по глазам - странник и нагое

62 Andrei Platonov, So branie , vol. 1 : Uso m niv s hits ia Makar. Stikhotvoreniia. Rass
20-x go do v . Rannie ras s кару. Napis anno e v soavtorstve (Moscow: V remia, 2009),
ellipses in original

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 268 Hans Günther

бьющееся сердце»).6
zoomorphic helper: o
shows him and his pe
interactions between men and animals are cast in the conventions of a
fairy-tale, or skalka, we may be sure that they closely resemble the
author's actual ideas on the subject. The early tale already contains
Platonov's principal motifs: the abolition of animal exploitation and the
evolutionary "tardiness" of animals.
We find an inversion of this idea in the story "Musornyi veter" ('The
Trash Wind"), which includes many instances of what we might call
regressive metamorphosis , i.e. the inverse vector of the evolution of
living creatures. This recalls Hegel's remark concerning Ovid's tendency
"to make animals and inorganic forms into a presentation of the
degradation of man,"64 because in the Metamorphoses the transformation
of humans into animals is equated with "a degradation and a punishment
of spiritual existents."65 In "Musornyi veter," "society's defective order
leads to the mutation of man," which alters "the form of the human
body and all of its familiar physiological and anatomical properties."66
Thoughts about the contrast between human degradation and the
nobility of animals appear often in Platonov's Zapisnye kni^hki. For
example: "Compared with animals or plants, man is indecent in his
behavior" («По сравнению с животными и растениями человек по
своему поведению неприличен»).67 Or: "Among animals there are
creatures that morally exceed even humans" («Среди животных есть
морально даже более высокие существа, чем люди»).68
Several reasons are given in "Musornyi veter" for the "animals'
descent from man" («происхождение животных из людей»).69 The
case of the wife of the astrophysicist Lichtenberg illustrates the debasing
nature of sexual lust70: "The down on her cheeks turned to fur, her eyes
sparkled with frenzy, and her mouth was filled with the slaver of greed
and concupiscence" («Пух на ее щеках превратился в шерсть, глаза
сверкали бешенством и рот был наполнен слюной жадности и
сладострастия»). Her leg was "covered with savage boils from animal

63 Ibid., 348.
64 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ^Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Arty trans. T. M. Knox
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 448. (For the German original, see G. W. F. Hegel,
Ästhetik [Frankfurt am Main: Aufbau Verlag, 1 9651, 433.)
65 ''œ'Aestbetics, 393. (Hegel, Äs th etik, 381.)
66 Bars ht, "Chelovek, zhivotnoe. . .," 1 66.
6 ' A . P latonov, Zapisnye kn hh ki 261.
68 Ibid., 213
69 Platonov, Sobrante y vol. 4, 278.
70 See E. Naiman, "Andrej Platonov and the Inadmissibility of Desire," Russian
Literature 23, no. 4 (1988): 332-334.

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 269

slovenliness, she did not bother licking them, she was

monkey" («покрыта одичалыми волдырями от неопрятн
она даже не зализывала их, она была хуже обезьяны
beast, the filth of a crazed consciousness" («зверь, своло
сознания »).71
Other texts make reference to the "animal" nature of the
reproductive organs. The protagonist of "Tekhnicheskii roman"
('Technical Romance") is mortified when for the first time in his life he
sees on a naked girl:

чего он не видел никогда - чужое и страшное, как

неизвестное животное, забравшееся греться в теплые
теснины человека из погибших дебрей природы... Это
существо, непохожее на всю Лиду и враждебное ей,
было настолько безумно и мучительно по виду, что
Щеглов навсегда отрекся от него, решив любить
женщину в одном чувстве и размышлении.72

what he had never seen before - something foreign and

frightening, like some unknown animal that had crawled into
the warm caverns of human flesh from the perished thickets
of nature. . .This creature, so unlike the rest of Lida, appeared
so mad and agonizing that Shcheglov once and for all
renounced it, resolving from then on to love woman only in
spirit and contemplation.

And in "Reka Potudan'" ("The River Potudan"), sex instills "animal

fear" in the impotent protagonist. He sees a nightmare:

что его душит своею горячей шерстью маленькое,

упитанное животное, вроде полевого зверька,
откормившегося чистой пшеницей. Это животное,
взмокая пот от усилия и жадности, залезло ему в рот, в
73
горло...

that a small, plump creature, like a field rodent, battened on

pure wheat, was smothering him with its hot fur. This animal,
sweating from effort and greed, had climbed into his mouth,
his throat...

71 Platonov, Sobrante, vol. 4, 272.

72 A. Platonov, "Strana fib so fo v" Andreia Plato no v ay vyp. 4, 907.
73 Platonov, So bran te y voL 4, 426, ellipsis mine.

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 270 Hans Günther

It is striking that in th
the loss of human app
associated with sexuali
man, is underpinne
conquered through reas
In "Musornyi veter,
triggered by man's ex
leads to a zoomorphi
Lichtenberg, savagely t
frightened dog76 he und
grief and need to the
плаща и безвучно, с
Feeding on trash, Lich
"From the disfiguring
dark infection, resemb
everything up. Bushes
(«По телу его - от у
темная зараза, похожая на волчанку, а поверх ее выросла густая
шерсть и все покрыла. На месте вырванных ушей также выросл
кусты волос... » (279, ellipsis mine).78 At the prison camp, Lichtenberg
considered "hardly human" («едва ли человек») and "a new possib
kind of social animal" («новый возможный вид социального

74 Kh. Giunter, "К estetike tela u Platonova (1930-e gg.)," in " Strana filo sofo v"
Andreia Plato nov a, vyp. 5, 76-84.
75 D. Gallagher speaks of metamorphoses precipitated by social or cultural crises. (See
D. Gallagher, Metam orpho sis: Transform at ion s of the Body and the Influence of Ovid's
Metamorphoses on German Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
[Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 20091, 387-391 .)
76 For a discussion of Mayakov sky's depiction of social outcasts as dogs in "Vot tak ia
zdelalsia sobakoi" ('That's How I became a Dog"), see I. P. Smirnov, "Mesto
'mifopoeticheskogo' podkhoda k literaturnomu proizvedeniiu sredi tolkovanii teksta (O
stikhotvorenii Maiakovskogo 'Vot tak ia sdelalsia sobakoi','' in M iff о Г klo r- lit e rat и ra
(Leningrad: Nauka, 1978), 197.
77 Platonov, Sobranie , vol. 4, 281. Further citations from this work will appear
parenthetically within the bodv of the text.
78 The corpse of little Nastya's mother - a former Socialist Revolutionary - is similarly
depicted in Kotlovan . A bourgeois, she finds herself an extraneous "social animal" in the
Socialist society: "Her long bare arms were covered with thick down, almost fur-like, that
had sprung up from her illnesses and shelterless nes s - some kind of ancient force, now
revived, transformed her, even while she still lived, into a hidebound animal" ("Длинные
обнаженные ноги были покрыты густым пухом, почти шерстью, выросшей ог
болезней и бесприютности, - какая-то лревняя, ожившая сила превращала мертвую
еще при ее жизни в обрастающее шкурой животное».) (Platonov, Sobranie, vol. 3, 458.)
A "protective hide" covers the back of Elisei, one of the group of peasants, who had
prepared coffins, to await there the end of their days. (Ibid., 464.) "Poor creatures, covered
in fur" also appear in "IuveniTnoe more": it is evident that for Platonov "fur" is one of the
fundamental attributes of animal or "animalization."

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Man and Animal in the Works of A. Platonov 271

животного») with a "hirsute covering" («волосяным покр

In the end, the hero, who has sacrificed his life to feed starvin
is seen by his wife as "an unfamiliar slaughtered animal" (
убитое животное»); she imagines it to be "a primordial m
with fur, but most likely a large ape, mutilated by someone
for a laugh, in scraps of human clothing" («первобытн
заросший шерстью, но скорее всего это большая обезь
изувеченная и одетая для шутки в клочья человеческой
288). The policeman, a personification of Nazi ideology,
prone body to be "an ape or some other unscientific animal,
Germany" («лежит обезьяна или прочее какое-нибудь не
Германии, ненаучное животное», 288).
The only positive metamorphosis in this grim tale befal
Wotmann, a communist sentenced to be shot who goes
death, but to a transfiguration" («не в смерть, а в перев
284). As if she were a bird, she escapes from the Nazi offic
flight - "the flaps of her raincoat fluttered and silently, in a b
she was lost from view" («взмахнула краем плаща и
мгновением птицы скрылась от конвоя», 285). 79 The
metamorphoses of "Musornyi veter" suggest that in the fasc
of appearances" («царстве мнимости», 275) all is not as it see
kingdom of beasts evolution moves in the opposite dire
toward a human degradation, and this results in the animaliz
and a racist society that expels defective "subhumans" a
zoomorphic beings.

79 In Slavic mythology -as elsewhere-the bird is a symbolic equivalent of

80 The reversal of the evolutionary process, as conceived by Mandeis hta
"Lamarck" (1932), involves the atrophying of the "cultural organs" in the f
environment:
Мы прошли разряды насекомых
С наливными рюмочками глаз.
Он сказал: природа вся в разломах,
Зренья нет - ты зришь в последний раз!

Он сказал: довольно полнозвучья, -

Ты напрасно Моцарта любил:
Наступает глухота паучья,
Здесь провал сильнее наших сил.

We descended through the ranks of insects / with their swollen snifter eyes. / He said:
Nature is in shambles, / vision is over - you shall see no more. / He said: harmony is
finished - / Your love of Mozart was in vain: / now a spidery deafness descends, /
here is a breakdown greater than all of us.

(O. MandePshtam, Sochineniia , v 2 t. (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literature, 1990), t. 1,

186.)

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 272 Hans Günther

Tapping into the bro

explored in the scientifi
Platonov develops his o
interchangeability - of
recasts traditional motif
striking parallels in his
poetry of Zabolotsky an
infused with extraordin
suffering creature - and w
Various kinds of anthr
and regressive metamorp
prominent role througho
in each text the relation
particular perspective
veter," for instance, w
zoomorphosis, contrasts
the conflation of human and animal natures. For Platonov,
metamorphosis is not simply a metaphor or a symbol: it is a corollary of
the author's conviction that the difference between states of matter is
strictly one of degree.

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