Images and motifs of Shalamov’ s stories in the context of Platonov’ s prose

Malygina Nina M.,

Doctor of Philology, Professor,

Leading Researcher

Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

e-mail: ninmal@yandex.ru

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3670-4398

The article is the first to publish Shalamov’s reviews of Platonov and his works, revealed in the writer’s correspondence. The analysis of Shalamov’s stories in the context of Platonov’s prose has allowed to find out the coincidence of their key images and motifs: the image of the hero — ‘the artist of the shovel’; the image of workers existing on the verge of life and death; the motif of destructive physical labour; the motif of turning a human being into material; the motif of sacrifice and doom of workers; the image of tools used for works; the motif of shovels scraping against stone — ‘the music of slaughtering’, the motif of inventing ways of saving human strength in the process of physical labour. The general principles of the poetics of Platonov’s and Shalamov’s prose are defined: the synthesis of documentary and artistry; the reliability of depicting what is experienced. The reasons of coincidence of images and motives of Platonov’s and Shalamov’s prose are established: similarity of life experience of writers; common sources of principles of poetics; Shalamov’s assimilation of Platonov’s creative experience.

Keywords: A.P. Platonov, V.T. Shalamov, documentary and fiction, poetics of prose