Abstract

The principal aim of my essay is to provide a selective description and positive evaluation of the development of Andrei Platonov's views in the 20th century from utopian communism through disillusioned cynicism to what I will call humanistic communalism. Now considered in Russia as one of its greatest writers, he articulated various highly significant ideas and issues – primarily philosophical but also political and psychological – concerning the viability of living within an indifferent, non-moral universe, an unprogressive, indeed oppressive, sociopolitical system, and a recurrently tragic, ineluctably contingent life-world. As a result of this not uncommon intellectual and existential journey, Platonov mapped out a way of hopeful, enriching living based upon creative activity and upon communal relationships—for example, of friendship and love, supplemented by a resolute combination of patience and endurance.