The ideological and artistic meaning of the title of A. P’s story

Andrey Platonov

Recovery of the dead

From the abyss I call again the dead
The mother returned to her house. She was a refugee from the Germans, but she could not live anywhere other than her native place, and returned home.
She passed through intermediate fields past German fortifications twice, because the front here was uneven, and she walked along a straight, nearby road. She had no fear and was not afraid of anyone, and her enemies did not harm her. She walked through the fields, sad, bare-haired, with a vague, as if blind, face. And she didn’t care what was in the world now and what was happening in it, and nothing in the world could disturb her or make her happy, because her grief was eternal and her sadness was insatiable - her mother lost all her children dead. She was now so weak and indifferent to the whole world that she walked along the road like a withered blade of grass carried by the wind, and everything she met also remained indifferent to her. And it became even more difficult for her, because she felt that she did not need anyone, and that no one needed her anyway. This is enough to kill a person, but she did not die; she needed to see her home, where she lived her life, and the place where her children died in battle and execution.
On her way she met Germans, but they did not touch this old woman; It was strange for them to see such a sad old woman, they were horrified by the sight of humanity on her face, and they left her unattended to die on her own. In life there is this vague, alienated light on people’s faces, frightening the beast and the hostile person, and no one can destroy such people, and it is impossible to approach them. Beast and man are more willing to fight with their own kind, but he leaves those unlike him aside, fearing to be frightened by them and to be defeated by an unknown force.
Having gone through the war, the old mother returned home. But her homeland was now empty. A small, poor one-family house, plastered with clay, painted yellow, with a brick chimney that looked like a man’s head in thought, had long since burned out from the German fire and left behind embers already overgrown with the grass of the grave. And all the neighboring residential areas, this entire old city also died, and it became light and sad all around, and you could see far away across the silent land. A little time will pass, and the place where people live will be overgrown with free grass, the winds will blow it out, the rain streams will level it, and then there will be no trace of man left, and all the torment of his existence on earth will be no one to understand and inherit as good and teaching for the future, because no one will survive. And the mother sighed from this last thought and from the pain in her heart for her unmemorable dying life. But her heart was kind, and out of love for the dead, she wanted to live for all the dead in order to fulfill their will, which they took with them to the grave.
She sat down in the middle of the cooled fire and began to sort through the ashes of her home with her hands. She knew her fate, that it was time for her to die, but her soul did not resign herself to this fate, because if she dies, then where will the memory of her children be preserved and who will save them in their love when her heart also stops breathing?
The mother did not know this, and she thought alone. A neighbor, Evdokia Petrovna, approached her, a young woman, pretty and plump before, but now weakened, quiet and indifferent; her two young children were killed by a bomb when she left the city with them, and her husband went missing at earthworks, and she returned back to bury the children and live out her time in the dead place.
“Hello, Maria Vasilievna,” said Evdokia Petrovna.
“It’s you, Dunya,” Maria Vasilievna told her. - Come with me, let’s talk to you. Search my head, I haven't washed for a long time.
Dunya humbly sat down next to her: Maria Vasilyevna put her head on her lap, and the neighbor began to search in her head. It was now easier for both of them to do this activity; one worked diligently, and the other clung to her and dozed off in peace from the proximity of a familiar person.
- Are all yours dead? - asked Maria Vasilievna.
- That's it, why not! - Dunya answered. - And all of yours?
- That's it, there's no one. - said Maria Vasilievna.
“You and I have no one equally,” said Dunya, satisfied that her grief is not the greatest in the world: other people have the same.
“I’ll have more grief than yours: I’ve lived as a widow before,” said Maria Vasilyevna. - And two of my sons lay down here near the settlement. They entered the work battalion when the Germans left Petropavlovka on the Mitrofanevsky tract. And my daughter took me from here wherever my eyes looked, she loved me, she was my daughter, then she left me, she fell in love with others, she fell in love with everyone, she took pity on one - she was kind girl“, she’s my daughter,” she leaned over to him, he was sick, he was wounded, he became as if lifeless, and she was also killed then, killed from above from an airplane. And I came back, what do I care! What do I care now! I don't care! I'm like dead now
“What should you do: live like you’re dead, I live like that too,” said Dunya. - Mine are lying, and yours are lying. I know where yours are lying - they are where they dragged everyone and buried them, I was here, I saw it with my own eyes. First they counted all the dead people killed, they drew up a paper, put our people separately, and dragged our people away further away. Then we were all stripped naked and all the profits from our things were recorded on paper. They took such care for a long time, and then they began to bury them.
-Who dug the grave? - Maria Vasilievna was worried. -Did you dig deep? After all, they buried the naked, chilly ones; a deep grave would have been warmer!
- No, how deep it is! - Dunya said. - A shell hole, that’s your grave. They piled more in there, but there wasn’t enough room for others. Then they drove a tank through the grave over the dead, the dead calmed down, the place became empty, and they also put whoever was left there. They have no desire to dig, they are saving their strength. And they threw a little earth on top, the dead are lying there, getting cold now; Only the dead can endure such torment - lying naked in the cold for centuries
- And were mine also mutilated by the tank or were they placed on top whole? - asked Maria Vasilievna.
- Yours? - Dunya responded. - Yes, I didn’t notice that. There, behind the suburb, right next to the road, they’re all lying, if you go, you’ll see. I tied a cross for them from two branches and put it up, but it was of no use: the cross would fall over, even if you made it iron, and people would forget the dead. Maria Vasilievna got up from Dunya’s knees, put her head to herself and began to look in her hair. . And the work made her feel better; handmade heals a sick, yearning soul.
Then, when it was already getting light, Maria Vasilyevna got up; she was an old woman, she was tired now; She said goodbye to Dunya and went into the darkness, where her children lay - two sons in the near land and a daughter in the distance.
Maria Vasilievna went out to the suburb, which was adjacent to the city. Gardeners and market gardeners used to live in wooden houses in the suburb; they fed from the lands adjacent to their homes, and thus existed here from time immemorial. Nowadays there is nothing left here, and the earth above is baked from the fire, and the inhabitants either die, or go into wandering, or they are captured and taken away to work and death.
From the settlement the Mitrofanevsky tract went into the plain. In former times, willows grew along the side of the road, but now the war had gnawed them down to the very stumps, and now the deserted road was boring, as if the end of the world was already close and few people came here.
Maria Vasilievna came to the grave site, where there was a cross made of two mournful, trembling branches tied across. The mother sat down at this cross; beneath him lay her naked children, killed, abused and thrown into the dust by the hands of others.
Evening came and turned into night. The autumn stars lit up in the sky, as if having cried, surprised and kind eyes opened there, motionlessly peering into the dark earth, so sorrowful and alluring that out of pity and painful attachment no one can take their eyes off it.
“If only you were alive,” the mother whispered into the ground to her dead sons, “if only you were alive, how much work you have done, how much fate you have experienced!” And now, well, now you’re dead, where is your life that you didn’t live, who will live it for you?.. How old was Matvey? He was twenty-third, and Vasily was twenty-eighth. And my daughter was eighteen, now she would have turned nineteen, yesterday she was the birthday girl. I spent so much of my heart on you, how much of my blood wasted, but that means it was not enough, my heart and my blood alone was not enough, since you died, since I I didn’t keep my children alive and didn’t save them from death. Well, they are my children, they didn’t ask to live in the world. And I gave birth to them - I didn’t think; I gave birth to them, let them live on their own. But it’s obvious that it’s still impossible to live on earth, there’s nothing ready for the children here: they only cooked, but they couldn’t manage it!.. They can’t live here, and they had nowhere else, so what can we, mothers, do? gave birth to children. How else could it be? Living alone is probably not worth it. She touched the grave soil and lay down with her face on it. It was quiet in the ground, nothing could be heard.
- Sleeping“,” the mother whispered, “no one will move,” it was difficult to die, and they were exhausted. Let them sleep, I'll wait - I can't live without children, I don't want to live without the dead. Maria Vasilievna took her face off the ground; she thought that her daughter Natasha called her; she called her without saying a word, as if she had said something with one weak breath. The mother looked around, wanting to see where her daughter was calling to her, where her meek voice sounded from - from a quiet field, from the depths of the earth or from the heights of the sky, from that clear star. Where is she now, her dead daughter? Or is she nowhere else and the mother only imagines Natasha’s voice, which sounds like a memory in her own heart?
Maria Vasilievna listened again, and again from the silence of the world her daughter’s calling voice sounded to her, so distant that it was like silence, and yet pure and clear in meaning, speaking of hope and joy, that everything that had not come true would come true , and the dead will return to live on earth and the separated will embrace each other and will never part again.
The mother heard that her daughter’s voice was cheerful, and realized that this meant hope and trust in her daughter to return to life, that the deceased was expecting help from the living and did not want to be dead.
“How, daughter, can I help you? “I’m barely alive myself,” said Maria Vasilievna; she spoke calmly and intelligibly, as if she were in her home, at peace, and was having a conversation with the children, as happened in her recent happy life. - I won’t lift you up alone, daughter; if all the people loved you and corrected all the untruths on earth, then he would raise you and all those who died righteously to life: after all, death is the first untruth!.. And how can I help you alone? I’ll just die of grief and then I’ll be with you!” The mother spoke words of reasonable consolation to her daughter for a long time, as if Natasha and the two sons in the land were listening to her attentively. Then she dozed off and fell asleep on the grave.
The midnight dawn of war rose in the distance, and the roar of cannons came from there; there the battle began. Maria Vasilievna woke up and looked towards the fire in the sky, and listened to the rapid breathing of the guns. “It’s our people coming,” she believed. - Let them come quickly, let there be Soviet power again, she loves the people, she loves work, she teaches people everything, she is restless; maybe a century will pass, and the people will learn so that the dead become alive, and then they will sigh, then the orphaned heart of the mother will rejoice.”
Maria Vasilievna believed and understood that everything would come true as she wished and as she needed to console her soul. She saw flying airplanes, but they were also difficult to invent and make, and all the dead could be returned from the earth to life in the sunlight if people’s minds turned to the need of a mother who gives birth and buries her children and dies from separation from them.
She again fell to the soft earth of the grave to be closer to her silent sons. And their silence was a condemnation to the whole world-villain who killed them, and grief for the mother, who remembers the smell of their childish body and the color of their living eyes. By noon, Russian tanks reached the Mitrofanevskaya road and stopped near the village for inspection and refueling; Now they did not shoot in front of themselves, because the German garrison of the lost town was protected from the battle and retreated to their troops ahead of time.
One Red Army soldier from the tank moved away from the car and began to walk along the ground, over which the peaceful sun was now shining. The Red Army soldier was no longer so young, he was old, and he loved to see how the grass lived, and to check whether the butterflies and insects to which he was accustomed still existed.
Near a cross connected from two branches, the Red Army soldier saw an old woman with her face pressed to the ground. He leaned towards her and listened to her breathing, and then turned the woman’s body on its back and, for good measure, pressed his ear to her chest. “Her heart is gone,” the Red Army soldier realized and covered his calm face with the deceased clean canvas, which he had with him as a spare footcloth.
“She really had nothing to live with: look at how her body was consumed by hunger and grief - the bone glows outward through the skin.”
- Live for now, - the Red Army soldier said aloud at parting. - No matter whose mother you are, I, too, remained an orphan without you.
He stood a little longer, in the languor of his separation from someone else's mother.
- It’s dark for you now, and you’ve gone far from us. What can we do? Now we have no time to grieve for you, we must first put down the enemy. And then the whole world must come to understanding, otherwise it will be impossible, otherwise everything will be of no use!..
The Red Army soldier went back. And he became bored with living without the dead. However, he felt that it was now all the more necessary for him to live. It is necessary not only to completely destroy the enemy of human life, we must also be able to live after the victory with that higher life that the dead silently bequeathed to us; and then, for their sake eternal memory, it is necessary to fulfill all their hopes on earth, so that their will comes true and their heart, having stopped breathing, is not deceived. The dead have no one to trust except the living - and we need to live this way now, so that the death of our people is justified by the happy and free fate of our people, and thus their death is exacted.

Andrey Platonov

Recovery of the dead

From the abyss I call again the dead

The mother returned to her house. She was a refugee from the Germans, but she could not live anywhere other than her native place, and returned home.

She passed through intermediate fields past German fortifications twice, because the front here was uneven, and she walked along a straight, nearby road. She had no fear and was not afraid of anyone, and her enemies did not harm her. She walked through the fields, sad, bare-haired, with a vague, as if blind, face. And she didn’t care what was in the world now and what was happening in it, and nothing in the world could disturb her or make her happy, because her grief was eternal and her sadness was insatiable - her mother lost all her children dead. She was now so weak and indifferent to the whole world that she walked along the road like a withered blade of grass carried by the wind, and everything she met also remained indifferent to her. And it became even more difficult for her, because she felt that she did not need anyone, and that no one needed her anyway. This is enough to kill a person, but she did not die; she needed to see her home, where she lived her life, and the place where her children died in battle and execution.

On her way she met Germans, but they did not touch this old woman; It was strange for them to see such a sad old woman, they were horrified by the sight of humanity on her face, and they left her unattended to die on her own. In life there is this vague, alienated light on people’s faces, frightening the beast and the hostile person, and no one can destroy such people, and it is impossible to approach them. Beast and man are more willing to fight with their own kind, but he leaves those unlike him aside, fearing to be frightened by them and to be defeated by an unknown force.

Having gone through the war, the old mother returned home. But her homeland was now empty. A small, poor one-family house, plastered with clay, painted yellow, with a brick chimney that looked like a man’s head in thought, had long since burned out from the German fire and left behind embers already overgrown with the grass of the grave. And all the neighboring residential areas, this entire old city also died, and it became light and sad all around, and you could see far away across the silent land. A little time will pass, and the place where people live will be overgrown with free grass, the winds will blow it out, the rain streams will level it, and then there will be no trace of man left, and all the torment of his existence on earth will be no one to understand and inherit as good and teaching for the future, because no one will survive. And the mother sighed from this last thought and from the pain in her heart for her unmemorable dying life. But her heart was kind, and out of love for the dead, she wanted to live for all the dead in order to fulfill their will, which they took with them to the grave.

She sat down in the middle of the cooled fire and began to sort through the ashes of her home with her hands. She knew her fate, that it was time for her to die, but her soul did not resign herself to this fate, because if she dies, then where will the memory of her children be preserved and who will save them in their love when her heart also stops breathing?

The mother did not know this, and she thought alone. A neighbor, Evdokia Petrovna, approached her, a young woman, pretty and plump before, but now weakened, quiet and indifferent; Her two young children were killed by a bomb when she left the city with them, and her husband went missing at earthworks, and she returned back to bury the children and live out her time in the dead place.

“Hello, Maria Vasilievna,” said Evdokia Petrovna.

It’s you, Dunya,” Maria Vasilievna told her. - Come with me, let’s talk to you. Search my head, I haven't washed for a long time.

Dunya humbly sat down next to her: Maria Vasilyevna put her head on her lap, and the neighbor began to search in her head. It was now easier for both of them to do this activity; one worked diligently, and the other clung to her and dozed off in peace from the proximity of a familiar person.

Are all yours dead? - asked Maria Vasilievna.

That's it, what else! - Dunya answered. - And all of yours?

That's it, no one is there. - said Maria Vasilievna.

You and I have no one equally,” said Dunya, satisfied that her grief is not the greatest in the world: other people have the same.

“I’ll have more grief than yours: I’ve lived as a widow before,” said Maria Vasilievna. - And two of my sons lay down here near the settlement. They entered the work battalion when the Germans left Petropavlovka on the Mitrofanevsky tract. And my daughter took me from here wherever my eyes looked, she loved me, she was my daughter, then she left me, she fell in love with others, she fell in love with everyone, she took pity on one - she was a kind girl, she is my daughter, - she leaned towards him, he was sick, he was wounded, he became as if lifeless, and she was also killed then, killed from above from an airplane. And I came back, what do I care! What do I care now! I don't care! I'm like dead now

What should you do: live like you’re dead, I live like that too, said Dunya. - Mine are lying, and yours are lying. I know where yours are lying - they are where they dragged everyone and buried them, I was here, I saw it with my own eyes. First they counted all the dead people killed, they drew up a paper, put our people separately, and dragged our people away further away. Then we were all stripped naked and all the profits from our things were recorded on paper. They took such care for a long time, and then they began to bury them.

Who dug the grave? - Maria Vasilievna was worried. -Did you dig deep? After all, they buried the naked, chilly ones; a deep grave would have been warmer!

No, how deep it is! - Dunya said. - A shell hole, that’s your grave. They piled more in there, but there wasn’t enough room for others. Then they drove a tank through the grave over the dead, the dead calmed down, the place became empty, and they also put whoever was left there. They have no desire to dig, they save their strength. And they threw a little earth on top, the dead are lying there, getting cold now; Only the dead can endure such torment - lying naked in the cold for centuries

And were mine also mutilated by the tank, or were they placed on top whole? - asked Maria Vasilievna.

Yours? - Dunya responded. - Yes, I didn’t notice that. There, behind the suburb, right next to the road, they’re all lying, if you go, you’ll see. I tied a cross for them from two branches and put it up, but it was of no use: the cross would fall over, even if you made it iron, and people would forget the dead. Maria Vasilievna got up from Dunya’s knees, put her head to herself and began to look in her hair. . And the work made her feel better; manual work heals a sick, yearning soul.

Then, when it was already getting light, Maria Vasilyevna got up; she was an old woman, she was tired now; She said goodbye to Dunya and went into the darkness, where her children lay - two sons in the near land and a daughter in the distance.

Maria Vasilievna went out to the suburb, which was adjacent to the city. Gardeners and market gardeners used to live in wooden houses in the suburb; they fed from the lands adjacent to their homes, and thus existed here from time immemorial. Nowadays there is nothing left here, and the earth above is baked from the fire, and the inhabitants either die, or go into wandering, or they are captured and taken away to work and death.

From the settlement the Mitrofanevsky tract went into the plain. In former times, willows grew along the side of the road, but now the war had gnawed them down to the very stumps, and now the deserted road was boring, as if the end of the world was already close and few people came here.

Maria Vasilievna came to the grave site, where there was a cross made of two mournful, trembling branches tied across. The mother sat down at this cross; beneath him lay her naked children, killed, abused and thrown into the dust by the hands of others.

Evening came and turned into night. The autumn stars lit up in the sky, as if having cried, surprised and kind eyes opened there, motionlessly peering into the dark earth, so sorrowful and alluring that out of pity and painful attachment no one can take their eyes off it.

If only you were alive, - the mother whispered into the ground to her dead sons, - if only you were alive, how much work you have done, how much fate you have experienced! And now, well, now you’re dead, where is your life that you didn’t live, who will live it for you?.. How old was Matvey? He was twenty-third, and Vasily was twenty-eighth. And my daughter was eighteen, now she would have turned nineteen, yesterday she was the birthday girl. I spent so much of my heart on you, how much of my blood wasted, but that means it was not enough, my heart and my blood alone was not enough, since you died, since I I didn’t keep my children alive and didn’t save them from death. Well, they are my children, they didn’t ask to live in the world. And I gave birth to them - I didn’t think; I gave birth to them, let them live on their own. But it’s obvious that it’s impossible to live on earth yet, nothing is ready for the children here: they only cooked, but they couldn’t manage it!.. They can’t live here, and they had nowhere else, so what can we, mothers, do? gave birth to children. How else could it be? Living alone is probably not worth it. She touched the grave soil and lay down with her face on it. It was quiet in the ground, nothing could be heard.

I call from the abyss.

Words of the Dead

The mother returned to her house. She was a refugee from the Germans, but she could not live anywhere other than her native place, and returned home. She passed through intermediate fields past German fortifications twice, because the front here was uneven, and she walked along a straight, nearby road. She had no fear and was not afraid of anyone, and her enemies did not harm her. She walked through the fields, sad, bare-haired, with a vague, as if blind, face. And she didn’t care what was in the world now and what was happening in it, and nothing in the world could disturb her or make her happy, because her grief was eternal and her sadness was insatiable - her mother lost all her children dead. She was now so weak and indifferent to the whole world that she walked along the road like a withered blade of grass carried by the wind, and everything she met also remained indifferent to her. And it became even more difficult for her, because she felt that she did not need anyone, and that no one needed her anyway. This is enough to kill a person, but she did not die; she needed to see her home, where she lived her life, and the place where her children died in battle and execution.

Pirogova Lyubov, 11th grade student

Despite the huge number of works about the war, Platonov’s work of this period has not been sufficiently studied and in this relevance work.

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The image of the mother in the story by A.P. Platonov “Recovery of the Dead”

(Speech at the regional linguistic conference)

Slide 1

2011 is the year of celebrating the 66th anniversary of the Victory. Despite the huge number of works about the war, Platonov’s work of this period has not been sufficiently studied and in this the relevance of my work.

Slide 2

Platonov's military prose is imbued with extraordinary light, although all of it is a truthful and unvarnished document of human suffering and death, a monument to an unforgotten war. Its pinnacle was the story “Recovery of the Dead,” written in October 1943.

Slide 3

Slide 4

The beginning of the story is an overture to the theme of the holiness of the mother, seeking all her lost children in repentance and looking forward to the resurrection of the dead to the life of the next century.

Slide 5

“Mother returned to her house. She was a refugee from the Germans, but she could not live anywhere except her native place, and returned home.”

Slide 6

What is the writer talking about? About holiness born of suffering, the holiness of a mother going to the grave of her children.

Amazing in its simplicity and Christian humility is her conversation with her neighbor Evdokia Petrovna, a young woman, once plump, but now weakened, quiet and indifferent: her two young children were killed by a bomb when she was leaving the city, and her husband went missing at earthworks, "and she returned back to bury the children and live out her time in a dead place.

Slide 7

- That’s it, there’s no one.

I will have more grief than yours: I have lived as a widow before. Two of my sons lay down here, near the settlement. And my daughter took me from here wherever I could, and she was also killed then, killed from above, from an airplane... And I returned. What do I care now! I'm like dead now...

What should you do? I live like this too. Mine are lying, and yours are lying... I know where yours are lying - they are where they dragged everyone and buried them, I was here, I saw it with my own eyes

Who dug the grave? Did you dig deep? After all, they buried the naked, chilly ones; a deep grave would have been warmer!..

No, how deep it is! A shell hole, that's your grave. They piled more in there, but there wasn’t enough room for others. Then they drove a tank through the grave, over the dead, and put whoever was left there. They have no desire to dig, they save their strength. And they threw a little earth on top, the dead are lying there, getting cold now; Only the dead can endure such torment - lying naked in the cold for centuries...

Were mine also mutilated by the tank, or were they placed on top whole?

Yours? Yes, I didn’t notice that... There, behind the suburb, right next to the road, they’re all lying there, if you go, you’ll see. I tied a cross for them from two branches and put it up, but it’s no use: the cross will fall down, even if you make it iron, and people will forget the dead... Dunya doesn’t believe in the memory of her people. Maria Vasilievna doesn’t believe in her either. This main reason her sorrows.

Slide 8

“Then, when it was already getting light, the mother got up and went into the darkness, where her children lay - two sons in the nearby land and a daughter in the distance. The mother sat down at the cross; under it lay her naked children, killed, abused and thrown into the dust by the hands of others
“...Let them sleep, I’ll wait – I can’t live without children.”

And as if in answer to a prayer, she heard her daughter’s calling voice sound from the silence of the world, speaking of hope and joy, that everything that had not come true would come true.

Platonov directly and unequivocally addresses with these words of a simple Orthodox woman those who have ears to hear with a reminder that only the love of the entire people and nationwide repentance can “raise all those who have died righteously” to life, that is, to recover those who died from sin, because death is the consequence of sin,” and there is the first lie!..”

Slide 9

“By midday, Russian tanks stopped near the settlement for inspection and refueling. Near a cross connected from two branches, a Red Army soldier saw an old woman with her face pressed to the ground.
.

! The Red Army soldier went back, but he felt that it was now even more necessary for him to live. It is necessary not only to completely destroy the enemy of people’s lives, but also to be able to live after that victory. The dead have no one to trust except the living - and we need to live this way now, so that the death of our people is justified by the happy and free fate of our people and thus their death is exacted."

Slide 10

The title of the story is a testament to us who are alive today.

Slide 11

“Recovery of the Dead” is the name of one of the most revered icons in Rus' Holy Mother of God, an icon that has the grace of consoling parental grief, an icon of fathers and mothers praying for their children.

The blanket flows over the shoulders,

The little arms haven't been broken yet,

History circles once again.
Judases, warriors, Pilates are growing,

Who is in front of you now?

“I would stand and watch...” R. Matyushin. 2001

Slide 12

And the epigraph of the story “From the abyss I cry” (words of the dead) indicates that the story is a warning from the martyrs of the Russian land to those living today.

The whole story is an artistic projection of the prayer of the holy Mother Motherland for her children living unrighteously, who with their sins opened the gates of physical death - war - and spiritual - oblivion.
his mother, that “the whole world must come into understanding, otherwise it will not be possible, otherwise everything will be of no use!”

Slide 13

The story “Recovery of the Dead” is a requiem for a woman-mother who returned to her home after wandering and lost all her children. The mother came to their grave: she again fell to the soft earth of the grave in order to be closer to her silent sons. And their silence was a condemnation for the whole world - for the villain who killed them, and grief for the mother, who remembers the smell of their children's bodies and the color of their living eyes...” And “her heart went away” from grief.

Everyone’s participation in the people’s suffering, Plato’s “equality in suffering” is heard in the final phrase of the Red Army soldier: “No matter whose mother she is, I, too, remained an orphan without you.”

The story “Recovery of the Dead” is a monument to an unforgotten war.

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Municipal educational institution

Dolgan secondary school

Altai Territory, Krutikhinsky District

Materials for the regional linguistic conference dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Victory

"A forgotten monument to an unforgotten war"

“The image of the mother in the story of A.P. Platonov “Recovery of the Dead”

Work completed by: Pirogova Lyubov

11th grade student

Head: Olga Aleksandrovna Ushakova

Teacher of Russian language and literature

Dolganka 2011

The image of the mother in the story

A.P. Platonov “Recovery of the Dead”

Relevance : Despite the huge number of works about the war, Platonov’s work from this period has not been sufficiently studied.

Object of study:The story of A.P. Platonov “Recovery of the Dead”

Subject of research:The image of the mother in the story

Goals and objectives: textually explore Platonov’s story of the war period, draw a general conclusion about the creation of the image of the mother

During the war years, Platonov, working as a correspondent, experienced a rebirth as a writer. He remained still a disgraced writer, and his work as a correspondent provided him with a certain creative freedom. The memoirs emphasize the exceptional courage of the writer, his nobility, restraint, modesty and closeness to ordinary soldiers: “Platonov at the front! He could very rarely be seen at headquarters - small and large. A soldier's trench, trench, dugout next to the fighters and among the fighters is his “command post.” There he gained wisdom about the war."

Platonov's opposition to war is firmly associated with the images of his father and mother. The mother gives birth to children for immortality, gives them a covenant “not to die,” therefore, when the enemy tries to take their life, this is perceived as an insult to the mother: “since the mother gave birth to him for life, he should not be killed and no one can kill him” ( “Tree of the Motherland”, 1942) [Platonov 1987: 238]. In addition, “a soldier’s work... is like fatherhood and even more important than fatherhood” (“Home Hearth”, 1943) [Platonov 1963: 212]. The entire people, according to Platonov, is a single whole, like a family or an organism, and the more important and necessary is the sacrifice of everyone. For Platonov, the Motherland is, first of all, people.

In Platonov’s notebooks (1941–1950) it is noted: “A child is born only once, but he must be constantly protected from the enemy and death. Therefore, in our people the concepts of mother and warrior are related; the warrior serves the mother, protecting her child from death. And the child himself, growing up saved, then turns into a warrior” [Platonov 1985: 544–545].

The writer’s war prose is imbued with extraordinary light, although all of it is a truthful and unvarnished document of human suffering and death, a monument to an unforgotten war. Its pinnacle was the story “Recovery of the Dead,” written in October 1943, nine months after the death of his son.

In the first edition of the story, as N.V. testifies. Kornienko, a description of Kyiv has been preserved (the story is dedicated to the heroic crossing of the Dnieper); it was excluded later, perhaps for censorship reasons: “But strong young eyes, even on moonlit nights, could see in the daytime in the distance the ancient towers of the holy city of Kyiv, the mother of all Russian cities. He stood on the high bank of the ever-rushing, singing Dnieper - petrified, with blinded eyes, exhausted in a German grave crypt, but yearning, like all the drooping earth around him, for resurrection and life in victory ... "

The beginning of the story firmly linked the theme of resurrection and life in victory, so clear in its literal sense to soldiers fighting for the Motherland, with the theme of holiness - a concept alien only to the material sense. The image of the city - the mother of Russian cities, exhausted, blind, but not losing its holiness and faith in the triumph of the true resurrection and the final victory over death and destruction, like an overture, sets the theme of the story - the theme of the holiness of the mother, seeking all her lost children in repentance and hope the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next age.
It is amazing how Platonov manages to tangibly convey the presence of holiness, its insubstantial, but formidable power even for a material enemy.

“Mother returned to her house. She was a refugee from the Germans, but she could not live anywhere other than her native place, and returned home. On her way she met Germans, but they did not touch this old woman; It was strange for them to see such a sad old woman, they were horrified by the sight of humanity on her face, and they left her unattended so that she would die on her own.”

It happens in life this vague alien lighton the faces of people, frightening the beast and the hostile person, and such people are beyond the power of anyone to destroy, and it is impossible to approach them.Beast and man fight more willingly with their own kind, but unlike he leaves asideafraid to be scared of themand be defeatedby an unknown force.

What is the writer talking about for those who have ears to hear? About holiness born of suffering, the holiness of a mother going to the grave of her children. Amazing in its simplicity, Christian humility, in its conciliar spirit is her conversation with her neighbor, Evdokia Petrovna, a young woman, once plump, but now weakened, quiet and indifferent: her two young children were killed by a bomb when she was leaving the city, and her husband disappeared missing at the earthworks, “and she came back to bury her children and live out her time in a dead place.”

“Hello, Maria Vasilievna,” said Evdokia Petrovna.
“It’s you, Dunya,” Maria Vasilievna told her. – Sit down with me, let’s talk to you.
Dunya humbly sat down next to her. It was easier for both of them now.
- Are all yours dead? – asked Maria Vasilievna.
- That's it, why not! - Dunya answered. - And all of yours?
“That’s it, there’s no one,” said Maria Vasilievna.
“You and I have no one equally,” said Dunya, satisfied that her grief is not the greatest in the world: other people have the same.”

“I’ll have more grief than yours: I’ve lived as a widow before,” said Maria Vasilievna. - And two of my sons lay down here, near the settlement. They joined the workers' battalion when the Nazis came from Petropavlovka to the Mitrofanevsky highway... And my daughter took me from here wherever they looked, she loved me, she was my daughter; then she left me, she fell in love with others, she fell in love with everyone, she regretted one thing - she was a kind girl, she leaned towards him, he was sick, wounded, he became as if lifeless, and then she was also killed, killed from above, from an airplane ... And I returned. What do I care now! I'm like dead now...

What should you do? “I live like this too,” said Dunya. - Mine are lying, and yours are lying... I know where yours are lying - they are where they dragged everyone and buried them, I was here, I saw it with my own eyes. First, they counted all the dead dead, drew up a paper, put theirs separately, and dragged ours further away. Then we were all stripped naked and all the profits from our things were recorded on paper. They took such care for a long time, and then they started burying...

Who dug the grave? - Maria Vasilievna was worried. -Did you dig deep? After all, they buried the naked, chilly ones; a deep grave would have been warmer!..

No, how deep it is! - Dunya said. - A shell hole, that’s your grave. They piled more in there, but there wasn’t enough room for others. Then they drove a tank through the grave, over the dead, and put whoever was left there. They have no desire to dig, they save their strength. And they threw a little earth on top, the dead are lying there, getting cold now; Only the dead can endure such torment - lying naked in the cold for centuries...

Were mine also mutilated by the tank, or were they placed on top whole? - asked Maria Vasilievna.

Yours? - Dunya responded. - Yes, I didn’t notice that... There, behind the suburb, right next to the road, they’re all lying, if you go, you’ll see. I tied a cross for them from two branches and put it up, but it’s no use: the cross will fall down, even if you make it iron, and people will forget the dead... Dunya doesn’t believe in the memory of her people. Maria Vasilievna doesn’t believe in her either. This is the main reason for her grief.

Maria Vasilievna’s sick soul agrees with Dunya’s advice to “live like a dead person,” but her yearning, loving heart does not come to terms with the fact that her loved ones are “lying there, freezing now.”

The image of a mass grave, covered with “a little earth”, with a cross of two branches, placed by the hand of Evdokia Petrovna, is reminiscent of an old Cossack song about a “merciful man” who buried 240 people in the grave and put up an oak cross with the inscription: “Here lie from the Don heroes. Glory to the Don Cossacks!”, with the only difference that Dunya does not believe that eternal glory and memory will be protected by this cross: “I tied them a cross from two branches and put it up, but it’s of no use: the cross will fall down, even though you are its iron do it, and people will forget the dead..."
Apparently, the point is not in the material from which the cross is made: the glory of the Don Cossacks was strong in the memory of the living people, forever remembering them liturgically, and secularly - in songs. Dunya does not believe in the memory of her people. Maria Vasilievna doesn’t believe in her either. This is the main reason for her grief. “Then, when it was already getting light, Maria Vasilyevna got up and went into the darkness, where her children lay - two sons in the nearby land and a daughter in the distance. The mother sat down at the cross; under it lay her naked children, killed, abused and thrown into the dust by the hands of others
“...Let them sleep, I’ll wait—I can’t live without children, I don’t want to live without the dead...”
And as if in response to a prayer, she heard her daughter’s calling voice sound from “the silence of the world, speaking of hope and joy, that everything that had not come true would come true, and the dead would return to live on earth, and those separated would embrace each other and will never be separated again.

The mother heard that her daughter’s voice was cheerful, and realized that this meant hope and trust in her daughter to return to life, that the deceased was expecting help from the living and did not want to be dead.”
This sounding “silence of the world” and the tangible joy heard in the daughter’s voice are amazing - the visits of the inhabitants of the Heavenly Kingdom are so tangible and tangible for the inhabitants of the world below. The news he heard changes the direction of the mother’s thoughts: “How, daughter, can I help you? I myself am barely alive. I alone will not raise you, daughter; if onlyall the people loved you and corrected all the untruths on earth, then you andHe raised all those who died righteously to life: after all death is the first untruth!..»

Platonov again directly and unequivocally addresses with these words of a simple Orthodox woman those who have ears to hear with a reminder that only liturgical conciliar love of the whole people (“if all the people loved you”) and nationwide repentance (“corrected all the untruths on earth”) can “ “to raise all those who died righteously” to life, that is, to recover those who died from sin, because death is the consequence of sin, “and is the first untruth!..”

“By midday, Russian tanks reached the Mitrofanyevskaya road and stopped near the settlement for inspection and refueling. Near a cross connected from two branches, the Red Army soldier saw an old woman with her face pressed to the ground.
“Go to sleep for now,” the Red Army soldier said aloud at parting. – No matter whose mother you are, I, too, remained an orphan without you..
He stood a little longer, in the languor of his separation from someone else's mother.
- It’s dark for you now, and you’ve gone far from us... What can we do? Now we have no time to grieve for you, we must first put down the enemy. And thenthe whole world must come into understanding, otherwise it will not be possible, otherwise everything will be of no use!..
The Red Army soldier went back, and it became boring for him to live without the dead. However, he felt that it was now all the more necessary for him to live. It is necessary not only to completely destroy the enemy of people’s lives, but also to be able to live after that victorythe higher life that the dead silently bequeathed to us. The dead have no one to trust except the living - and we need to live this way now, so that the death of our people is justified by the happy and free fate of our people, and thus their death is exacted.”

Thus, Platonov clearly links the theme of death with “untruth on earth,” that is, sin as a consequence of the reluctance to live a “higher life.” He unequivocally testifies that duty to the “righteously dead” (remember that righteousness is a church concept, meaning life in truth, that is, in accordance with divine commandments) requires the conciliar memory of the living about the dead, possible only in church liturgical prayer, of which Russia is almost lost, because her sons stopped living a “higher life” and lost that radiance of holiness that could prevent the approach of the “beast.”
The title of the story does not allow any misunderstanding of the meaning of Plato's testament to us living today, contained in the artistic flesh of the text. “Seeking the Lost” is the name of one of the most revered icons of the Most Holy Theotokos in Rus', an icon that has the grace of consoling parental grief, an icon of fathers and mothers praying for their children. For the non-Orthodox extra-church consciousness, this name is associated with the idea of searching for missing people, while the Church prays before it for the lost and lost, primarily spiritually, and not physically. Prayer before this icon is an expression of the last hope for the help of the Most Pure Virgin in liberation from eternal death of a person over whom good has finally lost its power.
The story does not give us any reason to believe that it is about the “righteously dead” children of Maria Vasilievna, that the prayer for the recovery of the dead refers specifically to them: together with the mother, we hear the cheerful voice of her daughter, testifying that the Private Court elevated her to a monastery, where there is no sighing and crying: “And my daughter took me from here wherever my eyes look, she loved me, she was my daughter, then she left me, she fell in love with others, she loved everyone, she regretted one thing - she was a kind girl, she my daughter,” she leaned towards him, he was sick, he was wounded, he became as if lifeless, and she was also killed then, killed from above from an airplane…” Maria Vasilievna says and laments.

And the epigraph of the story “From the abyss I call. Words of the dead,” as is known, is a paraphrase of the words of the living, the words of the psalm of David, so often heard in worship:From the depths I cry to You, Lord, and hear me, indicates to us that the story is a warning to the Heavenly Church, the Church of the righteous, confessors, martyrs of the Russian land to those living today, that the whole story is an artistic projection of the prayer of the Holy Mother Motherland for her unrighteously living children, who with their sins have opened the gates of physical death - war – and spiritual – oblivion of the “higher life”.
The warning of the Red Army soldier sounds menacing, in which Platonov himself is guessed, because his main character bears the name his mother, that “the whole world must come into understanding, otherwise it will not be possible, otherwise everything will be of no use!”
We talked about the immaterial light with which this sad story, in which death and destruction so visibly triumph. This immaterial light is composed of the radiance of love, which makes the mother “go through the war,” because “she needed to see her home, where she lived her life, and the place where her children died in battle and execution.” Love that protects her from accidental death; love seeking eternal life deceased; love that helps Dunya endure her own inconsolable pain; love even to the death of daughter Maria Vasilievna for a wounded soldier unfamiliar to her; love, which allows the Red Army soldier to recognize his mother in the deceased old woman and languish in grief in separation from her; love, which clearly gives rise to the image of communal love, the love of the dead for the living and the living for the dead, love that promises that “everything that has not come true will come true, and the dead will return to live on earth, and the separated will embrace each other and will never part again.”

For Platonov, the author of military prose, false straightforward optimism, slogan patriotism, and feigned cheerfulness are alien. The tragic in the works of these years is revealed through the fates of the “war workers”, in the depiction of the hopeless grief of those who lost loved ones. At the same time, Platonov avoids both artistic refinements and crude naturalism; his manner is simple and artless, for in depicting the suffering of the people it is impossible to say a single false word. The story “Mother (Recovery of the Dead)” sounds like a tragic requiem about an old woman, Maria Vasilievna, who returned to her home after wandering and lost all her children. The mother came to their grave: she again fell to the soft earth of the grave in order to be closer to her silent sons. And their silence was a condemnation for the whole world - for the villain who killed them, and grief for the mother, who remembers the smell of their child’s body and the color of their living eyes...” And “her heart left” from grief. Everyone’s participation in the people’s suffering, Plato’s “equality in suffering” is heard in the final phrase of the Red Army soldier: “No matter whose mother she is, I, too, remained an orphan without you.”

The story is called the icon of the Mother of God. Since time immemorial, the Russian people, sacredly believing in the all-powerful help of the Most Holy Theotokos, have adopted Her as the name “Seeking the Lost,” as the last refuge, the last hope of perishing people.

I would stand and watch without stopping.
The icon is a miracle! Meekness and sadness.
“Recovery of the dead.” How alive!
The blanket flows over the shoulders,
The child clung to him for protection,
Anticipating the distant Hour of the Cross.
The little arms haven't been broken yet,
But you look at each of us.
O Mother of Sveta! We are all to blame.
History circles once again.
Judases, warriors, Pilates are growing,

Who is in front of you now?

Icon "Recovery of the Dead"» R. Matyushin (2001)

The image of the mother in Platonov’s war stories is both extremely concrete and symbolic. The mother of one of the country’s defenders turns out to be the mother of all the soldiers: “Whose mother you are, I, too, remained an orphan without you,” exclaims the soldier from the story “Recovery of the Dead.”

Literature used:

A.P. Platonov Tales and Stories M, “Fiction”, 1983.
Daria Moskovskaya “Story-icon. In memory of A.P. Dedicated to Platonov"
O. Platonov. Holy Rus': encyclopedic dictionary, 2001
A.Akifieva. A brief terminological dictionary for the course "Domestic History".
Dictionary of historical names, titles and special terms (S. Sorochan, V. Zubar, L. Marchenko).
The Bible and Russian literature: anthology / author-compiler M. G. Kochurin. – St. Petersburg: “Karavella”, 1995. – 584 p.
Subjects and images of ancient Russian painting. – M.: Education, 1993. – 223 p.
Orthodox calendar. 2008.

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MUNICIPAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION Dolganskaya secondary school of the Krutikhinsky district of the Altai Territory Work performed by: Lyubov Pirogova, 11th grade student Supervisor: Olga Aleksandrovna Ushakova teacher of Russian language and literature

“Recovery of the Lost” Story-icon After the war, when a temple of eternal glory to the soldiers is built on our land, then opposite it... a temple of eternal memory to the martyrs of our people should be built. On the walls of this temple of the dead the names of decrepit old men, women, and infants will be inscribed. They equally accepted death at the hands of the executioners of humanity... A.P. PLATONOV

Opposition to the war is associated with the images of the father and mother “... since his mother gave birth to him for life, he should not be killed and no one can kill him” (“Tree of the Motherland”, 1942) “... a soldier’s work ... is like fatherhood and even more important than fatherhood” (“ Home”, 1943) “A child is born only once, but he must be constantly protected from the enemy and death. Therefore, in our people the concepts of mother and warrior are related; the warrior serves the mother, protecting her child from death. And the child himself, growing up saved, then turns into a warrior.” A. Platonov

M.A. Vrubel. Funeral lament. Sketch of a painting for the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv. 1887

A woman near her house Photo from the State Archive of the Russian Federation

A German soldier checks documents from Russian women in the front line Photo from the State Archives of the Russian Federation

Trouble has arrived Photo from the State Archive of the Russian Federation

Photo from the State Archive of the Russian Federation

“Whose mother you are, without you I too remained an orphan” “Recovery of the dead” by A.P. Platonov

The title of the story “Recovery of the Dead” is a testament to us who are now living

Icon of the Mother of God "Recovery of the Lost" I would stand and watch without stopping. The icon is a miracle! Meekness and sadness. “Recovery of the dead.” How alive! The blanket flows over the shoulders, The Child clung to him in search of protection, Anticipating the distant Hour of the Cross. The little hands have not yet been broken, But you look at each of us. O Mother of Sveta! We are all to blame. History circles once again. Judases, warriors, Pilates are growing, Who is before you now? R. Matyushin (2001)

Epigraph of the story From the abyss I call. Words of the dead, a warning from the martyrs of the Russian land to those living today

The story “Recovery of the Dead” is a requiem for a woman-mother

The presentation uses photographs from the State Archive of the Russian Federation

Maria Vasilievna returns home. She walks across the front, past the positions of the Germans, who lazily look at her, not wanting to waste bullets on the life of a worthless old woman. Maria Vasilievna's three children died. They were rolled out on the ground by the caterpillar of a German tank. And now the mother goes home to visit the grave of her children. The mother's grief is immeasurable, it made her fearless. Not only the Germans, but also animals and dashing people do not touch the woman distraught with grief. She calmly continues her way home.

Maria Vasilievna comes to her native village. Her home was razed to the ground by German tanks. On the ruins of her house, she meets her neighbor, Evdokia Petrovna. Over the years of the war, Evdokia grew old and haggard; she lost her small children during the bombing, and her husband disappeared during earthworks. Evdokia lives in an empty, destroyed village. Two women begin a dialogue about life and death.

Evdokia tells how the Germans came to the village and how they killed almost all the inhabitants. How the dead were buried. Lazy German soldiers threw the corpses into the shell crater, covered them with earth, rolled the earth with a tank, and laid the dead bodies on top again. At the site of the mass grave, Evdokia erected a wooden cross. A young and beautiful woman, Evdokia turned into an old woman in a couple of years. She lives not for something, but in spite of it. Together with Mary, they do not live, but exist, because unlike the body, their souls are already dead.

Maria Vasilyeva goes to a mass grave; she sees a cross above the ground smoothly compacted by tank tracks. The mother crouches to the ground and tries to hear the whispers of the dead. But they are silent. Maria Vasilievna imagines a conversation with her dead daughter. She understands that her duty to the dead is to prevent this bloody, senseless and merciless massacre called the Great Patriotic War from happening again.

Maria falls asleep in eternal sleep, hugging that piece of earth under which her children are buried. An old soldier passes by a mass grave. He sees a woman lying at the cross; time and grief have not been kind to her. The soldier realizes that the woman is dead and covers her face with a handkerchief, which he previously used as a foot wrap. He leaves, he must save the others from such a terrible fate.

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