Chertkova, E. (2025) Technocratic Discourse and Humanistic Pathos in the Works of A.P. Platonov – МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ ЖУРНАЛ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ

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Елена Леонидовна ЧЕРТКОВА
Институт философии Российской академии наук
109240, Российская Федерация, г. Москва, ул. Гончарная, д. 12, стр. 1
Старший научный сотрудник сектора теории познания
Кандидат философских наук
e-mail: chertkovaelena105@gmail.com
ORCID: 0000-0003-2454-5825

Chertkova, E. (2025) Technocratic Discourse and Humanistic Pathos in the Works of A.P. Platonov

Abstract: Andrey Platonov's early work is discussed in the context of the study of the phenomenon of utopian consciousness. The texts of two short stories from 1921–1922, "The Impossible" and "The Satan of Thought," are considered, since they clearly express the spirit of "techno–utopianism" – epistemological optimism characteristic of the post-revolutionary years combined with extreme radicalism towards the entire existing world – natural and human. They revealed with the greatest clarity the initial attitudes of his worldview, which subsequently underwent evolution, but largely determined the literary and human fate of the author. Both stories reveal the characteristic signs of utopian consciousness manifested in them. In the negative part, they are typical – a total rejection of the status quo, a new world must arise from scratch; but in the positive part, concerning the cause, the source of world evil – there is a distinctive feature: This is not social inequality and injustice, but the wrong structure of our planet and the cosmos as a whole. It is proposed to correct this with the help of scientific knowledge, thought, and invention – they contain the main tool of the proletariat, which it must still master and use them to "reshape" the universe and create a new world. However, in the presence of all these signs of utopia, the conclusion about the true causes of utopian rejection of the world is unexpected: all scientific and technological means of transforming life and space turn out to be the result of the lack of love in people, and love is "the necessity of the impossible." Only a loving person knows about the impossible and strives for it. This is the essence of Platonov's utopianism: the ideal of a loving person is the main and often unconscious utopian dream for which utopias are created. In this dream, Platonov's utopianism becomes a form of his humanism. These two lines of thought are difficult to combine and often turn out to be incompatible. And in his subsequent work, Platonov increasingly rejects techno-optimism and utopianism based on it and strengthens the humanistic orientation of his works. The dream of science and technical knowledge as reliable tools for solving social problems was increasingly revealing its devastating effects on the human heart and mind. It is precisely this humanism of his that justifies my disagreement with the widespread interpretation of the writer's main works as dystopian.

Key words: the new man, the re-creation of nature, love, mind and heart, fantasy and science, the human soul, technocracy, utopia and dystopia, humanism.

References:

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For Citation:

Chertkova, E. (2025) Technocratic Discourse and Humanistic Pathos in the Works of A.P. Platonov. International Journal of Cultural Research, 4 (61). 37–49. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2025_4_37

DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2025_4_37