First Complete Edition of Andrei Platonov's 'Chevengur' Published

The first complete edition of Andrei Platonov's novel 'Chevengur' has been published, marking a major literary event comparable to the release of Mikhail Bulgakov's 'The Master and Margarita'. Both works derive their aura from the terror of their time, with the context of their creation elevating them beyond aesthetic categories. Platonov's poetics are based on the carnivalesque inversion that Bakhtin identified in Dostoevsky's work, overturning hierarchies. His 'poetics of idiocy', as defined by Gorky, clashed with the Stalinist doctrine that mandated the cult of edifying heroes, and also diverged from 19th-century Russian literature.