Journal archive

Abstract: July Thunderstorm by A. Platonov is infrequently found in the zone of researchers’ attention. A few pages in the monograph by N. V. Kornienko examine July Thunderstorm in the context of Platonov’s late prose, and the story receives a more specific analysis in the articles by K. Walker (as an intertextual reference to A. P. Chekhov’s novella The Steppe) and N. Vlasova (within the context of children’s literature). The article by N. P. Khryashcheva analyzes July Thunderstorm from a perspective of Orthodox iconography. This article scrutinizes a fairy-tale genre model being transformed in July Thunderstorm. The story contains such fairy-tale elements as a dangerous journey, obstacle negotiation, self-sacrificing love, magic assistance, and a happy ending. The story’s plot is focused on the little protagonists’ way through the storm to their parents’ home. The year of the story’s creation, 1938, is emphasized as revealing the author’s biographical plot connected with the arrest of his young son, Platon. The research shows how the writer integrates the “filial” plot into the story the title of which evokes cheerful emotions as being associated with F. I. Tyutchev’s poem Spring Thunderstorm. The motif of the children who got overtaken by a natural storm reflects Platonov’s anxiety for his own son’s destiny. The author artistically “corrects” the real situation in the Soviet country when picturing wealthy life in the village and the collective farm which turns Platonov’s story into a “Soviet fairy tale”. The analogy with fairy-tale is particularly highlighted by contrast with the harsh reality of The Foundation Pit. At the same time, the analysis of the little protagonists’ images leads to the conclusion that they lost the traditional national values of the rural lifestyle symbolized by Grandmother’s home. Instead, the collective farm house becomes their motherland. So, there appears the motif of the lost/forgotten paradise in the story’s plot. Within the context of Platonov’s biographical drama, the happy ending becomes the artistic way to cast a spell over the author’s own destiny.