“about holistic scales and particular makaras. The main character of the story “Doubting Makar” is laughter Literary direction and genre

"Doubting Makar")

often called the secret of the Russian soul. Boldness of thought and depth of consideration of philosophical issues have always distinguished Platonov’s works. The writer surprises the reader from the very first line with the originality of the character of the hero he created. This is a folk type, most often a worker, an artisan, who is concerned about the problems of the world order, and is distinguished by a persistent desire to comprehend the deep meaning of what is happening. Platonov sees the world through the eyes of a working person, thinking painfully and intensely, looking for his place in life. This is the “normal guy” Ganushkin, the main character in the story “Doubting Makar.”

The Russian folk character manifests itself especially clearly in the work of Platonov in the search for universal truth. It is no coincidence that Makar, like many wandering heroes in Russian literature, goes on a journey, trying to discover the hidden meaning of existence: “What should I do in life so that I and others need me?” Like his many literary brethren, Makar is devoid of egoism and self-interest; he is a selfless seeker of truth, sparing neither energy nor time for this, rejecting material things in the name of achieving spiritual enlightenment. The main goal of his efforts is not personal well-being, but the desire to become part of common life and contribute to its improvement. Only in this does the hero see his destiny, only in this way can he be happy.

" - Moscow. The work lacks detailed descriptions: landscapes, places of action, since the author is focused on the story of the hero’s inner life, his persistent search for truth. We learn about everything through the perception of Makar, gifted with subtle observation and independent thinking. The art of creating a folk character is manifested by Platonov in the individualization of the hero’s speech: the “incorrect” flexibility of Makar’s language, his wonderful “tongue-tiedness,” the artificial “roughness” of phrases emphasize the originality of the hero’s personality and the sincerity of his quest. One cannot help but mention another feature of Plato’s hero: he almost always carries within himself a certain amount of defectiveness and inferiority. Makar Gannushkin, in the words of “the smartest Lev Chumovoy in the village,” has “a spontaneous, empty head.” Chumovoy and Makar are antipodes in the story: the rural activist, leading “the movement of the people forward, in a straight line towards the common good,” “lives with his naked mind,” and the “individual-devil” acts “with his clever hands.” However, Ganushkin’s limitations turn out to be imaginary: he cognizes reality not with the help of logic and analytical abilities, but with feeling. Emphasizing the uniqueness of Makar’s intuitive understanding of the world, his amazing powers of observation, the author notes: “He couldn’t think, but he could immediately guess.” This reflects a striking feature of the Russian worldview and national character, embodied in folklore works, whose beloved heroes, often considered simpletons and klutzes, showed remarkable abilities in solving the most complex life problems. They achieved success because they thought not only about themselves, but sought to help others.

through a cross-cutting antithesis, which is the main principle of constructing the climactic scene. Makar saw in a dream a mountain on which “a scientific man stood.” The hero “lay” under this mountain like a “sleepy fool” and “looked” at his superior, “expecting” a “word” from him. But he was “silent”, “not seeing” Gannushkin and thinking only about the “integral scale”, and not about the “private Makar”. The face of the “smartest man” illuminated the glow of “distant mass life”, which “spread before him in the distance.” He did not answer the question that tormented Makar about the meaning of his existence, only “millions of living lives were reflected in his dead eyes.” Then Gannushkin crawled “to a height.” “Three times” he was overcome by fear, and “three times” fear was overcome by “curiosity.” If Makar “was a smart man,” he would not have climbed the mountain, but he was a “backward man.” “By the power of his curious stupidity,” the hero reached the “most educated” and touched his “thick, huge body.” It moved as if “alive” and collapsed on Makar. This "unknown body" was "dead". Thus, in a dream, the hero discovers the destructive power of bureaucracy, which controls living people, gradually developing in them lack of initiative, passivity, and alienation from each other. Sincerity and selflessness in the spiritual search for truth led the hero to a discovery that millions of people made only many decades later. Makar became the personification of inner freedom, independence of thought and a symbol of resistance to the totalitarian system. Such is the power of generalization of an artistic image created by a skilled master of words.

"Spiritual people." These are sailors defending Sevastopol from the Nazis and never stopping intense thoughts about life, death, and the fate of humanity even in the trenches. Their task is to understand the hidden meaning of what is happening and realize their role in these events. Sailor Filchenko acquires a different vision of the war when he witnesses how children bury their dolls. From that moment on, he feels like not just a fighter carrying out an order, but a person entrusted with a rescue mission, which was expressed in an acute desire to “wean from life those who taught children to play at death.”

that his fate has become a part of the common one when his existence helps make people's lives more beautiful and purer. At the moment of the highest insight, the fighters understand that “they were born not in order to waste or destroy their life in empty enjoyment of it, but in order to give it back to the truth, the land and the people, to give more than they received from birth, so that the meaning of people’s existence increases.” These words could belong to many of the writer’s heroes, because they convey an inexhaustible need to search for truth, goodness, and beauty. This is the formula of the national character in the work of Andrei Platonov, this is his main artistic discovery, which puts him on a par with the great artists of words.

In "October" I recently missed an ideologically ambiguous story A. Platonova “Doubting Makar”, for which I got it right from Stalin - an anarchist story; the editors are now afraid to take a step without me...

FROM L. AVERBAKH’S ARTICLE “ABOUT HOLISTIC SCALES AND PARTIAL MAKERS”(“October”, 1929, No. 11)

The story was published in the magazine "October" No. 9 A. Platonov A "Doubting Makar". In this story, mockery of everything and irony, equally skeptical of the most diverse phenomena, do not at all indicate the depth of the author’s worldview and the proletarian attitude of his satire. The publication of this story in “October” (and even more so without a simultaneous detailed and cruel criticism of it) is certainly a mistake, for “The Doubting Makar” is not even a companion piece...
What did our Makar “doubt”? He doubted the main and fundamental thing for the fighting proletariat, and Makar doubted this precisely when the proletariat in our country entered into the last and decisive battle with Russian capitalism, finally knocking out the ground from under its feet, breaking and remaking its nutrient medium. Makar doubted “precisely then” when the proletarian revolution had already reached the smallest owner, opening up new paths for him and showing him the pitiful hopelessness of the old paths.
In the spring of 1918, in an article on “The Immediate Tasks of Soviet Power,” Lenin wrote:
“The restoration of bourgeois exploitation threatened us yesterday in the persons of the Kornilovs, Gotsovs, Dutovs, Gegechkori, Bogaevskys. We defeated them. This restoration, the same restoration, threatens us in a different form, in the form of the elements of petty-bourgeois debauchery and anarchism, petty-proprietary “my house is on the edge,” in the form of everyday, small, but numerous attacks and invasions of this element against proletarian discipline. We must defeat this element of petty-bourgeois anarchy, and we will defeat it...”
We have entered a new stage of socialist construction. Here we again and inevitably encounter the petty-bourgeois element that Lenin wrote about.
Platonov's story is an ideological reflection of the resisting petty-bourgeois element. There is ambiguity in it, there are places in it that allow us to assume certain “noble” subjective wishes of the author. But our time does not tolerate ambiguity; Moreover, the story as a whole is not at all ambiguously hostile to us!..
Writers who want to be Soviet must clearly understand that nihilistic licentiousness and anarcho-individualist front are no less alien to the proletarian revolution than direct counter-revolution with fascist slogans. A. Platonov should also understand this.

"Doubting Makar"(against the backdrop of Stalin’s 50th anniversary celebrated in 1929, the parable about Makar and the “scientific man” was read clearly).
His hero Makar Ganushkin comes to Moscow to see the “center of the state.” There he dreams of a mountain on which stands a “scientific man”, thinking “only about the holistic scale, but not about the particular Makar”: “The face of the most learned man was illuminated by the glow of distant mass life that spread out beneath him in the distance, and his eyes were terrible and dead from being at a height and looking too far away. Millions of living lives were reflected in his dead eyes.”
Makar sees “solid scientifically literate individuals” on the Moscow streets, in some ways elusively similar to the one he dreamed of, and he feels “terrified in his inner feeling.” Makar understands that there is no place for him in the future for one simple reason - he is doomed to sacrifice in the present. Platonov put the mass man at the center, who thought about the purpose and meaning of movement towards the future and about his place in this movement. This was dangerous, especially since Plato’s Makar also guessed who doomed him to become the rubble of history.

L. Slavin(as part of the publication "Andrey Platonov": Memoirs of contemporaries: Materials for a biography. Collection. - M.: Modern Writer, 1994.) : “There are writers with an easy life. And there are writers with a difficult life. Andrei Platonov had it all - outstanding talent, extensive education, knowledge of life, high ideology. One thing was not given to him: everyday dexterity. But the absence of it also adorns a person. Andrei Platonov was a writer of a difficult fate. And yet, by the nature of his nature, he was a joyful person. Even in his most difficult days, he retained a bright spirit. He lived with an open heart..."

Information was used from open sources, as well as the website of Andrei Platonov’s creativity

Two men lived in a village. The first is Makar Ganushkin, who “loved crafts more than plowing, and cared not about bread, but about circuses.” The second is Lev Chumovoy, considered “the smartest in the village.” Local residents believed that he had a smart head, but his “hands were empty.” Chumovoy “led the people’s movement forward.” Ganushkin was interested in simpler things. For example, installing a carousel or searching for iron ore. Makar's vigorous activity led to sad consequences. While people were looking at the carousel, Chumovoy's foal ran away. Lev himself did not chase after him, but people were distracted by the spectacle arranged by Ganushkin. Makar was unable to get a new foal and also failed to make a replacement for him. Chumovoy “fined him all over the place,” which is why Ganushkin had to go to Moscow to earn money.

The last time Makar traveled by train was in 1919, ten years ago. Then he was transported for free. The “Proletarian Guard” believed that Ganushkin was poor and allowed him to travel further. Unaware of the changes, Makar did not buy a ticket. He sat not in the carriage, but on the couplings, to see “how the wheels act while moving.” The controller found him and told him to get off at the first stop, where there is a buffet. He was worried that on a remote stretch Makar might die of hunger. Ganushkin appreciated the concern, but did not get off the train, but only moved under the carriage. Makar was guided by simple logic. He believed that he was helping the train get to Moscow. According to Ganushkin, the heavier the object, the farther it flies when you throw it. Consequently, the train will only benefit from the extra weight. A little before reaching the capital, Makar left. He decided to walk the rest of the way.

On the way to Moscow, Ganushkin noticed how empty cans were unloaded from the carriage on the platform, and cans of milk were loaded instead. Makar thought this was unreasonable. He approached the boss, who was in charge of the cans, and advised him to build a milk pipe to the capital, so as not to waste the equipment. He listened to Ganushkin and explained that he could not do anything himself - he had to contact Moscow. Makar got angry. In his opinion, the capital’s leadership does not see unnecessary expenses from afar. However, Ganushkin lagged behind his boss. Soon Makar reached the center of Moscow, where the “eternal house” was being built. Ganushkin asked for a job, but to do this he had to first enroll in the workers' union.

Makar didn’t officially get a job at a construction site, but he came up with a way to improve the work process. He believed that concrete should be conveyed upward through pipes. Ganushkin called his invention a “construction gut.” Wanting to put it into practice, Makar went to various authorities, but did not really achieve anything.

As a result, Ganushkin ended up in a shelter where the poor found shelter. There he spent the night and in the morning met the pockmarked Peter. New friends went for a walk around Moscow. To get food, Peter brought Makar to the police and passed him off as a madman whom he found on the street. They were sent to a “mental hospital.” At the same time, Peter acted as an accompanying person. Together with Ganushkin, he came to the hospital and asked for food. They were well fed, and Makar and Peter stayed there overnight.

In the morning they went to the RKI (Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate), where they met Lev Chumovoy. Makar and Peter were given positions there. They sat down at the tables opposite the Freaky and began to talk to the poor people, deciding their affairs. Soon people stopped coming to the institution. The fact is that the employees thought too simply - the poor people themselves could think so. Only Lev Chumovoy remained in the institution, who was later transferred to the commission for the liquidation of the state, where he worked for 44 years.

• “Doubting Makar”, analysis of Platonov’s story
• “Return”, analysis of Platonov’s story
• “In a Beautiful and Furious World”, analysis of Platonov’s story
• “The Hidden Man”, analysis of Platonov’s story

The main character of Platonov’s story “Doubting Makar” is a rural peasant Makar Ganushkin. He had golden hands, but his head was empty, which is why he sometimes did stupid things. His complete opposite was Lev Chumovoy, the main man in the village. He had a smart head and empty hands.

Once Makar built a carousel that was driven by the wind. The villagers crowded around the carousel. But there was no wind, and the carousel did not work.

While the people stood there, Chumovoy’s foal ran away. Chumovoy began to scold Makar, and he promised to make him a self-propelled vehicle on wheels instead of a foal. Makar found iron ore, smelted iron from it and made wheels, but he couldn’t make a self-propelled gun. Then Chumovoy fined Makar and in order for him to pay the fine, Makar went to Moscow to work.

He was traveling by train, and at one of the stations he got off, seeing Moscow ahead. At the station, Makar noticed how cans of milk were loaded into the carriage, and empty cans were pulled out of the carriage. Makar decided that it would be much more efficient to deliver milk to the city through a pipe, so that the wagons would not carry empty cans. He approached the man who supervised the loading of cans with his idea. But he said that he was just a simple performer and advised him to look for smart people in Moscow.

Makar went to Moscow and there he saw how a concrete house was being built. And here Makar also came up with the idea that concrete could be supplied through pipes. He began to look for a person in Moscow who would accept his invention. He found a place where they listened to him, but there they only gave him a ruble, as a poor inventor, and sent him to the trade union.

The trade union gave him another ruble and sent him to continue wandering through the authorities. As a result, Makar ended up in a rooming house, where he met a thinking proletarian named Peter. Together they began to walk around Moscow and look for their purpose in life. The two friends first visited the police, then a mental hospital, and their visits ended at the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (RKI), where Peter declared that he and his friend had lost their minds and demanded that they be given power.

The official gave them power, and Makar and Peter began to sit in the RKI, where they communicated with the poor people who came to them.

This is the summary of the story.

The main idea of ​​Platonov’s story “Doubting Makar” is that bureaucracy can nullify any sound undertaking. Makar Ganushkin wanted his inventive ideas to be brought to life, but instead he turned into an employee sitting in his office.

Platonov’s story “Doubting Makar” teaches you to be an initiative and educated person in order to achieve the full implementation of your ideas.

In the story, I liked Makar’s initiative, his restlessness regarding the current state of affairs. In the context of today, we can say about Makar that he lacks the ability to practically implement his ideas. A wise person demands everything first of all from himself, and only then from others.

What proverbs are suitable for Platonov’s story “Doubting Makar”?

A man looks at the ground, but sees seven fathoms.
Everyone lives by their own mind.
The source of our wisdom is our experience.

Andrey Platonov

Doubting Makar

Among the other working masses lived two members of the state: a normal peasant, Makar Ganushkin, and a more outstanding one, Comrade Lev Chumovoy, who was the smartest in the village and, thanks to his intelligence, led the people’s movement forward, in a straight line towards the common good. But the entire population of the village talked about Lev Chumovoy when he walked past somewhere:

Look, our leader is walking somewhere, tomorrow expect some action to be taken... Smart head, but empty hands. Lives with his naked mind...

Makar, like any man, loved fishing more than plowing, and cared not about bread, but about shows, because, according to Comrade Chumovoy’s conclusion, he had an empty head.

Without taking permission from Comrade Chumovoy, Makar once organized a spectacle - a folk carousel driven around by the power of the wind. The people gathered around the Makarova carousel in a solid cloud and waited for a storm that could move the carousel from its place. But the storm was somehow late, the people stood idle, and meanwhile Chumovoy’s foal ran into the meadows and got lost in the wet places. If the people had been at peace, he would have immediately caught Chumovoy’s foal and would not have allowed Chumovoy to suffer a loss, but Makar distracted the people from peace and thereby helped Chumovoy to suffer loss.

Chumovoy himself did not chase the foal, but approached Makar, who was silently yearning for the storm, and said:

You’re distracting the people here, and I have no one to chase my foal...

Makar woke up from his reverie because he guessed it. He could not think, having an empty head over his smart hands, but he could immediately guess.

Don’t worry,” Makar said to Comrade Chumovoy, “I’ll make you a self-propelled gun.”

How? - asked Chumovoy, because he didn’t know how to make a self-propelled gun with his empty hands.

From hoops and ropes,” Makar answered, not thinking, but feeling the traction force and rotation in those future ropes and hoops.

Then do it quickly,” said Chumovoy, “or else I will bring you to legal responsibility for illegal spectacles.”

But Makar was not thinking about the fine - he could not think - but remembered where he had seen the iron, and did not remember, because the whole village was made of superficial materials: clay, straw, wood and hemp.

The storm did not happen, the carousel did not move, and Makar returned to the court.

At home, Makar drank water out of melancholy and felt the astringent taste of that water.

“That must be why there is no iron,” Makar guessed, “because we drink it with water.”

At night, Makar climbed into a dry, stalled well and lived in it for a day, looking for iron under the damp sand. On the second day, Makar was pulled out by men under the command of Chumovoy, who was afraid that a citizen would die besides the front of socialist construction. Makar was too heavy to lift - he had brown blocks of iron ore in his hands. The men pulled him out and cursed him for his heaviness, and Chumovoy’s comrade promised to additionally fine Makar for public disturbance.

However, Makar did not heed him and a week later he made iron from ore in the stove, after his woman baked bread there. No one knows how he annealed the ore in the furnace, because Makar acted with his smart hands and silent head. A day later, Makar made an iron wheel, and then another wheel, but not a single wheel would move on its own: they had to be rolled by hand.

He came to Makar Chumova and asked:

Made a self-propelled gun instead of a foal?

No,” says Makar, “I guessed that they should roll themselves, but they didn’t.”

Why did you deceive me, your elemental head! - Chumovoy exclaimed formally. - Then make a foal!

There’s no meat, otherwise I would have done it,” Makar refused.

How did you make iron from clay? - Chumovoy recalled.

“I don’t know,” Makar answered, “I have no memory.”

Chumovoy was offended here.

Are you hiding the discovery of national economic significance, individual devil! You are not a person, you are an individual worker! I’ll fine you all around now so you know how to think!

Makar submitted:

But I don’t think so, Comrade Chumovoy. I'm an empty person.

Then shorten your hands, don’t do what you don’t understand,” Chumovoy’s comrade reproached Makar.

If I, Comrade Chumovoy, had your head, then I would have thought the same,” Makar admitted.

That’s it,” Chumovoy confirmed. - But there is only one such head in the whole village, and you must obey me.

And here Chumovoy fined Makar all around, so Makar had to go fishing in Moscow to pay that fine, leaving the carousel and the farm under the zealous care of Comrade Chumovoy.

Makar traveled on trains ten years ago, in 1919. Then they transported him for nothing, because Makar immediately looked like a farm laborer, and they didn’t even ask him for his documents. “Go further,” the proletarian guards used to tell him, “you are dear to us, since you are naked.”

Today Makar, just like nine years ago, boarded the train without asking, surprised by the few people and open doors. But still, Makar did not sit in the middle of the car, but on the couplings, to watch how the wheels acted as they moved. The wheels began to move, and the train went to the middle of the state to Moscow.

The train was traveling faster than any half-breed. The steppes ran towards the train and never ended.

“They will torture the car,” Makar regretted the wheels. “Indeed, there is so much that the world doesn’t have, since it is spacious and empty.”

Makar's hands were at rest, their free mental power went into his empty, capacious head, and he began to think. Makar sat on the hitches and thought that he could. However, Makar did not sit for long. An unarmed guard approached and asked him for his ticket. Makar did not have a ticket with him, since, according to his assumption, there was a Soviet, firm government, which now carries everyone in need for free. The guard-controller told Makar to get off his sins at the first stop, where there is a buffet, so that Makar would not die of hunger on a remote stage. Makar saw that the authorities were taking care of him, since they were not just driving him, but offering him a buffet, and thanked the train manager.

At the stop, Makar still did not get down, although the train stopped to unload envelopes and postcards from the mail car. Makar remembered one technical consideration and stayed on the train to help him move on.

“The heavier the thing,” Makar imagined stone and fluff in comparison, “the further it flies when you throw it; So I travel on the train with an extra brick so that the train can reach Moscow.”

Not wanting to offend the train guard, Makar climbed into the depths of the mechanism, under the carriage, and there he lay down to rest, listening to the worrying speed of the wheels. From the peace and sight of the traveling sand, Makar fell soundly asleep and dreamed that he was lifting off the ground and flying in the cold wind. From this luxurious feeling he felt sorry for the people remaining on earth.

Seryozhka, why are you throwing hot necks!

Makar woke up from these words and grabbed himself by the neck: was his body and his entire inner life intact?

Nothing! - Seryozhka shouted from a distance. - It’s not far from Moscow: it won’t burn!

The train was at the station. The craftsmen tried the carriage axles and quietly cursed.

Makar crawled out from under the carriage and saw in the distance the center of the entire state - the main city of Moscow.

“Now I can get there on foot,” Makar realized. “Maybe the train will make it home without any additional weight!”

And Makar set off in the direction of towers, churches and formidable structures, to the city of miracles of science and technology, to make a life for himself under the golden heads of temples and leaders.