Andrei Platonov, Kotlovan [The Foundation Pit]

Philip Ross Bullock (University of Oxford)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1929

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Written between December 1929 and April 1930, Kotlovan [The Foundation Pit] was published first in the West (in London) in 1969. It finally appeared in its homeland in 1987, when it was immediately welcomed as one of the masterpieces of Soviet literature. As it was never published during Platonov’s lifetime, there is no canonical text as such: Only in 2000 was a critical edition of the manuscript published which restored (amongst other things) a number of previously censored references to Stalin. The admirable English translation by Robert Chandler and Geoffrey Smith (1996) is based on an incomplete source, although it still conveys much of the original.

Generally referred to in …

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1939 words

Citation: Bullock, Philip Ross. "Kotlovan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 September 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14435, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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