Collective authorship and Platonov’s socialist realism

Article published in «Russian Literature» — 2013 — Volume 73 — Issues 1–2 (1 January–15 February) — pp. 57–83This article argues that Platonovʼs relationship to collective authorship is a rich and productive line of inquiry for Platonov studies because: 1) he spent much of his career negotiating his position vis-à-vis the theory and practices of literary collectives; and 2) this approach offers insight into texts that were produced specifically for collectively authored volumes or republished in them during Platonovʼs lifetime. The article then presents readings of two such texts, ‘Takyr’ and ‘Odukhotvorennye liudi’, against the collectively authored volumes in which they appeared, Aiding-Giunler: Alʼmanakh k desiatiletiiu Turkmenistana, 1924–1934 (1934) and Stalinskoe plemia (1944). Ultimately the article suggests that when these so-called “socialist realist” texts are read synchronically, rather than just diachronically against the wholes of Platonovʼs oeuvre or the Russian canon, they take on extra life, as the uniqueness of Platonovʼs voice within the collective emerges.