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

Save to Bookshelf

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 English as a novel, The Foundation Pit is in fact what Russians call a povest’, an extended narrative

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1939 words

Citation: Bullock, Philip Ross. "Kotlovan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 September 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14435, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Andrei Platonov, Kotlovan [The Foundation Pit]

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback