In Andrei Platonov’s novel
Chevengur(written 1926-29), Aleksandr Dvanov, the work’s main hero, explains the significance of the symbol of the revolution that he has invented: “the recumbent figure eight represents the eternity of time, and the upright arrow with two ends, the infinity of space.” Dvanov’s insistence on the centrality of time and space uncannily anticipates Mikhail Bakhtin’s famous definition of the literary chronotope (from his “Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel”, 1937), which might have been written to describe
Chevengur:
In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space
2622 words
Citation: Bullock, Philip Ross. "Chevengur". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 10 April 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14448, accessed 23 November 2024.]
