Languages of Memory and Oblivion in A. Platonov’s Works on the Great Patriotic War

The characteristic feature of A. Platonov’s works is a constant interest in the memorial manifestations of existence. In the works about the Great Patriotic War the writer fully realized the mnemonic function of literature. Turning to the problems of memory and oblivion gave him the opportunity to create a multifaceted image of a fighting man. The attention of modern humanitarian knowledge to the memorial aspects of culture makes it possible to use the possibilities of special research to analyze Platonov’s vision of the interaction of memory and oblivion and his view of the anthropology of war. In Platonov’s prose and drama, memory expresses itself in private and general, personal and public, and is associated with the profane and the sacred. Being a meaningful and multi-valued cultural and psychological phenomenon, memory performs the functions of inspiration and consolation, support and prohibition. Memory tests a person: its different layers coexist or collide with each other. Platonov noted the ambivalence of memory and oblivion, he was attracted by situations of mutual transitions from one to the other. The writer brought to the fore the topic of broad in meaning and at the same time limited in time possibilities of individual remembrance, focused on ways to save memory through communication between generations, the living and the dead. Family memory is of paramount importance for such communication.