what is it, how can it be explained to people who have never seen it? well , first of all, since i came from the tula region, i came with my samovar, here it is, and it is not just a samovar, it is a historical samovar, it has, so to speak, accompanied several generations of the polenov family, it is believed that this is the samovar, it is generally unique, it is called a spider, we restored it a little, so to speak, cleaned it, here...

but this is such a camping, camping samovar, i thought that since i came from tula region, then certainly, certainly you need to bring a samovar with you, and the diorama, natasha, this is what it looks like, well, katya, well , in fact, i have no right to tell the secret of the diorama, i don’t have, because it’s completely somehow, well, people will see this secret, they will find out and this magic of this magic will disappear, when people come to see us. in the museum, but i brought you the original

diorama, now we show what we show every day - this is a spear diorama, and this is vasily’s original diorama dmitrievich polenov, this is madrid, a painting that, unfortunately, we do not show in our reduced, abridged, yes, this reduced abridged version, which we show every day and even take to different cities, it will definitely go to our exhibition in november in vladivostok, it would be polenov, he visited different places, he traveled a lot around europe, he traveled, to the middle east, he traveled. here is the second painting - this is nile,

and they also do not show it in a shortened, abridged version, you see, well, i don’t want to tell a secret, i don't want to tell, the plot, the plot is that the round-the-clock journey, no, i'll tell you the plot, but i won't tell you the secret of the diorama, because everyone should just come to polenov and see it, because yes, it's because it's magic. this is such a shadow theater, so to speak, a shadow theater, and those who want to know more, let them come, but this picture depicts nile, and it's also not in this reduced shortened version, but vasili dmitrievich polenov, you see, he he was really a passionate traveler, a passionate collector, a wonderful artist, he was a man of renaissance scope and an intellectual, he spoke six languages.

in the provinces, deep in the provinces in the village, he saw what a low level of education people had, including children, and he decided, he came up with this wonderful educational project in order to simply expand the borders in...

in european countries, in turkey, we'll sail across the black sea and so on, we 'll see all this, and then we'll return to polenovo again to the hearth, to the new year's performance , again we sit by polenov's fireplace, well , when polenov showed his diorama, it certainly wasn't 15 minutes, because only in the picture of latin america did he completely read the song of ogayawati lella, for example, in the picture of venice, he read a huge lecture. about who the venetian doges were, that is , his text of the diorama was of course like that, well, like a real educational lecture, but the children of the late twenties in these villages, where there was no school, no education, no light, no food, nothing, no water, well, well, nothing, in

general, they sat and listened to this spellbound, and even in felt boots from the cold, felt boots in felt boots, polinov himself was in felt boots on a sleigh with a horse, here he is... a horse, he sat in the sleigh, put his magic box with two candles in it, his legs were very swollen, he was already very ill, they cut his felt boots, so he came to this village, showed this diorama, and there is even such a story, it is true, it is also written down that at the end of such a session, when he showed all this, told all this, read a song about langella's hiawatha, and a little boy came up to him and handed him a tiny homemade white bun and... paid him for this show with this white bun in the hungry twenties, paid him, said the jackpot, and vasily dmich, thank you very much. natasha, well, you can talk about polenov at any time without any newsworthy reasons, but here we also have an anniversary. yes, this year polenov turns

180, well, you belted yourself, came up to him, but we are always ready for anything, of course, but i just brought the exhibition catalogue. which just opened in samara, why don't you ask in samara, i answer this question with one answer, where else? well, where else, if not in samara? a wonderful catalog that was published by the samara art gallery, they decided to open the polenov year with their big polenov retrospective, 76 works by vasily dmitrivich polenov came to samara from 12 regional museums of russia, so to speak,

well, a slightly reduced copy, but by and large in general it is more than two meters, one and a half by two meters, ae christ and the sinner, it arrived in 1928 in 2024 for the first time it left the walls of the irkutsk museum in order to go to samara to - the exhibition of people of light for the 180th anniversary of vasily dmitrievich polenov, here is a wonderful catalog published by samarets, in general - i congratulate them on this unique. project, this is just an irkutsk thing, well, which in general completely repeats the imperial thing, i congratulate them on this wonderful project, so we open the polenov year, in the summer there will definitely be some events at we will have a festive evening at the estate in moscow in tula, and at the end of the year, i hope,

if everything goes well, we will close in the primorsky art gallery also retrospectives of vasili dmich polenov in the far east, you watched the podcast precious history, my name is ekaterina varkan. our guest today is natalia polenova, the great-granddaughter of the great russian artist vasily dmitrievitch polenov and the director of the polenov museum-reserve. this podcast is a must-read. i am glayana batnikova. today we are discussing andrei platonov, a great russian.

it seems to me, one of the most important authors of russian literature, which is absolutely impossible to pass by, and it fits the name of your program very well, a must -read, if you haven't read plato,... then you basically don't understand anything about russian literature, right? well, i agree, but you know, when you chose this topic, i was a little surprised, because you are a hindu, a postmodernist, it seems to me that you work very cool with myths and some double meanings, when i found out that you wanted to talk about platonov, i was surprised, moreover, that you chose specifically the corpus of texts of military prose by platonov, why? platonov has always been one of my favorite writers, i have such a somewhat

strange set of favorite writers, favorite writers, because on the one hand i have bunin, on the other hand platonov, who worked at about the same time, but completely, let's say, in divergent directions, yes, but you need to understand both of them, so that again, as i say, to know what russian, russian literature is. yes, platonov is ideological, but his ideological nature, it is very natural when he writes about ideology do you believe him? well i agree, and you know, in fact for me it was, probably even when i was preparing for the program, i think, what a cruel person herman is, how cruel he is, he made me read it, because i knew platonov better before the war, that's how...

in his story there are inspired people, this is the gradual death of the red navy sailors, well yes, there

people sacrifice themselves, detonate grenades in themselves to blow up german tanks, and well they kill enemies, they die one after another, it's very it's scary to read, and his prose, as you rightly noted, it's certainly not ceremonial, but it 's not trench prose either, in the sense that it's not focused on... descriptions of negative everyday life or suffering and tragedies, there's some kind of uplifting beginning behind all of this, it's again very, very natural in it, yes, it's scary prose, but it's very important, it reveals the soul, but i would say it's unexpected, so i want to share it, that is, i really want it to be read, it's such an unexpected look at in the kingdom.

europe, which came to russia and thought that another easy victory awaited it here, too, in the first two years of the war, it was completely, practically destroyed. yes, we died in the thousands and millions, but this army of conquerors of europe in the first 2 years with the help of, well, let's say. heroism, here are the feats of self-sacrifice, we ground this army in 2 years, we

destroyed it, this is the secret of the victories of the subsequent red army, because further in front of us there were already hastily assembled burghers, there were some who came by mobilization, those who already did not have that experience of victory, yes, the feelings of the victors, they all lay down in the ground, as platonov writes, they fertilized the earth, they became... there is an excellent story, in the corpus of these texts, an inanimate enemy , it turns out that a russian soldier and a german.

ideological background, and it is not just like, well, russians against germans, it is good against evil. platonov was already a war correspondent in the war, he knows this fact very well, the material and the text are quite dense, you understand that he knows everyday life very well, yes warriors, and how do you think, was it hard for him to get this knowledge, which later became these stories, well, it wasn’t the first time platonov picked it up.

he was even in a partisan detachment, you understand, the very existence of a partisan detachment is already a huge risk, yes, because well, you are behind enemy lines in a partisan detachment, he would even be in a partisan detachment. at the front, he was constantly on the front lines, the war correspondents of that time, they didn’t wear this, no, they didn’t have this blue bulletproof vest with an inscription like press.

bigger than the house itself, so he, apparently, in the width, the volume of these storage facilities for cheese and butter, that is, it was some kind of city where they made cheese and butter, so in these underground labyrinths, they stored these products, yes, when an officer tries to plan all this, understand it, behind this you can feel precisely the engineering. that is, it becomes clear that this is being thought by a person who understands very well how buildings are constructed, how they work in general, as you put it,

yes, the mechanics of combat, yes, that is, all this, suddenly this behind the scenes is shown to us in this story, and this makes an impression, even on me, a woman, i don’t understand much about military art, but this story, it really explains a lot, in platonov’s stories there is always a lot of texture, a lot... truth about the work of mechanisms, about the work of people, and there are also direct combat impressions there, there people shoot, naturally, die , kill, naturally, one of his heroes comes under fire, he is thrown up by an explosion, but does not die, this is also from his personal biography, yes, he came under fire, he he was thrown back, hit by a tree with his head, he had headaches there later. yes, and he, and he writes to his wife about this, that well , it's not so easy to kill me, i need a direct hit to the head to kill me, and his hero writes in approximately the same words, this podcast

is a must-read, i'm aglayana batnikova, we are talking about the war stories of andrei platonov with the writer german sadulaev. platonov, he was always in the thick of life, when the war began, well, where is the life of the people, he was always on the front line. yes, he went there, where the life of the people. herman, but at the same time, i also understand that platonov is an absolutely brilliant writer, he is a man of such a gift, and he could do something else, i don’t know, it seems to me that usually, if a person is so gifted in literature, then he should sit and write and do nothing else. well, this is not platonov’s situation, because in order to write, he needed to do something, he needed to do. everything, everything at all, that’s what now, well, there was a meaning to existence, and he, let’s list it, he was an engineer, he was a philosopher, he

participated in this philosophical circle, livshits lukacs, he was a wonderful writer, of course, a screenwriter, he was a journalist, he and in all areas he showed himself in full to the fullest, he lived to the fullest, worked to the fullest. worked as an engineer, he really was a recognized useful member of society, he was useful, of course, he was a useful member of society, he was not a cabinet thinker, and this is also fascinating in platonov, his such power and breadth of spirit, while he is very childish looks, sometimes he has a lot of stories about children, that is, when we see what is happening through the eyes of a child, and there is a cow or an iron old woman in the stories, it is clear that he has this... his gaze is very pure, that is, he could look, let's say, from a child's perspective at the world, and his most, probably, unique quality of platonov is that

he, well, in addition, of course, to the literary talent of his fantastic style, has this pity for people, this sympathy, that is, when you perceive someone else's pain as his own, it's very childish, christian, in general, it turns out that he carried this quality, this property through his whole life, which treated him rather cruelly. platonov is a great milestone in russian literature, but he did not arise in emptiness, and after him there was not emptiness left, yes, because. well, tell us about it, who was before, who was after, a good, correct writer, he is always integrated into the context of russian literature, he enriches russian literature, he grows from it, and then it grows, further, further, it grows into the future, therefore it is impossible understand where platonov begins and where he ends, and his beginnings were very well said by gorky, gorky immediately understood that he grew

out of gogol, here is some fantastic speech, here is some deep psychology, it all comes from gogol, gogol too, he grew into russian literature, and he gave us, on the one hand, he gave us platonov, yes, on the other hand, he gave us bulgakov, who also grew out of gogol, that means, he grew like that, and platonov, he also grew into modern literature, and partly his such...

everyone understands the art of plato, not everyone understands the art of yegor letov, this is an obligatory property, it seems to me , of a russian person, that is, there is something very popular in these authors, namely the work through the structure of speech, you agree, yes, his structure of speech is like his unique contribution to russian literature, his structure of speech, for which he was criticized in soviet times too, yes stalin wrote a trabar language about his story for future use.

execution, a4 says that a4 is an adjustment to the enemy's counteraction, which, that is, he finds a match, and what is 41, he any number, he laid out any number, and this is a traditional folklore motif, these are numerical riddles, you will find them in scandinavian folklore, you will find them in indian folklore, this is such a traditional motif, he uses it consciously, that is , his such a structure of speech and his...

and a person who has no education, but platonov describes his feeling so complexly, and what do you understand, that really, absolutely in every person there is, well, very many complex, feelings, emotions, contradictory, platonov shows so, in general, practically every person, yes, it does not matter what place he occupies in society, but platonov will find in everyone this...

some interesting view of the world, yes, some unusual sensations, platonov was very closely connected with the people, all his life, his father worked with locomotives, here... this is evident in his love for locomotives, which came from childhood, he worked himself from an early age, and he was always with people, with nations, then in the war he was also with soldiers, but and of course we need to talk separately about his denial of egoism, individualism, because the denial of individualism is important, he directly writes in one of the stories that a person alone cannot find the meaning and purpose of his life. only as part of something greater than the entire people, well, as you say, it is not scary to die, because instead of us new people will be born, only by connecting with his people, he understands with his land, with his family, with his

people, he understands why he lives, listen, well, this is a real philosophical life hack against depression, against some mental disorders, in general there are philosophical answers in this, that is, they are not so much... well, and artistic too, but through images, but at the same time it contains an idea that can be opposed to this melancholy of individualism. yes, platonov also writes about this, that a person, as a loner, he is doomed to melancholy, but everyone wants to get out, platonov writes about this from his courtyard, from his coffin, he wants to get out and wants to join something great, one of... kazimate, that the boss said, that's what we do, now it 's as if we're doing it for ourselves for the people,

and then one lay down in a coffin and you're alone everywhere, now we can live a big life, live a common life, in this i saw plato in the purpose of revolution, well, by the way, in this story aphrodite is there too. burns down his power station, which the hero built, some villain burns it down, the people again chip in with their money to rebuild this power station, there's something philosophical in this too, in the fact that everyone is ready to repeat this work of several years to rebuild it, this episode, it is also connected with the biography of platonov, he was also involved in electrification, one of his power plants was burned down and... and this is what i wanted to say about this psychological life hack, you said, yes, that you need to, when all this is piled on you, then you need to look, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, the world does not end with this, the world does not end with me and

my unsolvable problems, yes, there is, with my arrogance, yes, there are, there are other goals, other meanings in life, you need to feel like part of the people, part a large whole, and to give yourself to it. i think that for platonov it was not just a phrase, it was a conscious psychological reality, otherwise it is unlikely that he would have been able to withstand all the blows of fate that rained down on him constantly, firstly, the writer's fate was not easy, well, his party life did not work out very well, by chance he was expelled from the party, then they did not accept him, although he wanted... to return to the party, yes, he had problems in this engineering activity, because it also encountered opposition, and then of course there was a great tragedy in his literature, when stalin himself, on the other

hand, stalin himself wrote a critical review, imagine how it got to him, yes, stalin, he scolded him for such an anti-soviet description, well , there was some conditional criticism against the collective farms. this literary criticism, this article in the newspaper , it's true, of course, it was a great blow for him, they stopped publishing him, and he already had great hopes for literature, he had great problems in purely everyday

life, he did not have enough money, he had nothing to to live, he has a wife, a child, then the child was arrested at 15, he has a child, went to a camp, went to a camp, returned sick,

the writer german sadulaev, and we are discussing the war stories of andrei platonov. you know, this image of a flower, which he appears several times in several stories, the image of a flower that grows from rocky or sandy soil, and platonov writes that this flower, which is grown from this poor soil, is like a person who processes evil into good in himself, this is such... something buddhist, a very optimistic philosophical concept in

platonov, he often speaks, again directly about the substance of life or about the living substance, which we must preserve and increase, and for this sake everything, and what am i in myself? i am a small particle of this living substance, if i perish, well, then i will perish, if on me and by me, but on me life will end.

how did it happen and how would it?