Very briefly: A geography teacher teaches people to fight the sands and survive in the harsh desert.
Twenty-year-old Maria Nikiforovna Naryshkina, the daughter of a teacher, "originally from the sandy town of the Astrakhan province" looked like a healthy young man "with strong muscles and firm legs." Naryshkina owed her health not only to good heredity, but also to the fact that her father protected her from the horrors of the Civil War.
Since childhood, Maria was fond of geography. At sixteen, her father took her to Astrakhan for pedagogical courses... Maria studied at the courses for four years, during which her femininity, consciousness blossomed and her attitude to life was determined.
Maria Nikiforovna was assigned as a teacher to the remote village of Khoshutovo, which was "on the border with the dead Central Asian desert." On the way to the village, Maria saw a sandstorm for the first time.
The village of Khoshutovo, where Naryshkina reached on the third day, was completely covered with sand. Every day, the peasants were engaged in hard and almost unnecessary work - they cleared the village of sand, but the cleared places fell asleep again. The villagers were plunged into "silent poverty and humble despair."
The tired, hungry peasant raged many times, worked wildly, but the forces of the desert broke him, and he lost heart, expecting either someone's miraculous help or resettlement to the wet northern lands.
Maria Nikiforovna settled in a room at the school, checked out everything she needed from the city and began to teach. The disciples went out of order - either five would come, then all twenty. With the onset of a harsh winter, the school was completely empty. “The peasants grieved from poverty,” they were running out of bread. By the New Year, two of Naryshkina's students had died.
The strong nature of Maria Nikiforovna “began to get lost and fade away” - she did not know what to do in this village. It was impossible to teach hungry and sick children, and the peasants were indifferent to school - it was too far from the "local peasant business".
The thought came to the mind of the young teacher that people should be taught how to fight the sands. With this idea, she went to the department of public education, where they treated her sympathetically, but they didn’t give a special teacher, they only supplied them with books and “advised me to teach the sand business myself”.
Returning, Naryshkina with great difficulty persuaded the peasants "to arrange voluntary public works every year - a month in spring and a month in autumn." In just a year, Khoshutovo was transformed. Under the guidance of the "sand teacher", the only plant that grows well on these soils was planted everywhere - a shrub like a willow shelyuga.
The strips of shelyuga strengthened the sands, protected the village from the winds of the desert, increased the yield of grasses and allowed irrigation of vegetable gardens. Now the inhabitants were burning the stoves with shrubs, and not with smelly dry manure; they began to weave baskets and even furniture from its branches, which gave additional income.
A little later, Naryshkina took out pine seedlings and planted two strips of planting, which protected the crops even better than shrubs. Not only children, but also adults, learning the "wisdom of life in the sandy steppe", began to go to the school of Maria Nikiforovna.
In the third year, a disaster struck the village. Every fifteen years, nomads passed through the village "along their nomadic ring" and collected what the rested steppe gave birth to.
The windless steppe at this hour smoked on the horizon: now thousands of nomadic horses galloped and their herds trampled.
After three days, nothing remained of the three-year labor of the peasants - everything was exterminated and trampled by the horses and cattle of the nomads, and the people dug wells to the bottom.
The young teacher went to the nomad leader. He silently and politely listened to her and replied that the nomads are not evil, but "there is little grass, there are many people and cattle." If there are more people in Khoshutovo, they will drive the nomads "to the steppe to their death, and this will be as fair as it is now."
He who is hungry and eats the grass of his homeland is not a criminal.
Secretly assessing the wisdom of the leader, Naryshkina went to the district with a detailed report, but there she was told that Khoshutovo would now do without her. The population already knows how to deal with the sands and, after the departure of the nomads, will be able to further revive the desert.
The manager suggested that Maria Nikiforovna transfer to Safuta - a village inhabited by nomads who switched to a sedentary lifestyle - to teach local residents the science of survival among the sands. By teaching the inhabitants of Safuta "the culture of the sands", you can improve their lives and attract the rest of the nomads, who will also settle down and stop destroying the plantings around Russian villages.
The teacher was sorry to spend her youth in such a wilderness, burying dreams of a life partner, but she remembered the hopeless fate of the two peoples and agreed. At parting, Naryshkina promised to come in fifty years, but not along the sand, but along the forest road.
Saying goodbye to Naryshkina, the surprised head said that she could not be in charge of the school, but the whole people. He felt sorry for the girl and for some reason was ashamed, "but the desert is the future world, \u003c…\u003e and people will be noble when a tree grows in the desert."
Andrey Platonov's humorous story about the doubted Makar, written in 1929, deals with the construction of socialism. Unlike the works praised by the party and the government, this story caustically ridicules all the stupidity and absurdity of the socialist system. The work opposes two members of the state, Makar Gannushkin, who has skillful hands and cannot think, and Lev Chumovoy, who lives with a bare mind, the smartest leader. It becomes clear that Makar Gannushkin is the personification of a worker for the good of socialism, and Lev Chumovoy, who knows nothing but how to lead, is the incompetent party leadership of the country of soviets.
Makara is perceived as a fool, but this is far from the case. He is quick-witted, wants to understand the mechanisms, seeks to facilitate the work of the worker.
However, all his ideas do not find a response, and Chumovoy fined him for his individuality. Makar's dream about the most scientific person confirms the fact that the party leadership of a socialist country saw in the distance the mirages of a bright future, and a specific person with his problems was out of sight, did not interest the party elite.
Another character in the work of Peter, not a working person, but a thinking person. Peter understands that in a socialist society honest labor does not make money for a satisfying piece. So he dodges, cunning, looking for more comfortable places, going with Makar to civil service in RCT.
When you read the story, one recalls Bakhtin's words about the people's soul, which is not affected by class ideas that cause only ridicule and hidden irony among the people.
A. Platonov's novel about the district town of Chevengur is an illustration of an attempt to build communism in a single country.
The expectation of happiness after the execution of the bourgeoisie and the expulsion of the semi-bourgeois is the essence of socialism. Grief for some is the price of happiness for others. Work for the sake of work, not for the betterment of life, not for the benefit. Ultimately, Dvanov's death on a horse Proletarian Power is an exact allegory of where the proletariat is leading.
In the story about the construction of a foundation pit and a building for the proletariat, the reader again sees the features of the construction of socialism. And, if in the story about the doubted Makar all this looks comical, then in the story it causes horror: dirty stupid work, hungry orphans, beggars, a radio in a barrack, shouting directives and slogans, dispossession, hopelessness. I. Brodsky later wrote that after reading this story, it is necessary to immediately change the existing system, and Platonov should be recognized as the first surrealist. Brodsky notes that Platonov, writing in the language of utopia, in the language of his era, differs from his contemporaries, writers - stylistic gourmets. The literary handwriting of the writer is so peculiar and original that Platonov is untranslatable. The depth of his works can only be understood in the original.
Among the other working masses lived two members of the state: the normal peasant Makar Ganushkin and the more outstanding Comrade Lev Chumovoy, who was the smartest in the village and, thanks to his intelligence, led the movement of the people forward, in a straight line towards the common good. But the entire population of the village spoke about Lev Chumovoy when he walked past somewhere:
- Our leader walked somewhere, tomorrow wait for some measures to be taken ... Clever head, only empty hands. Lives with a bare mind ...
Makar, like any peasant, loved crafts more than plowing, and cared not about bread, but about spectacles, because, according to Comrade Chumovoy, he had an empty head.
Without taking permission from Comrade Chumovoy, Makar once organized a spectacle - a folk merry-go-round, driven around by the power of the wind. The people gathered around Makarova merry-go-round in a solid cloud and expected a storm that could move the carousel from its place. But the storm was late for something, the people stood idle, and meanwhile Chumovoy's foal ran into the meadows and got lost there in wet places. If the people were at rest, they would immediately have caught Chumovoy's foal and would not have allowed Chumovoy to suffer a loss, but Makar distracted the people from peace and thereby helped Chumovoy suffer damage.
Chumovoy himself did not chase the colt, but went up to Makar, who was silently yearning for the storm, and said:
- You distract the people here, but I have no one to chase the colt ...
Makar woke up from his reverie, because he guessed. He could not think, having an empty head over clever hands, but he could guess right away.
“Don’t worry,” Makar said to comrade Chumovoy, “I’ll make you a self-propelled gun.”
- How? Chumovoy asked, because he did not know how to make a self-propelled vehicle with his own empty hands.
- From hoops and ropes, - Makar answered, not thinking, but feeling the pulling force and rotation in those future ropes and hoops.
- Then do it quickly, - said Chumovoy, - otherwise I will bring you to legal responsibility for illegal performances.
But Makar was not thinking about the fine - he could not think - but recalled where he saw the iron, and did not remember, because the whole village was made of surface materials: clay, straw, wood and hemp.
The storm did not happen, the carousel did not go, and Makar returned to the yard.
At home, Makar drank water out of longing and felt the astringent taste of that water.
“This must be why there’s no iron,” Makar guessed, “that we drink it with water.”
At night Makar climbed into a dry, stalled well and lived in it for a day, looking for iron under the damp sand. On the second day, Makar was pulled out by men under the command of Chumovoy, who was afraid that a citizen would die in addition to the front of socialist construction. Makar was unbearable - in his hands were brown blocks of iron ore. The peasants pulled him out and cursed him for being heavy, and comrade Chumovoy promised to additionally fine Makar for public disturbance.
However, Makar did not heed him and a week later made iron from the ore in the oven, after his woman had baked bread there. Nobody knows how he annealed ore in the stove, because Makar acted with his clever hands and a silent head. A day later, Makar made an iron wheel, and then another wheel, but not a single wheel went by itself: they had to be rolled by hand.
I came to Makar Chumova and asked:
- Made a self-propelled gun instead of a foal?
“No,” says Makar, “I guessed that they would have to roll themselves, but they shouldn't.
- Why did you deceive me, your spontaneous head! - Chumovoy exclaimed in an official manner. - Make a foal then!
- There is no meat, otherwise I would have done, - refused Makar.
- And how did you make iron from clay? - Chumovoy remembered.
“I don’t know,” Makar replied, “I have no memory.
Chumovoy was offended here.
- What are you, you hide the discovery of national economic significance, individual devil! You are not a man, you are an individual peasant! I'm going to fine you now so that you know how to think!
Makar obeyed:
“I don’t think so, comrade Chumovoy. I am an empty man.
“Then shorten your hands, don't do what you don’t realize,” comrade Chumovoy reproached Makar.
“If I, comrade Chumovoy, had your head, then I would have thought too,” Makar confessed.
- That's right, - confirmed Chumovoy. - But such a head is one for the whole village, and you must obey me.
And here Chumovoy fined Makar around, so Makar had to go fishing in Moscow to pay that fine, leaving the carousel and the farm under the zealous care of Comrade Chumovoy.
Makar traveled on trains ten years ago, in 1919. Then he was taken for free, because Makar immediately looked like a farm laborer, and he was not even asked for documents. "Go further," the proletarian guard used to say to him, "you are nice to us, since you are naked."
Today Makar, as well as nine years ago, got on the train without asking, surprised by the few people and open doors... But still, Makar sat down not in the middle of the car, but on the couplings to watch how the wheels work on the move. The wheels began to work, and the train went to the middle of the state to Moscow.
The train was going faster than any half-breed. The steppes ran towards the train and never ended.
“They will torture the car,” Makar regretted the wheels. "Indeed, what is there in the world, since it is spacious and empty."
Makar's hands were at rest, their free intelligent power went into his empty capacious head, and he began to think. Makar sat on the couplings and thought he could. However, Makar did not stay long. An unarmed guard approached and asked him for a ticket. Makar did not have a ticket with him, since, according to his assumption, there was a Soviet, solid government, which now carries everyone in need for nothing. The guard-controller told Makar to get off his sin at the first half-station, where there is a buffet, so that Makar would not starve to death on a remote stretch. Makar saw that the authorities were taking care of him, since they were not just driving them away, but offering a buffet, and thanked the head of the trains.
At the stop, Makar still did not cry, although the train stopped to unload envelopes and postcards from the mail car. Makar remembered a technical consideration and stayed on the train to help him go further.
“The heavier the thing,” Makar imagined relatively stone and fluff, “the further it flies when you throw it; so I also ride on the train with an extra brick so that the train can rush to Moscow. "
Not wanting to offend the train guard, Makar climbed into the depths of the mechanism, under the carriage, and there lay down to rest, listening to the agitated speed of the wheels. From the rest and the sight of the traveling sand, Makar fell asleep and saw in a dream that he was lifting off the ground and flying in the cold wind. From this luxurious feeling, he took pity on the people who remained on earth.
- Earring, why are you throwing hot necks!
Makar woke up from these words and took himself by the neck: is his body and all his inner life whole?
- Nothing! - Shouted from a distance Seryozhka. - Moscow is not far away: it won't burn!
The train was at the station. The artisans tried the car axles and swore softly.
Makar climbed out from under the carriage and saw in the distance the center of the entire state - the main city of Moscow.
“Now I’ll walk on foot,” Makar realized. - Perhaps the train will run without additional weight! "
And Makar set off in the direction of towers, churches and formidable structures, to the city of wonders of science and technology, in order to obtain life for himself under the golden heads of temples and leaders.
Andrey Platonov
Doubtful Makar
Among the other working masses lived two members of the state: the normal peasant Makar Ganushkin and the more outstanding comrade Lev Chumovoy, who was the smartest in the village and, thanks to his intelligence, led the movement of the people forward, in a straight line towards the common good. But the entire population of the village spoke about Lev Chumovoy when he walked somewhere by:
There our leader walked somewhere, tomorrow wait for some measures to be taken ... Smart head, only empty hands. Lives with a bare mind ...
Makar, like any peasant, loved crafts more than plowing, and cared not about bread, but about spectacles, because, according to Comrade Chumovoy, he had an empty head.
Without taking permission from comrade Chumovoy, Makar once organized a spectacle - a folk merry-go-round, driven around by the power of the wind. The people gathered around Makarova merry-go-round in a solid cloud and expected a storm that could move the carousel from its place. But the storm was late, the people stood idle, and meanwhile Chumovoy's foal fled to the meadows and got lost there in wet places. If the people were at rest, they would immediately have caught Chumovoy's foal and would not have allowed Chumovoy to suffer a loss, but Makar distracted the people from peace and thereby helped Chumovoy suffer damage.
Chumovoy himself did not chase the colt, but went up to Makar, who was silently yearning for the storm, and said:
You distract the people here, but I have no one to chase the colt ...
Makar woke up from his reverie, because he guessed. He could not think, having an empty head over clever hands, but he could guess right away.
Do not grieve, - said Makar to comrade Chumovoy, - I will make you a self-propelled gun.
How? Chumovoy asked, because he did not know how to make a self-propelled vehicle with his own empty hands.
From hoops and ropes, - answered Makar, not thinking, but feeling the pulling force and rotation in those future ropes and hoops.
Then do it quickly, - said Chumovoy, - otherwise I will bring you to legal responsibility for illegal performances.
But Makar was not thinking about the fine - he could not think - but recalled where he saw the iron, and did not remember, because the whole village was made of surface materials: clay, straw, wood and hemp.
The storm did not happen, the carousel did not go, and Makar returned to the yard.
At home, Makar drank water out of longing and felt the astringent taste of that water.
“This must be why there’s no iron,” Makar guessed, “that we are drinking it with water.”
At night Makar climbed into a dry, stalled well and lived in it for a day, looking for iron under the damp sand. On the second day, Makar was pulled out by men under the command of Chumovoy, who was afraid that a citizen would die in addition to the front of socialist construction. Makar was unbearable - in his hands were brown blocks of iron ore. The peasants pulled him out and cursed him for being heavy, and comrade Chumovoy promised to additionally fine Makar for public disturbance.
However, Makar did not heed him and a week later made iron from ore in the oven, after his woman baked bread there. Nobody knows how he annealed ore in the stove, because Makar acted with his clever hands and a silent head. A day later, Makar made an iron wheel, and then another wheel, but not a single wheel went by itself: they had to be rolled by hand.
I came to Makar Chumova and asked:
Made a self-propelled gun instead of a foal?
No, - says Makar, - I guessed that they would have to roll themselves, but they shouldn't.
Why did you deceive me, your spontaneous head! - Chumovoy exclaimed in an official manner. - Make a foal then!
There is no meat, otherwise I would have done, - refused Makar.
And how did you make iron from clay? - Chumovoy recalled.
I don't know, - answered Makar, - I have no memory.
Chumovoy was offended here.
What are you, hiding the discovery of national economic significance, individual devil! You are not a man, you are an individual peasant! I'm going to fine you now so that you know how to think!
Makar obeyed:
I don’t think so, comrade Chumovoy. I am an empty man.
Then shorten your hands, don't do what you don't realize, ”comrade Chumovoy reproached Makar.
If I, comrade Chumovoy, had your head, then I would have thought too, ”Makar confessed.
That's right, - Chumovoy confirmed. - But such a head is one for the whole village, and you must obey me.
And here Chumovoy fined Makar around, so Makar had to go fishing in Moscow to pay that fine, leaving the carousel and the farm under the zealous care of Comrade Chumovoy.
* * *
Makar traveled on trains ten years ago, in 1919. Then he was taken for free, because Makar immediately looked like a farm laborer, and he was not even asked for documents. "Go further," the proletarian guard used to say to him, "you are nice to us, since you are naked."
Today Makar, as well as nine years ago, got on the train without asking, surprised by the few people and open doors. But still, Makar sat down not in the middle of the car, but on the couplings to watch how the wheels work on the move. The wheels began to work, and the train went to the middle of the state to Moscow.
The train was going faster than any half-breed. The steppes ran towards the train and never ended.
“They will torture the car,” Makar regretted the wheels. "Indeed, what is there in the world, since it is spacious and empty."
Makar's hands were at rest, their free intelligent power went into his empty capacious head, and he began to think. Makar sat on the couplings and thought he could. However, Makar did not stay long. An unarmed guard approached and asked him for a ticket. Makar did not have a ticket with him, since, according to his assumption, there was a Soviet, solid government, which now carries everyone in need for nothing. The guard-controller told Makar to get off his sin at the first half-station, where there is a buffet, so that Makar would not starve to death on a remote stretch. Makar saw that the authorities were taking care of him, since they were not just driving them away, but offering a buffet, and thanked the head of the trains.
At the stop, Makar still did not cry, although the train stopped to unload envelopes and postcards from the mail car. Makar remembered a technical consideration and stayed on the train to help him go further.
“The heavier the thing,” Makar imagined relatively stone and fluff, “the further it flies when you throw it; so I also ride on the train with an extra brick so that the train can rush to Moscow. "
Not wanting to offend the train guard, Makar climbed into the depths of the mechanism, under the carriage, and there lay down to rest, listening to the agitated speed of the wheels. From the rest and the sight of the traveling sand, Makar fell asleep and saw in a dream that he was lifting off the ground and flying in the cold wind. From this luxurious feeling, he took pity on the people who remained on earth.
Main character from Platonov's story "Doubting Makar" - a rural man Makar Ganushkin. He had golden hands, but his head was empty, which is why he sometimes did stupid things. Its complete opposite was Lev Chumovoy, main person in the village. He had a smart head and empty hands.
Once Makar built a carousel that was set in motion by the wind. The villagers crowded around the carousel. But there was no wind, and the carousel did not work.
While the people stood like that, a foal ran away from Chumovoy. Chumovoy began to scold Makar, and he promised him to make a self-propelled gun on wheels instead of a foal. Makar found iron ore, smelted iron from it and made wheels, but the self-propelled gun did not work. Then Chumovoy fined Makar and to pay that fine, Makar went to work in Moscow.
He was traveling by train, and got off at one of the stations, seeing Moscow ahead. At the station, Makar noticed how cans of milk were loaded into the car, and empty cans were pulled out of the car. Makar decided that it would be much more efficient to deliver milk to the city through a pipe so that the wagons would not carry empty cans. He turned with his idea to the man who was in charge of loading the cans. But he said that he was just a simple performer and advised to look for smart people in Moscow.
Makar went to Moscow and there he saw how a house was being built from concrete. And here Makar also got the idea that concrete can be pumped through pipes. He began to look for a man in Moscow who would accept his invention. He found a place where he was listened to, but there he was only given a ruble, as a poor inventor, and sent to the trade union.
The trade union gave him another ruble and sent him further to wander around the authorities. As a result, Makar ended up in an overnight house, where he met a thinking proletarian named Peter. Together they began to walk around Moscow and look for their purpose in life. The two friends went first to the police, then to an insane asylum, and ended up going to the Workers 'and Peasants' Inspection (RKI), where Peter said that he and his friend had accumulated a mind and demanded to give them power.
The official gave them power, and Makar and Peter began to sit in the RCI, where they communicated with the poor who came to them.
This is summary story.
The main idea of \u200b\u200bPlatonov's story "Doubted Makar" is that bureaucracy can nullify any sensible undertaking. Makar Ganushkin wanted his inventive ideas to be brought to life, and instead he turned into an employee sitting in his pants in an office.
Platonov's story "Doubted Makar" teaches to be proactive and educated personto achieve the full implementation of their ideas.
In the story, I liked Makar's initiative, his uneasiness about the current state of affairs. In the context of today, about Makar, we can say that he lacks the ability to practically implement his ideas. A wise man demands everything first of all from himself, and only then from others.
What proverbs fit the story of Platonov "Doubted Makar"?
A man looks at the ground, but sees seven fathoms.
Everyone lives with their own mind.
The source of our wisdom is our experience.