Andrei Platonovich Platonov wrote his works of art about helpless and defenseless people, for whom the writer felt true compassion.
In the story "Yushka", the protagonist is described as an "old-looking" man, a forge worker on the main Moscow road. Yushka, as people called the hero, led a modest lifestyle, even “didn’t drink tea and didn’t buy sugar”, wore the same clothes for a long time, practically did not spend the little money that the owner of the forge paid him. The whole life of the hero consisted of work: "in the morning he went to the forge, and in the evening he went back to sleep." People mocked Yushka: children threw various objects at him, pushed and touched him; adults also sometimes offended by venting their resentment or anger. Yushka's good-naturedness, his inability to fight back, selfless love for people made the hero an object of ridicule. Even the master's daughter Dasha said: “It would be better if you died, Yushka ... Why do you live?” But the hero spoke of human blindness and believed that people love him, but do not know how to express it.
Indeed, both children and adults did not understand why Yushka would not fight back, would not scream, would not scold. The hero did not have such human qualities as cruelty, rudeness, anger. The soul of an old man was receptive to all the beauties of nature: “he no longer hid his love for living beings”, “bent down to the ground and kissed flowers”, “stroked the bark on the trees and raised butterflies and beetles that had fallen dead from the path”. Being far from human fuss, human malice, Yushka felt like a truly happy person. Wildlife perceived the hero as he is. Yushka became weaker and weaker and one day, pointing out to one passerby who laughed at the hero that all people are equal, he died. The death of the hero did not bring the desired relief to people, on the contrary, life became worse for everyone, since now there was no one to take out all human anger and bitterness. The memory of a good-natured person was preserved for many years, as a doctor girl, an orphan, came to the city, who was brought up and trained by Yushka with her little money. She stayed in the city and began to treat people sick, like the hero, with tuberculosis.
So, A.P. Platonov portrayed in the image of the main character a harmless, defenseless person whom people considered a holy fool. But it was Yushka who turned out to be the most humane of people, showing mercy to an orphan girl and leaving a memory of himself.
(Option 2)
The protagonist of the story, Yushka, is an “old-looking man”: only forty years old, but he has consumption.
Yushka is an unusual person. “Non-cooling” tears always stood in his eyes, he always saw the grief of people, animals, plants: “Yushka did not hide ... his love for living beings ... he stroked the bark on the trees and raised butterflies and beetles from the path that had fallen dead, and for a long time peered into their faces, feeling orphaned. He could see with his heart. Yushka suffered a lot from children and adults, who were annoyed by his gentleness: the children pushed, threw earth and stones at him, and the adults beat him. The children, not understanding why he did not react, considered him inanimate: “Yushka, are you true or not?” They liked to mock with impunity. Yushka "believed that children love him, that they need him, only they do not know how to love a person and do not know what to do for love, and therefore they torment him." Adults were beaten for being "blissful". By beating Yushka, an adult "forgot his grief for a while."
Once a year, Yefim went somewhere, and no one knew where, but one day he stayed and for the first time answered the person who pestered him: “Why am I bothering you! .. I was put to live by my parents, I was born according to the law, I, too, the whole world needs, just like you, without me, too, so it’s impossible! .. ”This first rebellion in his life became the last. Pushing Yushka in the chest, the man went home, not knowing that he had left him to die. After the death of Yushka, people got worse, because "now all the anger and mockery remained among the people and wasted among them, because there was no Yushka, who unrequitedly endured all other people's evil, bitterness, ridicule and ill will." And then it became known where Efim Dmitrievich went.
In Moscow, with the money he earned in the forge, an orphan girl grew up and studied. For twenty-five years he worked in the forge, never eating sugar "for her to eat it." The girl “knew what Yushka was ill with, and now she herself graduated as a doctor and came here to treat the one who loved her more than anything in the world and whom she herself loved with all the warmth and light of her heart ...”. The girl did not find Yushka alive, but she remained in this city and devoted her whole life to consumptive patients. “And everyone in the city knows her, calling the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”
The story "Yushka" Platonov wrote in the 30s of the twentieth century. In literature, the author's works are usually considered within the framework of Russian cosmism - a philosophical trend, the central ideas of which were the theses about the integral nature of the universe, the cosmic destiny of man, the harmony of existence.
In the story "Yushka" Platonov touches on the themes of universal love and compassion. The protagonist of the work, the holy fool Yushka, becomes the embodiment of human kindness and mercy.
Main characters
Yushka (Efim Dmitrievich)- “forty years old”, “illness has long tormented him and made him old before his time”; for twenty-five years he worked as an assistant to a blacksmith; he was bullied by both children and adults.
Yushka's daughter- an orphan girl whom Yushka helped to learn; became a doctor.
Blacksmith- Yushka worked for him as an assistant.
"For a long time, in ancient times, an old-looking man lived on our street." He worked in the forge as an assistant, as he could not see well and "he had little strength in his hands." The man helped carry sand, coal, water to the forge, fanned the forge and did other auxiliary work.
The man's name was Yefim, but all the people called him Yushka. “He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face” “sparse gray hair grew singly; his eyes were as white as a blind man's.
For work, the blacksmith fed him, and also gave him a salary - seven rubles sixty kopecks a month. However, Yushka almost did not spend money - he did not drink tea with sugar, but “he wore the same clothes for many years.”
When Yushka went to work early in the morning, everyone understood that it was time to get up. And when he returned in the evening - that it was time to have dinner and go to bed.
Everyone in the city offended Yushka. As the man walked down the street, the children threw stones and branches at him. Yushka did not swear, did not take offense at them, and did not even cover his face. The children "rejoiced that you can do whatever you want with him." Yushka did not understand why they were torturing him. “He believed that children love him”, “only they do not know how to love, and therefore they torment him”.
Parents, scolding the children, said: “Here you will be the same as Yushka!” .
Sometimes even drunken adults began to scold and beat Yushka hard. He endured everything in silence and "then lay for a long time in the dust on the road." Then the blacksmith's daughter came for him and, raising him, asked Yushka why he lives - it would be better if he had already died. But the man was surprised every time: “why should he die when he was born to live.” Yushka was sure that although the people beat him, they loved him: "the heart in people is sometimes blind."
From childhood, Yushka “suffered from breastfeeding”, because of consumption, he looked much older than his years. Every summer, in July or August, he went to the countryside. Why - no one knew, they only guessed that his daughter lived somewhere there.
Leaving the city, Yushka "breathed the fragrance of herbs and forests", here he did not feel the consumption that tormented him. Having gone far, he “bent down to the ground and kissed the flowers”, “picked up butterflies and beetles that had fallen dead from the path”, “feeling orphaned without them”.
A month later, he returned and again " worked from morning to evening in the forge" and again people "tormented" him. And again he waited for the summer, took with him the accumulated "hundred rubles" and left.
However, the illness tormented Yushka more and more, so he stayed in the city one summer. Once, when a man was walking down the street, a “jolly passer-by” began to hurt him, asking when Yushka would die. Always meekly silent, Yushka suddenly became angry and said that since he was "born according to the law", then without him, as well as without a passerby, "the whole world is impossible."
The passer-by was immediately indignant that Yushka dared to equalize him with himself, and hit the man hard in the chest. Yushka fell, "turned face down and did not move or rise again." Dead Yushka was found by a carpenter: “Farewell, Yushka, and forgive us all. People rejected you, and who is your judge! .. ”All the people who tormented him during his lifetime came to Yushka’s funeral.
"Yushka was buried and forgotten." But people began to live worse without him - now all the anger and mockery that they took out on Yushka "remained among people and wasted among them."
In late autumn, a girl came to the blacksmith and asked where to find Yefim Dmitrievich. She said that she was an orphan, and Yushka placed her little “in a family in Moscow, then sent her to a boarding school.” Every year he came to visit her, bringing money so that she could live and study. Now she had already graduated from the university, trained as a doctor, and came herself, since this summer Efim Dmitrievich did not come to visit her.
The girl stayed in the city and began working in a hospital for consumptives, helping sick people for free. “And everyone knows her, calling the daughter of the good Yushka, having long forgotten Yushka himself and the fact that she was not his daughter.”
Conclusion
In Platonov's story "Yushka", the holy fool Efim is depicted as a kind and warm-hearted person. Despite the fact that everyone in the city offends him, taking out all his anger on him, the man endures all the bullying. Yushka understands that without him the world would be worse, that he has his own special purpose in life. After the death of the holy fool, his kindness is embodied in his adopted daughter. Taking care of the little orphan, Yushka teaches her to love the world and people just as he loves. And the girl adopts his science, then helping the whole city.
Story test
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Retelling rating
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Image of Yushka. The main character of the story is Yushka. Kind and warm-hearted Yushka has a rare gift of love. This love is truly holy and pure: “He bowed to the ground and kissed the flowers, trying not to breathe on them, so that they would not deteriorate from his breath, he stroked the bark on the trees and picked up butterflies and beetles that had fallen dead from the path, and peered for a long time in their faces, feeling orphaned without them. Plunging into the world of nature, inhaling the aroma of forests and herbs, he rests his soul and even ceases to feel his illness (poor Yushka suffers from consumption). He sincerely loves people, especially one orphan whom he raised, taught in Moscow, denying himself everything: he never drank tea, did not eat sugar, "so that she would eat it." Every year he goes to visit the girl, brings money for the whole year so that she can live and study. He loves her more than anything in the world, and she is probably the only one of all people who answers him with "all the warmth and light of her heart." Dostoevsky wrote: "Man is a mystery." Yushka, in his “naked” simplicity, seems frankly understandable to people. But his dissimilarity to everyone irritates not only adults, but also children, and also attracts a person “with a blind heart” to him. All the life of the unfortunate Yushka, everyone beats, insults and offends. Children and adults make fun of Yushka, reproach him "for unrequited stupidity." However, he never shows malice towards people, never responds to their insults. Children throw stones and dirt at him, push him, not understanding why he does not scold them, does not chase after them with a twig, like other adults. On the contrary, when he was really hurt, this strange man said: “What are you, my relatives, what are you, little ones! .. You must love me? .. Why do you all need me? ..” Naive Yushka sees in the continuous mockery of people, a perverted form of self-love: “The people love me, Dasha!” he says to the master's daughter. Before us is an old-looking man, weak, sick. “He was short and thin; on his wrinkled face, instead of a mustache and a beard, sparse gray hair grew separately; the eyes were white, like those of a blind man, and there was always moisture in them, like tears that do not cool down. For many years he wears the same clothes, reminiscent of rags, without changing. And his table is modest: he did not drink tea and did not buy sugar. He is an assistant to the chief blacksmith, does work that is invisible to prying eyes, although necessary. He is the first to go to the smithy in the morning and (the last to leave, so that the old men and old women compare the beginning and end of the day by him. But in the eyes of adults, fathers and mothers, Yushka is a defective person, unable to live, abnormal, which is why they remember him , scolding the children: they say, you will be like Yushka. In addition, every year Yupzha goes somewhere for a month and then returns. Having gone far from people, Yushka is transformed. It is open to the world: the fragrance of herbs, the voice of rivers, the singing of birds, the fun of dragonflies, beetles, grasshoppers - it lives with one breath, one living joy with this world. We see Yushka cheerful and happy. And Yushka dies due to the fact that his fundamental feeling and conviction that each person is equal to another “out of necessity” are offended. Only after his death it turns out that he was still right in his beliefs: people really needed him.
The story "Yushka" was written by Platonov in the first half of the 1930s, and was published only after the death of the writer, in 1966, in the "Favorites".
Literary direction and genre
"Yushka" is a story that reveals on several pages the way of thinking of the population of an entire town and the mentality of a person as such.
The work has an unexpected end connected with the arrival in the city of an orphan trained as a doctor. This ending makes the story feel like a novel. There is also a similarity with a parable in the work, if we perceive the ending as a moral, showing true mercy.
Theme, main idea and issues
The theme of the story is the nature of good and evil, mercy and cruelty, the beauty of the human soul. The main idea can be expressed by several biblical truths at once: one must do good unselfishly; human hearts are deceitful and extremely corrupt, so people do not know what they are doing; you must love your neighbor as yourself. The issue of the story is also connected with morality. Platonov raises the problem of belated gratitude, contempt and cruelty to those who are unlike everyone else. One of the most important problems is the moral deadness of the heroes, opposed to the moral liveliness of Yushka, although the children doubt his liveliness.
Plot and composition
The story takes place "in ancient times". Such a reference to the past makes the story almost a fairy tale, beginning with the words "in a certain kingdom they once lived." That is, the hero of the story is immediately presented as a universal timeless hero, in whom the moral guidelines of mankind are embodied.
The blacksmith's assistant Yushka, who is laughed at by all the inhabitants of the city as a meek and unrequited creature, leaves for a month every summer. According to him, then to his niece, then to another relative in the village or in Moscow. In that year, when Yushka did not go anywhere, feeling very bad, he died, knocked down by another mocker.
In autumn, an orphan appeared in the city, whom Yushka fed and taught all his life. The girl came to cure her benefactor of tuberculosis. She remained in the city and devoted her whole life to selfless help to the sick.
Heroes
The story is named after the main character. Yushka is not a nickname, as many readers think, but a diminutive name, which in the Voronezh province was formed from the South Russian version of the name Yefim - Yukhim. But the word yushka in the same southern Russian dialect it means liquid food like soup, liquid in general and even blood. Thus, the name of the hero is, as it were, speaking. It alludes to the hero's ability to adapt to a hard, evil world, as water adapts to the shape of a vessel. And also the name - a hint at the death of the hero, who died from bleeding, apparently provoked by a blow to the chest.
Yushka is a blacksmith's assistant. Now a person who does such work "that needed to be done" would be called a laborer. His age is defined as "old-looking". Only in the middle of the story does the reader learn that Yushka was 40 years old, and he was weak and old-looking due to illness.
The story turned out to be prophetic for Platonov himself, who died of tuberculosis, infected by his son, who went to prison at the age of 15 and was released after 2.5 years already seriously ill.
In the portrait of Yushka, his thinness and short stature are emphasized. The eyes are especially distinguished, white, like those of a blind man, with constant tears standing in them. This image is not accidental: Yushka sees the world not as it really is. He does not notice evil, considering it a manifestation of love, and seems to be forever crying about the needs of others.
Yushka looks like a blessed one, as the Russian people imagined them. The only difference is that it was not customary to offend the blessed. But Yushka is humiliated and beaten, calling not blessed, but blissful, unlike, animal, God's effigy, unfit fool. And they demand that Yushka be like them, live like everyone else.
Yushka considers all people equal "according to need." He is accidentally killed by a fellow villager just because he dared to equate himself with him.
The hero is comparable even with Christ, who suffered for the people, enduring torment. When the Roman soldiers mocked Christ, he was silent, not explaining anything to them. But even more similar to Yushka is the hero of Bulgakov's novel, written a little later than Yushka, in 1937. Yeshua, unlike the biblical Jesus, actively justifies the offenders, calling them good people. So Yushka calls the children who offend him family, small.
Yushka believes that both children and adults need it. It would seem that he mistakenly concludes that children and adults need him because they love him. But over the years it becomes clear that they really loved him, simply not being able to express either love or need for him. And that's exactly what Yushka, who was offended, thought.
Like many blessed ones, Yushka makes do with little. Yushka does not spend her tiny income (seven rubles and sixty kopecks a month) on tea and sugar, being content with simple free blacksmith food - bread, cabbage soup and porridge. Yushka's clothes are just as simple, which, over the years, does not seem to wear out, remaining uniformly dilapidated and full of holes, but fulfilling its purpose.
The people offended Yushka, because in the hearts of people "fierce rage", "evil grief and resentment". Yushka's meekness is opposed to the aggression of people provoked by their grief, which everyone considers Yushka to be the culprit.
Dasha, the blacksmith's daughter, is kind to Yushka. She tries to explain to Yushka that no one loves him, that his life is in vain. But Yushka knows why he lives: at the behest of his parents and for a purpose about which he does not tell anyone, as well as about his love for all living things.
Yushka does not need people, as they do in him, but, leaving for deserted places, Yushka experienced unity with nature. He felt orphaned even by the death of a beetle or insect. It was wildlife that healed the hero, giving him strength.
After death, Yushka shares the fate of many holy fools and saints. The carpenter who found his corpse immediately asks for forgiveness: "People have rejected you". All the people came to say goodbye to him. But then Yushka was forgotten, just as ordinary people, and holy fools, and saints are forgotten. Lonely Yushka turned out to be a benefactor, giving the people the one who began to take care of him - an orphan raised and trained with his money, who became a doctor. She is called the daughter of the good Yushka, not remembering him.
Style Features
In the story there are traditional motifs for Platonov. One of them is the motive of death. Children doubt that Yushka is alive, because he does not respond with evil to their evil.
The landscape in the story reveals the source of the hero's spiritual strength. Unlike people who draw energy from the pleasure of offending the weak, Yushka supported the weak and perceived himself as part of nature. Strange Platonic expression "beetle faces", found in other works, shows that Yushka also perceived nature as equal to himself, humanizing it.
Platonov creates a convincing image of happiness that happens to people in spite of their evil deeds. The life of the writer was in many ways similar to the life of his hero: hard thankless work, in which he put his soul, and premature death from illness.
Andrey Platonovich Platonov... A man who adamantly follows humanistic ideals. The story "Yushka" is a confirmation of this. A summary of Platonov's "Yushki" is the subject of this article.
The reason for this is several factors. On the one hand, a special creative style, where inversions play a significant role. As you know, inversion is a change in the classical order of words in the presentation. To a large extent, this artistic technique characterizes the style of any author. Platonov, according to literary critics, reached unprecedented heights in it.
On the other hand, the writer's fundamental departure from (the leading method of literature in the USSR). He preferred to be unpublished and disgraced, but nevertheless continued with his work the tradition of classical Russian literature of the late 19th century. The author's style of Platonov was formed not under the influence of party congresses, but also thanks to Tolstoy.
Is foolishness relevant today
It is obvious that the summary of Platonov's "Yushki" written by us reflects in a more concise and concise form than the original story, the personality of the protagonist - a foolish man of about forty, nicknamed Yushka on the street. Yushka is an outdated Old age, this word in Rus' was called the blessed, holy fools. Why did Andrey Platonov choose such a character, atypical for the Iron XX century? Obviously, because he considers the theme of holy foolishness for Russia to have not exhausted itself, not fulfilled its mission, undeservedly rejected by a pragmatic society.
On the one hand, the notorious worldly common sense portrays the holy fool as such a harmless fool deprived of social guidelines. However, this is only the outer side. Much more important in understanding the essence of holy foolishness is its essence: it is a voluntary martyrdom undertaken by its adept, hiding his secret virtue. Perhaps this essence is expressed to a certain extent by the well-known phrase from the Gospel of Matthew: that good should be done secretly, so that the right hand does not know what the left is doing.
Portrait of Efim Dmitrievich - Yushka
Much has been said in this story. Therefore, following the writer, we will initially abstract from the present time and argue that the events described in it occurred in ancient times. With this, in fact, our brief retelling begins.
Platonov's "Yushka" tells us about a frail, lonely peasant Efim Dmitrievich (who, in fact, is practically not called by his first name or patronymic), who grew old prematurely, with sparse gray hair where a mustache and beard usually grow in an adult man. He was always dressed in the same clothes, did not take off his clothes for months. In the summer, he wore a gray shirt and sooty trousers, burnt by the sparks of the Kuznetsk forge. In winter, he threw over all of the above a leaky old sheepskin coat, left to him by his late father.
Summary of Platonov's "Yushki" introduces us to a lonely forty-year-old man: untidy, outwardly looking much older than his age. The reason for this is a serious, fatal disease. He is ill with tuberculosis, his wrinkled face is that of an old man. Yushka's eyes are constantly watery and have a whitish tint. Beneath this, let's face it, miserable appearance hides a beautiful soul. According to the writer, it is people like the holy fool Yushka, who know how to love the whole world around them and even people who mock them and bring them suffering, are able to change the whole world for the better.
Forge work
Yushka always got up for work before dark, and went to the forge when the rest of the people were just waking up. In the morning he brought into the smithy the necessary coal, water, sand. As an assistant to the village blacksmith, his duties included holding the iron with tongs while the blacksmith was forging it. At other times, he watched the fire in the furnace, brought everything necessary to the forge, and handled the horses that were brought in to be shod.
The main character is not a dependent. Despite the deadly disease, he earns his hard work. To reveal the image, it is important to include this circumstance in the summary of the story "Yushka" by Platonov. He works as a blacksmith's assistant.
To hold heavy metal blanks with pincers, which at that time are being beaten by a blacksmith's heavy hammer... To be under the influence of the high temperature of the crucible... Perhaps such work is beyond the strength of a sick person. However, the holy fool Yushka does not grumble. He bears his burden very honorably.
Horses, even the nimble ones he shod, for some reason always obeyed him. You should, of course, read the entire Platonic story in order to feel how harmonious and whole this unusual person is. Such an impression will not remain if you read only a brief retelling.
Platonov's "Yushka" tells about the loneliness of the hero. His parents died, he did not start his own family, he did not have his own home. Efim Dmitrievich lived at the blacksmith's kitchen, taking advantage of the latter's location. By mutual agreement, food was included in his wages. However, tea and sugar were a separate item of expenditure. Efim Dmitrievich had to buy them himself. However, the thrifty peasant made do with drinking water, saving money.
Cruelty of people to Yushka
Our hero lived a quiet lonely working life, as evidenced by our short story. Platonov's "Yushka" also tells us about the unreasonable cruelty of people and even their children towards Yefim Dmitrievich.
Some kind of pathological need to do unrequited evil ... Quiet, not violent, timid Yushka never rebuffed his offenders, he never even shouted at them, did not swear. He was like a lightning rod for the evil that had accumulated in people. He was beaten and stoned for no reason even by children. For what? To rise above this unrequited beggar and kind man? So that, throwing off the burden of your own meanness, to cleanse yourself and communicate with other people with dignity? To feel your power over a person who despises the laws of self-interest?
When the children, throwing stones at him, angry at his unresponsiveness, caught up with him and stopped him, began to shout, pushing him, he only smiled. Platonov's short story "Yushka" shows the special attitude of the holy fool to what is happening. There is not even a shadow of reciprocal aggression in it. On the contrary, he sympathizes with children! He believed that they really loved him, that they needed to communicate with him, only they simply did not know what to do for love.
Unfortunately, the adults beat him even more severely, apparently enjoying their impunity. Beaten Yushka, with blood on his cheek, with a torn ear, got up from the dust of the road and went to the smithy.
It was like martyrdom: daily beatings... Did the tormentors of this sick and unfortunate man understand how low they were!
"Yushka" by Platonov as an analogue of "Mockingbird" by Harper Lee
Recall, drawing a conditional parallel, the work of classical American literature "To Kill a Mockingbird". In it, the unfortunate, defenseless person is still spared. He is generously freed from the looming and inevitable violence. The people around him are sure that it is impossible to act cruelly with him. This means - to take sin on the soul, it's like killing a mockingbird - a small, gullible, defenseless bird.
A completely different plot displays our summary of the story "Yushka" by Platonov. The holy fool is severely beaten, humiliated, mocked.
He lived the hard life of an outcast in his own homeland. Why? For what?
What in the image of Efim Dmitrievich is personally close to A. Platonov
Let's digress from the plot of the story. Let us ask ourselves the question of why Andrei Platonov so penetratingly managed to create a living image of the Russian holy fool? But because, in essence, he himself was an outcast in his homeland. The Russian general reader was able to get acquainted with his works only thirty years after the tragic death of the writer in 1951.
Undoubtedly, it is Andrei Platonov himself who cries out through the lips of his holy fool hero, trying to convince the society that does not recognize his talent through the lips of this martyr that all sorts of people are needed, that everyone is valuable, and not just "walking in step." He calls for tolerance and mercy.
How Yushka fought the disease
Yushka is seriously ill, and he knows that he will not be a long-liver ... The holy fool was forced every summer to leave the blacksmith for a month. He was traveling from the city to a distant village, where he was from and where his relatives lived.
There, Yefim Dmitrievich, leaning over the ground, greedily breathed in the smell of herbs, listened to the murmur of the rivers, looked at the snow-white clouds in the blue-blue sky. A.P. Platonov's story "Yushka" very heartfeltly tells how a terminally ill person seeks protection from nature: breathing the caress of the earth, enjoying the gentle rays of the sun. However, every year the disease becomes more and more merciless to him ...
Returning to the city, after therapy by nature, without feeling pain in his lungs, he took up blacksmithing.
Doom
In that fatal summer for himself, at the time when he was just supposed to leave for a month and improve his health, in the evening on the way from the forge he was met by one of his tormentors, seized with an obvious desire to humiliate and beat this blessed one.
Platonov's story "Yushka" describes the terrible events that led to the death of the holy fool. At first, the tormentor deliberately provoked the unfortunate with a word, arguing about the futility of his existence. The holy fool answered this dirty lie justly and reasonably. It was his first worthy response to an offender in his life, in which real wisdom, kindness, and understanding of the place of each person in God's world sounded. The scoundrel clearly did not expect such words from the holy fool. He, being unable to object to the simple and clear truth that sounded from the lips of the holy fool, in response, with all his might, pushed the unfortunate man, tormented by a terrible illness. Yushka hit the ground with his chest, eaten away by tuberculosis, and as a result, the irreparable happened: Efim Dmitrievich was not destined to rise again, he died in the same place where he fell ...
The philosophical meaning of Yushka's death
The hero of A. Platonov, Yushka, is martyred, defending his place under the sun, his views on God's world. And it's touching. Recall the analogy from the novel Doctor Zhivago, where the idea is that the ideal of this world cannot be a trainer with a smashing scourge in his hand, but a martyr who sacrifices himself ... Only he can change this world. That is how, with faith in God's just arrangement of everything around, Efim Dmitrievich dies. How, after all, can the death of only one beautiful person affect the world around him? .. Platonov also talks about this, further developing the plot.
nobility lesson
Sacrifice everything... An analysis of the story "Yushka" by Platonov shows that it is this last part of the story that most vividly shows the validity of the last words of the deceased, that he "is needed by the world, that it is impossible without him ...".
Autumn has come. Once a young lady with a clean face and large gray eyes, which seemed to be filled with tears, came to the forge. She asked if it was possible to see Yefim Dmitrievich? Initially, the hosts were taken aback. Like, what Efim Dmitrievich? Didn't hear it! But then they guessed: is it Yushka? The girl confirmed: yes, indeed, Efim Dmitrievich spoke about himself like that. The truth, which the guest then told, shocked the blacksmith. She, a village orphan, was once placed by Efim Dmitrievich in a Moscow family, and then in a school with a boarding house, he visited her every year, bringing her money for a year of study. Then, through the efforts of the holy fool, the girl received a doctor's degree from Moscow University. This summer her benefactor did not come to see her. Worried, she herself decided to find Yefim Dmitrievich.
The blacksmith took her to the cemetery. The girl began to cry, crouching on the ground, and for a long time was at the grave of her benefactor. Then she came to this city forever. She settled here and worked as a doctor in a tuberculosis hospital. She earned herself a good reputation in the city, became "her own". She was called “the daughter of the good Yushka”, although, however, those who called her did not remember who this same Yushka was.
The disgraced author of "Yushka"
What do you think, what kind of literary review "Yushka" could deserve in Soviet times? Platonov, in essence, was a sincere, whole person. At first, enthusiastically accepting the arrival of Soviet power (he always sympathized with the poor and ordinary people), the eighteen-year-old young man soon realized that the Bolsheviks who came to power, often hiding behind revolutionary phrases, were doing something that did not at all go to the benefit of the people.
Not being able to kowtow to the authorities, this writer extremely honestly sets out in his writings what he thinks, what he feels.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin at that time personally monitored the "ideological endurance" of Soviet writers. After reading Plato's story "The Poor Chronicle", the "father of peoples" made his review directly on it - "The Kulak Chronicle!" and then added a personal brief description of the writer himself - "Bastard" ...
You don’t have to guess for a long time to understand what kind of review “Yushka” would have received in the Soviet press. Platonov, of course, felt the suspicious attitude of the authorities towards him. He could turn himself in a thousand times, “work off”, “correct”, writing an ode to his ideological opponents in the spirit of socialist realism, while multiplying his daily bread.
No, he did not bow his head, did not betray the high literature created by the Russian classics. It was published until the 80s of the last century, mainly abroad. In 1836, in the American almanac, under the heading "best works", his "Third Son" was published, by the way, Hemingway's early work was also published in the same heading. There he was really recognized for the essence of his talent, the successor of the search for the soul, a student of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
Conclusion
Literary scholars, speaking of the continuation in Soviet literature of the traditions laid down by the classics (L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky), invariably mention Andrei Platonovich Platonov.
What characterizes this writer? Rejection of all dogmas. The desire to know and show his reader the world in all its beauty. At the same time, the writer feels the harmony of all things. With special respect, he reveals the images of people, sometimes modest and inconspicuous, but really making this world a better, cleaner place.
To feel the artistic style of this author and enjoy it, we recommend that you read the story written by Andrey Platonov - "Yushka".
