The Foundation Pit

The Foundation Pit

File:TheFoundationPit.jpg
Author	Andrei Platonov
Original title	Котлован
Language	Russian
Genre	Historical fiction
Publisher	Pushkin House (Russia) NYRB (United States)
Publication date	1987
Publication place	Soviet Union
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	150
ISBN	978-1590173053

The Foundation Pit (Russian: Котлован) is a gloomy symbolical and semi-satirical novel by Andrei Platonov. The plot of the novel concerns a group of workers living in the early Soviet Union. They attempt to dig out a huge foundation pit on the base of which a gigantic house will be built for the country's proletarians. The workers dig each day but slowly cease to understand the meaning of their work. The enormous foundation pit sucks out all of their physical and mental energy.

In terms of creative works, Platonov depicted one of the first state-controlled dystopias of the 20th century. The novel is often compared to George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. However, both English novels were published long before a translation of The Foundation Pit became available.

Platonov's work is a representation of the conflict that arose between Russian individuals and the increasingly collectivized Soviet state in the late 1920s. The Foundation Pit critiques Joseph Stalin's domestic policies and questions the validity of any regime advocating the belief that the only existence a person can have is being one part of a whole. The novel was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987 due to censorship.

Main characters

• Voshchev — Protagonist who is introduced in the novel immediately after being fired from a machine factory. Management claimed he did not work hard enough. He arrives at the foundation pit with the same work ethic problem. Voshchev has a soft spot in his heart for children and does not believe they have a bright future in the Soviet Union.

• Safronov — Most politically active worker at the foundation pit. He opposes the time limits that management places on workers’ schedules and condemns other workers’ attempts to contribute anything other than manual labor to the project. Safronov also dislikes Voschev’s necessity for truth. He deeply hates Kozlov.

• Prushevsky — Supervisor who, like Voshchev, feels that he does not understand the meaning of life. He contemplates suicide due to this feeling and spends one night sleeping in the barracks with regular workers.

• Pashkin — Chairman of the local trade union. He frequently urges the group to work harder and later brings in former bureaucrats to pick up the slack. Pashkin once went through a long court trial in which his patriotism and ethnicity, specifically due to the name of his father, Leon Ilych, were questioned.

• Kozlov — Worker who deeply hates Safronov and whom others make fun of for masturbating under the covers at night. He recites memorized quotations and slogans in order to instill fear in villages and to climb the ranks within the local trade union.

• Chiklin — Worker who feels no guilt about killing a random peasant while searching for the murderer of Safronov and Kozlov.

• Nastya — Daughter of Julia. She is brought to live with the workers and is treated as a special guest. She feigns loyalty to Vladimir Lenin, keeping the promise to her mother that she would not reveal her family roots.

• Julia — Mother of Nastya. She makes Nastya promise not to reveal her wealthy roots, lest she be punished as a member of the upper class. Julia is the woman who kissed Prushevsky many years earlier.

• Activist — Unnamed organizer who maintains a great deal of enthusiasm. The activist is not too intelligent. He is constantly worried about management’s opinion of him.

• Bear — Anthropomorphic bear who works as a blacksmith’s hammerer. He is talented at sniffing out kulaks, the members of a farming class whom the activist and others want to exterminate.

• Zhachev — A cripple whom Voshchev passes at the beginning of the novel and berates for allegedly harassing young girls. He also abuses Pashkin’s wife, knowing that Pashkin, who doesn’t want to return to court, won’t hurt him. At one point in the novel, a peasant refers to Zhachev as “comrade cripple.”

External links

• The Foundation Pit | Soviet Literature