Fire-resistant construction of the “governor-ameliorator Platonov” (based on the materials from the State Archive of the Voronezh Region)

Abstract

The article considers one of the constant issues of Platonov’s works related to his participation in the fire-resistant construction in his native province. This fact from the Voronezh period of Platonov’s life (when he was a provincial ameliorator) was not mentioned in other chronicles and comments. Thus, the materials from the funds of the State Archive of the Voronezh Region are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time and present a story of the fire-resistant construction in the province, when the governor-ameliorator Platonov was forced to take care of such matters in 1925. This important part of Platonov’s business correspondence in 1925 provides new documentary material for commenting on the biographies of Platonov’s favorite characters (from Ethereal Tract to Aphrodite) and presents another page in the life of the future classic of the Russian literature, to which he returned more than once in his memoirs and work.