The novel «Chevengur» as an encoded reality (O. Yu. Aleinikov. Andrei Platonov
and his novel «Chevengur». Voronezh: Nauka-Unipress, 2013. 222 p.)

The author of this review notes that in his book «Andrei Platonov and his novel “Chevengur”» O. Yu. Aleinikov breaks a new ground in studying one of the most enigmatic works by Platonov. The main aspects of the novel subjected to analysis in literary criticism are as follows: the history of creating the text, textual criticism, mythopoeia, archetypal plot paradigms in the novel, the historical context, and the abundance of intertextual references. O. Yu. Aleinikov offers a different approach to the novel. His monographic research, based on rare documentary sources, memoirs, conversations about the author’s fate and work with his family and friends, to a large extent casts light on the events encoded in the novel, thus revealing the «lineage» of Platonov’s decisions about the plot and images. From a novel-myth, a novel-utopia, in the book by Aleinikov «Chevengur» transforms into a novel document.