Organizzazione ed entropia: Andrej Platonov sulla strada per Čevengur.

This dissertation focuses on the prose of the Soviet writer-technician Andrei Platonov (1899-1951) from his beginnings as a publicist up to the novel 'Chevengur' (1927-1929) and analyzes it through the prism of the opposition between entropic and organizational tendencies. The aim of the thesis is to clarify whether the evolution of the author's thought, with particular regard to the concrete possibilities of the realization of the socialist utopia, also interpreted as man's subjugation of nature, is related to the balance between dissipative and structuring forces in his prose. The first chapter identifies the authors and currents that influenced Platonov with regard to the organizing aspect of his work, taking into account Aleksandr Bogdanov, Nikolai Fedorov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, and zhiznestroitel'stvo; it then analyzes the author's journalistic writings with an aim to investigate what he meant by the term organizatsiia and its synonyms. The second chapter begins with a brief excursus on the concept of entropy, its origins, and its impact on the scientific-humanist culture of early twentieth-century Russia; it then analyzes how this concept penetrates Platonov's work and often overlaps with the conception of priroda (nature) when the latter is presented as a force hostile to man. The third chapter, instead, is devoted to the interaction of these two tendencies in literary prose, through the examination of three works considered in chronological order: the philosophical-scientific tale 'Zhazhda nishchego' (1920), the povest' 'Epifanskie Shliuzy' (1927), and the novel 'Chevengur'. What emerges from this study is a gradual affirmation of the disruptive forces that mark the transition from the dream of an energy-organizing utopia prevalent in his journalistic works to the idea of a dissipative anti-utopia expressed instead in 'Chevengur'.