EPITHET "DECAYED" IN ANDREI PLATONOV'S ARTISTIC WORLD (ANALYSIS OF HIS NOVEL "CHEVENGUR" AND WAR-TIME SHORT STORIES)

The article analyses the semantics and functions of the epithet "decayed" in the artistic world, created by Andrei Platonov, based on his novel "Chevengur" (1927?1929) and stories about the Great Patriotic War (1941?1945). The author identifies Biblical sources, the Book of Ecclesiastes of the Old Testament being the most important of them. The article also analyses the dominant themes and correlations (synonymic and antonymic) between the epithets "decayed", "new" and "old", as well as their role in Platonov's artistic model of national world, presented in his works of different periods.