Liliputin-4791

Communism as a vast quixotic project became a millstone around the neck of the whole mankind ... "
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101
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‘Chevengur’ by Platonov Review: Tales of a Quixotic Bolshevik

The novel takes place somewhere in the south of Russia and covers the late 1910s early 1920's period of war communism and the New Economic Policy, although real events and the area have been transformed in accordance with the logic of the myth. Alexander Dvanov, the main character of the novel, lost his father early, who drowned himself out of curiosity before the afterlife. His adoptive father Zakhar Pavlovich somewhat resembles the writer's father (at the same time, the image of Alexander is partly autobiographical). "At seventeen, Dvanov still had no armour under his heart - no faith in God, no other mental peace ...". Going “to look for communism among the amateur population”, Alexander meets Stepan Kopenkin - a wandering knight of the revolution, a kind of Don Quixote[8] whose Dulcinea[9] becomes Rosa Luxemburg. Kopenkin saves Dvanov from the anarchists of Mrachinsky's gang. The heroes of the novel find themselves in a kind of communist reserve - a town called Chevengur. Residents of the city are confident in the coming offensive of the communist Paradise. They refuse to work (with the exception of Subbotniks, meaningless from a rational point of view), leaving this prerogative exclusively to the Sun; they eat pasture, resolutely socialize their wives, and cruelly deal with bourgeois elements (destroying, Platonov emphasizes, both their body and soul). The revolutionary process in Chevengur is led by the fanatic Chepurny, Alexander's half-brother Prokofiy Dvanov "with the makings of a grand inquisitor", the romantic executioner Piyusya and others. In the end, the city is attacked by either the Cossacks or the Cadets; in a fierce battle, the defenders of the commune show themselves as true epic heroes and almost all die. The surviving Alexander Dvanov on Rocinante Kopenkina (nicknamed Proletarian Power) goes to the lake where his father drowned himself, enters the water and reunites with his father. Only Prokofy remains alive, "weeping on the ruins of the city among all the property he inherited

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В январе 1937 года, во время судебного процесса над так называемым «параллельным троцкистским центром», ещё до вынесения приговора, А. П. Платонов опубликовал в «Литературной газете» статью «Преодоление злодейства», в которой обосновывал необходимость смертного приговора для подсудимых: Разве в «душе» Радека, Пятакова или прочих преступников есть какое-либо органическое, теплотворное начало, — разве они могут называться людьми хотя бы в элементарном смысле? Нет, это уже нечто неорганическое, хотя и смертельно-ядовитое, как трупный яд из чудовища. Как они выносят себя? Один, правда, не вынес, — Томский. Уничтожение этих особых злодеев является естественным, жизненным делом. Жизнь рабочего человека в Советском Союзе священна, и кто её умерщвляет, тому больше не придётся дышать. ;…; Могли ли мы, литераторы, в наших книгах предугадать появление или просто разглядеть столь «запакованных» злодеев, как троцкисты? Да, могли, потому что уже довольно давно И. В. Сталин определил их, как передовой отряд контрреволюционной буржуазии. ;…; Короче говоря, нам нужна большая антифашистская литература, как оборонное вооружение.
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millstone around  neck

A millstone is a very large heavy flat stone used to crush grain to make flour. This phrase refers to an old form of punishing people by tying a heavy stone around their necks and dropping them into deep water to drown.
A millstone around neck - Idioms by The Free Dictionary
The idiom "a millstone around your neck" refers to a very severe impediment or disadvantage. The phrase alludes to a method of executing people by throwing them into deep water with a heavy stone attached to them, a fate believed to have been suffered by several early Christian martyrs. The idiom is used to describe an extremely difficult or disadvantageous burden or hindrance that one cannot escape from

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Tilting at windmills

What's the meaning of the phrase 'Tilting at windmills'?
To 'tilt at windmills' is to attack imaginary enemies.


What's the origin of the phrase 'Tilting at windmills'?
Tilting is jousting. The expression 'tilting at windmills' derives from Cervantes' Don Quixote - first published in 1604, under the title The Ingenious Knight of La Mancha.

Tilting at windmills
The novel recounts the exploits of would-be knight 'Don Quixote' and his loyal servant Sancho Panza who propose to fight injustice through chivalry. It is considered one of the major literary masterpieces and remains a best seller in numerous translations.

In the book, which also gives us the adjective quixotic (striving for visionary ideals), the eponymous hero imagines himself to be fighting giants when he attacks windmills.

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, "Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length."

"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

Apart from in medieval re-enactments, we don't tilt in the sense of joust, any longer. These days 'tilting at windmills' refers to attacks of a less militaristic nature.

The first figurative references to tilting at windmills, that is one where no jousting took place, came in the 17th century. John Cleveland published The character of a London diurnall in 1644 (a diurnall was, as you might expect, part-way between a diary or journal):

"The Quixotes of this Age fight with the Wind-mills of their own Heads."

The full form of the phrase isn't used until towards the end of the 19th century; for example, in The New York Times, April 1870:

"They [Western Republicans] have not thus far had sufficient of an organization behind them to make their opposition to the Committee's bill anything more than tilting at windmills."

Gary Martin - the author of the phrases.org.uk website.
By Gary Martin

Gary Martin is a writer and researcher on the origins of phrases and the creator of the Phrase Finder website. Over the past 26 years more than 700 million of his pages have been downloaded by readers. He is one of the most popular and trusted sources of information on phrases and idioms.

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quixotic


ADJECTIVE
exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical:
"a vast and perhaps quixotic project"
Similar:
idealistic
romantic
extravagant
starry-eyed
visionary
utopian
perfectionist
unrealistic


Translate quixotic to

quixotisch