Geographies of Platonov's «Джан»

Tashkent

Literal importance: The capital of Turkestan ASSR. Chagataev receives instructions from the Secretary of the Central Committee in Tashkent to find the Dzhan nation, as it no longer is at the foot of the Ust-Yurt mountains (Ch 3). In the winter, Tashkent orders trucks from Khiva to find the Dzhan and deliver food to the nation (Ch16).

Metaphorical meaning: Tashkent takes on the role of the benevolent center of Soviet power in Central Asia throughout the story. The Party Secretary here tells Chagataev to bring the Dzhan nation from its "hell" to "paradise" (Ch 3) and the Party in Tashkent orders trucks to search for the Dzhan and deliver food to its weak and starving people without any request from the Dzhan for such aid (Ch 16).

Chardzhou (Turkmenabat)

Literal importance: From here, Chagataev sails a boat down the Amu Darya to Khiva (Ch 4). He had been here as a boy after Gyulchatay abandoned him--the shepherd who found him put him into the care of the Soviets here (Ch 2).

Metaphorical meaning: Chardzhou is a growing city that offers new opportunities to the people around it, thanks to the projects of the Party. First, Chagataev found the Soviets here as a young boy. Then, later in the story, a seventy-four-year-old Uzbek craftsman reports to Chagataev that excavators were brought in the build canals there and he wants to go to learn to be a mechanic (Ch 17).

Khiva

Literal importance: An oasis between the Karakum Desert and the Amu Darya River. While Chagataev was a young boy, he remembered the Dzahn fearlessly going to Khiva to die at the hands of the cruel Khan of Khiva, only to return safely to Sary-Kamysh, unsuccessful in their mission to die (Ch 5). Gyulchatay met Ivan Chagataev, a soldier in the Khiva expeditionary force and Nazar's father, in the Khiva bazaar as she picked food off the ground to eat (Ch 2). Before she abandons Chagataev, Gyulchatay tells him: "You'll see bazaars and all kinds of riches in Kunya-Urgench, in Tashauz, in Khiva--but don't you go near them, keep straight on, keep going until you come to strangers" (Ch 1). Chagataev arrives in the Khiva oasis from Chardzhou and continues his journey to find the Dzhan at Sary-Kamysh (Ch 4). After the surviving members of the Dzhan disappear from Sary-Kamysh, Chagataev goes to Khiva to search for them and meets Khanom in the busy and plentiful bazaar (Ch 17).

Metaphorical meaning: Important events take place in Khiva: the Khan of Kiva's power was challenged here, Gyulchatay and Ivan Chagataev meet here, the food trucks sent from Tashkent leave from here, and Chagataev meets Khanom here. It is a convergence point for history and the present, the periphery and the center.

Sary-Kamysh Lake

Literal importance: When Chagataev was young, the Dzhan had lived at the foot of the Ust-Yurt mountains with the Sary-Kamysh Lake to their south and the Karakum Desert to their east.

Metaphorical meaning: Chagataev's first sight of Sary-Kamysh indicates to him that he is close to the home of his people. The camel he found can now walk with its own strength. Although the vegetation it yields is sparse, the lake gives life to the landscape and any living creature around it.

Ust-Yurt Mountains

A hill, Uval Karabaur, lies at the center of the Ust-Yurt Plateau. In the geography of Platonov's Dzhan, mountains lie here, instead.

Literal importance: Chagataev meets Sufyan, who lives at the foot of the Ust-Yurt mountains (Ch 5). The Dzhan nation returns here after their trek from the Amu Darya delta through the Karakum Desert (Ch 15).

Metaphorical meaning: For Chagataev, the vegetation of this area, the landmarks, and the breeze all mark the foot of the Ust-Yurt mountains as his childhood home. When he arrives to find the Dzhan missing, he must become the shepherd to the lost sheep, finding and returning them safely to their home.

Amu Darya River Delta

Literal importance: Ten years before Chagataev arrives, the Dzhan had settled in this delta among its thick, damp vegetation (Ch 6). Sickness, death, and mosquitoes overwhelm the nation.

Metaphorical meaning: The delta is a damp pit of death--members of the Dzhan continue to get sick and die. There is no hope or true life. Chagataev arrives to bring the Dzhan out of their misery to bring them back to Sary-Kamysh and the Ust-Yurt mountains.

Chimgay

Literal importance: Chagataev goes to Chimgay, about 100-150km away from the Dzhan village in the Amu Darya delta, to get supplies. Here, he receives a letter from Ksenya, which informs him of Vera's death (Ch 9).

Metaphorical meaning: Chimgay is a small town, offering Chagataev some connection to the center. He succeeds in finding food and supplies, which are absent in the remote river delta, and receive a letter from Moscow. It provides him with a brief respite from isolation during his time with the Dzhan, allowing him a connection to his true home in Moscow.

Karakum Desert

Literal importance: Nur-Mohammed, a corrupt Soviet official sent by the Party with the same task as Chagataev, leads the Dzhan here, hoping to guide the hopeless people into Afghanistan to sell as slaves (Ch 12). The environment is harsh, killing off some of he Dzhan in their trek across the sands.

Metaphorical meaning: The unforgiving desert landscape spells death for the weak people attempting to cross it. Away from any ties to the center, the Dzhan have no safety and are left to fend for themselves. Exhaustion, thirst, and hunger overwhelm the travelers, and they turn to baiting eagles and killing lean sheep to eat their meat and drink their blood. Chagataev's ability to overcome his exhaustion, mortally wound the enemy, Nur-Mohammed, and save the Dzhan in the empty desert is his ultimate success.

Afghanistan

Literal importance: The beys, the 'rich' landowners in Central Asia before the Soviets took power, fled to Afghanistan with as many of their sheep as they could take (Ch 10). Nur Mohammed, a corrupt Soviet official, plans to sell Aidym as a slave to the beys in Afghanistan and get his own estate there (Ch 12). Aidym begs Chagataev for help as Nur Mohammed takes her away: "I don't want to go to Afghanistan. That's where the bourgeoisie live" (Ch 13). Between Chimgay and the Amu Darya river delta, Chagataev observes "The old road passed around the base of this mound and then disappeared to the southeast, towards China and Afghanistan, into darkness" (Ch 9).

Metaphorical meaning: This foreign land represents the corruption of capitalism beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. The beys, who previously exploited the Dzhan as their labor, now are the prospective buyers of the Dzhan as slaves, if Nur-Mohammed succeeded. As the beys fled from Soviet power, they took the sheep that the Dzhan relied upon, draining the region of resources for their own profit.

Iran

Another foreign land, the Khorasan province of Iran is separated from Turkmenistan by the Kopet Dag mountains.

Literal importance: Chagataev remembers the story of the god of happiness from his youth: "In far-off Khorasan, beyond the Kopet-Dag mountains, among gardens and ploughed fields, lived the pure god of happiness, fruit and women--Ormuzd, protector of agriculture and human reproduction, lover of peace in Iran. But to the north of Iran, beyond the mountains, lay empty sands; they stretched out in the direction of the middle of the night, where there was nothing but sparse, feeble grass--and even this grass was torn up by the wind and driven to the black places of Turan where the soul of man aches without respite" (Ch 5).

Metaphorical meaning: Iran, the land of plenty and happiness, is juxtaposed with the Karakum desert to its north, to the poverty and despair in and around it in Turkmenistan. The contrast between the two lands is meant to emphasize the hardships of the peoples who live in Turkmenistan--Mother Nature is warring against their very survival. Much like the rest of the Dzhan, the rest of the peoples in Turkmenistan are vulnerable and in need of saving--a role that the Party fills willingly.

Return to the Ust-Yurt Mountains

The Dzhan, saved by Chagataev, return to their original home at the foot of the mountains. They begin to build brick structures for shelter, appearing to abandon their nomadic ways. However, Chagataev wakes up to find the Dzhan missing one morning. As he searches for them, he discovers they went off to distant villages and towns across Turkmenistan: Uch-Adzhi, Merv, Ashgabat, Darvaza, Bairam-Ali. and Hassan-Kuli. Chagataev concludes, “But people can see for themselves how best to live. It was enough that he had helped them to stay alive: now let them find happiness beyond the horizon” (Ch 16). In the end, they do see what is best for them, and the Dzhan returns to their Ust-Yurt brick homes.