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Happy Moscow is a full-length novel by the Soviet author Andrei Platonov (1899-1951). It was written between 1933 and 1936, but only a small part was published in the writer’s lifetime. The main character of the novel is a girl who was orphaned in the Civil War following the Russian Revolution. She is given a new name, Moscow, after the glorious capital of the socialist state. Her dream is to attain “normal happiness.” To this end, she hopes to overcome her egoism and become one with the people and the world around her. At first, she becomes a parachutist because she wants to connect with nature. She is unable to join the flying corps due to her free-spirited actions; however, her superior abilities enable her to join the young elite of doctors, engineers, and so on. Surrounded by friends of the same age, she builds a romantic history in search of unity with others. However, in the end, she realizes that sexuality does not make her connected with others, and that “love does not become communism.” In search of a place to live, Moscow volunteers to work in subway construction, but faces further hardships. However, just like Moscow, a world city, transforming day by day as a capital being remodeled, even though she suffers immense physical and mental pain, her heart continues to beat strongly. She will never abandon the search for happiness.
 
Platonov was one of the leading Russian writers of the 20th century, but because of his style that deviated greatly from the norms of the Stalinist regime, he was often criticized during his lifetime and did not receive many opportunities to publish his works. After his death, as Soviet censorship gradually eased, unpublished works were discovered and re-evaluated. Even so, the existence of the manuscript for Happy Moscow itself was not known until 1991, the last year of the Soviet Union; then, it was finally published in a magazine. I read this novel in 2013 and was fascinated by the main character, who wanders the wasteland of socialist Russia. I had been translating it gradually since 2014 and was finally able to get it into print in 2023. This was the first time that Happy Moscow was translated into Japanese. At the end of the book, I also wrote a lengthy commentary, “The Reincarnation of a Nameless Girl.” It is a summary of Platonov’s life, referencing a biography published in Russia in 2011, as well as a commentary on Happy Moscow. In the commentary, I discuss the various points of “becoming one with others,” “sexuality and overcoming it,” and “the image of Stalin” in detail. Please read this volume and familiarize yourself with Platonov’s literary world, which is full of unique vitality.
 

(Written by IKEDA Yoshiro, Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2024)