Andrei Platonov, Schastlivaia Moskva [Happy Moscow]

Philip Ross Bullock (University of Oxford)
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In August 1991, a series of hardliners moved against Mikhail Gorbachev and his liberalising reforms. The attempted putsch failed, and shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union collapsed. That same month, the heavyweight literary journal

Novy Mir

[

New World

] published an unknown novel by Andrei Platonov, the rediscovery of whose works had been a signal feature of

perestroika

and

glasnost’

[see separate entry]. Despite this inauspicious start,

Schastlivaia Moskva

[

Happy Moscow

] has gone on to become one of the most commented on of all Platonov’s works, and indeed of all Soviet literature.

It is, truth to tell, an odd work. Left seemingly incomplete by its author, it is one of those exceptional fragments (like the poems of Sappho) that enjoys almost canonical status. One of the first of

2126 words

Citation: Bullock, Philip Ross. "Schastlivaia Moskva". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 December 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14440, accessed 29 March 2024.]

14440 Schastlivaia Moskva 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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