Pathway to Japanese Literature
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The Red Flag Fluttering at SmolnyAuthor: Miyamoto Yuriko
| Original Title | スモーリヌイに翻る赤旗 |
|---|---|
| Author | 宮本 百合子 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Female Author |
| Summary | In the shadow of revolutionary history, two Japanese women journey to Leningrad aboard a third-class night train, their passage marked by austere carriages and fleeting encounters with Soviet citizens—a blonde traveler offering cautious advice, a Red Guard strumming an accordion by a canal. Arriving at the Scholars’ House, once a grand duke’s mansion, they navigate its labyrinthine corridors and Soviet pragmatism, greeted by a director whose handshake echoes distant missionary formality. Through dimly lit rooms overlooking the relentless Neva River, they glimpse the weight of unrecorded struggles: Natalia’s youth spent in freight cars during civil war winters, Smolny’s corridors once thrumming with revolutionary urgency. At the heart of it all lies Lenin’s spartan quarters, preserved as a testament to frugality amid upheaval. Conversations with peasant women training for rural Soviets reveal stark contrasts—Japan’s suffrageless society juxtaposed with Soviet strides in equality. Yet beneath Leningrad’s serene parks and bustling streetcars lingers a haunting beauty, where lilacs bloom beside fallen statues and beggars clutch German poetry. As dawn breaks over waterlogged plains, the women trace invisible lines of global proletarian solidarity, their journey a mosaic of fleeting connections and unspoken histories, where every cobblestone whispers of revolution’s unfinished symphony. |
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