Translator’s Note
The three years Yuriko Miyamoto (1899-1951) spent in Moscow had a profound effect on her life and work. Although still in her twenties, she was already an acclaimed novelist when in 1927 she set out for the Soviet Union with her female lover Yoshiko Yuasa (the “friend” mentioned in the text). She returned to Japan a committed communist, and despite persecution and imprisonment under the nationalist government – mistreatment which ultimately led to her early death – remained true to her beliefs till the end of her life. This steadfast commitment, along with her writing and activism, brought Miyamoto renewed public respect in the post-war era. More recently she has been hailed as a pioneering feminist and a queer icon, though she has also been criticized for failing to acknowledge the brutal realities of Stalin’s regime.
In The Hill, which was originally published as an article in the Tokyo Daily News, Miyamoto reflects on what Moscow had come to mean to her. It is filled with the possibilities, excitement and hope she believed the new Soviet society was bringing to the world, while at the same time revealing her feelings of isolation as an outsider in that society. On a personal level, it hints at the strains in her relationship with Yuasa – a relationship which did not survive their return to Japan.
We live in an age of increasing tensions with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Against this background, it seems more important than ever to bring diverse perspectives on the region to light, particularly those from outside the Western world. Miyamoto’s writings about her time in Moscow – most of which have never been translated into English – offer a rare non-Western view of the political, economic and social experiment that was the early Soviet Union. Furthermore, in this piece we gain an insight into the motivations and psychology of one of Japan’s greatest early-20th-century female writers.
The Hill
By Yuriko Miyamoto
It is towards the end of our time in Moscow, and we are staying in a certain hotel. Well, I say “hotel”, but it is not exactly the Savoy. It is the sort of establishment where you must take a kettle down to the kitchen and fill it up at the boiler yourself, if you want hot water.
Our room has two big tables – my friend uses one and I use the other. My table is covered with a cheap, indigo-and-yellow checked tablecloth I brought back from France.
My table faces the window, so my view takes in part of the roof of the Workers’ Moscow newspaper building standing opposite amidst the faint roar of the streets, audible even through two layers of glazing. For some time, two young men in flat caps and light overcoats have been out on the roof. Another man is with them. He is hatless and has reddish-brown hair. He is holding a camera, and I think he is going to take a picture of the other two. But after putting them in position and fiddling about with the camera for a while, he abruptly waves his hand. He glances up at the sky, then walks over to his companions and says something. One of the men takes off his cap and scratching his tousled head, looks upwards at the June sky, which is cloudy today. He says something in reply and the three of them burst out laughing in amusement. I cannot make out what they are saying from my vantage point, but I can clearly see the soundless movements of their youthful faces and white teeth as they exchange mirthful looks.
My emotions stir as I watch these goings-on. We stayed at this same hotel when we first arrived in Moscow exactly two years ago. It was already December, so it was snowy, and the double-glazed windows, which were sealed up for the winter, were frozen over night after night. The pale light of the moon shone across the surface of the glass where frost flowers bloomed, and at midnight the notes of the Internationale came chiming from the Kremlin clock tower, making the bitter cold vibrate and echoing around our room. At that time the glass in the roof opposite had been broken for several years and steel girders protruded black in the moonlight. The city’s appearance has started to change rapidly, and the building has now been brought back to its former glory. It houses the newspaper and publishing workers’ club and at night the sound of music travels across to our window.
I returned to Moscow having seen something of how the masses live in France, England and elsewhere in Europe, and being here again has affected me deeply. The comparisons are obvious to me: even when gazing at an inconsequential rooftop scene, for example, I understand at an emotional level that the meaning of such scenes is completely different from those I observed in the parks of Berlin. My friend has already started preparing for our return to Japan, buying up books and looking around for someone to take over collecting subscriptions for her forthcoming publications. This, however, is having the opposite effect on me, and I feel more drawn to life in Moscow than ever.
I am becoming ever more engrossed in my fervent observation of the roof opposite, when my friend addresses me in a preoccupied voice from the other table.
“It’s nearly time,” she warns me.
“Hmm.”
I throw a coat over my light-blue jacket and leave the room without a word. My friend’s Russian teacher is coming. During their lessons I always go out and walk about the streets.
As I join the surging crowds on broad Tverskaya Street and head up the slight hill towards the Pravda offices, I am seized by a distinct pang of anguish and start to wonder what I am doing here. Who am I to the crowds of people now advancing along this street one after another, to the left and the right, behind and in front? Men and women, of every appearance, of every expression and emotion – but all with some practical part to play in building this vibrant new Moscow – are busily moving the toes of their shoes forward. I am walking along the same pavement as these people, keeping step with them. I understand and love the meaning and value of life in this society. How can it be then that I am, in reality, a completely different being whose existence is not woven in with theirs in any concrete way?
This realization, which I feel very keenly and causes me a kind of pain, often seizes me at the end of my time here in Moscow. Now I wonder whether I should indeed go back to Japan with my friend as planned, or whether I shall remain here on my own. Even when it comes to these looming decisions about my future, Moscow’s pull on me is strong. With my head bare, and a small red Russian-leather coin purse clutched in one hand, I walk on through the boulevards where Chinese women with bound feet peddle their wares, propelled by something unstoppable within me.
January 1935
坂
宮本百合子
モスクワ滞在の最後の期間、私たちは或るホテルに暮していた。ホテルといっても、サボイのようなのではなく、お湯がほしくなると自分でヤカンを提げて下の台所まで出かけて行き、ボイラーから注いで来るような暮しぶりのホテルである。
部屋に大きなテーブルが二つあり、一つを私の友達が、もう一つの方を私がつかって、私のテーブルにはフランスで買って来た藍と黄色の格子縞のやすもののテーブル掛がかけてある。
窓に面してテーブルが置いてあるので、私の目には、二重の窓硝子をとおし市街の微かなどよめきの中に前の『労働者モスクワ』新聞の屋上の一部が見渡せた。さっきからそこへ鳥打帽をかぶって薄外套を著た二人の若者が出て来ている。無帽の赭っぽい髪の毛の男がもう一人いて、それは写真機をもっている。二人を撮してやろうというらしいが、あっちに立たせておいて機械を暫くいじっているかと思うと、フッと手をふって空を見上げ、二人の方へ歩いて行って何かいっている。一人が鳥打帽をぬいで、頭をもしゃもしゃかきながら、その日は曇った六月の空を仰ぎ、何かいって、三人はやがて面白そうに笑い出した。声は私のところまで聞えず、ただうれしそうに互に見会わして動いている若々しい顔や白い歯が音もなく手にとるように見えるのである。
私は、感情を動かされてその様子を眺めているのであった。まる二年前モスクワへ著いたばかりの頃、私たちはやはりこのホテルで暮した。もう十二月であったから雪があって、冬ごもりの封をした二重窓の硝子は夜々すっかり凍った。氷花のついた窓硝子にまっ青な月の光が一面にさし、夜中十二時になると打ち出すクレムリ時計台のインタナショナルの音が厳寒をふるわして室内にまで響いて来た。前の屋上の天井はその頃何年か硝子がこわれたまんまで鉄骨が黒く月の明るみに出ていた。モスクワ市街が急激に様子を変えはじめて今はもうそこが立派に修理され、新聞社と出版労働者の倶楽部になって、夜は音楽が私の窓へもつたわって来るのである。
ひととおりフランスやイギリスなどの大衆の生活ぶりを見てまたモスクワへ帰って来てから、二度目のモスクワ暮しは非常に深く私の心に作用した。そこには、はっきりした比較が生じ、たとえばそうして大したこともない屋上風景を眺めていても、その光景にある意味はベルリンの公園にあるものとは全く違うものであることが、感情として会得されるのであった。私の友達はすでに帰国の準備をはじめ本を買い集めたり、予約出版の引つぎをたのむひとをさがしたりしているのであったが、私の心持にはそれが逆に影響して、益々モスクワの生活に引きつけられた。
だんだん眼の色が凝って燃えだすような視線で私が向いの屋上を眺めていると、もう一つのテーブルのところから友達が仕事をしながらの声で、
「そろそろ時間だよ」
と注意した。
「ふうむ」
私は水色のジャンパーの上から外套を引っかけ黙って部屋を出た。友達のところへ語学の教師が来る。その間、私はいつも街を歩いて来るのである。
トゥウェルフスカヤの広い通りをプラウダ社のある方へ人波に混ってゆるやかな坂を登っているうちに、私は一つの明瞭な苦痛の感じにとらえられ、自分の歩いていることが分らないような心持になって来た。今この通りを右にも左にも前にも後にも陸続として進んでいる群集にとって私は何者であるだろう。様々の風体、様々の顔つきと感情をもった男も女も、彼等は何かの実際的な繋りをこの活々として新らしいモスクワの建設にもって、忙しげに靴の爪先を運んでいる。こうやって彼等と同じテムポで同じ鋪道を歩いている自分が、この社会の生活の意味と値うちをこんなに理解し愛している自分が、実は彼等と全く違ったもので、どんな具体的な組合わせにもあみこまれていない存在であるというのはどういうことであろう。
この実にはっきりと感じられて一種の苦痛を与える自覚は、モスクワ生活の終りに屡々私をとらえたのであったが、今は、果して友達とつれ立ってこのまま帰らねばならないものか、或は自分だけ残って留まろうか。そういう目前の去就についてもモスクワが私を牽く力は強いのである。私は素頭で片手に赤い小さいロシア革の銭入れを握ったなり、内心の止り難いものに押されて纏足をした支那女の物売りなどがいるの間をずっと歩いて行った。
〔一九三五年一月〕
JOANNA DARE is a librarian and literary translator based in Leicester, UK. In 2020 she was runner up in the Fourth Japan International Translation Competition organized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. Her translations have been published in a Leicester literary anthology and she writes synopses and translation samples for Japanese authors, agencies, and publishers. She is active in the UK Society of Authors and as Coordinator of her local network of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting. She is also a local organizer for the UK’s National Year of Reading 2026.
