Two Modes of Chaos and Catastrophe in Moscow: Andrei Platonov's Happy Moscow and Dmitrii Prigov's You Should Live in Moscow
Abstract
Early Soviet utopia about the new beginning of world leading to the end of history and everlasting common happiness is in Andrei Platonov's unfinished novel Happy Moscow (Schastlivaia Moskva) faced with the decay of social and ethical values. P.
R. Bullock supposes that Platonov attempts to confront socialist realist kitsch of a Stalinist period with a variety of decadent motifs (most of them related to corporeality).
This possibly allows to discuss the novel as a parodical form that does not aim at scorning facts of empirical reality. I assume that Platonov's attempt was more likely to point at tragic elements of any effort to complete the history.
Such approach to the novel offers a possibility to link it with postmodernist Dmitrii Prigov's novel You should live in Moscow (Zhivite v Moskve). Prigov plays in his novel with a popular genre of memoirs and creates his own history of Moscow based on a conventional interpretation of Soviet history as a tragedy.
Moscow in the novel turns into a catastrophic space with its own rhythm of dying and reborning. Obviously pessimistic scenery paradoxically transforms into a witty and joyful play with a human memory and literary writing potential.