For the first time, a medieval Japanese lyric novel of the beginning of the 10th century. was released in Russian in 1923 by the publishing house "World Literature." The translator of the book was the outstanding Japanese philologist Nikolai Iosifovich Konrad, at that time a novice scientist, and the translation was one of his first significant experiments in this area. The book was published as a tribute to the memory of an outstanding scientist, long-term chairman of the editorial board of the Literary Monuments series, which largely determined the main directions of its activities. The book also includes another work of Old Japanese literature - "Notes from the Cell" by Kamo no Temei (1212), which was published twice (in 1921 and 1927) in Russian by N.I. Konrad.