The Gloomy twentieth anniversary of Chinese Pushkin Studies (1957 – 1976)

Chzhu Yan' Postgraduate student, Department of History of Russian Literature, Faculty of Philology, University of Moscow State University-SPI in Shenzhen, Lomonosov Moscow State University 518100, Kitai, provintsiya Guandun, g. Shen'chzhen', ul. Gotszidasyueyuan', 1, of. 827 zhuyan5148@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

On February 11, 1937, in the midst of celebrations dedicated to the centenary of the death of Alexander Pushkin, a monument was solemnly unveiled in Shanghai, on the territory of the French concession (a place of compact residence of Russian emigrants) with a large gathering of people. It was a high stele on which a bronze bust of the great Russian poet was installed. The monument, created by a creative group led by sculptor M.N. Pavlovsky, had an inscription carved in Russian, Chinese and French: "1837-1937, Pushkin — on the hundredth anniversary of his death." The decision to erect the monument belonged to a specially organized Pushkin Committee, which, in addition to representatives of the Russian community of Shanghai, included English, French and Chinese intellectuals — admirers of Pushkin. The square on which the monument was erected became a popular recreation place for numerous emigrant and Chinese public, and soon received the unofficial name "poet's corner".  "During the occupation of Shanghai by Japanese troops, many monuments of Chinese culture and art were destroyed. Therefore, not only for Russians, but also for many Chinese patriots, the monument to Pushkin that survived the bombing and pogroms became a place of pilgrimage and even a kind of demonstration of independence, a symbol of freedom and defiance to the occupation regime."^[2]

It is not surprising that in November 1944 the monument was secretly demolished by the Japanese, and the bronze bust was sent for melting. After the expulsion of the Japanese invaders, a campaign to restore the monument was launched in Shanghai, in which both Russian emigrants and Chinese Pushkin lovers took a lively part; in 1947, with the assistance of the Chinese branch of TASS and specialists of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, a new bust of Pushkin was cast, which was brought to Shanghai and placed on a new pedestal. However, this monument, which united the efforts of the best representatives of the Soviet, emigrant and Chinese public, had a sad fate: in August 1966, at the height of the "Cultural Revolution", it was barbarously destroyed by the Red Guards. In 1986, at the initiative of the townspeople, the restoration of the Poet's corner began: in August 1987, a monument to Alexander Pushkin was erected there for the third time (this time by the Chinese sculptor Gao Yun Long).

It can be said that the history of the Shanghai monument to Pushkin is a kind of metaphor, more precisely, a symbolic image that reflected the complex process of perception of Pushkin in China, as well as the long—suffering fate of Chinese Pushkinists who were persecuted during the gloomy twentieth anniversary, which absorbed the fierce struggle of party groups and catastrophic processes in the social and cultural life of China.

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Russian Russian literature began to be studied in China in the late XIX and early XX centuries, and the first Russian work published in Chinese was the love novel "The Story of Smith and Mary, or the Dream of a Butterfly in the Heart of a Flower" (i.e. "The Captain's Daughter" by A. S. Pushkin), published in 1903 by the Shanghai publishing house "Yes Xuan" ^[3]. Then, from 1906 to 1916, a number of Pushkin's novels were translated, but not from the original language, but from Japanese. After the "May 4 Movement" (a massive anti–imperialist, mainly anti-Japanese, movement in China in May-June 1919, which arose under the influence of the October Revolution in Russia), translations of Pushkin's prose works continued to prevail for a long time, but Chinese translators began to translate directly from Russian. Since the mid-1920s, Pushkin's lyrical works began to be translated, primarily his freedom-loving poems, such as "In the depths of Siberian ores ..." and "To Chadaev": they were widely popular, since their themes corresponded to the political aspirations of Chinese readers at that time. In the 1930s and 1940s, the number of translations of Pushkin's poems increased dramatically. Pushkin turned from a prose writer into a "revolutionary poet". In post-war China, the slogan "Learn from the USSR, look up to the USSR!" became very popular. Russian Russian has been experiencing an unprecedented boom in the study of the Russian language and the development of Russian classical literature since that moment. More and more translators, who had a high cultural level and a good knowledge of the Russian language, were engaged in translations and "re-translations" of Pushkin's works. From 1949 to 1957, more than 30 translations of Pushkin's works were published, including poems, novels, fairy tales, dramas, etc. At the same time, many serious scientific articles devoted to the analysis of Pushkin's creative heritage appeared. It can be said that from the first days of the founding of New China (1949) to 1957, through the efforts of Chinese Pushkinists, translators and publishers, the circle of readers and admirers of Pushkin was expanded unprecedented.

The development of Chinese Pushkin studies is inseparable from the active and selfless activity of the older generation of scientists (Ge Baoquan, Lu Ying, Cha Liangzheng, Lu Yongfu, Gao Man, Wang Zhilian, Feng Chun, etc.). These Pushkinists, like other humanitarians, fell into the millstones of the ideological struggle, which became especially acute in 1957, after the publication of "Instructions on the Movement for the Ordering of Style" and the subsequent "Instructions on the organization of forces for a counteroffensive against right-wing elements", which marked the beginning of repression against Mao Zedong's ideological opponents, including and university professors who criticized the communist order. During this cruel time, not only obvious anti-communists, but also cultural figures who were quite loyal to the authorities and even quite apolitical humanities scientists whose interests lay in the field of academic science fell under the ice rink of repression. They were persecuted, silenced for fear of reprisals, but were still branded as "right-wing elements", accomplices of the bourgeoisie and anti-communism ^[1].

The tragic mistakes of the CPC intensified and were committed to the extreme during the "cultural Revolution" (1966-1976), when almost all foreign literature was rejected as "bourgeois". From the point of view of the ideologists of the "cultural revolution", all foreign art should be "completely broken, completely criticized, completely swept away" ^{[11, p. 83]}. Accordingly, Pushkin turned from a "cultural hero" into a hated "representative of the bourgeoisie", whose memory must be eradicated. During this difficult time, representatives of literary and academic circles were subjected to unjustifiably harsh criticism, lost the minimum conditions for academic research and even personal freedom. Chinese Pushkinists were among the victims of political repression. Therefore, during the period of repression and the "cultural revolution", Pushkin studies in China experienced a period of stagnation, if not complete decline.

This was manifested mainly in a sharp reduction in the number of translations of Pushkin's works. From 1958 to 1966, only a small number of works were published, such as "Pushkin's Collection of Lyrical Poems" (translated by Zha Liangzheng, republished by Shanghai Publishing House in 1958), "Pushkin's Almanac" (with comments by Bi Jialu, published by a commercial publishing house in 1964).

In addition, at that time, even at lectures for philology students, it was impossible to talk too much about Pushkin - otherwise the teacher could be branded as a propagandist of an exploitative lifestyle and bourgeois humanism. Teacher Xu Yuqin in the memoir article "I teach "Eugene Onegin" at the university" recalls that in the late 1950s to the early 1960s, she and her colleagues in the learning process were very careful when presenting and interpreting Pushkin's works. Everyone hammered into their heads the guiding ideology of that time: "Not to allow bourgeois literature and art to infect students, not to allow invisible hands to compete with the proletariat for young people" ^{[9, p. 250]}. Xu Yuqin recalls the experience of interpreting Eugene Onegin in this way: the teachers only "presented the students with a traditional view, ... simplifying the work to one storyline, one hero and one heroine. To praise the novel in verse, they usually added criticism of the heroes because they were "limited by their time and class," pointing out that students should not admire the cynicism of the heroes or imitate their actions, believing that love is above all" ^{[9, p. 250]}. Of course, this method of teaching made classes routine, discolored and simplified the works of Russian writers studied.

Xu also talks about the so—called "pedagogical mistake" made in 1963: one student wrote a term paper entitled "Tatiana is my ideal", in which she expressed a sense of admiration and appreciation for Tatiana Larina. During the "four purifications" movement (a socialist educational movement carried out by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China throughout the country from 1963 to the first half of 1966), this work was used as an example of "poisoning young people with capitalist literature" and an example of "weak control" over the minds of students. This situation directly led to a sharp reduction in the number of Pushkin's readers.

The scientific study of Pushkin also stopped. There are practically no literary monographs about Pushkin from 1958 to 1966. During this period, only a few introductory articles were published about Pushkin, and all of them were extremely short and not too informative.

In many ways, this decline was due to the repressions that fell on the best representatives of Chinese Russian studies, whose fault was almost in the very subject of their professional activity.

One of such martyrs of Chinese Pushkin studies was the literary critic and translator Ge Baoquan (1913-2000). Before the "cultural revolution", Ge Baoquan already enjoyed a reputation as a solid scientist in China and abroad, but this did not save him from attacks and persecution. He and many other intellectuals were branded as "reactionary academic authorities", "revisionists" and even "class enemies" (in Chinese, this Sovietism sounds exquisitely - "nu gui she shen" — and literally means "bull demon and snake spirit"). They were subjected to ruthless criticism literally every day, humiliated at public meetings, interrogated and held under arrest, insulted, tortured physically and psychologically. Cheng Enbo, a student of Ge Baoquan, recalled the misfortunes of his teacher in 1967: "When you go into the courtyard of the Academy of Philosophy and Social Sciences (today it is the Academy of Social Sciences), you immediately see that under a row of sophors several old men (among the old men was Ge Baoquan), shaggy, dressed in the clothes of a janitor, are dragged with difficulty big brooms...It was a group of "nu gui she shen" who lost their freedom and were placed in "nyupeng" (premises used to punish class enemies)" ^{[12, p. 142]}. As Zheng Enbo recalled, in this harsh political environment, no one dared to talk to "nu gui she shen": even a nod or smile to these people would be regarded as "lack of consciousness of the class struggle and infidelity to the revolutionary line of the great leader... He (Ge Baoquan) cleaned the yard during the day, and in the evening alone in the I have sorted more than 20 thousand books in the library, I have read and studied Russian literature intently" ^{[12, p. 142]}.

Then Ge Baoquan was exiled to the "May 7 cadre school" ("May 7 cadre schools" were created in rural areas in accordance with Mao Zedong's directive of May 7, 1966 on the elimination of differences between mental and physical labor) in Henan province in order to undergo re-education among peasants and "transform their bourgeois ideology." There, Ge Baoquan was appointed a postman responsible for sending letters between the location of the "May 7 cadre school" and Dongyue Township. Every day he needs to walk only 5 kilometers there and back. For a man aged almost 60, it was hard work. But he himself was glad to get this job, because he could hide for half an hour on the road in a grove or on the border between fields to read a few pages or translate a few lines from a book secretly brought. And then go quickly to make up for lost time.

Ge Baoquan has been severely tested since his youth, but he has always been an optimist, firmly confident in the future of the country and the development of its culture. He finally survived the harsh times of the "cultural revolution" and resumed his favorite literary work. In the second half of the 1980s, as an outstanding international cultural figure, he enjoyed a wide international reputation and received a number of international and domestic honorary titles. On the 150th anniversary of Pushkin's death, in 1987, he was awarded the "Pushkin Prize in Literature" at the poetry festival in the USSR dedicated to Pushkin, becoming the first person in China to receive this award. In the same year, the Collection of Poems by A. S. Pushkin, compiled by Ge Baoquan, was published. It included translations by Ge Baoquan of Pushkin's fairy tales, fifty lyrical poems, as well as a brief biography of A. S. Pushkin. In 1988, this book was awarded the Golden Key National Book Award. In 1993, for this collection, he won the award of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for outstanding achievements in the field of scientific research from 1977-1991.

After hard years of persecution, Ge Baoquan found good times of "reform and openness", and finally could freely engage in translation and scientific activities. But another Pushkin artist, Lu Ying (1915-1969), was not so lucky.

His greatest achievements as a translator are translations of Pushkin's works and articles about Pushkin. In 1946, the collection "About Pushkin" was published, compiled and translated by Lu Ying. The collection contains articles by Russian writers devoted to various aspects of Pushkin's heritage: works on Pushkin's biography and the meaning of his work, analyses of Pushkin's poetry and fiction, research on topics such as Pushkin and the modern West, Pushkin and folk music and dance, etc. The translation of these articles gave him a complete understanding of the Russian classics, which greatly contributed to his appeal to the translation of Pushkin's works, first of all — "Eugene Onegin". His "Ougen Aonezzin" became the first Chinese translation of the novel in verse, made from the original language, and not from intermediary languages, Japanese, English or Esperanto. His translation is a verlibre, although it retains a division into stanzas of fourteen lines. Despite its shortcomings, it still influences other translators and is used in the study of Pushkin's masterpiece.

Starting in 1941, Lu Ying actively collaborated with the magazine "July", the editor-in-chief of which was the poet and translator Hu Feng (1902-1985). In 1954, Hu Feng published a "Report on the practice and state of art and Literature in recent Years", also known as the "Letter of three hundred thousand words", in which he openly opposed Mao Zedong's ideas about literature and art, for which he was subjected to political study, and in 1955 he was arrested as the head of the "counterrevolutionary group".

Lu Ying was the only one who began to defend Hu Feng at a joint extended meeting held by the Presidium of literary circles of China and the Presidium of the Association of Writers of China. This act was the beginning of the end of the tragic life of Lu Ying. After the meeting, he was declared an "element of Hu Feng", removed from office and eventually imprisoned. A year later, in May 1956, it turned out that Lu Ying had not participated in the conspiracy of Hu Feng's counterrevolutionary group, and only then was he released. But after the start of the "cultural revolution", Lu Ying was again accused of causing "harm to public order" and sent to forced labor at the Qinghe farm near Beijing. Lu Ying, who suffered from cold and hunger, was crippled by hard work and eventually died of illness in 1969. Only after the death of Mao Zedong in 1979, he was rehabilitated ^[6].

Zhao Hongtai, a student of Lu Ying at Shandong University, in 2019, remembering the 50th anniversary of Lu Ying's death, writes: "Mr. Lu is a loyal and honest man, sincere in his relationships with others, very talented. He was in poor health, but had a strong character and integrity ... Unfortunately, he died young and could not do more for his country" ^[10].

Besides Lu Ying, another outstanding Pushkin scholar Zha Liangzheng, who made a great contribution to Chinese Pushkin studies, also did not escape the bitter fate of a "class enemy".

Zha Liangzheng (1918-1977), a modernist poet and translator who entered the history of Chinese literature under the pseudonym Mu Dan. He has achieved great success in translation, especially in the field of translation of Russian literature. In 1954, the Pinmin publishing house published four collections of Pushkin's poems translated by Zha Liangzheng in a row: in April, his translations of the poems "The Caucasian Prisoner", "Poltava" and "The Bronze Horseman" were published; in October, a rhymed translation of the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin" was published. In May 1955, Mu Dan published a Collection of Pushkin's Lyrical Poems, which included translations of 150 poems. The circulation of the first edition was 25,000 copies. Since then, this collection has been reprinted continuously. It is worth noting that during the translation process, Zha Liangzheng always adhered to the principle of "poetic translation" in order to achieve the aesthetic effect of the original. Wang Hongyin, Professor of the Faculty of Foreign Language at Nankai University, highly appreciates Zha Liangzheng's translation:"With his fresh, simple and elegant translations, Zha Liangzheng introduced Chinese readers to Pushkin and, moreover, aroused interest in Pushkin in China. While enjoying Pushkin's poems, readers also remembered the translator's name — Zha Liangzheng" ^[4].

But since the end of 1955, the favorable situation has ended. During the movement for the eradication of counter-revolution, Zha Liangzheng became the subject of political scrutiny due to the fact that in 1941 he was a member of the Chinese Expeditionary Army, worked as a translator for the chief of staff of the Kuomintang Luo Yulun. In 1958, he was put on trial for "historical counter-revolutionary crimes" and imprisoned for three years. On January 9, 1959, Zha writes in his diary: "Since the 5th, I have been cleaning the corridors and toilets in the library, I go out every morning half an hour earlier (at 7:30 am). This work is good for my health" ^{[7, p. 255]}. Despite difficult life circumstances, Zha did not leave the translation activity. In the five years from 1954 to 1958, he translated seventeen books, eleven of them from Russian: four books on literary theory and seven collections of Pushkin's poetry.

With the beginning of the "cultural revolution", Zha Liangzheng found himself in an even worse situation. In 1968, his entire family of six was expelled from their home and exiled to the countryside. There Zha and his household lived in a tiny room with an area of 17 m2, in which there were only two beds and a single table — not the most convenient place to study Pushkin's translations. In 1971, Zha Liangzheng was sent to the "May 7 cadre school" at Nankai University to participate in labor re-education. A year later, he returned to Nankai University and got a job as a librarian there. In addition to arranging books and compiling catalog cards, his duties included cleaning library toilets. However, the revolutionary committee of the university gave him a room in a student dormitory — finally he had a place where he could retire and do his translations without interference.

In 1976, Zha Liangzheng broke his leg. Suffering from the wound, he continued to work: he edited the texts of Pushkin's lyrical poems, which he had translated earlier. In the last years of his life, Zha carefully revised his translation of Eugene Onegin. Under his constant editorship, new versions of the translation of "Eugene Onegin" appeared: first — in the publishing house "Pingmin" (1954), then — in the publishing house "New Literature and Art" (1957) and finally — in the People's Publishing House of Sichuan (1983). The translator continuously polished his translation of the novel in verse: he corrected rhymes, making the rhyme scheme more harmonious, improved the language so that the poems were more concise and expressive. Unfortunately, this task was not completed to the end. On February 26, 1977, at the age of 59, Zha Liangzheng died of a heart attack.

In 1979, two years after his death, the translator was acquitted: he was acquitted of "historical counter-revolutionary crimes."

No less tragic was the fate of the translator Wang Zhiliang (b. 1928), who, as a student at Peking University, became so interested in Pushkin's work that he learned his novel in verse by heart, and then took up his translation — which eventually led him to disaster. In the spring of 1958, when Wang Zhiliang was translating the second chapter of Eugene Onegin, he was condemned as a "right element". One of the charges was formulated as follows: "Immersion in the profession and apolitical." The translation of "Eugene Onegin" that he started became the main proof of his guilt. As a result, the novice translator lost his job, and his wife and children left him. His life collapsed, his good name was ruined. He was forced to leave his translation job and no longer dared to touch it. But under the influence of the poet He Qifang, Wang Zhiliang still secretly continued to translate "Eugene Onegin" during labor re-education in the mountainous Taihang district of Hebei Province.

While "re-educating", Wang Zhiliang was engaged in the simplest and most boring work on the farm, for example, planting seeds and loosening the soil. At the same time, he stubbornly continued to think about the translation of "Eugene Onegin": "... all day tamping the ground, I thought about rhymes. In such images, I did not feel tired after work and at the same time translated poems well" ^[8]. During this period, due to material poverty, Wang Zhiliang could not find paper to record his translations - he had to write on the edges of newspapers, on wrappers, on toilet paper and even on cigarette boxes. A few years later, just such a pile of scraps of paper became the first draft of his translation of "Eugene Onegin". The first thing he did after returning to Shanghai was to disassemble and rewrite his translation of Eugene Onegin. At the end of 1962, Wang Zhiliang met his mentor Yu Zhen (translator of Russian literature) again in Shanghai. Under his guidance, he read and studied Pushkin's works and related materials, and constantly edited his translation of the novel in verse.

In 1962, Wang sent the completed translation to the publishing house "Narodnaya Literatura". But because of the campaign initiated by Mao Zedong against "revisionism" in the field of literature, his proposal to publish a translation remained unanswered. And after the beginning of the "Cultural Revolution", the chances of publishing a new translation of "Eugene Onegin" were zero for a long time.

In 1982, the translation of "Eugene Onegin" by Wang Zhilyan was finally published by the publishing house "Folk Literature". Since then, this version of the translation has been reprinted many times and included in such authoritative publications as The Pushkin Anthology (1985), the Collected Works of Pushkin (1995) of the publishing house "Folk Literature" and in the Complete Works of Pushkin (1997) of the Zhejiang Publishing House of Literature and Art. Wang Zhiliang's translation has also become a classic version of the Chinese translation, presented in many Pushkin memorial museums in Russia. Although there are more than ten translations of Eugene Onegin in China, Wang Zhiliang was the first Chinese translator to accurately reproduce the Onegin stanza. Thanks to him, Chinese readers for the first time felt the charm of the Onegin stanza.

In a 2011 interview, Wang Zhiliang recalled the difficulties experienced in translating Eugene Onegin: "I started reading this book sixty-one years ago (1950), started translating it fifty-five years ago (1956) and finished the first draft of the translation forty-nine years ago (1962). After that, I revised and corrected the translation for many years. Twenty years have passed — and now in 1982 it was finally published… This is the most important book in my life in 50 years of work; it has also witnessed the most important changes in the 50 years since the founding of New China. I will never forget everything connected with it" ^{[5, p. 52]}.

In addition to the Pushkinists mentioned above, a large number of other Chinese Russianists and translators of the second half of the twentieth century were subjected to unfair persecution. Among them are Gao Man, Lu Yongfu, Yu Zhen, Tian Guobin, etc.

Many experienced great difficulties in their translation and scientific activities before and especially during the "cultural revolution". However, they still retained their love for Russian literature, for Pushkin's work and made an outstanding contribution to Chinese Pushkin studies. Most modern Chinese Pushkinists, standing on the shoulders of these giants, continue to develop Chinese Pushkin studies, deepening the understanding of Pushkin's works. Looking back at the history of Pushkin's translations and reception in these troubled times, remembering the tragic fates of outstanding Chinese scientists and translators, we can safely say that Pushkin's work for many years supported and inspired the best representatives of the Chinese intelligentsia, despite the cruel censorship oppression and repression, who introduced their compatriots to the highest achievements of world culture and defended their right to free creativity.