A long chapter's lasting journey
William A.P. Martin, the US missionary who first translated Russian literature into Chinese, which appeared in a Shanghai magazine in 1872, would never have expected Russian works to go on a lasting journey deep into the neighboring country.
Liu Wenfei, a veteran researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told China Daily on Thursday on the eve of President Xi Jinping's visit to Russia: "Seldom in the world do we find so large a readership of Russian literature, and with such a persevering tradition of reading it, as we do here in China."
Liu, who is also president of the Chinese Association of Russian Literature Studies, said almost all Russian writers have been translated and introduced into China systematically.
Even during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), a time when Jack Kerouac's On the Road was a class-A banned book, Russian literature still found a way through so-called yellow-covered books into Chinese intellectual life.
In more than a century, Russian literature - before, during and after the Soviet Union - has affected the establishment of contemporary Chinese ideology and influenced literary taste and Chinese writing, Liu said.
"Russian literature is like a mirror to Russian society, from which Chinese see China's past, present and future," he added.
Yellow-covered books
To poet Bei Dao, whose real name is Zhao Zhenkai, the yellow-covered books, secretly circulated underground in the 1960s and 1970s, when most foreign books were banned, were the source of his poetic inspiration.
The yellow-covered books, largely translations of Russian literature and theories of the then-Soviet Union, were first published as "internal material" in small print runs for Party leaders to study and argue against the then political line of the Soviet leadership, after relations between the two countries soured in the early 1960s, said Zhang Fusheng, a veteran editor with the People's Literature Publishing House, the main publisher of those books.
"But the situation took a twist: The books became luxuries among young people. They could be exchanged for other reading material and goods," 61-year-old Zhang said.
Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Ilya Erenburg's The Thaw were first introduced as yellow-covered books. They were hugely popular among young readers who circulated and even hand-copied them.
Three high times
But except for low points in Sino-Russian relations, Russian and Soviet literature was top choice in the Chinese literary scene in the early 1900s, the 1950s and the 1980s.
"It's more like a natural option for Chinese readers," said researcher Liu, "because they feel they can sympathize with Russian literature that is educational, understandable and is about 'us' people but not 'them' higher classes."
Liu added that Chinese read French literature for the plot, while reading Russian works for guidance in life.
Since Alexander Pushkin's novel The Captain's Daughter was published in China in 1903, Russian literature has proven popular in the country.
Writer Lu Xun described Russian literature as "weapons for the rising slaves". He even borrowed a Nikolai Gogol book title for his celebrated novel Diary of A Madman.
Lu, together with other literary masters of China - Guo Moruo, Ba Jin and Mao Dun - were also translators and fans of the powerful literature.
"Russian literature played the role of one of the three thoughts that shaped China's enlightening May Fourth Movement in 1919, which shaped contemporary Chinese culture," Liu said.
Following the founding of the People's Republic of China, Sino-Soviet relations enjoyed a honeymoon in the 1950s.
At the time, Russian was the top foreign language in schools. Many Chinese people read Soviet literature, and gained knowledge of other culture and literature via the Russian language.
According to Chen Jianhua, with East China Normal University, 3,526 titles of more than 1,000 Russian and Soviet writers were published from 1949 to 1958. The 82 million copies amounted to three-quarters of all published translated works.
Zhang, of the People's Literature Publishing House, said that half of the editors at the time worked in the Russian section.
Chen Fumin, veteran critic of Chinese contemporary literature with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, views the close ties of the two countries' literature in the context of their shared paths of development.
"Chinese writers always find that the most efficient ways of expressing their observation and values is through Russian ways, instead of Western post-modernist approaches," Chen said.
By Russian ways, Chen means the realistic approaches and the focus on the country's basic missions: national awareness, liberation and social transformation.
Returning to literature
While 3,000 Chinese are studying Russian literature, and more than 20 publishing houses are presenting 100 titles of new translations into Chinese, people feel that the enthusiasm for Russian literature is ebbing, Liu said.
But Russian literature researcher Liu argued that the apparent decline in interest is actually a return to normal.
"We see Russian literature is developing, in a sense that it appeals to no national political propaganda, nor appeals to Western taste," Liu said.
With that, the Chinese view Russian literature with a less ideological bent and more on its aesthetic value, he added.
Editor Zhang, who published several works of Russia's younger writers, hopes to see more concern for national fate in Chinese young writers, as the Russians do.
The enduring charm of Russian literature on Chinese minds is the reason that many Chinese lamented Boris Vasilyev's death in mid-March.
Chinese publishers are planning this year to print more of the writer's The Dawns Here Are Quiet.
Chen Jianhua with East China Normal University, and Zhang Xiaoqiang with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences contributed to this story.
A captivating blogger poet makes her London debut
Riding the wave from unknown blogger to charismatic poet, 27-year-old poet Vera Polozkova shows why she is a sensation in Russia.
Now the 27-year-old Vera often seeks inspiration in far-off lands and cultures. She recently returned from India, from where she seems to have discovered a certain eastern reasoning concerning the ordering of the world. Source: ITAR-TASS
The 4th annual Slovo Festival of Russian Literature held in London in March was as accessible as it was grand in scope. The widely feted poet and performance artist Vera Polozkova, who was invited to headline the festival, set a magical tone. Polozkova appeared at the opening like a capsizing wave, her full-length dark blue dress set off by enormous expressive eyes, the epitome of femininity. As she began to beat out her crisp, incisive verse, her sharp, almost masculine mind flashed like a serrated blade.
People compare Vera Polozkova’s recitals to a rock concert - such is the force of the outpouring of feeling between the artist and her audience. Her verse works like short film clips about far-off lands and hot islands. She tells fleeting, exotic tales that bring to mind the captivating charm of Nikolai Gumilev and his poetic musings about Africa. In Polozkova’s case, however, there is no apparent attachment to places, as her focus lingers on her cinematic subjects (with names like Manou, Joe, Lou) and the elusive elements that form relationships: melancholy; human understanding and miscomprehension; craving for love and fear of it; gentle gestures; and smiles forming from the corners of a mouth.
These accounts of people with foreign-sounding names are like a mini-show in which she is writer, director and performer. The poet also admits with a twinkle that foreign names offer her a certain freedom and enable her to escape questions from the audience like “My name is Katya, why did you decide to write so harshly about Katya?!”
Polozkova has become increasingly known for her dramatic monologues, which are caustic, witty and wrenching; they are also deeply conversational, and sound like the interior monologues of young, educated women of the 21st century. Born to a rapid and punchy modern rock rhythm, Polozkova fires off phrases like arrows, eschewing mysticism and imparting a clear message devoid of frills. Her words are astonishingly precise and resonant.
Polozkova is most frequently likened to the great poet Joseph Brodsky, for her intelligence, her precise imagery and her rhythmic meter. Words for her are “a powerful force and magic,” the poet once revealed in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta. “I am a perfectionist. My consciousness nurtures the concept of a certain universal order; I have dreamed about this my whole life. And poetry is also an attempt to establish metaphysical order.”
Vera Polozkova had studied in Lomonosov University's Faculty of Journalism in Moscow. Her work was soon published in glossy magazines, but then just three months before her graduation the diligent student suddenly quit university. The blogging culture was just appearing in Russia at the time, and Polozkova published her poetry on her personal blog titled “Miss Understanding.” She instantly drew a readership of thousands and went on to become one the most popular poet bloggers on the Russian Internet. She has since published three books, received several literary awards and started to act in the theatre.
Now the 27-year-old Vera often seeks inspiration in far-off lands and cultures. She recently returned from India, from where she seems to have discovered a certain eastern reasoning concerning the ordering of the world.
Vera Polozkova’s appearance at the Slovo Festival was also her London debut. As she gave a dramatic reading of about the sea, a saxophone emitted the sound of the tide. Three musicians accompanied her verse; each improvised behind her to emphasize and riff off of the drama of her words. They played when instinct prompted them, creating a fusion of feeling and rhythm, flawlessly performed to the verse. The entire hall was tuned into the same frequency, into a wave called Vera.
Vera Polozkova 'And it may be not God'
And it may be not God but someone like His designee
Taking you to his face as his eyes aren't keen to see,
Like a dried dead bee, like a pebble naked -
His breath rich like liquor of well tested quality,
Like a thick old spirit of wonderful quality -
And extending a “happy belated”...
What’s belated?
All is belated.
Scratching you at the corner and rolling you on his palm –
Curly hair of tea,
The forehead of milky balm,
Helpless clavicles stick out so open and so clear.
Move your eyes to look down – the clouds are quiet and calm,
Far beneath you they drift nonchalantly, swaying some.
Nothing happens to you
On from here.
Well, so hi, here is God and I’m His commander at war,
I was picky when choosing to call you out the door,
And so took you with all your stuff
And possession,
Human mineral that’s all traversed by vein and pore,
Why, you look in a strangely astonished fashion,
Like you haven’t died
Ever before...
Soviet prose: Censoring surrealistic art of a prominent writer
Story-teller, socialist, soldier, scum: RBTH describes the extraordinary life and work of Andrey Platonov which was censored during his life.
Stalin wrote “scum” in the margin of one of Andrey Platonov’s surreal stories and told the editor to “give him a good belting.” Censored and supressed during his lifetime, Platonov, who was born in 1899, is now seen as a creative beacon of Soviet literature.
Some fans would make even greater claims. In his introduction to a collection of Platonov’s stories called “Soul” (NYRB 2007), the translator Robert Chandler said: “All Russians consider Pushkin their greatest poet; in time, I believe, it will become equally clear that Platonov is their greatest prose writer.”
“Soul”includes the translator’s personal favorite, “The Return,” which also appeared in the anthology “Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida” (Penguin, 2005).
“This story about an army captain's fraught return to his family at the end of the Second World War is witty, tender and wise," Chandler said in a recent interview with RBTH. "It is full of vivid detail, but it is of universal relevance."
"Anyone who has ever, in moments of impatience, felt the desire to smash up his existing, imperfect life and run off in pursuit of some illusion of a perfect life elsewhere … can learn something from this story,” Chandler added.
Platonov has always been widely admired by fellow writers, including Pasternak andBulgakov; the poet, Joseph Brodsky, saw him as the equal of Joyce and Kafka; the historian, Orlando Figes, considers the discovery of Platonov’s previously unpublished manuscripts as “the most precious [literary] dividend from the collapse of the Soviet system.”
A working class boy from Voronezh, Platonov worked on the railroad as a teenager, fought with the Red Army before he was twenty, and died in obscure poverty at the age of 52.
Many of his texts were published only posthumously, like the unfinished “Happy Moscow,” written during the 1930s; this bizarre, hypnotic tale finally appeared in 1991 and NYRB Classics have just issued a revised translation.
In his first works in the early 1920s, Platonov dreamed of a utopian future in which electricity transformed human nature. He worked enthusiastically on land reclamation projects, wrote baffling, ambiguous novels and stories, became a war reporter and a publisher of children’s literature. He caught tuberculosis from his son, who had returned from a prison camp.
Introducing three chapters from “Chevengeur,” Platonov’s 1928 novel about an imaginary town, Chandler wrote in “The Portable Platonov” (Glas, 1999):“Much of Platonov’s work can be seen as an attempt to give words back to those who have been forced into inarticulacy.”
His surrealism, Chandler explained, reflects the chaos of the times. The - sometimes darkly comic - attempts of Chevengeur’s confused inhabitants to establish communism include a messianic belief that political change will cause the sky to “become bluer and more transparent” or that “Rosa Luxemburg will once again come to life as a living citizen.”
The Foundation Pit is Platonov’s best-known novel, written in 1929, but unpublished in Russia until 1988. The bleakly satirical story describes a group of early Soviet workers trying to dig the foundations for a grand building which will never be built.
Geoffrey Hosking, reviewing the book in the Times Literary Supplement, pinpointed its power in revealing “the strange and tormented mixture of hope and despair by which many ordinary people must have lived during Stalin’s revolution from above.”
“There is certainly no other writer who was able to convey, simultaneously, the beauty and hope of the Soviet dream and its terrible reality,” Chandler said in an interview with the New Yorker.
What is it about Platonov's prose style that makes some people rate his work so highly?
“On the surface, Platonov is the least ‘literary’ of writers," Chandler said "His language can seem crude, elemental; it has been described as ‘the language that might be spoken by the roots of trees.’ At the same time, however, this language is extraordinarily subtle, packed with the most delicate of puns and allusions.”
Platonov’s stories operate on numerous levels, with political metaphors made flesh and vice versa.
Daniel Kalder, in the Guardian, described Platonov as a committed communist who became appalled by the excesses of Stalinism and – unusually - “tried to negotiate a space within Soviet culture in which he could write honestly about what was going on.”
Chandler points out that he did manage to publish great stories in his lifetime, although they were viciously criticized, and he directly influenced younger writers, like Vasily Grossman.
A recent anthology of “Russian Magic Tales” included late stories by Platonov, written while he was dying.
“His courage and tenacity were remarkable,” said Chandler, quoting a passage that describes a plane tree whose trunk has incorporated huge stones and “encircled them with patient bark, made them something it could live with … meekly lifting up as it grew taller what should have destroyed it.”
Written in 1934, this “now seems to be a description of Platonov himself.”
What Chandler calls a “distorted” western view of Soviet literature, where international scandals meant Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn initially became better known than the equally great Grossman or Platonov, is gradually changing.
Writers from the generation who “shared the hopes of the revolution,” who wrote complicated, challenging works “from inside the Soviet experience”are gaining worldwide fame.
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