Chapter 101 Learn the spirit of Lu Xun in translating and introducing foreign literature

one During his fighting life, Lu Xun spent an astonishing amount of energy and time on translating and introducing foreign literature.In such a heavy introduction work, Lu Xun showed a consistent high sense of revolutionary responsibility and clear political purpose. Lu Xun's activities of introducing and translating foreign literature began when he was studying in Japan. "The homeland is as dark as a storm", at that time the Qing Dynasty and the Westernization faction in power worshiped foreign countries and sold out national sovereignty; in the name of revitalizing industries and introducing Western scientific and technological knowledge, they actually opened the way for imperialist economic and cultural aggression. At the same time, it prepared a hotbed for the growth of China's first generation of big landlords, bureaucrats and comprador bourgeoisie.The Westernization Group also regards itself as the defender of the "Chinese quintessence", playing the signboard of "Chinese learning as the body and Western learning as the application", and promotes the barbaric feudal cultural despotism; they stubbornly advocate all the dross of China's thousands of years of feudal culture, It is sacred and inviolable, and it is an attempt to confuse the people's thoughts and prohibit any words and deeds of the people that resist feudal ethics and feudal order.

At the same time, the bourgeois democratic revolutionaries led by Sun Yat-sen advocated the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty by force and the establishment of a "five-ethnic republic" democratic republic; The royalists had a great controversy.The royalists advocate a constitutional monarchy, but the constitution is false, but the royalists are true, and they are capitulators.Lu Xun belonged to the revolutionary faction in politics, but he participated in the struggle against the Westernization faction and the royalists mainly from the introduction of western culture and literature.But the importance of this field of ideology was precisely what the revolutionaries ignored at that time.

two Around 1907, Lu Xun published several important papers, and participated in the great debate between the revolutionaries and the Westernization faction and the royalists.Among them, "Cultural Partiality Theory" and "Mo Luo Poetry Power" are representative works reflecting his political and cultural thoughts in this period. "Cultural Partiality" briefly described the various chaotic and decadent trends of thought after the European Reformation until the so-called end of the century, and concluded that what we focus on today "stops at two things: the immaterial and the individual." His so-called "non-material" means "against his emphasis on material civilization"; his so-called "emphasis on individuals" means "demanding the emancipation of the mind."In this article, Lu Xun painstakingly discussed the "abuses of Western material civilization", that is, the intensification of class struggle after capitalism entered the imperialist stage, the extensive and deepening of the Marxist movement, and the fierce competition for spheres of influence among imperialist powers have broken out many times. conflict.Due to the constraints of the times, when Lu Xun discussed the European ideological trends in the late nineteenth century, he still could not see the social roots of these chaotic and decadent ideological trends, nor did he mention Marxism that guides human liberation, but only generally believed that it was the most important. The abuse of material civilization.And because he strongly demanded the emancipation of the mind (this was officially put on the agenda under the slogan of "Down with Confucius's shop" during the "May 4th" movement), so that he only saw the "idol-breaking" side of Nietzsche's superhuman philosophy, and ignored it. Its extremely reactionary side.However, as far as its main content is concerned, the question raised by "On the Inclination of Culture" was a thunderous sound at that time, but it is a pity that this thunderous sound disappeared in the wilderness.At the end of the thesis, Lu Xun said: "That's why it is necessary to live in the two worlds and compete with other countries. The first thing is to establish people, and then to do everything after the people are established. If it is Taoism, it must respect individuality and strengthen the spirit. If it is not as good as it is, it will be mourned." Not to mention Yufu I." This so-called "Liren" is what is now called "the consciousness of the people."Lu Xun's conclusion was written seventy years ago, and it was rare at that time, and it was almost the only farsighted voice.

Like Prometheus stealing fire from heaven to human beings, "Mo Luo Poetry Power Talk" transported revolutionary spiritual food to the Chinese intellectuals at that time. "Moro Poetry Power" introduces the democratic literary and artistic thought of the European bourgeoisie in the 19th century, and enthusiastically praises some rebellious poets (Moro poets, devil poets) who "resist in resistance and focus on action" representing this kind of literary and artistic thought , such as Byron, Petofi, Mickiewicz and so on.At that time, Lu Xun could not translate the works of these poets full of fiery rebellious spirit, but could only introduce the content of their works and their devotion to the national liberation movement (even helping other enslaved nations), fearless of hardships, and The heroism of martyrdom.This played a role in boosting the morale of the revolutionaries at the time.

During the same period, Lu Xun translated and published "A Collection of Foreign Fiction".This collection of short stories is a continuation of the theme of "Moro Poetry Power", introducing works from Russia, Northern Europe, Poland and other countries that reflect the suffering of the people and the national liberation movement.This is the first time that works reflecting the rebellion and resistance of the oppressed people and enslaved nations were introduced to China.Its intention is the same as that of "Mo Luo Shi Li Shuo". three "Cultural Bias", "Moro Poetry Power" and "A Collection of Foreign Fiction" were the voices of the wilderness at that time; in the following ten years, the world has undergone unprecedented changes, and the gunfire of the October Revolution in the Soviet Union brought Marxism-Leninism to China. , and because China's own social contradictions were intensifying and class struggle was developing, the "May 4th" Movement that shocked Chinese society broke out, and then announced the establishment of the Communist Party of China.Lu Xun belonged to the left wing of the "May 4th" movement.The revolutionary call he put forward ten years ago for people to emancipate their minds, sweep away all old traditions and cultures that have blinded people's ears, and liberate the oppressed and enslaved peoples was no longer a call from the wilderness at this time. It has received enthusiastic responses from millions of educated young people.

During this period, Lu Xun translated and introduced the world's progressive literature, and the quantity was much larger than in the past.The focus remains on reflecting the pain and struggle of oppressed peoples and enslaved peoples.Ten years ago, "A Collection of Foreign Fiction" sold only 20 copies in Tokyo and Shanghai. Now, the readers of the newly translated works of world progressive literature, which have expanded in scope and increased in number, are not in the thousands, but in the tens of thousands. It should be counted in hundreds of thousands, and its far-reaching influence is unprecedented.

Lu Xun advocated that literature should be "for life".He believes that Russian literature since the nineteenth century "is for life, no matter its purpose is to explore, solve, or fall into mystery or decadence, but its mainstream is still one: for life." (: "< Harp>Preface) Antlef and Alzibasev he translated and introduced at that time were two writers who had "fallen into mystery and decadence".From the standpoint of revolutionary democracy, Lu Xun criticized the pessimistic and world-weary thoughts expressed in these works, and pointed out that the merits of these works only exposed the dark reality of Tsarist Russian society to a certain extent, and "many things in them are actually very similar to those in China." elephant".Therefore, translating these works also intends to expose the persecution of reformers by the reactionary Chinese rulers (Northern Warlords) and their literati at that time.At that time, Lu Xun thought that the first thing to do was to wake up the people so that they knew the root cause of the disease. As for what prescription to use, it was up to the people themselves to choose.

At that time, there were quite a few fairy tales in Lu Xun's translations, among them a collection of fairy tales and a play of fairy tales by the Russian blind poet Eloshchenko.Ailuo Xianke is not a well-known poet in the world. It was after he was expelled from Japan by the Japanese government in 1921 that Lu Xun "noticed this wandering blind poet".When Aira Xianke was exiled by the Japanese government, he was also "reviled and beaten".Lu Xun said, "Just as all the people who were beaten often left things or blood, so did Ailuo Xianke. This is his collection of fairy tales." (Additional Notes to the Translation of "The Narrow Cage") Lu Xun believed that Ai Luo Xianke's fairy tales were "just dreams, pure white, but with a big heart." ("Additional Notes to the Translation of "Poolside")" Lu Xun enthusiastically translated and introduced them to Chinese readers because of the sympathy for the oppressed in Ai Luo Xianke's fairy tales.

At this time, Lu Xun also translated "Out of the Ivory Tower" by the Japanese critic Kugawa Shiramura, and "Thoughts, Landscapes, and Characters" by Yusuke Tsurumi.Lu Xun did not agree with all the arguments of these two people, but only thought that they could be used as a "reference" for China, because the contradictions, corruption and inaction in the Japanese ideological circle revealed in these books "mostly hit the chronic diseases that we are all hiding now." . Lu Xun also translated Chuchuan Baicun's literary theory work "Symbol of Depression".Based on Freud's "psychoanalysis" and Bergson's philosophy of life, Kugawa Shiramura believes that "depression and anguish caused by suppressed vitality are the root of literature and art".When Lu Xun translated, he hadn't seen through the absurdity of this idealist theory.

During this period, Lu Xun's thought was in the alternation period of old and new. After the "May 4th Movement", the workers' and peasants' revolutionary movement under the leadership of the Communist Party of China flourished, and the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles rose day by day, leading to great victories in the early days of the Northern Expedition. The class intellectuals have turned to reaction.This caused waves of contradictions in Lu Xun's thinking. He felt that the old ideological weapons such as the theory of evolution that he had mastered were increasingly unable to meet the requirements of the new struggle, and the new class forces had not yet been fully realized.This ambivalence of hesitation and search was reflected in the translation work of this period. As briefly stated above, the negative elements in the works he translated or introduced were either not criticized, or even though they were criticized, they were not strong enough.

Four In Guangzhou in 1926, Lu Xun witnessed how the Kuomintang reactionaries representing the big landlord-comprador class surrendered to imperialism, betrayed the revolution, and slaughtered unarmed Communists. Lu Xun was extremely indignant.Lu Xun also witnessed and was extremely indignant when they were young people who voted for votes and either defected to the Kuomintang reactionaries and sold their friends for glory;These bloody lessons finally bombarded the evolutionary thought that he had used to observe and analyze things for many years, and turned to seek the universal truth that solves the destiny of mankind. He began to read and study Marxism-Leninism. Originally, Lu Xun's goal of fighting against imperialism and feudalism was consistent with the new democratic fighting program of the Communist Party of China; his heroic and fearless fighting spirit reflected the strong desire of the broad masses of the people for revolution and liberation.This dominant force in Lu Xun's thought determined that the evolutionary thought and idealism elements in his thought would inevitably be overcome with the development of the Chinese revolution.Sure enough, after 1926, in just a few years, Lu Xun finally completed the leap from a revolutionary democrat to a communist through diligent study and heroic struggle practice. Realizing that the Chinese revolution cannot be separated from the leadership of the Chinese proletariat, Lu Xun's loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, the vanguard of the Chinese proletarian revolution, is consistent and firm.And in the process of understanding and mastering the ideological weapon of Marxism-Leninism, he also keenly felt that the line struggle within the Chinese Communist Party will determine the future of the Communist Party, that is, the future of the Chinese revolution.Although he was a Bolshevik outside the party, he was able to discern the right direction of the line struggle within the party, and consciously and firmly supported the correct side. This was manifested in his infinite loyalty and love for Chairman Mao who led the correct line. In 1928, the fierce debate on revolutionary literature within the revolutionary literary and art team raised a series of theoretical issues, and it was urgent to make scientific conclusions based on the stand and viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism in order to clarify ideological confusion.In August of that year, Lu Xun said in reply to a reader's letter: "I hope that there are real people who are willing to translate a few books on historical materialism that have been evaluated in the world—at least, a simple and plain one." , two precise works—one or two opposing works are needed. Then, a lot of words can be saved in arguing." (: "Class Nature of Literature") Here, Lu Xun proposed "one or two opposing works" , It means that if you want to have a real understanding of historical materialism and turn it into the flesh and blood of your own thoughts, in addition to studying the positive textbooks, you have to read the negative textbooks.At that time, some critics who claimed to be historical materialists had not even read the original version of the positive teaching materials, and only indirectly obtained some formulas from some barnyard dealers.Therefore, Lu Xun required "real people" to do the work of transporting spiritual food seriously.Lu Xun soon did this work by himself. He translated Plekhanov's "On Art", Lunacharsky's "On Art", "Literary Art and Criticism" and "Literary Policy" compiled and translated by the Japanese (according to the Russian Communist Party Central Committee in Compiled from materials such as the records of the Party Policy Symposium on Literature and Art held on May 9, 1924).These books can be said to be the first introductions to China of Marxist theoretical works on literature and art, as well as the debates and conclusions of Russian literature and art circles after the October Revolution.Although not all of them were Marxist, it undoubtedly helped to resolve the disputes within the revolutionary literature and art team in our country at that time, and promote the healthy development of revolutionary literature and art. Lu Xun enthusiastically translated and introduced works reflecting the Soviet Union's domestic revolutionary war.He himself translated Fadeyev's novel "Destroyed", and worked hard for the publication of Sylavimowicz's "Iron Flow" (translated by Cao Jinghua).He praised the two novels for writing "iron characters and bloody battles".At that time, China's revolutionary struggle was also full of "iron figures and bloody battles".Therefore, the translation of these two novels not only boosted the morale of the revolutionary masses who were fighting bloody battles under the leadership of the Communist Party at that time, but also made readers connect with the reality of their own country from the books, and strengthened their belief in revolution. In addition, Lu Xun translated Gorky's works and works critical of realism in the Tsarist Russian era, such as Chekhov's short stories and Gogol's novel "Dead Souls".At the same time, as before, he was enthusiastic about introducing and translating literary works about the arduous struggle of the oppressed people and nations.Lu Xun introduced those works that reflected the heroic struggle of oppressed peoples and nations for liberation, not only out of sympathy, but because they were "closer to our world".China and their "circumstances" are quite similar. Not only have they been invaded by imperialism and become semi-feudal and semi-colonial, but also have a long history of strong resistance. After reading these works, it is easy to "heart-to-heart", support and encourage each other.This puts the work of translating and introducing works of oppressed people and national liberation struggles to the height of a global revolutionary strategy.Here, Lu Xun's translation and introduction work closely matched the needs of the Chinese revolution in various periods. Lu Xun did not regard translation methods as a purely technical issue, but raised it to a principled issue of political struggle to deal with. Lu Xun believed that translation must be faithful to the original work, and he advocated that "faithfulness is better than expression" when "faithfulness" and "expression" cannot be obtained at the same time.At that time, the imperial literati Liang Shiqiu and his like slandered Lu Xun's translation as "dead translation" and "hard translation". The insidious intention behind it was to block and destroy the spread of Marxist literary theory and revolutionary literary works.Lu Xun gave a head-on blow to this, pointing out that this is not a question of translation methods, but a question of which class occupies the translation position, that is, the question of who controls the channels for transporting spiritual food.He said: They tried in vain to make the masses of the people "turn from deaf to dumb" under the fascist policy of ignorance, and let them be slaughtered.This is how Lu Xun regarded translation work as an important means to crush the reactionaries' policy of obscuring the people and arouse the people's revolutionary sentiments. Lu Xun called the translation method faithful to the original work "literal translation", but Liang Shiqiu and his like slandered it as "dead translation" and "hard translation".This is essentially a reflection of class struggle in translation methods.The translations that the reactionary literati boasted at that time as "sophisticated" and "elegant" were actually distorting the original works, making them unrecognizable, in order to achieve their sinful goal of "telling the truth and selling fake medicines".In order to expose their despicable means, Lu Xun not only put forward the correct proposition of "literal translation", but also put forward the absolutely necessary proposition of "retranslation" at that time.At that time, when both publishers and bourgeois literati regarded translations as commodities, crude translations were flooding the market, and the necessity of retranslation was a matter of class struggle, not just a matter of being faithful to the original text. Lu Xun also strongly supported translation (retranslation) at that time, which was also based on the actual situation at the time. Only translation can quickly spread Marxism-Leninism and its literary theory, so that Chinese readers can see the oppressed people, enslaved nations, and the Soviet Union after the October Revolution. Proletarian literature. The above description is very rough and brief, and there are inevitably mistakes, but it can be generally seen that in the last ten years of Lu Xun's fighting life, the high sense of revolutionary responsibility and clear political purpose throughout his early work gradually strengthened. And developed. This is what we must first learn from Lu Xun in foreign literature work. Lu Xun never took a one-sided and extreme attitude towards the literary heritage both at home and abroad, ancient and modern.He viewed them dialectically; he advocated absorbing their essence, turning them into his own flesh and blood, advocating learning from them, using the past for the present, and using foreign things for China.He is opposed to exaggerating a little to generalize, and also against obliterating its basic beneficial parts because of minor flaws.He strongly criticized the so-called "national quintessence" who insisted on the ruthless and deaf, but he also strongly advocated that the essence of China's 5,000-year feudal culture should be inherited and developed so that the past can be used for the present.He slammed the fallacy of the so-called "total Westernization" at that time, and denounced it as foreign slave thinking.However, he enthusiastically translated and introduced the excellent parts of Western culture and literature.He worked hard to introduce the critical realism literature of the nineteenth century in Europe and the literature reflecting the oppressed people and nations, but he also paid attention to European classical literature (referring to ancient Greece, Rome and the literature of the rising period of the European bourgeoisie), and believed that it could be used for reference. Its flesh and blood should be absorbed to nourish our own and take its fur.He advocated the diversification of literary themes and styles, and he opposed the "one word" and sectarianism in literary criticism.It is believed that only in this way can we not rest on our laurels and create a vigorous new situation, which coincides with the policy of the great leader Chairman Mao of "let a hundred flowers bloom, a hundred schools of thought contend" and "introduce the old to bring forth the new".We learn from Lu Xun in the introduction of world literature, and I think this is what we should learn. Of course, we must first learn and truly understand Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and then our study of Lu Xun is not superficial, and our work of introducing world literature will not become a mere formalism. Fives The anti-Party group "Gang of Four" took advantage of the power they stole to occupy the literary and artistic positions, frantically tampering with Chairman Mao's brilliant literary and artistic ideas.When dealing with the introduction of foreign literature, they pursued a line of "left" in form and right in reality.The traitor Jiang Qing blatantly praised the first-class works of the West that were decadent and promoted by the bourgeoisie, but slandered and distorted the progressive nineteenth-century European critical realist literary works; Later, works that expressed the proletarian fighting spirit and revolutionary heroism were indiscriminately thrown into the sidelines.Under the banner of supporting Lu Xun, they actually engaged in the sinister act of distorting and attacking Lu Xun.They tried in vain to restore feudalism and capitalism, and copied the cultural despotism of the Kuomintang reactionaries, which Lu Xun denounced in the past, for trying to make the people "turn from deaf to dumb". The wise leader Chairman Hua smashed the "Gang of Four" in one fell swoop.The literature and art garden began to show a scene of a hundred flowers blooming and thriving.However, the poison of the "Gang of Four" has yet to be eliminated, and the same is true for the introduction of world literature.In order to do a good job of introducing world literature, we must continue to study earnestly and understand Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought completely and accurately.Chairman Mao's "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art" is a summary and development of Marxist-Leninist literature and art theory.Only by mastering this powerful ideological weapon can the work of introducing world literature truly be able to fulfill its task of transporting spiritual food for the magnificent cause of socialist revolution and socialist construction in our country.At this point, the work of introducing world literature has an inseparable relationship with the work of eliminating the legacy of the "Gang of Four".The task is arduous, but the future is bright.Chairman Mao's brilliant literary and artistic thoughts are guiding the world literature introduction workers forward! Written on July 3, 1977