Qu, Qiubai
(Changzhou, Jiangsu 1899-1935 Changting, Fujian) : Schriftsteller, Politiker, Führer der kommunistischen Partei
Name Alternative(s)
Qu, Maomiao
Qu, Shuang
Ch'ü, Ch'iu-pai
Subjects
Communism / Marxism / Leninism
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History : China
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Index of Names : China
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Literature : China
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Periods : China : Republic (1912-1949)
Chronology Entries (16)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1917-1920 |
Qu Qiubai studies Russian language at the National Institute of Russian Language in Beijing. During the winter of 1918-1919, he joined Li Dazhao's informal study group on the Russian Revolution and Marxism and in May 1919 he began publishing short translations of Russian authors. By 1920, before his first trip to the Soviet Union, Qu had begun to comment on the value of Russian literature. These early comments are our best evidence of the ways in which the political and the literary sides of his interest in Russia were connected. |
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| 2 | 1917-1940 |
[Marxismus 1917-1949]. The Chinese revolution was not only a local and nationalist movement, but also a significant part of international revolutionary movement initiated by the Russian revolution of 1917. Certainly, there were fundamental differences between the Chinese and Russian revolutions. The Chinese revolution as primarily a peasant one, centered in the backward rural areas. The Russian revolution was city-based, led by a revolutionary vanguard, mobilized a well-organized urban proletariat. For Vladimir Lenin, revolution was primarily a political event, directed by a politically and ideologically sophisticated elite. But for the Chinese communists, revolution was at once political, social, and cultural. Unlike the Russia of prerevolutionary days, when objective conditions were considered ripe by the Leninist leadership, the Chinese revolution had to generate its own revolutionary momentum. At the time, China was dominated by a powerful alliance of warlords and Western imperialists, and the existence of bourgeoisie and urban proletarians was negligible. This rendered China fragmented, decentralized, and tension filled, but also made a well-organized urban revolutionary insurgence impossible. If the Russian revolution was a socialist revolution largely within the Western hemisphere or capitalist system, the Chinese revolution, and revolutions in the rest of the 'Third world', were much more complicated. The Chinese revolution was definitely a socialist, nationalist, and anti-imperialist struggle. Moreover, the Chinese revolution was conceived of as a way to bring about modernity, with the manifest goal of establishing a socialist alternative modernity instead of a capitalist one. The universalist and totalizing claims of the May fourth intellectuals reflect the awareness of China's social change as an integral part of a global modernity. To be sure, there were inherent connections between the forms of May fourth cultural radicalism and iconoclasm, and the deep-seated 'Chinese cultural predisposition' or 'monistic and intellectualistic mode of thinking'. But it is equally undeniable, and far more significant, that this radicalism fundamentally transformed traditional values, to which radical intellectuals themselves were thoroughly indebted. Marxism represents the single most powerful intellectual, ideological, and political force in modern China, not only contributing to the radicalization and diffusion of China's social formations, but also to the spatial and temporal fragmentation of Marxism itself as both a product and critique of Western capitalist modernity. While national salvation was certainly a high priority of the Chinese revolution, however, the enlightenment project already assumed a new objective in the Revolution : to create a new revolutionary subjectivity. This was markedly different from that of the bourgeois enlightenment advocated by Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei. The formation of a Marxist aesthetics in China was related to at least three complex aspects of global modernity : the universalism embedded in Chinese cultural tradition ; modern European humanist thought since the Enlightenment ; and Marxist traditions around the world. Chinese intellectuals turned toward European Enlightenment thought for new ways of reestablishing universality, viewing it as truly global and universal. They tried to free themselves from a narrowly defined, ethnocentric perspective, and genuinely believed that the European Enlightenment brought the hope of real universality for all humanity. This trend was well demonstrated in the thoughts of Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei, representing emergent bourgeois liberalism and humanism in China. Marxism provided the Chinese intellectuals with an alternative solution to the predicament of modernity by way of as social and political revolution that would change China's social structure and culture. This change was meant to be systematic and fundamental, in keeping with the Marxist vision of a transformation of all societies in the world. Thus, Marxist aesthetics in China was crucially related to the Chinese revolution in two senses : as a utopian discourse legitimating a socialst and communist universality, of which the Chinese revolution was an integral part, and as a hegemonic discourse in constructing a new culture and revolutionary subjectivity. Two other crucial aspects further complicated the nature of the Chinese revolution. The first has to do with urban Marxist intellectuals, who were champions and heirs of the May fourth legacy, and pioneers of the Marxist movement in China. Lu Xun's aesthetic thought is arguably the most sophisticated of the urban Marxists. His aesthetic views are expressed primarily through his allegorical writings. Lu Xun became a committed Marxist arround the turn of the 1930s. This was a time of crisis for the revolution, after the revolutionary alliance between Guomindang and the CCP broke up, and Chiang Kaishek began to round up and massacre his former communist allies in the 'reign of white terrer'. Lu Xun's conversion to Marxism was significant. As perhaps the most outspoken critical intellectual of the May fourth movement, his turn suggested a decidedly left-wing, pro-Marxist transition among a majority of May fourth intellectuals. Lu Xun's acceptance of Marxism also affected the revolution, in the sense that his influential work much enhanced the cultural struggles in the overall revolutionary movement. In Shanghai, a small yet highly energetic and dedicated group of left-wing writers gathered around Lu Xun. They and other factions of left-wing authors had miraculously effected a kind of 'Marxist turn' in Shanghai's cultural and intellectual scene in the early 1930s, when Chiang Kaishek virtually eliminated all communist activity in major cities and pushed CCP revolutonaries into the peripheral, impoverished rural regions of Jiangxi. One can view Lu Xun's acceptance of Marixsm as a dialectical process, bringing his subjective dispositions and personal psychic structures into dynamic interplay with social condistions and structures. Lu Xun took Marxism not only as an ideological guide for his politics, but also a scientific, epistemological guide for understanding the world. He advocated cultural revolution as a Marxist. He quoted Lenin to argue that without a change in attitudes and modes of behavior, the goal of revolution would never be accomplished. Lu Xun's understanding was largely acquired through Russian Marxists such as Lenin, Trotsky and Plekhanov, he was generally unaware of contemporary works by German Marxists, with the exception of Karl Wittfogel. As both a major CCP leader and Marxist theorist, Qu Qiubai contributed significantly to Chinese Marxism in two ways : he critiqued the Europeanization of the May fourth movement, and developed both a theory and practice of building a revolutionary national-popular culture. Qu's career as a writer and critic began with hist participation in Marxist movements. His writings on Russia and its leaders, including Lenin, whom he met on several occasions, aroused immediate excitement when they were published and had a lasting impact on China. Qu was ousted from his position in 1931. Withdrawing from political activity, he went to Shanghai, occupying himself exclusively with cultural and literary issues. During this period, he wrote profusely on Marxist cultural and easthetic theories, and literary criticism, in addition, he composed numerous zawen essays, and translated Russian Marxist literary theory and criticism. Qu's critique of Europeanization was derived from the classical Marxist category of class and the historical stages of progress, he was able to grasp the historical totality at the conjuncture of fragmentation and dislocation. The social reality that Qu faced was certainly different from today's advanced capitalism in the West. He frequently invoked the classical Marxist teleological notion of irreversible and unsurpassable stages in history. He maintained that 'Marxists differ from unscientific narodniks and anarchists in that they entertain no illusion at all of bypassing capitalism and arriving directly at socialism. There is only one way to socialism, that is, to carry out class struggle on the basis of capitalism. Qu mercilessly chastised the pretentiousness of Europeanized intellectuals even when they converted to Marxism. In his view, Marxism itself could not redeem them from the self-imposed 'epistemic violence' of the Western hegemonic discourse. For Marxism, he continued in his second stunning blast against Europeanization, appealed to the May fourth intellectuals precisely because it was the latest fashion of Westernization. Marxism was accepted by the Europeanizers as an ideology of Western modernity, yet as a constituent of Western epistemic violence, it could only perpetuate China's social problems. The Marxist-oriented revolutionary and proletarian literature that 'emerged from the May fourth foundation', Qu argued, 'simply offered the Europeanized gentry yet another sumptuous banquet to satisfy their new tastes, while the laboring people were still starving. Qu's main episteme was the Marxist notion of class analysis, which offers little of the theoretical ambiguity and sophistication that characterize poststructuralism. The crucial concept of class, however, did not appear reductionist or dogmatic in Qu's exposition, but rather polysemic and often self-contradictory. Qu introduced to Chinese Marxism the idea of a revoltion that would begin in cultural spheres, a revolution in which cultural change, as opposed to political or economic transformation, would be primary. The revolution in the cities was suppressed and had to shift its base to the impoverished rural areas ; at the same time, the left-wing urban intelligentsia took a 'Marxist turn' in the midst of the counterrevolutionary white terror. The urgent task for Qu, then, was to bring together the two revolutionary forces - the urban Marxist intellectuals and rural peasantry - under the hegemony of the proletariat. In his 'Draft postscripts on Marxist aesthetics' Qu stressed the significant role that culture and consicousness play in social revolution. He argued that under China's specific circumstances, revolutionary breakthrough might first occur in the superstructural realms, before social and economic transformations. He rejected the need to construct a bourgeois culture in China as an inevitable step, promoting cultural revolution as a means to subvert and go beyond bourgeois cultural hegemony. Mao Zedong saw the Chinese revolution as 'following the path of the Russians'. The Russian revolution, by waging a socialist revolution in an economically backward country, broke the teleology envisaged by classical Marxism. This was both an inspiration and justification for the Chinese communists, whose peasant revolution in a non-Western, agrarian society would constitute no less significant a beach than the Russian revolution to Marxist teleology. Classical Marxists could only conceive of a socialist revolution in the highly industrialized, advanced capitalist countries of the West, and hardly ever thought of the non-west as a possible site for revolution. White Russia was almost at the periphery of Eurocentric thinking, to which Marx remained captive, China was positively removed, and Marx's only serious reflection on China was cast in a rather ambiguous double bind. Marx did not want to follow Hegel's etnocentric notion to deny China a history outright, but he could not find a proper place in history for China, except in an indeterminate and vauge 'Asiatic mode of production'. In his Talks at the Yan'an forum Mao Zedong argued that urban Marxist intellectuals should come to understand that their passage from Shanghai to Yan'an 'involved not just two different localities but wo different historical eras. One is a semifeudal, semicolonial society ruled by big landlords and the big bourgeoisie ; the other is a revolutionary new democratic society under the leadership of the proletariat. To arrive in a revoltionary base area is to arrive in a dynasty, unprecedented in thousands of years of Chinese history, a dynasty were workers, peasants, and soldiers, and the popular masses hold power. |
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| 3 | 1920-1935 |
Qu Qiubai and Russian literature : general Ellen Widmer : In Qu Qiubai's opinion, the differences between Pushkin's und Turgenev's work was as much a reflection of changed social reality as it was a matter of improvements in literary techniques. Techniques, though, had also improved, making it easier for literature to Russian literature that was to be the nineteenth century. For Qu, the greatness of this new literature lay in its ability to 'apply the ideals of the culture to real life, to reflect real life in a literary form'. The first great modern writer to emerge, in Qu's opinion, was Pushkin. Pushkin's genius lay, for Qu, in two places – his writing style and his commitment to write about real events. For Qu, Pushkin's use of language was both a remarkable reflection oft he common idiom and an istrument of such astonishing beauty that it set the standard for years to come. Pushkin erred, Qu notes, by immersing himself too enthusiastically in European romanticism and by takin himself too seriously, but he had a redeeming sense of duty toward the common people. This meant that his characters were often ordinary men, drawn in a lifelike manner ; or, if they were 'superfluous' gentry like Eugene Onegin, living parasitically off the labor of peasants and idly acquiring useless knowledge, they at least showed some signs of being ashamed of themselves. In any case, Qu feels, Pushkin's style and his characters were suffused with a Russianness new to Russian literature. For the first time in history, Russian literature had something to set it apart from European traditions and something to be proud of. As social conditions went from bad to worse at the end of the nineteenth century, Qu maintains, it was only Maksim Gorky who was able to rise above the bleakness of reality and inspire firm hope in the future. Gorky, it seems, was writing of a new sort of Russina, the city man and the laborer, who felt anger, not despair, at bourgeois outrages and who drew strength from the conviction that the proletariat would rule the world. In language, too, Gorky's writing was refreshingly innovative, for it made use of a 'new vernacular', closer to the language of the working class than anything that had appeard in writing before 1923. |
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| 4 | 1921-1922 | Qu Qiubai wird von der Chen bao Beijing als Korrespondent nach Moskau geschickt. Er schreibt Artikel über verschiedene Aspekte Russlands und studiert marxistische Theorie. |
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| 5 | 1923 |
Knight, Nick. The dilemma of determinism : Qu Qiubai [ID D19698] / Marxist philosophy in China [ID D20184]. The initial theoretical preoccupation of theorists to the early Chinese communist movement was with the materialist conception of history and in particular the issue of the problematic relationship between the economic base and the politico-ideological superstructure. This preoccupation resulted from a concern over the implied deterministic tendency within Marxist social theory and a desire for some reassurance that human action, whether in the political, legal or ideological realms, could exert some influence on the course of history. What early Chinese Marxist theorists, such als Li Da discovered, when they turned their attention to the Marxist classics and the writings of contemporary European Marxists, was that Marxism was not a mechanistic theory insisting on a uniformly economisitc reading of the historical process. Rather, Marxism conceived of a dialectical interaction between economic base and politico-ideological superstructure, an interadction within which the economic base nevertheless retained causal dominance. It was not until 1923 that Qu Qiubai, the pioneer of Marxist philosophy in China, applied his formidable intellect to an attempted philosophical resolution of the dilemma of determinism within Marxism, and an explication of related issues such as materialism, logic, and epistemology. Qu's motivation for broaching this difficult theoretical exercise was twofold. The first was the need to dissemiante Marxist philosophy to members and supporters of the Chinese communist party. He was at that time the only theorist in the party, capapble of explaining Marxist philosophy. Qu was involved 1923 in the planning and establishment of Shanghai University, at which Marxist philosophy and social theory were to be taught. His lectures to two courses (Introduction to the social sciences, Outline of social philosophy) [ID D19717] represent the first concerted attempt to introduce Marxist philosophy to a Chinese audience and demonstrate a familiarity with the arcane terminology and subject matter of dialectical materialism quite lacking in the writings of other early Chinese Marxist theorists. His lectures formed the basis of several books and introduced a range of vocabulary, concepts, theoretical problems and modes of understanding to Marxist theory in China which laid the formation for the development of future philosophical discourse within the CCFP. The conclusion of Qu's inquiry into the dilemma of determinism was that Marxism is a determinist, not a fatalisitc theory. The martial character of the universe and society, whose existence and development were governed by natural laws, precluded the possibility of unconstrained voluntarism : humans could not act as they wished ; neither could they compel history in directions or at a speed contrary to its materialist structural constraints. Only through a scientific undertstanding of these constraints could the limited sphere of human agency be exploited ; and exploited it shoud be, for whatever could be done by humans to faciliate the social changes anticipated by Marxist theory had to be done. Qu's search in 1923 for a solution to the dilemma of determinism is significant as it indicates that the theoretical level of the early communist movement in China was not as low as some scholarly accounts have suggested. It also demonstrates, that interest in Marxist philosophy in China was genuinely motivated by personal interest and intellectual curiosity, and not just by the need to provide a philosophical nationale for the political struggles within the CCP. |
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| 6 | 1923 |
Qu, Qiubai. Hui se ma yu Eguo she hui yun dong [ID D37312]. [Savinkov, Boris Viktorovich]. Ng Mau-sang : Qu Qiubai examined the work from the point of view of the environment that bred it. He regarded it as encapsulating Russian social thought in the decade between the 1905 and the October Revolution. Russian terrorism, he reasoned, was the result of the vile social environment, and the "Georgian-type" of young man was but its natural offspring. They were representatives of the rebellious yong who were utterly opposed to the dark and indulgent life. Underneth the cold surface of these assassins, Qu claimed, were the most sincere, honest and ardent of hearts which pined for love and social justice. |
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| 7 | 1923 |
Qu, Qiubai. Hui se ma yu Eguo she hui yun dong. [ID D37312]. [Betr. Boris Viktorovich Savinkov]. Qu Qiubai sought both to explain the novel's sources in the Russian politics of its time and to place it within his conception of Russian literature as a literature constantly preoccupied with social change. Qu did praise the novel for displaying with 'artistic truth' the troubled epoch of early revolutionary struggle. He stressed George's being a 'type' limited to his own time and environment. |
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| 8 | 1924 |
Qu, Qiubai. She hui ke xue jiang yi [ID D19717]. Nick Knight : Qu's initial foray into Marxist philosophy concentrated on its critique of the history of Western philosophy, although there are occasional references to other philosophical traditions, including China's. The purpose of his exploration into Western philosophy was to construct and map the historical development of the two great rival camps of philosophical thought : materialism and idealism. In Outline of social philosophy Qu considers why philosophy should have emerged at all, and why certain tendencies within it - idealism and materialism - should have become pronounced. He argues that philosophy developed as human knowledge became more complex, this giving rise to a variety of different sciences and the gradual specialisation of philosophy itself into methodology and epistemology. The root of philosophy was a concern with the nature of the universe. Materialism sets out from the objective (or nature, reality) and regards the subjective (or thought, mind) as built on objective reality. Idealism proceeds from the subjective, and perceives the objective as constructed on the basis of the subjective. Qu argues that the spiritualism of religion, which was inevitably in opposition to materialism, resulted from the attempt by 'primitive peoples' to explain their natural environment. The result was animism, a belief that natural phenomena were not themselves the result of natural causes, but of spirits residing within them. Qu employed the logical tensions within the philosophies of individual philosophers to prosecute his critique of idealism. In particular, he was sensitive to the way philosophers sometimes unwittingly incorporated both materialist and idealist elements within their largely idealist philosophies. The result was eclecticism, something that indicated an advance over pure idealism, but which nonetheless was tainted by its retention of idealist themes. Examples of such eclecticism are the philosophies of Brekeley, Voltaire, Kant and Huxley. Qu gives the example of Hegel and Schelling, both of whom believed in an 'absolute spirit' that supposedly incorporated both the subject and object, the spiritual and natural worlds. He does come to the defence of Spinoza, and argues that he is often incorrectly identified as an idealist philosopher. He concurs with Fauerbach that Spinoza's philosophy was actually a manifestation of the materialism of his time, although he was not able to escape the influence of the 'spirit of the age', and his materialism consquently assumed a theological garb. Qu consequently repudiates the idealists and neo-Kantians who accuse materialism of reducing psychological phenomena to material phenomena, for the distinction is a false one. He gives the exemple of Friedrich Lange who posed materialism a question to which it supposedly could not respond. Qu approvingly quotes Diderrot, a member of the neo-Spinozan school : "There is only matter in the universe and it can possess sense perceptions ; the existence of matter thus explains everything". Qu refers in passing to the realms of freedom and necessity. Freedom, he argues, is based on necessity, a knowledge of necessity. If humans know the natural laws of the universe, this will allow them freedom ; but the laws orf nature come first. |
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| 9 | 1924 |
Qu, Qiubai. Xian dai she hui xue [ID D19717]. Nick Knight : For Qu, the 'vexing problem' of the relationship between mind and matter had implications that extend beyond philosophy to the social sciences ; it was therfore essential to get a precise understanding of this relationship. The phenomena of the universe can be divided into two categories. The first (matter) has the capacity of 'extension' ; in other words, matter is all those things that exist in space, are in motion, and that can be experiences with the human senese. These are material phenomena. The second (mind) does not exist in space, and cannot be seen or experiences in the same way as material phenomena. Examples are human thought, will and feelings. Qu cites Descartes' aphorism - "I think, therefore I am" - to support the proposition that thoughts and feelings do have existence even though they are not material objects in the conventional sense. Qu's cirtique of social theory focused on three schools - Enlightenment, utopian socialist, and Hegelian - and employs these, supposedly incorrect, theories as foils to establish the objective correctness of Marxist social theory. Qu responds to these fine ideals dismissively : "We of the twentieth century understand that the supposedly rational world painted by Enlightenment philosophy was nothing more than a rationalisation of an emerging boureois society, in which perpetual justice became bourgeois laws, equality became formal legal equality, and the rational state became the bourgeois democratic republic". The Hegelian philosophy was quite different. Qu explains that Hegel had recognised that the universe is in a process of perpetual motion, change and devlopment ; and he sought the 'inner connections' of this motion, change and development. He recognised that history becomes the real process of the development of humankind, and that philosophy's task was to examine the way in which humans developed out of nature, and to discover laws from the myriad 'accidents' within this process. For Qu, these Hegelian postulates represented a significant achievement. Hegel's major failing was his idealism. Qu argues that, if the causal relationship articulated by Hegel was reversed, and based on a materialist premise, the positive, dialectical, dimension of his philosophy could be incorporated within scientific socialism. But for this to eventuate, fundamental change had to have occurred in social reality, and in particular the reality of capitalism. Qu moves with facility through the philosophies of some of the most difficult of Western thinkers : Plato, Socrates, Kant, Fichte, Berkeley, Voltaire, Hume, Huxley, Descartes, Diderot, Feuerbach, and Marx, as well as many lesser philosophical luminaries. He illustrated his materialist social philosophy by reference to Durkheim, James Mill, Comte, Spencer, Owen, Saint-Simon, and Fourier. His view on quantum mechanics, cosmology and evolution were reinforced by reference to Laplace, Darwin, Rutherford, and Moseley, amongst others. |
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| 10 | 1924 ca. |
Qu, Qiubai. Makesi he Engesi [ID D20185]. Nick Knight : It was Lenin's achievement that he had been able to correctly discern and explain the development of capitalism to its imperialist stage, and to read the tendencies of social development and exert his own revolutionary will in a way which exploited the potential for change evident in the 'objective environment'. Qu's depiction of Lenin as the 'instrument of history' is certainly not one of a figure overawed into passivity by the immensity of historical forces; indeed, there is not the slightest suggestion of fatalism in Qu's positive reading of Lenin's character or political career. By the same token, it is quite evident that Qu did not accept that Lenin, as an individual human, made history purely through the force of his intellect or the steely determination of his political will. These undoubtedly were significant factors, but quite secondary to the objective context within which Lenin found himself. Lenin, like all historical leaders, might find ways to redesign the stage settings; but the stage on which he played was itself inherited from the past, and not of his own choosing or making. Similarly, while Marx was a product of his historical environment, his greatness derived from his capacity to comprehend the historical changes set in motion by the emergence of industrial capitalism and articulate these in a manner which could inspire in the working class a widespread desire for change. Qu's biographical sketch of Marx and Engels stresses the historical context of their youth and the influences exerted on their families by the fact that Rhineland was comparatively underdeveloped industrially, and consequently influenced the more of ideals of the French Revolution ; indeed, their fathers and uncles were contemporaries of the French Revolution and had grown up in its shadow. While Marx, like Lenin, was a product of his historical environment, his greatness derived from his capacity to comprehend the historical changes set in motion by the emergence of industrial capitalism and articulate these in a manner which could inspire in the working class a widespread desire for change. |
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| 11 | 1927 |
Qu, Qiubai. Shi yue ge ming qian de Eluosi wen xu [ID D37799]. Qu echoed the familiar cliché that Russian literature expressed the voice of the people but did not explain by what means the contact between writers and the masses should have been achieves ; he also revealed his admiration for the kind of literary greatness that did not necessarily carry a revolutionary message. |
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| 12 | 1928 | Sixth World Congress der Komintern in Moskau. Unter den Delegierten sind Nikolaj Ivanovich Bucharin, Zhou Enlai, Qu Qiubai et al. | |
| 13 | 1931 |
Qu Qiubai. On translation : a letter to Lu Xun [ID D38987]. Dear Comrade The publication of your translation of Razgrom (The rout) [by Aleksandr Alexandrovic Fadeev] was of course a truly memorable event in China's cultural life. Translating masterpieces of proletarian revolutionary literature from around the world and introducing these works to Chinese readers in a systematic fashion (especially masterpieces from the Soviet Union, which through concrete images present in an artistic way the 'heroes' of the great October Revolution, the Civil War and the Five-year Plans) – this is one of the crucial tasks of writers working for proletarian literature in China. Producing translations such as those of Razgrom and Zhelezhyi potok (Iron stream) [by Alexander Serafimovich] should be regarded as the responsibility of all Chinese revolutionary writers. Every revolutionary fighter on the literary front and every revolutionary reader should celebrate this victory, even though this is just a small victory… Translation – in addition to introducing the content of the original to Chinese readers – has another important function, that is, helping us create a new modern Chinese language… Since we are engaged in the struggle for a new modern Chinese language, we cannot but set two standards for translation : absolute accuracy and absolute vernacular Chinese. This is to introduce the language of a new culture to the masses… The use of absolute vernacular Chinese for translation does not necessarily mean that we cannot 'preserve the spirit of the original'. Of course, this is difficult and painstaking. But we must never balk at difficulties ; we must make every effort to overcome them… Even if the new words have not yet been completely assimilated, the potential for such assimilation is already there. As for new sentence structures, it is more difficult. Still, sentence structure in the spoken language have changed and improved greatly… |
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| 14 | 1931 |
Lu, Xun. A reply to Qu Qiubai [ID D38988]. My dear Comrade I was very pleased to read your letter on translation. Since the appearance of a flood of translations last year, many people have raised their eyebrows, sighed, and even made sarcastic remarks. As one who translates from time to time, I should have made some comments, though I haven't so far… Take, for an example, Old Master Zhao Jingsheng. On the one hand, he criticizes the translations of treatises written from a scientific perspective, saying that it is ludicrous for authors to be forced to remain anonymous. On the other, he proclaims that the common folk will probably not understand such translations… First we need to decide what sort of readers among the common folk we are translating for. There are roughly three types : 1) the well-educated ; 2) the semi-literature ; and 3) the illiterates. The third group actually cannot be classified as 'readers', and it is the task of paintings, public lectures, drama, and movies to enlighten them. But the same books should not be given to the first two categories of readers, each of which should be provided with reading material appropriate for them. Even for the second group, we cannot give them translations. Adaptations are good enough, but creative works are still the best… Why not Sinicize our translations entirely, and save our readers trouble ? Can an incomprehensible translation be called a translation at all ? My answer is : It is still a translation because it introduces not only new content but also new means of expression… Even in translating works for the second group of leaders, I think we should introduce new expressions and new syntax from time to time… Roughly speaking, our written language cannot yet be infused with the crude dialect of the different regions in China, and it should either be a special vernacular language, or the dialect of one special region… |
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| 15 | 1932 | Qu Qiubai schreibt in Wen xue yue bao : "Not only do works of literature function artistically to move the masses ; they also serve the broader purpose of setting high standards of writing. The beautiful, enjoyable language of Pushkin, Tolstoy, and Turgenev is useful even today and makes suitable textbook material." |
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| 16 | 1932 |
Qu, Qiubai. Again on translation : a reply to Lu Xun [ID D38989]. Dear Comrade Translation is still an extremely important issue in China. Since the May Fourth Movement, time and again the issue of translation has been raised, and time and again translation has been the subject of controversy. Yet the problem has not been resolved as far as basic principles are concerned… I have put forward the principle that 'in translating, one should absolutely adopt vernacular Chinese as the standard and achieve accuracy'… To say, as you did, 'accuracy even at the expense of fluency' or 'at present we could tolerate some degree of non-fluency' is to fail to pay heed to the principle that vernacular Chinese should absolutely be adopted as the standard… In translating as well as in writing works of our own, we should of course be bold enough to use new means of expression, new words and new sentence structures… We should not allow ourselves the easy way out and accept everything that is 'not fluent'… We must not only adopt strange-looking sentence structures, but also consider how these structures can 'become our own'. If in translating we just concentrate on 'bringing in strange-looking sentence structures' and fail to consider if these structures can be read aloud by living people… We should adopt a new guiding principle : we must make sure that new words and new sentence structures become alive and that these new means of expression can be assimilated into a living language… The new language should be a language of the masses – a language that the masses can understand and use. As the Chinese language is imprecise, we should make it more precise. As the Chinese language is unclear, we should make it clearer. As the Chinese language is not rich, we should make it richer… |
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Bibliography (22)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1920 |
Shen, Ying. Eluosi ming jia duan pian xiao shuo. (Beijing : Xin Zhongguo za zhi she, 1920). [Russische Short stories]. 俄罗斯名家短篇小说 [Enthält] : Qu, Qiubai. Lun Puxijin de bian er jin xiao shuo ji. [Artikel über Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin]. 论普希金的〈弁尔 金小说集〉 |
Publication / Pus87 | |
| 2 | 1922 |
Qu, Qiubai. E xiang ji cheng. = Xin Eguo you ji : cong Zhongguo dao Eguo di ji cheng. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1922). (Wen xue yan jiu hui cong shu). [Bericht seiner Reise von Beijing nach Russland 1920-1922, über Tianjin, Shenyang, Harbin, Manzhouli, Chita, Irkutsk]. 饿乡纪程 = 新俄國游記 : 從中國到俄國的記程 |
Publication / QuQ3 | |
| 3 | 1923 |
Qu, Qiubai. Hui se ma yu Eguo she hui yun dong. In : Xiao shuo yue bao ; vol. 14, no 11 (1923). [Savinkov, Boris Viktorovich. The pale horse and the Russian social movement]. 灰色馬 與 俄国社会运动史话 |
Publication / QuQ5 | |
| 4 | 1924 |
Qu, Qiubai. Chi du xin shi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1924). (Wen xue yan jiu hui cong shu). [Geschichte der roten Hauptstadt, Moskau]. 赤都心史 |
Publication / QuQ1 |
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| 5 | 1924 |
Qu, Qiubai. She hui ke xue jiang yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1924). [Vorlesungen Shanghai-Universität 1923 über Soziologie]. [Enthält] : Xian dai she hui xue [Moderne Soziologie], Xian dai jing ji xue [Moderne Wirtschaft], She hui yun dong shi [Geschichte der sozialen Bewegungen], She hui si xiang shi [Geschichte der sozialen Philosophie], She hui wen ti [Soziale Probleme], She hui zhe xue gai lun [Abhandlung über soziale Philosophie], She hui zhe xue gai lun [Abhandlung über soziale Philosophie]. 社會科學講義 |
Publication / QuQ4 |
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| 6 | 1924 ca. |
Qu, Qiubai. Makesi he Engesi. (1924). In : Qu Qiubai wen ji ; vol. 7 (1987-1995). [Marx und Engels]. 马克思和恩格斯 |
Publication / QuQ10 |
|
| 7 | 1924 |
[Tolstoy, Leo]. Tuo'ersitai duan pian xiao shuo ji. Tuo'ersitai zhu ; Qu Qiubai, Geng Jizhi yi. (Shanghai : Shang wu yin shu guan, 1924). (Gong xue she Eluosi wen xue cong shu). [Übersetzung von gesammelten Short stories von Tolstoy]. 托爾斯泰短篇小說集 |
Publication / Tol142 | |
| 8 | 1927 |
Qu, Qiubai. Shi yue ge ming qian de Eluosi wen xue. (Shanghai : Chuangzao she, 1927). [Russian literature before the October Revolution ; geschrieben 1921-1922]. 十月革命前的俄罗斯文学 |
Publication / QuQ6 |
|
| 9 | 1931 |
Qu Qiubai. On translation : a letter to Lu Xun. In : Chan, Leo Tak-hung. Twentieth-century Chinese translation theory : modes, issues and debates. (Amsterdam : John Benjamins, 2004). |
Publication / QuQ11 |
|
| 10 | 1932 |
Qu, Qiubai. Again on translation : a reply to Lu Xun. In : Chan, Leo Tak-hung. Twentieth-century Chinese translation theory : modes, issues and debates. (Amsterdam : John Benjamins, 2004). |
Publication / QuQ12 |
|
| 11 | 1933 |
Qu, Qiubai ; Lu, Xun. Xiao Bona zai Shanghai. (Shanghai : Ye cao shu wu, 1933). [Abhandlung über George Bernard Shaw]. 萧伯纳在上海 |
Publication / Shaw44 | |
| 12 | 1933 |
Yi tian de gong zuo. Lu Xun bian yi. (Shanghai : Liang you tu shuo yin shua gong si, 1933). (Liang you wen xue cong shu ; 4). [Übersetzungen von russischen Kurzgeschichten]. 一天的工作 [Enthält] : Bilinieke, B. Ku peng. Lu Xun yi. In : Dong fang za zhi ; vol. 27, no 3 (1930). Übersetzung von Pil'njak, Boris Andreevic. Polyn'. (1919). [Wurmstichiges Holz]. 苦蓬 Suifulinna, L. Feiliao. In : Bei dou ; vol. 1, no 1 (1931). Übersetzung von Seifullina, Lidija. Peregnoj. (1922). [Dung]. Luexike, N. Tie de jing ji. Übersetzung von Liasko, Nikolaj. Zeleznaja tisina. In : Zeleznaja tisina : rasskazy. (1922). [Eiserne Stille]. Nieweiluofu, A. Wo yao huo. Übersetzung von Neverov, Aleksandr. Ja chocu zit'. (1922). In : Neverov, Aleksandr. Das Antliz des Lebens : Erzählungen. Hrsg. und übers. von Maria Einstein. (Wien : Verlag für Literatur und Politik, 1925. [Ich will leben]. 我要活 Malashigeng, S. Gong ren. Übersetzung von Malaskin, Sergei. [Arbeiter]. (1922). 工人 Suilafeimoweizhi, A. Yi tian de gong zuo. Qu Qiubai yi. Übersetzung von Serafimovich, Aleksandr S. [A day of work. Original-Titel nicht gefunden]. [Auch in : Qu Qiubai wen ji. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1953). 瞿秋白文集]. 一天的工作 Suilafeimoweizhi, A. Cha dao fu. Qu Qiubai yi. Übersetzung von Serafimovich, Aleksandr S. [Original-Titel ev. Switchman (1891). In : Sand, and other stories. (Moscow : Foreign Languages Publ. House, 1958)]. [Auch in : Qu Qiubai wen ji. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1953). 瞿秋白文集]. 岔道夫 Fu'ermanuofu, D. Ge ming de ying xiong men. Übersetzung von Furmanov, Dmitri. Krasnyi desant. (1921). = Die roten Helden. (Berlin : Verlag der Jugendinternationale, 1928). [Helden der Revolution]. Suoluohefu, M. Fu qin. Übersetzung von Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich. Semejnyi elovek. In : Donskie rasskazy (1927). = Der Vater. In : Dreissig neue Erzähler des neuen Russland. (Berlin : Malik, 1929). 父親 Banfeiluofu, F. ; Yiliankefu, V. Ku mei, ren men he nai huo zhuan. Übersetzung von Panferov, Fedor Ivanovic ; Il'enkov, Vasilij Pavlovich. Koks Jiudi, ogneu porny kirpici. (1931). [Koks, Menschen und Bricket]. |
Publication / LuX19 |
|
| 13 | 1936 |
Hai shang shu lin. Qu Qiubai yi ; Lu Xun bian. Vol. 1-2. (Tokyo : Zhu xia huai shuang she jiao yin, 1936). [Nachgelassene Übersetzung von Qu Qiubai]. [Darin enthalten ist der von Qu Qiubai übersetzte Artikel von Lev, Kamenev. Goethe und wir, der 1932 in der sowjetischen Prawda als "Zum Gedächtnis Goethes" abgedruckt wurde]. 海上述林 |
Publication / Goe52 | |
| 14 | 1936 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Gao'erji xuan ji. Zhou Tianmin, Zhang Yanfu bian xuan ; [Qu Qiubai deng yi]. Vol. 1-6. (Shanghai : Shi jie wen hua yan jiu she, 1936). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Werke von Gorky]. 高爾基選集 [Enthält] : Vol. 1-2 : Xiao shuo. Vol. 3 : Xi ju. Vol. 4 : Shi ge, san wen, shu jian. Vol. 5 : Lun wen. Vol. 6: Fu lu, ping zhuan yi ji qi ta. |
Publication / Gork79 | |
| 15 | 1941 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Fen chang. Gao'erji zhu ; Qu Qiubai yi. (Beijing : Wen xue chu ban she, 1941). Übersetzung von Gorky, Maksim. Kladbishche. In : Sovremmennik ; no 2 (1913). In : Dva rasskaza. (Moscow : Ogonek, 1925). = The cemetery. In : Through Russia. Transl. from the Russian by C.J. Hogarth. (London : J.M. Dent, 1921). 坟場 |
Publication / Gork43 | |
| 16 | 1948 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Wei le ren lei. Gao'erji zhu ; Qu Qiubai, Lü Boqing he yi. (Shanghai : Zheng zha she, 1948). [Original-Titel nicht gefunden]. [For the sage of human beings]. 為了人類 |
Publication / Gork154 | |
| 17 | 1953 |
[Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich]. Ci gang. Puxijin zhu ; Qu Qiubai yi. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1953). Übersetzung von Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich. TSygany. (Moskva : A. Semen, 1827). = The gypsies. In : Pushkin, Aleksandr Sergeevich. The queen of spades and other stories. (London : Chapman and Hall, 1892). [Geschrieben 1824]. 茨岡 |
Publication / Pus9 | |
| 18 | 1953 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Gao'erji chuang zuo xuan ji. Qu Qiubai yi. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1953). [Übersetzung ausgewählter Werke von Gorky]. 高尔基创作选集 |
Publication / Gork47 | |
| 19 | 1954 |
[Marchwitza, Hans]. Aisen de xi ji. Maerheweicha zhu ; Qu Qiubai yi. (Beijing : Ren min wen xu chu ban she, 1954). Übersetzung von Marchwitza, Hans. Sturm auf Essen : die Kämpfe der Ruhrarbeiter gegen Kapp, Watter und Severing. (Berlin : Internationaler Arbeiter-Verlag, 1930). (Der rote Eine-Mark-Roman ; Bd. 1). 愛森的襲擊 |
Publication / March1 | |
| 20 | 1954 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Gao'erji lun wen xuan ji. Gao'erji ; Qu Qiubai yi. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she : Xin hua shu dian fa xing, 1954). Übersetzung von Gorky, Maksim. . literature : stat'i i rechi 1928-1936. (Moskva : Sovetskii pisatel, 1937). = Gorky, Maksim. On literature : selected articles. (Seattle, Wash. : University of Washington Press, 1973).. 高爾基論文選集 |
Publication / GorM1 | |
| 21 | 1956 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Gao'erji duan pian xiao shuo xuan. Qu Qiubai, Ba Jin yi. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1956). [Übersetzung von Short stories von Gorky]. 高尔基短篇小说选 |
Publication / GorM4 | |
| 22 | 1956 |
[Gorky, Maksim]. Duan pian xiao shuo ji. Qu Qiubai, Ba Jin yi. (Beijing : Ren min wen xue chu ban she, 1956). (Gao'erji xuan ji). [Übersetzung der gesammelten Short stories von Gorky]. 高尔基选集 : 短篇小說集 |
Publication / Gork36 |
Secondary Literature (9)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1931 | Lu, Xun. A reply to Qu Qiubai. (1931). In : Chan, Leo Tak-hung. Twentieth-century Chinese translation theory : modes, issues and debates. (Amsterdam : John Benjamins, 2004). | Publication / LuX217 |
|
| 2 | 1972 | Müller, Rolf Reiner. Der Klassenbegriff bei den führenden Vertretern der kommunistischen Bewegung in China bis 1923 : Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Qu Qiubai. Diss. Humboldt-Univ. Berlin, 1972. | Publication / MülR2 | |
| 3 | 1973 | Pickowicz, Paul Gene. Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai and the origins of marxist literary criticism in China. (Madison, Wisc. : University of Wisconsin, 1973 ; Ann Abor, Mich. : University Microfilms International, 1975). Diss. Univ. of Wisconsin, 1973. [Qu Qiubai]. | Publication / Pic1 |
|
| 4 | 1977 | Ellen Widmer. Qu Qiubai and Russian literature. In : Modern Chinese Literature in the May Fourth Era. Ed. by Merle Goldman. (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1977). | Publication / WidE11 | |
| 5 | 1980 | Grass, Helmut. Die politische Linie der Kommunistischen Partei Chinas unter der Führung Ch'ü Ch'iu-pais : 1927-1928. Magister-Arbeit Univ. Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1980. [Qu Qiubai]. | Publication / QuQ13 | |
| 6 | 1981 | Pickowicz, Paul G. Marxist literary thought in China : the influence of Ch'ü Ch'iu-pai. (Berkeley, Calif. : University of California Press, 1981). [Qu Qiubai]. | Publication / Pic4 |
|
| 7 | 1999 | Knight, Nick. The dilemma of determinism : Qu Qiubai and the origins of Marxist philosophy in China. In : China Information ; vol. 13, no 4 (1999). | Publication / QuQ2 |
|
| 8 | 2005 | Roux, Alain. Qu Qiubai (1899-1935), des "Mots de trop" (Duoyu de hua) : l'autobiographie d'un intellectuel engagé chinois. (Paris ; Louvain : Centre d'études chinoises ; Peeters, 2005). | Publication / Roux8 |
|
| 9 | 2005 | Knight, Nick. Marxist philosophy in China : from Qu Qiubai to Mao Zedong, 1923-1945. (Dordrecht : Springer, 2005). | Publication / Kni2 |