Sheng Cheng and his old friend Ba Jin (neutral is Li Jingyi)
In May 1935, after Sheng Cheng returned from Europe, he settled his family in Nanjing. Shortly thereafter, he reported that he had entered the Kuomintang Central Committee. It took about a year, in the summer of 1936, to leave the post. From his later self-descriptions, he did several things during this time.
First, he joined the China Literary and Art Society and participated in several activities. The second is to join the Sino-Soviet Cultural Association. Sheng Cheng said in "The New Book of the Old World: Memoirs of Sheng Cheng": "When the Literary and Art Society arrived in Shanghai, it was the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's birth (here should be the death, the author's note), and the Soviet side wanted us to publish a special collection. I proposed to find the Shanghai Commercial Press and organize a Shanghai branch of the Sino-Soviet Cultural Association. After agreeing, I went to Wei Wei,the acting director of the Shanghai Commercial Press,D.C., who promised to print it and became a member, responsible for editing Pushkin's memorial collection. ”
The historical facts are roughly the same, but Sheng cheng's memoirs are only based on oral accounts from memory and recorded by others in his later years, and are not audited, so there are slight errors in details. Sheng Cheng's description of "when the Literary and Art Society arrived in Shanghai" refers to the spring tour organized by the China Literary and Art Society in late April 1936, with members including Sheng Cheng, Xu Beihong, Xu Zhongnian, Wang Peijiang, Hua Lin, Ni Yansheng, Shi Jiang, Bu Shaofu, Wang Pingling, Xie Shoukang, Zhang Qianying, and more than 20 other people, and the time of arrival in Shanghai was 22. The Soviet side hoped to produce a special collection commemorating the 100th anniversary of Pushkin's death, which was later edited by Wei Wei and published by the Commercial Press "The Centenary Of the Death of Pushi Geng". Wei Wei (1896-1976, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, he was the vice mayor of Shanghai and vice minister of education) was the director of the editorial department of the Commercial Press. The Shanghai Branch of the Sino-Soviet Cultural Association was established on March 1 of that year, with Li Zhaohuan as the president and Pan Gongzhan and Li Gongpu as the directors. On June 29 of that year, Wei Wei and more than a dozen other people were approved to join the association by the resolution of the Council of the Shanghai Branch of the Sino-Soviet Cultural Association.
It was precisely because of the publication of this collection of the centenary of Pushkin's death that Sheng Cheng translated Pushkin's long poem "No Country NoMads" in 1936. In February of the following year, the Centenary Of The Death of Pu Shigeng was published by the Commercial Press. But somehow, he had moved his family from Beiping to Shanghai in early 1937, but he had never seen the publication. It was not until 1978, when he returned from overseas to settle down, that he first saw the book in the library of Peking University. He described his mood as "unusually happy" and immediately copied the translation and treasured it around him. Regarding the origin of the translation of this poem, Sheng Cheng not only briefly mentioned it in his memoirs, but also mentioned it in two other articles.
A recent article written around 1982, entitled "Deep Friendship - Memories of an Old Classmate and Old Friend", published in 1983 and compiled by the Literature and History Materials Research Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, is a book to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Xu Beihong's death. It must be pointed out that this article is noted as "Xu Tianfang's Notes" after the text. It can be seen from this that this article should be written by Sheng Cheng dictated and recorded by Xu Shi. However, I suspect that after it was compiled and not proofread by Shengbi, there were at least two obvious errors in The Gein text that could not be corrected:
The first mistake is that the text says: In the Qingming Dynasty of 1936, Sheng Cheng and his wife invited Ding Ling, Fang Lingru and Xu Beihong to spend three days together in Langya Mountain.
This statement is incorrect. The trip to Langya Mountain was indeed 5 people, for Sheng Cheng, Zheng Jian and his wife, plus Xu Beihong and Fang Lingru, and the other one was not Ding Ling, but Zheng Jian's brother Zheng Chengwu. Because of the great influence of the article "Deep Friendship" after its publication, the theory that Ding Ling participated in the trip to Langya Mountain was later quoted in many places, and frequently appeared in the annals or biographies of Xu Beihong, Fang Lingru and others, and eventually spread falsehoods. I once wrote an article titled "Who Fang Lingru Traveled with whom langya Mountain" (published in the Beijing Evening News) to examine this trip, which can be seen here.
In 1956, Ba Jin (first from right) and others presented flowers to the Pushkin Monument in Shanghai.
The second mistake is that Sheng Cheng in the text describes himself: "I found Beihong and told him that I intended to translate Pushkin's small poem about the wandering gypsies, "Tsagang"..."
Historical facts may be true, but the "small poem" is a big fallacy. Although Pushkin's poem "Tsigon" is not as long as his own other long poem, "Yevgeni Onegin", in the published "Centenary of the Death of Pushkin", I have carefully counted the 506 lines of Shengcheng's translation, and it is well-deserved to classify it as a long narrative poem. For Sheng Cheng, who had personally translated this poem, he would never refer to this work as a "small poem". Unfortunately, the "little poem" is the same as the ShengCheng couple mentioned in the same article, like Ding Ling, Fang Lingru, and Xu Beihong, who traveled to Langyashan, and was later repeatedly quoted into the relevant research materials by researchers without distinction.
In fact, Pushkin has another small poem of the same name in "Tsigon", which is only 16 lines short, and can be found in translation by Mudan and others. Therefore, it is very likely that the recorder (that is, the person who compiled the article "Deep Friendship") only knows one and misunderstands the other. When I wrote down to examine this matter and make some judgments about it, I should have found xu Tianfangshi, the recorder of that year, to seek my ability. But as the years passed, This Mr. Xu, who had intersected with Mr. ShengCheng, disappeared into the vast sea of people and was no longer possible to find.
Another article by Sheng Cheng about and translating the "Song of the No Country" is "In Memory of Pushkin – In Memory of his Deceased Friend Tania", published in The New China (Vol. V, No. 7), published on April 10, 1937. The time and place of writing after the text is very clear, it is "November 20, 1936, completed in Gonghe Zhouji".
In the article, Sheng Cheng recalls an 18-year-old Russian girl he met in the early 1920s while studying at montpellier University, Dan Ni Ya (Sheng Cheng also translated: "Dan Niang"). It was this Russian girl who was exiled to Europe because of the October Revolution that made Sheng Cheng know Pushkin for the first time, and the object of Pushkin's favorite was also known as "Big Niya". Pushkin's wandering gypsies (i.e., the Tsigans) and the real-life exiles who went to the country received Shengcheng's sympathy. He said in the text: "I have formed a karma with Pushkin because of my relationship with The Great Niya. ”
Cover of the Centenary of the Death of Pu Shi Geng (1937).
Similar to the historical Pushkin and Dani Ya who finally did not have a disease, and similar to the two young heroes and heroines in "No Country Nowhere", they first fell in love and then separated, and the Russian girl that Sheng Cheng knew, Da Ni Ya, finally married someone else.
In the summer of 1929, Sheng Cheng traveled to the Middle East and went to Tel Aviv ("Li Hao Baitou City" in Sheng Wen), which was still Palestine at the time, to visit the wife of the big niece. Sheng Cheng read a poem from la Muse Endolorie, a collection of French poems recently published in Cairo, "Pushkin's Lover" to the sick Dani. It was written for their commemoration after they broke up, and Sheng Cheng never imagined that there would be a day of goodbye, and he would read it to her in person. The last paragraph of the poem, translated into Chinese by Sheng Cheng, is as follows:
Regret still remembers the old,
Pampering is the most charming;
Whiteheads meet to talk about good luck,
The sea is merciless too unreal;
Dreams within the concentric rings on the waves,
Wake up and realize that the illusion is true.
Soon after saying goodbye to The Great Niya in Tel Aviv, Sheng Cheng and the Great Niya were separated forever. Therefore, Sheng Cheng's translation of "No Country Nomad Song" is not only a memorial to Pushkin, but also a memorial to his deceased friend Dani.
Sheng Cheng wrote at least two mourning poems about the meteor-like death of the big ni, the first of which is unknown, probably written shortly after the death of the big ni. Another was written in 1991.
"Remembering Dan Niang"
Mengcheng Pine Trail walk Danniang,
The crane crane of the long bridge of the diversion water died.
Hate me mercilessly away from France,
He is committed to Qin Lang all his life.
It is difficult to meet with each other than Kyo,
The Holy Land reunites sick in bed.
Complaining bitterly about the short life of private grief,
Canaan spring breaks free intestines.
"Mourning Dan Niang"
Mengcheng acquaintance forever blind date,
Qianying under the moon.
The first handshake of the small scripture painting building,
The Long Bridge Water Tower is destined for life.
Who knows a sad word,
Thus the three autumns long hate spring.
The Holy Land reunites to talk about the past,
The life and destiny are new.
Qu Qiubai
Cover of Qu Qiubai's translation of Tsuruga (1953).
Translation of the passage and time node
Wei Yu, the editor of the Centenary Of Pu Shigeng's Death, has a "Preface" in the book, which was written in Shanghai on January 20, 1937. The Preface gives thanks to Berth Saratov Tsev, Zhang Ximan and Sheng Cheng. Regarding Shengcheng, he said: "Mr. Shengchengzhong has made great contributions to the editorial plan of the commemorative collection. During his travels, he translated a long poem by a nomadic traveller. ”
In the article "Friendship in Love: Memories of an Old Classmate and Old Friend", there is a section entitled "A Translated Poem Condenses Friendship", which says: "I found this poem in a French library in Shanghai and immediately began to translate it." I found an apartment owned by a White Russian to live in, and devoted myself to translating Pushkin's poems every day. After the whole poem was translated, I took it to consult the Qin couple who had lived in Harbin for a long time and studied in the Soviet Union. Mrs. Qin was proficient in Russian, and together with them I compared the original text and deliberated word by word, and finally they affirmed that there was absolutely no mistake in my translation, not only the Russian flavor was strong, but also pushkin's taste was also very strong, so I relaxed my heart and happily immediately informed That The translation had been completed. ”
In this article, Sheng Cheng did not disclose the name of the Qin couple, combined with the "Old World New Sayings: Sheng Cheng's Memoirs", the Qin couple should be Sheng Cheng's friends Qin Diqing and Sun Sucheng. Qin Diqing, a Qin Baopu, also known as Qin Hui monk, was an early member of the Communist Party of China, who stayed in Suzhou to study, and shared the same dormitory as Jiang Guangchi. He later became an anarchist and was expelled from the party. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Sheng Cheng had entrusted his wife to the International Propaganda Committee in charge of the Russian language.
In recent years, many historical researchers have mentioned Qin Baopu when it comes to the history of the EARLY COMMUNIST Party, and said that his whereabouts after the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression are unknown. The answer may be found in the memoirs of Zhang Yulian, a famous female journalist of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, "White Cloud Flying Crossing". She mentioned that when she was working in the Russian language group of the International Propaganda Office, there was a Mrs. Qin, and her husband was Qin Diqing, who worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mrs. Qin is good at Russian and will not Chinese. Zhang Yulian lived in the Qin family twice during the "War of Resistance", which shows that the relationship is good. Even when she got married in March 1944, the bridegroom, Sun Gui, went to the Qin family to marry the bride. In this year, Qin Diqing was appointed by the Nationalist government as the second secretary of the Embassy in the Soviet Union to go to Moscow to perform his duties. When he stepped down from office, it was the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communists, and Zhang Yulian said that the Qin couple had gone to the United States, so there was no news of them on the mainland.
In the book "Collection of Centenarys of the Death of Pu Shigeng", Sun Suxuan wrote "The Review of Yefu Jienio Niejin" and Qin Diqing translated Pushkin's novella "Dubrovsky".
In the autumn of 1936, Sheng Cheng had a trip to Xianggui. In the "Memoirs of Sheng Cheng", the time of arrival in Xiangxiang has not been determined, and there are two statements: one is that "in the autumn of 1936, Liu Huajiu came to me and asked me to go to Changsha in the name of He Jian (Yunqiao), the chairman of Hunan Province"; second, "In October, Liu Huajiu left Shanghai first, and I took the Beijing-Shanghai night train to meet him on a boat under the Gate in Nanjing." After arriving in Wuhan, we took a ride to Changsha together. There is no contradiction between "autumn" and "October" in these two places, but combined with the content of the memoir, "October" should be a misremember. Because, even if you arrive in Hunan in early November, it seems that there is no possibility of staying in Changsha for a month. If the purpose of going to Changsha is described in the memoirs, it is estimated that the time spent living for one week, or at most two weeks, is to be invited by He Jian to go to Nanyue Hengshan.
Shu Xincheng recorded several events in his diary in 1936, among which Yun, Shengcheng arrived in Shanghai from Ningbo in the summer of this year, and had the intention of looking for a job. On November 13, the diary recorded: "Sheng Cheng is visiting, saying that he will go to Guilin. Therefore, Sheng Cheng went to Xiang, when after that.
Sheng Cheng boarded the "Gonghe" ship at Xiaguan in Nanjing, and rendezvoused with Liu Huajiu to go to Wuhan, and then from Wuhan to Changsha by car. "In Memory of Pushkin – In Memory of Her Dead Friend Tania" was completed on the steamship. The time is certain, it is November 20, 1936.
In the days of Changsha, Sheng Cheng did not give up his work, and the long poem "No Country NoMad Song" was completed here. From the books that have been published, we can know the specific time and place where Sheng Cheng's translation was completed, that is, " On November 30, 1936, the manuscript was completed at the Guanyue Temple in Changsha. The "Guanyue Temple" in Changsha was the location of the Hunan Provincial Government Guest House at that time.
After that, Sheng Cheng went up Hengshan Mountain with He Jian, Liu Fei, Liu Huajiu and others, went to Guilin with Liu Fei, met guangxi leaders Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi, and met with his friend Xu Beihong, and spent about half a month together (during which the "Xi'an Incident happened"), because his wife was in Beiping, Sheng Cheng rushed straight back to Beiping from Guilin. On December 29, Sheng Cheng arrived at ping. The next day, Zheng Jian gave birth to their third child (daughter Sheng Di Na). Until March 4 of the following year, Sheng Cheng and his family moved to Shanghai. At this time, the "Collection of Centenarys of the Death of Pu Shigeng" had been published.
Therefore, Sheng Cheng's "Song of the Wandering People without a Country" was translated in Changsha and sent directly to Shanghai before going to Hengshan. The recipient should be Wei Yu, the editor of the Centenary Of the Death of Pu Shigeng.
Therefore, Wei Yu's statement in the Preface that Sheng Cheng "translated a long poem by a countryless wanderer during his travels" is not accurate, because a long poem of hundreds of lines can never be completed in a short period of time. However, this statement indirectly confirmed the fact that Sheng Cheng sent the translation to Wei Yu during his travels. In addition, according to the statement in "Deep Friendship and Friendship: Memories of an Old Classmate and Old Friend", Sheng Cheng completed the revision with the Qin couple in Shanghai and "happily and immediately informed that the translation of Beihong had been completed", which is not entirely accurate. Historical fact, in the summer of 1936, Sheng Cheng arrived in Shanghai, rented an apartment owned by a Belarusian, and found a French translation of the poem from a French library and began to translate it. Before leaving Shanghai for Xiang in mid-November, the first draft of the translated poem should have been completed and revised with the help of the Qin couple, who were fluent in Russian. Finally, on November 30, the translation was finished at the Guanyue Temple in Changsha and sent to the editor Wei Yu.
Statue of Pushkin
Several translations have their own charms
Pushkin's long poem was written in 1824. The earliest translator of this poem in China was Qu Qiubai, which began in the winter of 1933. However, it is a small regret that the translator was soon ordered to leave Shanghai in a hurry to go to Ruijin in the Soviet Union, and he could not finish the article. Before leaving, Qu Qiubai gave the translation to Peng Ling. This translation was first published in May, a comprehensive poetry series published by the Wuhan Poetry Work Society in May 1938, provided by the conservator of the translation and arranged in Sikkim. In March 1940, the Shanghai Wanye Bookstore published a single edition. Later, it was published in the "Pushkin Collected Works" published by the Times Publishing House. It should be noted that these publications have used the unfinished manuscript of Qu Translation.
Mao Dun wrote in the People's Daily on June 18, 1949, highly praising qu's translation: "Poetry and drama, the last part of the translation of "Cigang" is probably lost in this way. This is a great loss for us. To this day, there is no better translation of the Tsugaon, and there is no equally good translation to continue the unfinished parts of the Qu translation. Mao Dun even pessimistically believed in the text: "So this piece of residue is probably going to be permanently mutilated." ”
Soon after, in February 1953, the "Editorial Committee of the Qu Qiubai Anthology" rearranged it according to the manuscript and republished it by the People's Literature Publishing House. In this edition, there is a "Book Publication Notes" in the editorial department, which mainly summarizes the ins and outs of Qu's translation of "Cigang" and explains that the unfinished part of Qu's translation was completed by Li He (Qu Duyi's husband). The text of this "publication note" is very short, but it is wrong to mention the time of the two previous publications of Qu Translation. But this did not prevent this version from becoming one of the more influential versions of Pushkin's Chinese translation of the poem. In addition to the quality of the translation itself, the translator's martyr status or fear is also one of the important reasons.
Political considerations aside, it seems that other Chinese translations of Pushkin's poem should not be completely forgotten. For example, Shengcheng's translation of Pushkin's research on the circulation of Pushkin's works in China and the study of Shengcheng will be a good target, and it should not be randomly drowned by the flow of time.
Judging from the time of the first translation, the Sheng translation is later than the Qu translation. The Qu translation is taken directly from The Russian language, while the Sheng translation is translated from the French language. However, there are two places that cannot be ignored, first, the Sheng translation was completed at the end of November 1936, which is the complete version; second, the Sheng translation was published in February 1937, more than a year before the earliest publication time of the Qu translation.
As for judging the superiority of the two translations, it seems superfluous. But to make a simple comparison, it is still interesting. Taking the first stanza of the long poem as an example, let's look at the Shengcheng translation:
"A cacophony of noisy voices, a noisy brigade,
A group of stateless homeless people, passing through the Balabbi;
On this one date, they spent a long night on the riverbank.
They spent the night, but rested in a tent that had been broken.
Under the firmament, everyone sleeps peacefully, and they all sleep peacefully,
Their lodgings. But breathing freedom and joy.
......”
Look at Qu Qiubai's translation:
"A large group of lively Tsegon
Wander along The Pasarabe.
They spent the night today, right there
Tattered tents were erected on the river.
Free, and the sky to make their tents,
Good happy night, their dream of peace.
From a formal point of view, the poems translated by Sheng are neatly arranged, and the long and short sentences of Qu translation are relatively free to refer to each other. In addition to Qu Qiubai's "Cigang", this poem also has translations of Li Liewen's "Bohemians" and Yu Zhen's "CigangRen". The Li translation, also translated from French, was included in the "Collection of Works of Pu Shi Geng" published by Guangming Book Company in March 1937, and in terms of time, it was published only a month later than Sheng Translation. However, Li's translation adopted the prose style, completely destroying the poetic branch form of the original work. The remaining translation was published even later, as late as 1948. Thus, the Sheng translation should have been pushkin's earliest published Chinese translation of the poem.
The most wonderful thing is the edition of the clay paper edition "Selected Poems of Pushi Geng: Prisoners of the Caucasus" published (published) by The Guilin Zhongliu Bookstore in February 1943, which was selected as Qu's translation of "Cigang", but the unfinished part was also translated by Sheng. The editor is Cao Xin, also known as Cao Xinzhi. This book is relatively rare and was lost by Jia Zhifang and other editors of the General Bibliography of Modern Chinese Literature.
In Pushkin's poem, there are two young heroes and heroines, Sheng translates as Aligu and Qin Feilao; Qu translates as Alleg and Zhenfei'er; Li translates as Yaleko and Zang Huina; and Yu translates as Alleg and Jinfeira.
In the combined edition of The Qu Translation and the Sheng Translation of the Zhongliu Bookstore, the editor also made a special note in the book: "Here, the last few paragraphs translated by Mr. Sheng Cheng are recorded on the left (for the sake of seeking the unity of the names of the people, the editor has changed the names of the people in this paragraph according to the Qu translation)".
Original title: Sheng Cheng's translation of Pushkin's "No Country Nomad Song"
Source: Beijing Daily Author: Wu Lin
Process Editor: l004