Mr. Yi Lijun, a Polish literary translator and scholar, died in Beijing at 4:35 p.m. on February 7, 2022 due to illness at the age of 87.
Mr. Yi Lijun
Born on December 4, 1934 in Huanggang, Hubei Province, Yi Lijun began teaching at the Department of Eastern European Languages of Beijing Chinese University of Foreign Studies (now the European Institute of Languages and Cultures) in 1962, and is a professor at Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, a doctoral supervisor, a member of the Chinese Writers Association and the Translation Association, and a senior translator. He has published more than ten books, such as Polish Literature and History of Polish Postwar Literature. He has won the "Lifetime Achievement Award for Translation Culture", the highest award in the field of Chinese translation, various medals, meritorious medals and various honorary titles awarded by the Polish President and the Polish Ministers of Culture, Education and Foreign Affairs, and the "Crossing the Atlantic" Award for World Polish Literary Translators in 2012 by the Polish Book Club.
On February 8, the official microblog of the Polish Embassy in China posted a eulogy saying: "She has made outstanding contributions to cultural exchanges between Poland and China. The Polish Embassy in China expresses its deep condolences on the passing away of Professor Yi Lijun. Her fall was a great loss to the Polish-Chinese translation community as well as the literary community. We will always remember Professor Yi's warm, optimistic, rigorous and straightforward attitude towards life and her outstanding contribution throughout her life. ”
In 2019, Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Mr. Yi Lijun is the translator of Olga Tokarczuk's two novels "Taikoo and Other Times" and "House by Day, House by Night", and is also one of the earliest scholars in China engaged in the translation and research of Polish literature. Nandu reporters took the opportunity to visit Mr. Yi Lijun, who lives in a corner of the campus of Chinese University outside Beijing.
She was 85 years old and still in good spirits, her daughter settled abroad, and her granddaughter had graduated with a doctorate. The family's wife was bedridden, and she took care of her alone. She talked about her experience of studying at the University of Warsaw with her wife Yuan Hanjun, talked about the Polish literature she had loved all her life, and also talked about the hard work of translating the industry, her first translation was Adam Mickiewicz's "Ancestor Sacrifice" translated by Adam Mickiewicz, which was published by the People's Literature Publishing House in 1976 and received a warm response. He Qifang, then director of the Institute of Chinese Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also praised: "This book is well written, well translated, and well produced." Speaking of the current popular writers and works in China, she also bluntly expressed her opinion. It was an unforgettable evening. The following is the original interview at the time to mourn this honorable and lovely deceased.
Yi Lijun: The national destiny of Poland is reflected in literature
(Originally published in Southern Metropolis Daily Reading Weekly on November 17, 2019)
"We have English literature and Russian literature read, French literature read, German literature is almost, and some people still read it. Very few people read small language literature. "To really do literary translation, you have to sit on the cold bench, don't care about everything, I'll sit here and translate when I get home from class... Now no one is doing it, and no one is looking at it, which is quite discouraged. ”
When it comes to the current situation of translation and acceptance of small language literature, Mr. Yi Lijun, an 85-year-old Polish literary translator and scholar, is quick to speak. With her short, curly hair, she wears a thin down and linen knitted vest in late autumn weather, and greets visitors warmly at her home on the North Outer Campus.
In terms of literature, Poland is a country to be reckoned with. In just a century or so, five Polish writers and poets have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, including the 19th-century critical realist writer Henrik Szynkowicz, Vladislav Lémont, who created the Polish national epic "The Farmers", Chesław Milosz, who has been cited by many contemporary Chinese poets, the "poetic Mozart", the funny and charming Visłava Sinboska, and this year's addition . Olga Tokarczuk, who swept readers with an encyclopedic imagination and a clear prose style.
Mr. Yi Lijun is the translator of Olga Tokarczuk's two novels "Taikoo and Other Times" and "House by Day, House by Night", and is also one of the earliest scholars in China engaged in the translation and research of Polish literature. In the 1950s, she and her husband Yuan Hanjun were jointly sent to Poland to study, and they fell in love with each other on the beautiful Warsaw University campus, and after returning to China, they "teamed up" to do literary translation. One of them was responsible for text semantics, the other for embellishment and polishing, and so on, and collaborated on a series of important literary works in the history of Polish literature, including Adam Mitskevich's "Sacrifice of the Ancestors" and "Mr. Tadusch", "Fire and Sword" and "Torrent", Vitord Kambrović's "Ferdi Dukai", Che Milosz's "The Imprisoned Mind", Herbert's "Still Life Painting with a Horse Chew", and so on, some of which caused great repercussions when they were published.
For her great contributions to polish language teaching and the translation and research of Polish literature, Mr. Yi was awarded the Medal of Cultural Merit of the People's Republic of Poland and the Republic of Poland twice in 1984 and 1997. In 2018, she was awarded the "Lifetime Achievement Award for Translation Culture", the highest award in the Field of Translation in China.
Now, long retired, she lives in seclusion on the campus where she has worked all her life, taking care of her sick wife alone. The only daughter settled abroad and occasionally returned to visit. Prominently on the bookshelf was her granddaughter's doctoral graduation photo, which Mr. Yi Lijun proudly showed us.
She gives the impression of love and hate, and her heart is straight. Referring to the fact that very few Chinese readers have read Tokarczuk, she said, "People don't know what to do, and now no one reads." "She also praised the famous writers in the history of Polish literature, not blindly praising. For example, she likes milosz, who is full of philosophical meanings, but has a lot of criticism of another Polish poet who is popular in China, Cimborska, thinking that she is mainly "playing with children's poems".
She also spoke of the pride of the Poles. Even if you win the Nobel Prize in Literature, it is not a big deal in the eyes of poles. All this has to do with the history of Poland and its unique national character. "I think Polish literature is very good literature. The national destiny of Poland as a whole is reflected in Polish literature, more profoundly than in Russian literature. Yi Lijun said.
Nandu interviewed Yi Lijun
Nandu: When you were sent to study abroad in 1954, could you choose which country to go to?
Yi Lijun: No, they are all national factions. The state sends wherever it goes. I remember when I was studying at school, it was almost the end of the exam, and suddenly a few of us didn't take the exam, went to Beijing, and didn't know what to do. There were 5 of us in total, and we asked if we could go after the exam and said we didn't need to take the exam. When we arrived in Beijing, we were told to study abroad. Three months of political studies. At that time, a large number of people went to stay in the Soviet Union, about 2,000 people, and there were more than 100 people in other socialist countries in Eastern Europe at that time, including 17 in Poland. This is all state-allocated. We read the list of more than 100 people together, who is who is in Poland, who is who is in the Czech Republic, who is who is in Bulgaria ... Wherever you read, you're wherever you go.
Seventeen people went to Poland, did not know a word, did not understand Polish at all, learned from scratch. I studied Chinese at Wuhan University in China, and my first foreign language was Russian. In Poland, when we first started classes in Russian, the teacher taught us Polish in Russian, taught us word by word, learned Polish for a year, and went to the University of Warsaw when we were finished. When I went to college, I went to the Polish Language and Literature Department, from the first year until the fifth grade. So I spent six years in Poland at that time.
Nandu: What major did you study at the University of Warsaw? Were the learning conditions difficult at that time?
Yi Lijun: At the Department of Polish Language and Literature at the University of Warsaw, I studied Polish literature and European literature like Poles, starting from ancient literature and Homeric epics.
It's tough. I'm tired of studying, and I have to learn two points every night. I'm studying. Especially later, I went to the Department of Polish Language and Literature, and as soon as the school started, I sent out a list of books, 91 books, so that you could read them one by one this semester. Exams are taken according to this book list. The teacher said, you can not come to this class, but the book list must be read.
We went to the Polish Language and Literature Department for a total of 5 people, two women and three men. Later, after graduating, two went to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and two went to the Academy of Social Sciences, and I went to the North. I didn't go to the north at first, but to the radio station, which was called the Polish major of the Central Broadcasting Bureau at that time. But I didn't major in Polish, so I was assigned to the Russian language group for two years as a journalist. I think it's so boring, I learn Polish, why are you here? Later, the major adjustment of international students was adjusted, because at that time, the allocation of work by international students was not reasonable, and all non-use students had to be re-registered. I felt that I should leave the radio station and go to the north to teach Polish. It was 1962. I graduated in 1960 and went to The North in 1962. I haven't moved when I get to the north. He taught Polish and studied Polish literature all his life.
Nandu: When you first returned to China, was the Polish language talent in the country in a blank state?
Yi Lijun: It's not completely blank. Because when I was studying in Poland, I ran a Polish language class in the country. I went to Wuhan University in 1953 and went to Poland in 1954. At the same time, the Department of Eastern European Languages was established in the Beijing Foreign Chinese College, now called the European Language and Culture Institute, and the Polish language major was opened in the Department of Eastern European Languages, and 3 Polish experts were invited to teach 15 people, which was very good. Although the language environment is a little worse than in Poland, 3 experts with 15 people have a lot of time to practice speaking. Later, the head of our teaching and research department graduated here.
The beginning of the translation business
Nandu: When did you start translating literature?
Yi Lijun: I started translating in 1968, translating Adam Mickiewicz's The Sacrifice of the Ancestors. The theme of "Ancestor Sacrifice" is the struggle of Polish patriots against Tsarist Russia, and patriots are thrown into prison. Performing this play in Poland in 1968 caused a shock in Poland. This matter was also noticed by the Chinese leaders, and Premier Zhou Enlai once said at a meeting, how can a book cause fluctuations in Polish society? What kind of book is this? Can you translate it and see?
So I looked for someone to turn it over. The older generation of experts did not know Polish, and it was not appropriate to translate from English, so they asked, do you know Polish? A friend who was living in one of the units with me at the time, who was an editor at the People's Literature Publishing House, said that I knew someone who knew Polish, and that was me. By then I was already teaching in the North. After his recommendation, I translated the book.
Nandu: Did you translate this book independently?
Yi Lijun: The two of us, me and my old man Yuan Hanjun. All my translations were translated by two people. I finished translating him to see, his Chinese is good, in the language I give processing polishing. My old man graduated from the physics department of the University of Warsaw, we went abroad together, we studied together, he was in the physics department, I was in the literature department. Our dorm at that time was a small villa in a big garden, which was particularly beautiful. I live in the front house and he lives in the back house.
Nandu: What was the reaction to "Ancestor Sacrifice" after its publication?
Yi Lijun: After the translation of "Ancestor Sacrifice", it was shelved for historical reasons. The real publication was published in 1976 by the People's Literature Publishing House. When it came out, the response was particularly good. This book is well written, translated, and published well, this is what He Qifang, director of the Institute of Chinese Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.
Nandu: Since "Ancestor Sacrifice", have you slowly become involved in literary translation?
Yi Lijun: After the "Ancestor Sacrifice" came out, I felt that the reaction was very good and very interesting. But for a long time I didn't do much Polish translation either. The editor of the "Ancestor Sacrifice" later became good friends with me, because he edited my book, and he asked me for a manuscript every year, and I translated it for him every year. Since the 1980s, I have published many translated short stories in World Literature. When I do literary translation, publishers are looking for me, not me looking for them. Later, I was found to translate The knickwic trilogy in the 1990s.
Tokarczuk belongs to "unreal realism"
Nandu: Your first translation of Tokarczuk's first book was "Taikoo and Other Times", was this also at the invitation of the publishing house?
Yi Lijun: This is more complicated. A large block of publishing houses in Taiwan bought the rights to the book at the Frankfurt International Book Fair. When buying a book, the Polish who sold the copyright to him told him that if you want to find a translator, you should find Yi Lijun. Poles know me because I studied in Poland and I have a lot of friends in Poland. As a result, I was approached by a large number of publishers and turned to them "Taikoo and Other Times", and after the publication of the book, a second "Scrapbook for Collecting Dreams" was published. After the Taiwanese traditional Chinese edition was published, the mainland also published it.
Nandu: What were your first impressions when you read Tokarczuk's work?
Yi Lijun: When I read the book "Taikoo and Other Times", I think it is literature that I have not been exposed to before. It is more illusory, and its reality is also an illusory reality. It's not magic realism, it's unreal realism. This is a word that has not been found in the history of literature. Tokarczuk's concept of time is very imaginary, and the characters in the novel are also very imaginary. These people are not the same as the people in our real life. There was an old lady in it, and she was like the Persephone in Greek mythology, persephone was on the ground for half a year, half a year underground. This old lady was sleeping for half a year, living for half a year, and she told stories when she was alive. The title of my translation is "A Concrete and Illusory Symphonic Poem of Existence." Tokarczuk is characterized by illusion. But if you read it well, the novel is indeed very rich and brilliant. Myths, legends, epics, stories, she all blended into one text.
Nandu: In "Taikoo and Other Times", what are the legends and myths that belong exclusively to Poland?
Yi Lijun: It's not exactly the myths and legends of Poland, it includes things from all over Europe. The old lady who was half a year on the ground, half a year underground, that is from Greek mythology. The virgin with a long beard is not from the Polish tradition, but from the European literary tradition. The whole story is about Polish things, about everyday life in Poland, but the concept of time comes from European culture. In addition to human time, there is also the time of the house, the time of the orchard, the time of the linden tree, the time of the game, and she personifies the things. But it's not unique to Poland either. My friend who works for World Literature, he speaks Czech. He said that these things are also found in Czech literature. It grew out of the entire European literary tradition.
Nandu: "Swire and Other Times" was selected as a secondary school textbook in Poland, why is it so popular with the public?
Yi Lijun: I think it's because it's very new. It's written in a new way. Polish literature is divided in this way, ancient literature, Renaissance literature, Enlightenment literature, then Romantic literature, Polish Romantic literature is famous in Europe, Mickiewicz, Słowski and Krasinski are the three masters of Romanticism. They were followed by realist literature, including Henrik Schenkwitz and Vladislav Lemont. But these people write in a very traditional way. Romantic literature was similar to Pushkin's in Russia, and realist literature was similar to Balzac's in France. But Tokarczuk's way of writing, the way of writing that makes reality illusory, is unprecedented in Europe. Or magic realism, that's another concept.
Nandu: And she has a heavy lifting ability to show very grand historical facts in a very light way. What literary traditions have she been influenced by?
Yi Lijun: She is not from the literature department, she is completely self-taught. She reads a lot, and if you want to talk about influence, there are influences everywhere. She said, I read a lot all day, nothing else. With a wide range of reading and a mixture of readings, it is difficult to say which faction she is. She herself couldn't tell.
Nandu: In the novel House by Day, House at Night, Tokarczuk uses some of the contemporary narratives of dreams found on the Internet. Her writing style is very inspiring, and she collects material from all over the place.
Yi Lijun: She has everything at her fingertips. The title of the novel literally translates from Polish as "House by Day, House at Night", but the Taiwanese version changes the title to "Scrapbook of Collecting Dreams". Because this book was meant to be about all kinds of dreams. The house during the day is real life, and the house at night is illusory and fantasy. The Taiwanese translation does not want the house during the day, and simply talks about dreams. In fact, the dream is only half of it, so it is not very appropriate to change it. I told them that this change was not very appropriate. The house during the day is the reality, and the house at night is the dream. But the editor wanted to point out the problem, and indeed the dream played a big role in it.
Nandu: What are the characteristics of Tokarczuk's language of Polish fiction?
Yi Lijun: Her language is very fluent. You see I'm also translating big vernacular, very straight, very fluent, very fresh language. I try to keep her language style as I try to translate. She didn't have that kind of long sentence, and she didn't have that kind of chewing words. She is also an approachable person, and she speaks in the vernacular. She herself is also very free, very straight, very easy to contact, and does not put up shelves at all.
Nandu: She herself said a sentence about literature, she said, "Literary creation is first of all to be wise", how do you think creative wisdom should be understood?
Yi Lijun: For example, Tokarczuk also talks about war and history, but what she talks about is not the same as what is usually said. Looking at the problem from another perspective, she may see it more deeply, or she may look a little shallower than others, which is difficult to say. The deep read the deep, and the shallow read the shallow.
Nandu: You wrote a monograph, "History of Polish Post-War Literature," to which stage of Polish post-war literature did Tokarczuk belong to?
Yi Lijun: Contemporary. When Poland was just liberated, the literature of the Restoration period was realism. Then it diverged, and all kinds of doctrines came out. Poland is a relatively liberal country, and the ideological circles are more active. Polish literature began as a realist literature, depicting the destruction of war, the resistance of the Polish people in the struggle, and the stories of the heroes of the Polish people. It's similar to our literature after the War of Resistance. Later, it became more and more different from us. Its literature reflects reality and begins to expose the dark side of Polish society. Since then, various modern literary genres have emerged, including magic realism, science fiction literature... This group of people who came to the literary world around 1956 was called "contemporary", and there were also some realist writers in the contemporary school, and some others, some were aestheticism, some were exposed literature, but there was no literature that sang praises. There is no praise in Polish literature, it is different from Czech literature.
In Tokarczuk's generation, the stories she heard were also told to her by her grandmother. There are many things that she didn't experience herself. Tokarczuk's perspective on history and the world is more relaxed than previous generations of writers. It used to be a "soul draped in a mourning veil," and this soul of hers was pure. We have a national spirit that is in common with Poland, that is, "to profit from the life and death of the country, and to avoid it because of misfortune."
Poles take it for granted that international literary awards are awarded to Poles
Nandu: What is the current situation of translation of Polish literature in the country as a whole?
Yi Lijun: No one translated. Zhao Gang, the student I trained the best and most qualified to engage in translation, is now the dean of the European Institute of Language and Culture, and he is the most talented. Now he doesn't translate this kind of thing at all. We study languages, languages, economics, politics, no literature.
Now I know that there are those who teach Polish in Tianjin, those who teach Polish in Chengdu, Sichuan, and those in Zhaoqing and Guangwai. Many people teach Polish, but not Polish literature. Those are all graduates of our school. Graduates of our school can only teach the Polish language, not literature. When I taught them, it was a long time ago. I've written monographs, and I don't know if they read them or not, but it doesn't affect them anyway. I wrote two books, Polish Literature and a History of Polish Postwar Literature. I think if they want to see it, it's a dragonfly, and they don't study it themselves.
Nandu: An objective reality is that it's hard to translate.
Yi Lijun: To really engage in literary translation, you have to sit on the cold bench, everything, and when I get home from class, I will sit here and translate. There are no people like me now. It took more than a year to translate this book, working until one or two o'clock every night. When I came back from class, I had to prepare for class, and I was done translating after preparing for class. Sleep is about four or five hours a day, and the rest of the time is work. The fee is very low, and if it is for the fee, it is basically possible to leave it alone. People's Literature Publishing House, I translated a lot for them, and gave them more than ten thousand yuan. But that was also many years ago. Now no one is doing it, and no one is looking at it, which is very discouraged.
Some people read English literature and Russian literature, some people read French literature, German literature is almost there, and some people still read it. Very few people look at it in small languages. I think Polish literature is very good literature. The national destiny of Poland as a whole is reflected in Polish literature, more profoundly than in Russian literature. Tolstoy does not reflect the fate of the whole of Russia, he reflects the life of the poor, the fate of the common people. But Polish literature speaks of the fate of a people, and this is very powerful.
Nandu: Can you tell us about your contact with Tokarczuk himself?
Yi Lijun: I haven't contacted her since 2009. In 2008, the China Writers Association invited her to come. After I came, I was invited to go. It was a seminar. After I went, I invited her to our school to give a report to the students, and our principal invited her to a meal, and then came to my house to sit down and talk for a while. In 2009, I went to Poland to attend an international congress of Polish translators, and I met her, and she also attended the conference, and we met by chance. At that time, the Chinese translations of these two books, "Taikoo and Other Times" and "The House by day, the house at night", had already come out, and she also had them. We'll talk a little bit about her book, and my understanding is correct, right.
We talked and found out that she was the same year as my daughter. My daughter was born in 1962, and Tokarczuk was born in 1962. She said, exactly, I'm just like your daughter. A joke.
Nandu: So far, Polish writers have won five Nobel Prizes in Literature, which is a very impressive achievement all over the world. What is the attitude of Polish nationals towards the Nobel Prize?
Yi Lijun: Poland is not a big country, but it is indeed a literary power. But poles don't take this Nobel Prize in Literature too seriously. I was chatting with them in the embassy yesterday, and I said, congratulations, you've won the Nobel Prize. They say, what is this? They held an event where dozens of people would read a book, each handing out a card and one person reading a paragraph.
Poland is also a very interesting people. It is particularly proud. Poles take it for granted to give prizes to Poles. But there's nothing remarkable about it. There is a pride in the soul of the Poles. How did this arrogance come about? It was forced out by the three great powers of Prussia, Russia and Austria. These three countries divided Poland that year, for 123 years. The original Poland was larger, including now Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. All that's left now is the core of Poland. The first words of Mickiewicz's work are called "Lithuania, my motherland". At the time of his writing, Lithuania was still part of Poland, the home of Mickiewicz. So the Polish nation is very interesting, it has honed a kind of pride, which no country in Eastern Europe has.
In addition, the Polish nation has a natural pursuit, that is, to pursue independent existence and eternal existence. This is not only revealed in the works of writers, but also in the minds of every Pole. This is a national nature, a national nature that pursues independent existence.
Nandu: Why didn't you translate Szymborska's poems?
Yi Lijun: Why don't I translate? I don't think I understand her poems. If I understood, I thought her poems were too bland. Actually I didn't understand it, so I didn't translate her poems. In fact, the literature of these countries in Eastern Europe, we Chinese readers do not seem to look up to, this is all small country literature. That is, Milan Kundera was watched. No one in Poland is as famous as Kundera in China. Kundera is so famous because he has a deep insight into society.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian