In recent times, there has been a lot of discussion about "scar literature". There is indeed no shortage of insights, but there are also many people who have not figured out the definition of "scar literature", and it is really ridiculous to talk about it there. After reading most of the headlines about "scar literature", some of the feelings are really unpleasant.
The beginning of "scar literature"
First of all, we must be clear: "scar literature" is a literary phenomenon that dominated the literary world in Chinese mainland in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The reason why this time period is located in the late 1970s and early 1980s is really because of the historical background. As we all know, the period 1966-1976 was a special decade, and the reason why "scar literature" first appeared and became a literary phenomenon was to completely negate and criticize that decade.
Scar literature is the first new literary trend that emerged in the new era. The new period of socialism begins with the complete negation of that decade, which is the historical root of the eruption of scar literature. The literature of the new period must first face that decade, so scar literature naturally takes this historical period as an important content. The literary works of that time, with stories of joy and sorrow, or bloody scenes, strongly accused the mental trauma caused to the Chinese people for a decade, and strongly condemned the ultra-left line that was raging. This is the core ideological connotation of scar literature.
So when discussing "scar literature," those who say that "scar literature" caters to Western tastes and how well we in China are now developing, while some writers are keen to expose the dark side of society, can shut up. Because you don't even understand what "scar literature" is.
Wen Wei Po first published the short story "Scars"
Second, our current "scar literature" begins with Lu Xinhua's short story "Scars", published in Wen Wei Po in August 1978. This novel exposes the serious damage caused to the chinese society, especially the young generation, by the erroneous ideas of the "Left" and the "theory of descent", and is the first reflection on that decade.
Therefore, "scar literature" is worthy of recognition, especially in the era when "whatever" thought was still dominant, and that decade caused collective reflection among the masses. "Scar literature" is an awakened generation that is a strong indictment of the nightmarish and perverse years of suffering that have just passed. The authors of "Scar Literature" pay attention to and think about the truth of life with a sober and sincere attitude, face the tragic history head-on, and present a picture of life in that decade in their works. The complete denial of that decade is the spiritual essence of scar literature.
"In the Silent Place" sounded the strongest sound of the times
Scars is a beginning. Immediately after that, in September 1978, the drama "In the Silent Place" was rehearsed by the amateur drama team of the Shanghai Workers' Cultural Palace and premiered at the Municipal Workers' Cultural Palace Theater. "In the Silent Place" was created in April 1976, after the death of Premier Zhou Enlai, when a campaign to mourn Premier Zhou and oppose "a certain gang" took place in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. In May 1978, Zong Fuxian, a worker-am writer at the Shanghai Heat Treatment Factory, wrote a four-act drama "In the Silent Place" in this way. In the play, there are enthusiastic young people who are worried about the country and the people, there are young people who are worried about the future of the motherland, and there are also villains who have defected to "a certain gang" and their minions, and a struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, has begun.
At that time, all the cast members took great political risks and threw themselves into creation and rehearsal. In October 1978, "In the Silent Place" was officially performed in Shanghai, and the audience received rave reviews. On the front page, Wen Wei Po used the headline "'In the Silent Place' to Sound the Strongest Voice of the Times" to publicize it, pointing out that "'In the Silent Place' says what hundreds of millions of people want to say in their hearts and expresses the strong feelings in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people." It also took three days to serialize the script in the newspaper for the first time.
The play "In the Silent Place" premiered in 1978
"In the Silent Place" conforms to the tide of historical development, and takes the lead in the whole country to issue a voice for the rehabilitation of the Tiananmen Square incident, calling on people to rise up and get rid of the shackles of the erroneous thinking of the "Left", which has great impact and appeal.
In November 1978, the drama "In the Silent Place" premiered in Beijing. The strong desire expressed in the play to emancipate the mind, break through the shackles, pursue the truth, and pursue the light has aroused strong social resonance. "In the Silent Place" has a great role in promoting the ideological emancipation movement, and also evokes the precursor of China's reform and opening up. In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made a major decision to shift the work center of the Party and the state to economic construction and implement reform and opening up.
"In the Silent Place" is not only a work closely related to China's emancipation of the mind, but also liberates contemporary literature from a decade-long imprisonment, which is called "listening to thunder in the silent place" by later generations. And "In the Silent Place" is also a representative work of "scar literature".
A book that tells the truth
In addition to the term "scar literature", literary works with the theme of denying "ten years" are also called "reflective literature". Among the many reflective literary works, the most admired is the prose collection "Caprice" created by the literary master Mr. Ba Jin. With the enthusiasm and sincerity of his whole life, Ba Lao dissected himself under the heavy pressure of the erroneous thinking of the "Left", a soul that advocates truth and democracy has been distorted, and he is dissecting himself and history.
In addition, the famous director Xie Jin directed films reflecting on the political movement since the founding of New China, "The Legend of Tianyun Mountain", "Furong Town" and "Wrangler", which opened a precedent for reflecting on the art of film, which is known as the "Reflection Trilogy".
One of the films "Reflection Trilogy" "Wrangler"
Among them, "The Legend of Tianyun Mountain" tells the story of Luo Qun, a young and capable political commissar of the Tianyun Mountain Comprehensive Expedition Team, who was mistakenly classified as a rightist and sent to work, but still loved socialism, loved the party, loved the people, and worked hard. At the same time, the root causes of the tragedy are analyzed. "Wrangler" tells the story of the bumpy life of Xu Lingjun, a primary school teacher who has been a wrangler for half a lifetime after being wrongly classified as a rightist, and also reflects the brilliance of truth and goodness bursting out of ordinary people, expressing people's deep feelings for the motherland and the people. Through the encounters and experiences of Hu Yuyin, who sells rice and tofu in the small town of Furong in Western Hunan Province, from the 1950s to the early 1980s, "Furong Town" criticizes the distortion of human nature caused by the erroneous ideas of the "Left".
Representative works from Mr. Wei Xi
As for Mr. Congwei Xi, who later returned to the literary world, he took the lead in publishing more than a dozen novellas describing life in labor camps, such as "Red Magnolia Under the Big Wall", as well as the trilogy of "The End of the World", "Eyes of wind and tears", "Yin and Yang Realm", and "Broken Intestinal Grass", which were praised by the literary circles as the father of "Big Wall Literature"; the famous writer Liang Xiaosheng took the trilogy of Zhiqing novels "This is a Magical Land", "Tonight There Is Wind and Snow", and the famous writer Ye Xin showed the fate of Zhiqing in the trilogy "Young People of Our Generation", "The Wind is Cold". Years of Hesitation", jointly created the "Zhiqing Literature". Strictly speaking, their works are still negating the "anti-rightism" of that decade or even earlier, revealing the different humanities of the years of suffering by depicting the lives of small people in that special era and even surviving hard. Therefore, it can also be included in the ranks of "scar literature" or "reflective literature".
Finally: the famous literary critic Radar has a very famous sentence: "The literature of an era cannot be considered to be the literature that can be matched with the times if it cannot touch on the most important and fundamental social and spiritual problems of the era"! "Scar literature" is a special literary trend in the special context of a special era, and we cannot forget that period of history because society has progressed now and the people have enough food and clothing. Reflecting on the past and facing the future is not contradictory.
Reflecting on the past and facing the future are not contradictory
The drama "In the Silent Place" has been rehearsed by more than 2,700 troupes across the country. Screenwriter and playwright Zong Fuxian said: "Everyone should know where they came from, we understand the past, take the past as a coordinate, we can see which direction can be forward." "Scar literature" has always had a place in the history of Chinese literature, and its enthusiasm and importance cannot be denied or erased!
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