Chairman Mao had a profound classical literary attainment, he was a poet, and he wrote many popular poems during his lifetime.
He is also a calligrapher, his calligraphy is pure, imposing, and absorbs the strengths of a hundred families, his own style.
According to statistics, in Chairman Mao's collection of books, he personally circled and annotated as many as 1590 poems, words, songs, and fu, of which 1180 poems, 378 words, 12 songs, and 20 fu.
Chairman Mao has a wide range of interests and is extremely extensive, and in addition to poetry, words, songs, and fu, he is also particularly fond of ancient poetry, opera, and opera.
Chairman Mao's hobbies not only added a lot of joy to his life, but also allowed him to get a lot of thinking and enlightenment from them.
In August 1975, Chairman Mao's cataracts reached the point where he had to undergo surgery, and he eventually agreed to do it.
Chairman Mao always had an optimistic and natural attitude toward life, old age, illness and death, and he never lost confidence and strength because of the illness in these years.
Even when he was doing eye surgery, he would still bring an atmosphere of confidence and ambition to all the staff.
Before entering the operating room, he asked Zhang Yufeng to release one of his favorite ancient poems sung by Yue Meiti, Yue Fei's "Man Jiang Hong", and then listened to the song and walked into the operating room with a waddling step.
The operation was done in the operating room, and the sonorous and powerful melody of "Man Jiang Hong" lingered throughout the room.
The agitated feelings and fearless spirit of this song not only vividly reflect Chairman Mao's lofty ambitions, but also infect every medical worker.
In addition to songwriting, Chairman Mao also had a special love for Peking Opera, and could even find mistakes in Peking Opera.
In the 1950s, chairman Mao once listened to the Peking Opera performance artist Li He Zeng's "Li Ling Monument" and humorously said to him: "Yang Lao Linggong's eight sons have died four times, and it is okay to complain, but in general, he is still a loyal and indomitable general who serves the country, so it is not appropriate to sing too sadly." You are singing with sorrow and anger now, yes, and you should sing it this way. ”
After some days, Li He once sang for Chairman Mao again, and Chairman Mao said to Li Hezeng in a deliberative tone: "Last time, the lyrics of the "Li Ling Monument" you sang included the phrase 'Fang Liangchen and Pan Hong are also alive and skillful'. ”
Li He once felt that it was very reasonable, and later sang it according to Chairman Mao's changed words.
Figure Li and Zeng
Chairman Mao also particularly liked Mei Lanfang's Peking Opera, and for this reason he also specially preserved many of Mei Lanfang's Peking Opera singing materials.
Among all the Peking Opera repertoire that Mei Lanfang sang, his favorite was "Farewell to the Overlord".
In April 1949, Chairman Mao, who was already living in the Shuangqing Villa in the western suburbs of Beijing, was anxiously paying attention to the war situation on the battlefields of the whole country every day. But even in such a tense environment, Chairman Mao still had a fondness for watching drama.
Once, Yan Changlin, a guard, asked Chairman Mao, who had just eaten dinner and was walking in the courtyard: "You are going to see a play tonight, do you know?" ”
"Got it, it's all ready." Chairman Mao replied impatiently.
Chairman Mao asked Yan Changlin what time did he leave to see the play? Yan Changlin replied: "The road is not easy to walk, and it is estimated that it will take an hour on the road." We departed at 6:30 and were able to arrive on time. ”
Hearing Yan Changlin tell him about the departure time, he said to him with great interest: "Watching a play is also a job." Today we went to see the famous Chinese and foreign Mr. Mei Lanfang's masterpiece "Farewell to the King". After the Japanese imperialists invaded China, Mr. Mei Lanfang stayed in seclusion and never acted again. He ignored the threats and inducements of the Japanese invaders and stopped singing and dancing. How precious is this national integrity of this artist. When we go to see his performance today, we are advocating this sense of nationality and justice and calling on people to learn from him. ”
On the departing car, Chairman Mao again said to the guards and fighters who had gone to see the play together: "Mei Lanfang, a well-known artist, went so far as to stay in seclusion and never come forward to act again when the Japanese invaded China in order to oppose imperialist aggression. Among the Chinese people, the impact at that time was very large. ”
Chairman Mao and Mei Lanfang (second from right)
For safety, Yan Changlin asked Chairman Mao to leave the stage early, but Chairman Mao did not agree, and he said to Yan Changlin: "It is not good to go in advance, it is not polite to do so." ”
On the way back, Chairman Mao was still reminiscing about Mei Lanfang's Peking Opera art, and he exclaimed to the guards and soldiers: "This is really a high-level artistic performance." In the future, these people will all be dramatists of new China, and they will have a political position and will be respected. After the founding of New China, it is certain that China's drama can develop well and can play a greater role in the construction of New China. ”
In his spare time, Chairman Mao often played this tape, humming and singing while reminiscing, which shows that the profound theme and rich artistic appeal of "Farewell to the Overlord" have made Chairman Mao unforgettable to it, so much so that Chairman Mao once regarded "Farewell to the Overlord" as a vivid history textbook to educate the cadres of the whole party.
On January 30, 1962, chairman Mao delivered a long speech at the enlarged Central Work Conference.
On the issue of democratic centralism, he criticized some first secretaries of provincial, prefectural, and county party committees for engaging in "one-word halls, and one person counts even if they say it, which violates the principle of the minority obeying the majority, saying that such a first secretary is not the "squad leader" of democratic centralism, but should be called "overlord." Chairman Mao said: "Liu Bang fought with Xiang Yu for several years, and as a result, Liu Bang won and Xiang Yu lost. We now have some first secretaries, even Liu Bang in the feudal era is not as good, but a bit like Xiang Yu. If these comrades do not change, they will eventually collapse. Isn't there a play called "Farewell to the Overlord"? If these comrades always do not change, it is inevitable that one day they will have to 'be ji' just. ”
Mei Lanfang's "Overlord Farewell" makeup photo
Chairman Mao really looked at these literary and artistic works with his heart to understand them, and sometimes he was able to truly integrate his feelings into them.
According to the recollections of the staff around Chairman Mao, when Chairman Mao admired the drama of the tense struggle in the plot, he often could not help but shed tears, and he poured out his deep affection for the image of the oppressed and exploited characters.
For example, every time he watched the traditional mythological opera "The Legend of the White Snake", he would shed tears.
In 1958, Chairman Mao was in Shanghai, and under the arrangement of the responsible comrades of the Municipal Party Committee, Chairman Mao read "The Legend of the White Snake" again. After the performance began, Mao Zedong quickly entered the play, and before he could finish smoking a cigarette, he gasped and stared intently at the actors on the stage, never smoking again.
He just looked with his eyes wide open, the expression on his face was constantly changing, sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes affectionate, sometimes sighing, and where he sang well, he applauded.
Chairman Mao, like ordinary people, was very sympathetic to Lady Xu Xianbai, but he had a different mood for Fahai.
Chairman Mao's face sank as soon as Fahai appeared.
When he saw Xu Xian and the White Lady parting from life and death. He fully entered the plot of the play, tears filled his eyes, gathering more and more, and in a moment he became a large teardrop, and then rolled down his face and landed on his chest.
When he saw the moment when Fahai suppressed the White Lady under the Lei Feng Pagoda, Chairman Mao, who was sitting on the sofa, suddenly angrily slapped the case, slapped his hand on the arm of the sofa, and stood up at once: "Isn't it revolutionary?" Don't rebel? ”
After the performance, Chairman Mao met with the actors and shook hands with the "Green Snake" with two hands and "Xu Xian" and "White Lady" with one hand, but ignored "Fahai".
Chairman Mao watching the performance
In addition to paying attention to opera, Chairman Mao also particularly liked to listen to cross-talk, and he once said: "Cross-talk is a very good profession, it can promote people to be happy, it can prompt people to learn lessons from the negative, and it can prompt people to summon up the revolutionary spirit and do a good job." ”
Among Chairman Mao's relics, there are 76 cross-talk tapes, including the representative works of Hou Baolin, Guo Qiru, Guo Quanbao, Zhao Zhenduo, and other outstanding Chinese cross-talk artists at that time.
Among these cross-talkers, Chairman Mao listened to Hou Baolin's cross-talk the most, and he listened to more than 150 passages in total, of which more than 100 were traditional and about 50 were newly created.
When the whole country was first liberated, literary and art workers began to be often invited to Zhongnanhai to give condolence performances for the central leading comrades, and their performance venues were generally arranged at the US Embassy in China during the "reunification" period. At that time, in the middle of the third row of the venue, there were two rattan chairs, one from Chairman Mao and the other from President Zhu.
Once, Chairman Mao and other central leading comrades watched the performance again, and at that time Hou Baolin's program was placed at the end, but Chairman Mao did not know what other Baolin's performance was in this program.
After watching for a while, when everyone thought that the program had been performed and had begun to leave their seats and prepare to leave, even Chairman Mao picked up his raincoat and put it on his left arm, clapped, and stood up to prepare to leave, the announcer came out again and said to the audience that the following was Hou Baolin's cross-talk, at this time Chairman Mao heard Hou Baolin's cross-talk, and he said humorously: "Oh, and Hou Baolin's cross-talk, you must not look at it, do not look at regret!" He said to Mr. Zhu while putting the raincoat back in its place.
Picture of Hou Baolin's performance photo
Chairman Mao liked Hou Baolin's cross-talk very much, and Hou Baolin also performed for Chairman Mao in Zhongnanhai many times, and his passages were deeply liked by Chairman Mao, who more than once praised Hou Baolin as "a personal talent and a linguist."
However, Chairman Mao listened to Hou Baolin's cross-talk with one characteristic, that is, he never laughed much, and Hou Baolin found in his performance that many times he saw that when the whole theater was amused by his own humor, only Chairman Mao sat there and smiled slightly, and did not laugh like other comrades.
In fact, it is not that Hou Baolin's cross-talk is not funny, nor is it that he is not good at speaking, the main reason why Chairman Mao does not laugh is because he is afraid of influencing others, so he refuses to laugh out loud, so that he often turns his face red.
But there was an exception, this time Chairman Mao couldn't bear it anymore and laughed indulgently in the audience.
It turned out that in the course of a performance, Hou Baolin pieced together four poems in the program, when Hou Baolin was "nonsense" on the stage: "Bold and undeceivable, Zhang Fei drank and broke the Yang Bridge, although it is not a good deal, a day husband and wife for a hundred days." ”
Unexpectedly, as soon as Hou Baolin's four crooked poems came out, Chairman Mao in the audience could no longer bear it, he laughed loudly, leaned forward and backward, and was always a little breathless, rubbing his eyes while waving his hands.
Chairman Mao and Hou Baolin (third from left)
Among Hou Baolin's cross-talk, Chairman Mao's favorite is his performance of "Guan Gong Zhan Qin Qiong", which was compiled and processed by Hou Baolin on the basis of his predecessors.
This cross-talk mainly tells about Guan Yu, the general of the Shu State during the Three Kingdoms period, and Qin Qiong, the general of jellyfish, these two characters who are hundreds of years apart actually met together, which is extremely ironic. This cross-talk satirizes those who do not know how to pretend to understand, are unrealistic, and blindly command.
For ordinary cross-talk works, Chairman Mao rarely listened to them twice at once, only this one program, and after one performance, he asked to repeat it.
After reading this, Chairman Mao said with emotion: "Our party must oppose bureaucracy and blind command, and we must not pretend to understand and rely on power to give orders." ”
Chairman Mao was very concerned about Hou Baolin, and in 1956, Hou Baolin immersed himself in the study of cross-talk art, and successively published several articles such as "The Structure of Cross-Talk" and "The Language of Cross-Talk" in Beijing Literature and Art.
Unexpectedly, these articles were all seen by Chairman Mao, and at the recent session of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Chairman Mao saw Hou Baolin when he met with representatives of the literary and art circles and said to him humorously: "Oh, I have read several of your articles." You write so many things, do you want to be a doctor of crosstalk? ”
In 1975, after the torture of illness, Chairman Mao's health was much worse than before, but at this time he still did not forget Hou Baolin, and he said to the staff around him: "I have not seen Hou Baolin for a long time." ”
At this time, Chairman Mao did not know that Hou Baolin was also affected, and he had no way to come to Zhongnanhai to perform cross-talk to Chairman Mao.
Before the Fourth National People's Congress, Chairman Mao was very concerned about Hou Baolin's situation after hearing about his suffering, and in order to protect him, Chairman Mao personally nominated and elected him as a deputy to the People's Congress.
Figure Hou Baolin
Later, when someone asked Hou Baolin to give Chairman Mao a cross-talk, what was his mood?
Hou Baolin replied, "At that time, I had two feelings. One sentiment is that I have great admiration for Comrade Mao Zedong and am very willing to take our cross-talk art so that he can rest and relax in his heavy work and smile. Another sentiment is that Comrade Mao Tse-tung listened to us talk about cross-talk, but also in order to understand the situation of this art form that the people liked to hear, to encourage us to innovate it, to make it a weapon for propagating the revolution, and to play a greater fighting role. Chairman Mao loved to watch my cross-talk before he was born, and this was such a very ordinary person who only studied in primary school for 3 months in the old society. ”
Chairman Mao had a very high cultural attainment, and his calligraphy, his foundation in classical literature, his understanding of literary and artistic works, and his poems all exude the connotations of Chairman Mao.
When someone asked yu Pingbo, a well-known expert in red studies, about Chairman Mao's poetry, Yu Pingbo blurted out: "I have not seen the ancients before, and I have not seen those who have come after me." Poetry and speech, any poet is inseparable from the personal origin environment, the encounter of the times and the cultivation of knowledge, Mao Zedong in the combination of these three no one can compare. Although there are many masterpieces of heroic figures circulating in history, there is more than enough to be bold, but there is no Chairman Mao's sea broad heart. ”