2017 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of the famous translator Mr. Cao Jinghua. He once translated the famous Soviet revolutionary novel "Iron Stream" into Chinese, which inspired thousands of readers to join the revolutionary torrent during the revolutionary war years, and was therefore called "the man who provided arms to the slaves of the uprising".
Friendship with Lu Xun
Cao Jinghua (1897-1987), whose original name was Cao Lianya, was born in a small mountain village far from the county seat in Lushi County, western Henan Province. His father, Cao Peiyuan (Zi Zhifu), was a late Qing Dynasty Xiucai, who, because of his hatred for the corruption of current politics and the backwardness of his hometown culture, resolutely gave up his meritorious name after zhongju and engaged in mountain education for life. Cao Jinghua studied at the age of six and was admitted to the Henan Provincial No. 2 Middle School in Kaifeng in 1916. Soon after entering the school, Cao Jinghua, who was influenced by the New Culture Movement, engaged in a war of words with teachers who advocated "books do not read below the Qin and Han dynasties, and are often between mountains and rivers" in the Chinese language classroom, and wrote a long text to defend the new style, so that the teacher resigned indignantly.
Cao Jinghua in his later years
In 1920, after graduating from high school, he came to Shanghai and entered the "Foreign Chinese Tuition School" to learn Russian. In fact, the code name of this cram school is SY (i.e., the Socialist Youth League). In 1921, he was sent by the SY organization to study in the Soviet Union, the world's first socialist country ———, and entered the Eastern University to study Russian language and literature, and has since formed an indissoluble relationship with Russian and Soviet literature.
In the autumn of 1922, Cao Jinghua and others were approved to escort the sick xueyou who had gone with them back to China. After returning to China, he audited in the Russian Department of Peking University and listened to Mr. Lu Xun's lecture on the History of Chinese Novels, so he got to know Lu Xun. Cao Jinghua later recalled, "Mr. Lu Xun's classroom was so packed that there was no place to stand. In May 1925, Cao Jinghua, who was then serving as an interpreter for the Advisory Group of the Second Army of the National Revolution, established a correspondence relationship with Lu Xun in order to assist the Soviet sinologist Bao Vasiliev (Han name Wang Xili) in translating the sensational "A Q Zheng biography" into Russian. In order to make the "A Q Zheng Biography" "on the eve of the Chinese Revolution, it seems that the first spring swallow with the bud of friendship broke through the feudal warlord's tianluodi net and flew across the vast Mongolian desert to the Soviet Union in the wind and rain", Mr. Lu Xun not only gave a detailed answer, but also drew a map to explain Shaoxing's gambling method, explaining the location of "Tianmen" and so on and how to gamble according to the map, and was also invited to write the first autobiography of his life for the translator (later included in the seventh volume of the Complete Works of Lu Xun). This is the first-hand material of Mr. Lu Xun's most detailed interpretation of "The True Biography of Ah Q".
Lu Xun
From the first letter from Cao Jinghua and Lu Xuntong to Lu Xun's death (October 19, 1936), according to Lu Xun's diary alone, there were as many as 292 correspondence between them in eleven years. Cao Jinghua became the person who received the most letters from Lu Xun besides Lu Xun's wife Xu Guangping, and Lu Xun's contacts with the Soviet side were also translated and "transited" by him. The friendship between the two is evident from this.
It was also in the summer of 1925, at the initiative of Lu Xun, that Cao Jinghua, Wei Suyuan, Li Jiye and Lu Xun together founded the progressive literary and art group, the Weiming Society, and published their own translations. At that time, except for Mr. Lu Xun, who took out 200 yuan, the rest of each person paid 50 yuan as a provident fund, and "determined not to be a capitalist's cattle and horses", from writing articles to running printing plants, everything was done by themselves. Since then, Cao Jinghua, inspired by the care and encouragement of Lu Xun and Qu Qiubai, has begun to closely link his translation career with the fate of the entire country and nation. Lu Xun has always attached great importance to translating and introducing progressive Russian and Soviet literature, comparing it to "smuggling arms for rebellious slaves" and "Prometheus taking heavenly fire for mankind." Cao Jinghua also adhered to this proposition and specially selected and translated those Soviet revolutionary literary works that could inspire fighting spirit and arouse revolutionary enthusiasm, in order to support the revolutionary struggle at home. His early translations of Ehrenburg's "Smoke Bag" and Ravleniev's "Forty-first" and other Russian and Soviet literary works were also published by the Unknown Society.
Iron Stream
Cao Jinghua's most famous translation is The Iron Stream. It is a novel written in 1924 by the Russian progressive writer Zorafimovich (1863-1949), which depicts the revolutionary struggle of the people of Taman (now part of Krasnodar Krai, Russia) at the beginning of the Soviet Civil War: before the October Revolution, the fertile Taman Peninsula was ruled by Cossack gentry, and the "foreigners" and poor Cossacks who came from all over Russia to earn a living were oppressed. After the outbreak of the October Revolution, they turned over under Soviet power. But the ensuing rebellion of the White Bandits brutally persecuted and massacred the families of the Red Army and other working people who supported Soviet power. In order to escape, they armed themselves with the most primitive weapons they could find, elected Guo Ruhe as their leader, and in the absence of food, clothing and ammunition, began a thirty-two-day, five-hundred-verst march from the Kuban steppe on the Black Sea coast to the North Caucasus to meet the main division of the Red Army. This team fought heroically along the way, overcame unimaginable difficulties, and finally became an indomitable "iron stream".
Zulafimović
The popularity of "Iron Stream" in China "has gone through a small and difficult history." In the first half of 1930, in order to "show its own progress", the Shanghai Shenzhou Guoguang Society compiled a series of new Russian literary and artistic works, and Lu Xun was invited to draw up 10 kinds of scripts and novels that "have been evaluated in the world", called "Modern Literature and Art Series". Zorafimović's masterpiece "Iron Stream" is also among them. After that, Lu Xun wrote a letter asking Cao Jinghua, who had come to the Soviet Union for the second time, to translate. Cao Jinghua agreed without hesitation, according to his own words, "When Leningrad read The Iron Stream, he could not help but think of how great an inspirational force such a work would be for our people, who were struggling in the darkness and fighting in a pool of blood. So I translated it."
The translation process did not go smoothly. Because the original text of "Iron Stream" was mixed with many Ukrainian dialects, Cao Jinghua wrote to the author for help many times, but the enthusiastic Zulafimović annotated the difficult points in the book in Russian. The only reference book that Cao Jinghua could rely on in translation was a Russian-Japanese dictionary. In the middle of winter, he also wears a coat, rubber shoes on his feet, and a leather hat. In case the manuscript was confiscated by mail, he had to rewrite three copies; the paper and the manuscript paper were thick and thick, and it took six layers of force to penetrate each stroke, and each stroke had to be fully concentrated, and he could not write many words, and calluses appeared on his fingers. After a year and a half of hard work, on May Day in 1931, Cao Jinghua finally translated the whole book. This translation was finally sent safely to Lu Xun.
Unfortunately, when Lu Xun received the translation, the situation in the Shanghai publishing industry had already changed, and "the oppression of left-wing writers was tightened day by day, and finally tightened to the point that bookstores were terrified." Under the cultural pressure of the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang authorities, the Shanghai Shenzhou Guoguang Society was forced to break the treaty. In this regard, Lu Xun was also very helpless, "This is not that the Chinese bookstore is particularly timid, but the oppression of the Chinese government is particularly fierce." In order to spread the seeds of revolution, Lu Xun personally took money and printed a thousand copies of "Iron Stream" under the pretext of a "Three Idle BookHouse". It was in November 1931; as soon as the book was published, it was banned by the Kuomintang authorities, and most of the 1,000 copies printed were sold semi-secretly through the Uchiyama Bookstore opened by Japanese friends in Shanghai.
Until the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the literary network was slightly wider. Iron Stream was re-typeset and printed in 1938. Although the Kuomintang authorities continued to open and open the secret, using various methods to control its circulation, the book "under such a rock-like pressure" finally "opened a bright and iron new flower in front of the reader's eyes." Lin Boqu said, "The veteran cadres who participated in the Long March rarely have not seen "Iron Flow." On the way to the Long March, this is the book that everyone rushes to read, because it inspires everyone to complete the arduous Long March. There was a large printing house in Yan'an, and I don't know how many copies of "Iron Stream" were reprinted. It has become a textbook for educating the people and the corps of the Ministry of Education". There is no doubt that this is a great praise for the author Zulafimović and the translator Cao Jinghua.
Limber Canal
"Propagandist and translator of Russian-Soviet literature"
In the autumn of 1933, Cao Jinghua returned to his homeland from the Soviet Union and successively taught at the College of Arts and Sciences of National Peking University, Northeastern University (located in Beiping), and China University. After the "77" incident, he moved with the school to Xi'an and then to Hanzhong. In 1938, he was dismissed from the Northwest United Congress by the Kuomintang government on the charge of preaching Marxism-Leninism. In a treacherous political environment and extremely harsh living conditions, he took his family of four on a long journey over the mountains to Chongqing to find the Communist Party organization. Under the personal care of Zhou Enlai, he was assigned to the reorganized "Sino-Soviet Cultural Association" and made him a director of the association, and he immediately devoted himself to his work, translated and introduced a large number of literary and artistic works reflecting the October Revolution and anti-fascism, and according to Zhou Enlai's instructions, presided over the editing of the "Soviet War of Resistance Literature and Art Series", and systematically translated and published Soviet revolutionary literature, including Gorky's "Enemy", Leonov's "Aggression", A. Tolstoy's "Defending Tsaritsin", and Kadayev's "Kadayev's "Defense of Tsarits". I Am the Son of a Working People" and other works. As Deng Yingchao later said, "Your (referring to Cao Jinghua's) literary activities have always been closely linked to the cause of our revolution. During the Revolutionary War years, your translations of Soviet revolutionary literature influenced countless young people towards revolution. Lu Xun also praised him: "However, there are also people who did not rise up at once, and seemed to be backward at that time, but because they did not rush and disperse, they later became the backbone." (Cao) Jinghua is one that does not make a sound, constantly translating. In the past twenty years, he has studied Russian intensively, silently produced "Three Sisters", "White Tea", "Smoke Bag" and "Forty-One", "Iron Flow" and other one-line pamphlets. However, there was no advertising, so that there was no name for Xuanhe, and it was crowded out, and two places were blocked. But he is still constantly revising his previous translations, and his translations are still alive in the hearts of readers. ”
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Cao Jinghua served as a professor at Peking University. He served as the head of the Department of Russian Language and Literature at Peking University from 1951 until 1983. In between teaching and educating people and other social activities, he continued his translation career. After the founding of New China, Cao Jinghua translated and published works such as: Leonov's "Aggression," Krymov's "Oil Tanker "Debent," Sholoho's "Mortal Enemy," Gorky's "Ninth of January," and "Chekhov's Drama Collection." He also compiled Soviet folk tales such as "The Magic Ring," "The Legend of Lenin," "The Legend of Stalin," "The Legend of Xia Boyang, and Others," and "The Blue Wall Carpet." According to incomplete statistics, Cao Jinghua's translations total about 40 kinds, with nearly 3 million words, which can be called works and other works.
《January 9》
On May 15, 1987, "in view of Cao Jinghua's outstanding contributions to the development of science, people's education and the progress of human knowledge", the Academic Committee of the State Leningrad University of the USSR awarded Cao Jinghua an honorary doctorate. In 1997, on the occasion of Cao Jinghua's centenary of his birth, Luo Gaoshou, then ambassador of the Russian Federation to China, praised "Professor Cao Jinghua as not only a master of Chinese and Chinese chinese and Chinese literature, but also an extraordinary expert in Russian language, Russian and Soviet literature, and a propagandist and translator of Russian and Soviet literature." This evaluation should be said to be appropriate.
Former Russian Ambassador to China Luo Gaoshou