Cover news reporter Zhang Jie
Some people may not know who Chen Mengjia is, but if you pay attention to the translator Xu Yuanchong, when he counts his teachers at Southwest United University, he will mention that he has heard in class "Wen Yiduo talked about the Book of Poetry", Chen Mengjia talked about "Analects", Xu Junzhai talked about "Zuo Zhuan", Liu Wendian talked about "Selected Texts", Luo Yong talked about "Tang Poems", Pu Jiangqing talked about "Song Ci" and "Yuan Qu", and Zhu Ziqing talked about "Nineteen Ancient Poems".
Or if you have seen the news that the 107-year-old Ma Zhitu is about to publish his first book about Oracle, "Notes on oracle bones of Ma Zhitu Southwest United University", you must not be unfamiliar with the name "Chen Mengjia". Because of this note, the main content is the essence of the linguistics taught by Mr. Luo Changpei, Tang Lan, Chen Mengjia, Wen Yiduo and others when Ma Zhitu was studying at Southwest Union University in the 1940s. Those who know the name "Chen Mengjia" will know that this is a talented and charismatic person. Poets, scholars, beautiful men, celestial heroes... These are all he, but, not all he is.
Chen Mengjia (1947)
Chen Mengjia was first and foremost a young poet and a representative figure of the Crescent Moon School. Born in Nanjing in April 1911, his ancestral home is Shangyu, Zhejiang. In 1927, he entered the Department of Law and Politics of Nanjing Central University. In 1934, he began to study paleography with Rong Geng at the Graduate School of Yenching University. In this regard, he turned to academic research, and in the study of paleography, oracle bones, Western Zhou bronze ware and Jian Mu, he was particularly especially successful, and was highly valued by the academic circles at home and abroad. Chen Mengjia wrote a lot of works in his lifetime, including "Lao Tzu's Present Interpretation", "Han Jian Affix", "Shang Zhou Sacrifice in Ancient Texts", "Mengjia Poetry Collection", "Selected Crescent Poetry", "Yin Xu Bu Ci Review", "Western Zhou Bronze Ware Broken Generation", "Shang Shu General Theory", etc., which are of great significance in the archaeological academic community.
In 1944, Chen Mengjia taught Chinese paleography at the University of Chicago, while collecting materials on Shang zhou bronzes scattered in Europe and the United States. In 1947, Chen Mengjia returned to China and became a professor at Tsinghua University. In 1952, he was transferred to the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a researcher. After turning his interest to archaeology, Chen Mengjia became interested in classical Chinese furniture and searched around for it. Once you find good Ming-style furniture, pour out everything you want. Today in the Shanghai Museum and Huzhou Museum, many Ming Dynasty furniture is his old collection. When introducing Chen Mengjia on the official website of the Palace Museum, it was specifically mentioned that "in January and July 1955, Mr. Chen Mengjia twice donated five pieces of cultural relics such as furniture and tile eagles to the Palace Museum. ”
In May 1957, Chen Mengjia and Su Bingqi (first from left), Xu Xusheng (second from left), Huang Wenbi (third from left), Xia Nai (fourth from left), and Xu Daoling (fifth from left) were photographed at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Chen Mengjia died in Beijing on September 3, 1966, at the age of 55. What kind of family did he come from, how did he grow up, how did he treat love and marriage, and how did he embark on the road of learning? What friends did he have, and what happened to them? In recent years, there have been many legends about Chen Mengjia, and his works have been sorted out and published, making people more and more eager to understand this person and everything behind him. In June 2021, Zhonghua Book Company published the "Chronicle of Mr. Chen Mengjia", which presents a person's life experience in the form of a chronicle, which is a different kind of life biography.
More than 200 chen mengjia letters are collected in full, diaries, interviews, memoirs, research works are huge and detailed, real historical materials, and year by year, chen Mengjia's real fifty-five years of life trajectory is analyzed. From family growth to love marriage, from poetry creation to academic research, in addition to the well-known Chen Mengjia as a genius scholar, there are also more and more three-dimensional Chen Mengjia.
It is worth mentioning that the author of this book, Ziyi, is a writer-type scholar in Zhejiang. In order to write Chen Mengjia well, she spent nearly ten years of preparation, not only collecting information on Chen Mengjia in many ways, but also visiting the birthplace, work place, and sojourn of Chen Mengjia, and pouring a lot of enthusiasm into the character of Chen Mengjia. Although it is a chronicle, it is not boring to read, but concise, meaningful, and meaningful. After reading the manuscript, Professor Chen Sihe of Fudan University gave it an affirmation and divided it into two parts and published it in the journal "Historical Materials and Interpretations" edited by him and Harvard professor Wang Dewei. In June 2021, Zhonghua Book Company published a single edition.
Super circle of friends
Hu Shi and Wen Yiduo pushed the young talents
Chen Mengjia entered the poetry circle from the central university to teach Qingdao University, Yenching University, Tsinghua University, Southwest United University, the University of Chicago, and finally transferred to the Institute of Archaeology to engage in research work. Looking at the "Chronicle of Mr. Chen Mengjia", you will find that the characters of his daily contacts or correspondence are really talking and laughing, and there is no white Ding. Not to mention that his wife Zhao Luorui is a famous translator and comparative writer, his younger brother Chen Mengxiong is a famous hydrogeologist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, his teachers are Wen Yiduo and Rong Geng, his poetry friends are Lin Huiyin, Bian Zhilin, Fang Lingru, and his colleagues and friends are Zhu Ziqing, Feng Youlan, Qian Mu, Liang Sicheng, Jin Yuelin, Qian Zhongshu, Yang Dai, Wu Mi, Tang Lan... Through the letters, we can see the exchanges between Chen Mengjia and many celebrities of the same generation, and present the era of half a century, which is a complete personal history and a narrowed history of the times.
Chen Mengjia's engagement photo with Zhao Luorui
Qian Zhongshu and Yang Dai's weddings mainly invited relatives, but Chen Mengjia and his wife Zhao Luorui were invitees among the few friends, "Qian and I were classmates of tsinghua research institutes, and his wife was also quite familiar, and their wedding was held at Yang Dai's house. The Yang family has a very large courtyard, and the marriage is held in a literary hall. At that time, only some relatives were invited, but our husband and wife participated, and they were one of the few friends. Because it happens to be in the south. Zhao Luorui said.
Lin Huiyin once drew the cover for Chen Mengjia's poetry collection "Thank you Ms. Lin Huiyin for drawing the cover for me, but because I was in Wuhu when I paid the printing, I did not personally go to the school to choose colors, maybe these colors are not as well as the original intention." Qian Mu's masterpiece "Outline of National History" is famous in history. Qian Mu said, "Yu Zhi's intention to write a book entitled "Outline of National History" was actually promoted by the dreamer's two nights. ”
Hu Shi praised Chen Mengjia greatly. After reading Chen Mengjia's poem for the first time, Hu Shi praised: "I have never seen this jun, but I know that he is very young, and he has achieved such a great achievement, which makes people feel very optimistic." ”
Wen Yiduo is Chen Mengjia's teacher, and he boasts about his proud protégés: "Chen Mengjia and Fang Weide's recent works also make me happy and inspired." Dreamer is my discovery, not a problem. ...... Are these two people not enough to make me proud? Taking a few recent articles published in the New Moon, my disciples may have become my fierce enemies and my feared friends. I pinched a handful of sweat and boasted to myself. Also ask what new poetry has to offer? Aren't these two people extremely obvious, concrete proof?" Chen Mengjia turned to archaeology, Wen Yiduo was very optimistic, "he is very talented, once he turns, he can get success." He was also a little influenced by me. I think a person who can write good poetry can do archaeology or do something else, because the heart is sharpened and refined. ”
Visited Europe and the United States
Edited and published "Overseas Chinese Bronze Catalogue"
Beginning in the spring of 1938, Chen Mengjia taught courses such as paleography and the general theory of the Book of Shang at Southwest Union University. In 1944, according to The Introduction of Bi Zhengqing and Jin Yuelin, Chen Mengjia went to the University of Chicago in the United States to teach Chinese paleography. During this period, he focused on collecting a large number of ancient Chinese bronze materials, and later edited and published the book "Catalogue of Overseas Chinese Bronzes". Chen Mengjia once single-handedly visited the Chinese bronzes collected in Europe and the United States, which is still a good story in the academic circles.
Chen Mengjia was photographed at the University of Chicago in 1946
In 1944, Chen Mengjia went to the University of Chicago to teach Chinese paleography. Zhi is in the ancient history of China, why do you want to go to the ocean? Chen Mengjia's statement is: "Although I am engaged in Sinology, I often feel a lot of deficiencies, and especially in Sinology, I not only try to sort out the old classics and new materials, but more importantly, the new methods and the borrowing of material methods from other countries." ...... I always want to pay attention to the new methods and new attitudes of training myself after a little dabbling in the classic materials, and the study of ancient cultures, Western archaeology, and anthropology is particularly urgent. Therefore, I am always willing to have the opportunity to go abroad once... If I am willing to die in the matter of Chinese scholars, it will be enough, but I always feel that I am in this situation, and it is extremely rare, and I can always do my best to pay a little tribute to academia. ”
It was also this trip to the United States, and then to Europe, in the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and other countries to investigate, so that Chen Mengjia had the opportunity to collect a large number of ancient Chinese bronze materials overseas, according to which he edited and published the book "Overseas Chinese Bronze Catalog", which was published by the Commercial Press in 1946. This is also the first catalogue written by Chinese scholars and summarizing the collection of Chinese bronzes in European and American countries. According to Yu Guolin, assistant editor-in-chief of the Zhonghua Bookstore, in 1962, the Science Publishing House published "A Collection of Yin Zhou Bronze Artifacts in China Plundered by US Imperialism", a thick volume of Huanghuang, signed "Compiled by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences". The actual person who compiled this book is Mr. Chen Mengjia.
Drop Tuo kaftan
Weak scholars also bravely went to the front
In the book, we also see that on January 29, 1932, Chen Mengjia, together with Liu Qihua, Jiang Fangye, and Lu Shoufeng, came from Nanjing to the Nanxiang Front on the outskirts of Shanghai to participate in the heroic battle ranks of the 122nd Brigade of the 61st Division of the 19th Route Army against the Japanese invading army. At the beginning of 1933, when the iron hooves of the Japanese Kou trampled on the land of Rehe, Chen Mengjia was indignant and decided to go out of Yuguan to the front line to serve the defense of the motherland. On January 13, Fang Weide, Qu Bingsen and other students held a farewell party at the Yanjing Alumni Association in Beiping Dongcheng Dengshikou. In the early morning of the next day, Chen Mengjia left Beiping via Gubeikou and rushed to Saiwai and participated in the Battle of Lengkou of the Rehe River.
About the love story of the beautiful man Chen Mengjia and the "Yanjing School Flower" Zhao Luorui, it is also talked about. Looking at Chen Mengjia's letters to his wife, we can see the warm side of this genius scholar. "Smell what you want to make, pick a bronze satin in his shop and put it in." "Somehow I feel very sad in my heart because I don't trust you today." When his wife was sick and needed to recuperate outside, he told him in his letters, "I can now lock the door safely and go to the Great Wall." I have only two things to think about: one is to hope that you have a good time this month, and the other is to exercise well myself. You can rest assured that I will only refine my body, there will be nothing, the only drawback is probably food, I will find a way to make up for it. As for you, you should relax your mind and go on a scenic tour, and don't worry about me. I'm always strong. Your health is the only thing I care about. ”
In addition to the "Yin Xu Bu Ci Review" and "Shang Shu Tong Theory" published during his lifetime, which were not published in the Zhonghua Bookstore, Mr. Chen Mengjia has been dead for more than fifty years, and all the manuscripts that have been sorted out are published by the Zhonghua Bookstore. In 2016, on the occasion of the 105th anniversary of Chen Mengjia's birth, Zhonghua Bookstore published a set of "Chen Mengjia's Works". Including "Han Jian Shu", "Wuwei Han Jian", "Shang Shu Tong Theory", "Mengjia Poetry Collection", "Dream Jia Room Cunwen", "Chinese Philology", "Western Zhou Bronze Ware Broken Generation", "Chen Mengjia Academic Papers", "Western Zhou Chronology", "Six Kingdoms Chronicle", "Yin Xu Bu Ci Review", "Chinese Bronze Review", "Lao Tzu Present Interpretation", "Collection of Chinese Bronzes In the United States", "Overseas Chinese Bronze Catalogue", "Chinese Historical Chronology" and so on.
Zhu Zhaohu, editor of Zhonghua Bookstore, once said at the commemoration ceremony of the 105th anniversary of Chen Mengjia's birth, "A middle school student will recite a poem by Mr. Chen, 'A wild flower has bloomed and fallen in the wilderness', which is the best memorial." A scholar, quoting an academic view of Mr. Chen, is the best memorial. For a publishing house, Mr. Wang Shimin of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences previously wrote that the collation and publication is the best commemoration. Compiling and editing all the original texts of Mr. Chen, printing them, binding them, making them public, allowing them to recite them, and allowing scholars to use them is the best way to commemorate them in the form of publication. Words do not perish, life is always alive, and this is also the endless sequence of civilization. ”
(The picture used in this article is provided by Zhonghua Bookstore)
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