"If this image of the martyr Zhao Shiyan is identified as true, it will play a role in filling in the gaps." Before participating in the seminar, Xu Guoliang, former director of the Propaganda and Education Department of the Party History Research Office of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, looked at the screenshots of the images and looked at them again, "At first, I did not dare to express my position, because the photos were the side of people." It wasn't until he saw the full video footage that he was relieved that the young man in the black-and-white image wearing a white shirt and tie was none other than the martyr Zhao Shiyan.
On the afternoon of May 13, after the solemn ceremony, the "Seminar and Press Conference on the Precious Image Materials of Zhao Shiyan Martyrs" was held at the Longhua Martyrs Memorial Hall, and the two precious activity images of Martyr Zhao Shiyan discovered and successfully collected by the Shanghai Audio-Visual Archive from overseas were released to the public for the first time at the meeting. This is also the only active image of the martyr Zhao Shiyan so far.
Born in 1901, Zhao Shiyan was one of the early leaders and founders of the Communist Party of China, went to France in 1920 to work and study, and after returning to China, led the third workers' movement in Shanghai, and was a famous leader of the workers' movement and an outstanding proletarian revolutionary. In 1927, Zhao Shiyan was unfortunately arrested in Shanghai and died in Longhua at the age of 26.
The two images of the event released this time record the Fifth Congress of the Communist International held in Moscow in July 1924 and the Third Congress of the Red Workers' International held at the same time. "In these two pieces of data collected from Russia, we found the same person. The two meetings were similar in time, and judging from his appearance and clothing, we judged that they were the same person, so this Chinese representative caught our attention. Weng Haiqin, director of the copyright collection department of the Shanghai Audio-visual Archive, said.
Confirming the true identity of historical figures from black-and-white images is not an easy process. It is not only necessary to go through the verification and comparison of historical materials, but also to support the evidence of experts and even the descendants of martyrs. In the two images that can be seen so far, the total length of the shot about Zhao Shiyan is actually less than 10 seconds. Among them, in the picture of the five major congresses of the Communist International, a young man in a shirt is writing on the desk. In another scene, he is talking to Wang Hebo, one of the early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. According to research, Zhao Shiyan, who was only 23 years old at the time, attended the two meetings on behalf of the Communist Party of China, and with his excellent foreign language ability, he acted as an interpreter for Chinese deputies such as Li Dazhao and Wang Hebo.
"In the history of the CCP, Zhao Shiyan has a unique role. He went to France to study with Zhou Enlai, and in the spring of 1921 he established the Communist Party of China in Europe; in 1922, he and Zhou Enlai and others formed the Young Chinese Communist Party in Europe. At the same time, he went to school in Beijing before going abroad and became acquainted with Li Dazhao. Li Dazhao was very appreciative of his faith and talent, and also had great trust in Zhao Shiyan. "Xu Guoliang said that Zhao Shiyan was brilliant and proficient in several Chinese, so it can be judged that when he participated in the two meetings mentioned above, he served as an interpreter for the entire delegation to some extent." At the same time, his personal personality is full of passion and romance. ”
Zhao Xinyan, a descendant of the martyr Zhao Shiyan, also attended the seminar. "Zhao Shiyan's revolutionary experience, except in Europe, is mainly in Beijing and Shanghai, that is, where the workers' movement is more concentrated. He didn't leave a lot of pictures, and both of them were clear. ”
In fact, in the field of party history research, the video data involving important figures and major events in the early days of the founding of the CPC was once a blank. "This is influenced by many factors, the early CCP leaders were active on the hidden front, there is probably no public identity in the country, and many martyrs died when they were young, leaving even less video material." Wang Min, director of the Comprehensive Compilation and Research Department of the Shanghai Audio-Visual Archive, introduced that in order to solve the problem of scarce information on historical figures, the archive opened overseas file search work many years ago.
"In 2010, in order to find the information of the World Expo, we officially established an overseas file search path, and in 2011, we found the images of Chen Duxiu and Qu Qiubai in the Russian video archive, which was very sensational at that time." Wang Min said that the process of file hunting has continued to the present and will continue into the future, "In the Russian image archive, there is also a small team to help us do the preliminary screening work. ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Zhang Yi
Source: Author: Zhang Yi