Jiang Yinlong
For the academic community, the organization of contemporary literary history may have long been clear, but in popular culture, contemporary literary history has always been covered with a veil of mystery. On the one hand, because contemporary literary history is too close to "history", which requires researchers to also shoulder the mission of historians and dig out a literary approach of "eighteen bends of the mountain road" in the contemporary history of "complex landforms"; on the other hand, because contemporary literary history is too "contemporary", researchers inevitably need to comment on or even criticize many writers when writing, and in the literary world of "literature is not first", if the writer's skills are insufficient, the accumulation is not deep, and the prestige is not popular. The day the work came out was the time of criticism.
Fortunately, in this era, there are still people who can tell this period of literary history with a rafter's pen. This person is Hong Zicheng; this book is "Chinese Literature 1949-1989."
Chinese Literature 1949-1989
Political Events and Literary History
The beginning of 1949, the year of the founding of New China, is recognized by scholars as the starting point of contemporary Chinese literature, but in the book "Chinese Literature 1949-1989", Hong Zicheng opened the article and raised a question: Is it appropriate to take a particular political event as a node in literary history?
The question may seem "sensitive", but in fact the use of political events to define the course of literary development holds true in most cases. The conciseness and fortitude of Wei Jinfeng's bones, the thickness and majesty of the Sheng Tang Dynasty, and the prudence of the Qianjia School... Behind all these "literary styles" lies the "world style" formed by politics. In the special context of the times, some historical events will change all aspects of the entire society through their destructive influence, thus creating a literary skeleton. The same is true of the relationship between contemporary Chinese history and contemporary Chinese literary history. From the "left-wing literature" that occupied an important position in the 1930s and 1940s, to the establishment of an absolute dominance of "workers, peasants, and soldiers' literature" in the 1950s, and then to the diversification of the monistic literary pattern in the 1980s with the end of an era, every beginning and turn of China's contemporary literary history is accompanied by the sword and axe of the times.
Hong Zicheng recognized the special significance of 1949 in the history of literature, but his vision was even further. He believes that Chinese literature throughout the 20th century is an "inseparable organic whole." Since the fall of the Penghu Reform Law and the New Culture Movement, Chinese literature has gradually changed from classical literature to new literature, to the May Fourth New Culture Movement, until the birth of contemporary Chinese literature. Contemporary literature certainly has its independence, but from a macroscopic point of view it is still an organic part of this whole.
The courage to admit the connection between politics and literature is the most basic disenchantment, and if you can't cross this hurdle, you can't objectively taste the context of contemporary Chinese literature; the detachment and rationality expressed by Hong Zicheng in the book are also slowly unfolded on this basis.
Politics is the purpose of literature
Two major events occurred in 1949: first, the founding of the People's Republic of China, and second, the First All-China Congress of Literary and Artistic Workers was held in Beiping, and from this time on, Mao Zedong's literary ideas were established as the line and policy of Chinese literature. However, starting from the formation of this proposition, Hong Zicheng further traced the origin of contemporary literature back to 1942, when Mao Zedong delivered his famous "Speech at the Yan'an Literary and Art Forum" at a literary and art forum in Yan'an.
At this time, China was full of wars and the prospects were uncertain, but by this time the writers in the Liberated Areas had already shown a vigor that only a group in the ascendant period could nurture. In "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art", this vitality is concentrated in the guidance of the new system to new literature: all culture or literature and art belong to a certain class and belong to a certain political line; art for art, art for the super-class, and art that runs parallel or independent of politics, actually does not exist. Although this does not mean that the writers in the Liberated Areas do not attach importance to "artistry"—Mao Zedong also believed that "works of art that lack artistic qualities, no matter how politically progressive, are powerless"—this orientation does give contemporary literature a very simplified purpose at the beginning of its birth: politics is the end of literature, and literature is the means of politics. These two sentences are appropriate to describe the history of Chinese literature from the founding of the Republic to the end of the Cultural Revolution.
If the writers representing the pinnacle of Chinese literature in the 1940s were to be listed, the following names would be included in the list: Zhang Ailing, Qian Zhongshu, Ba Jin, Shen Congwen, Ai Qing, Mu Dan, Xiao Hong, Cao Yu... Today, just by these names, it is easy to think of how the Chinese literary scene was shining brightly at that time. But when these brilliant stars entered the 1950s, many were quickly marginalized and replaced by another group of writers who were more in tune with the trends of the times. The mainstream writers of this period mainly included Liu Qing, Zhao Shuli, Guo Xiaochuan, He Jingzhi, Yang Shuo, Wei Wei and others. Hong Zicheng divided it into two categories: one was the "liberated area writers" from the revolution, and the other was the "new writers" who emerged in the early 1950s, the former's "background color" was "red specialist", and the latter's "background color" was "innocence". This similar background is directly reflected in the themes of writers: judging from the works, they often shift the objects of expression from citizens and intellectuals to peasants and soldiers according to their own life experiences, such as Liu Qing's "History of Entrepreneurship", Guo Xiaochuan's "To Young Citizens", Wei Wei's "Who is the most lovely person"... The deeper convergence lies in the concept of creation: they generally do not agree with the concept of literary independence, and they believe that with the grasp of the "advanced world view", they can achieve a thorough understanding of society and life.
The collective vitality made the works of the entire 1950s full of a clear sense of social purpose and optimism, but the shortcomings were also obvious: revolution was the first profession of these writers, and as creators, they lacked rich imagination, lacked a higher ability to construct art on the basis of fiction, and most of the works were documentary and autobiographical. The characters, scenes, and feelings they are familiar with are quickly exhausted, so there is a common phenomenon: the beginning is the peak, and the peak is the end. As a result, many people have become "a book writer", Yang Mo after "Song of Youth", Liang Bin after "Red Flag Spectrum", Qu Bo basically stopped writing after "Lin Hai Xueyuan", which is not a historical coincidence.
Yang Mo, "Song of Youth", People's Literature Publishing House, 1958 edition
Literature nourished by suffering
The literature of the 17 years from the founding of New China to the Cultural Revolution is called "Seventeen Years of Literature". With the iteration of new and old writers, the line of the literary world in this period gradually stabilized, but it also experienced three challenges — these challenges made contemporary literary history more possibilities in the framework of "contemporary history".
The first challenge came from Hu Feng. The name "Hu Feng", which had long been talked about from the public eye, was a household name at that time. As an "idealistic" writer, he insisted that writers should reform themselves according to their own needs rather than officials, and even advocated that writers organize and edit magazines to replace a small number of official magazines. The second challenge occurred after the "Double Hundred Guidelines" policy was proposed. During this period, a large number of writers began to question the "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art" to a limited extent and proposed to improve the "party's leadership over literature and art", and wrote many reflective literary theory articles, such as Qin Zhaoyang's "Realism - The Broad Road", Chen Yong's "Lu Xun Who Struggles for the Realism of Literature and Art", and Zhou Bo's "Realism in the Socialist Era". By the early 1960s, Zhou Yang, a leading figure in red writers, also began to try to change the radical literary line, which meant the beginning of a third challenge. Zhou Yang's unique political status has enabled him to attack the attachment of literature to politics at many important conferences, emphasizing the characteristics of literature and a certain degree of freedom in the subject matter and style of writers' creation.
In outlining these challenges that ended in tragedy, Hong Zicheng's penmanship flowed deeply; and when these challenges were finally wrapped up in the Cultural Revolution, Hong Zicheng's tone remained unfazed. In his eyes, the works of the "Cultural Revolution" period must establish the historical significance of modern nationals through revolutionary means, reaffirm the group consciousness and dedication emphasized in the war years, limit and suppress individual desires and individual independence, and even in order not to damage serious themes and authenticity, all romantic and legendary factors must be restricted and regulated.
Literature cannot be independent of politics, but literature has a unique backbone that can nourish itself with suffering. Only a writer who can experience the most rigorous refinement of the times can look at the times beyond his personal standpoint.
The era of ideological emancipation of "abusive feelings"
With the passage of time, the "Seventeen Years of Literature" and "Cultural Revolution Literature" made many Chinese have a strong impulse to question and doubt the ideological forbidden areas and precepts set up, and this impulse eventually gave birth to the "ideological liberation movement" in the late 1970s.
From 1949 to 1979, 30 years later, the four words "creative freedom" were finally recognized. Throughout the 1980s, there was no longer any possibility of ordering the world to establish a unified situation, and the "ideological emancipation movement" was bound to give birth to the "Renaissance".
Hong Zicheng saw that those writers who had been suppressed, such as Wang Meng, Gao Xiaosheng, Wang Zengqi, etc., were often able to re-write faster than mainstream writers and dissolve into the torrent of literary innovation in the new era. In addition, "young writers" and writers who only entered the creative period after the end of the "Cultural Revolution" also appeared on the stage of history. Today, these people may be more famous: the former includes Han Shaogong, Shi Tiesheng, Jia Pingwa, and Wang Anyi, and the latter includes Feng Jicai and Liu Xinwu.
Once the shackles of politics are removed, the boundless potential of contemporary Chinese literature is also stimulated. Starting from Liu Xinwu's "Class Teacher" and Lu Xinhua's "Scars", literary trends such as scar literature, obscure poetry, reflective literature, and root-seeking literature have almost exploded, and too many suppressed emotions have been presented through novels, poems, dramas, and essays, so that later generations often feel "abusive" when looking back on the literary works of this period. Throughout the 1980s, literary creation was in a very relaxed environment, and the era of relative openness came.
Liu Xinwu, "Class Teacher", China Youth Publishing House, 1979 edition
"Scars" comic strip, Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 1979 edition
For contemporary literature, this small book is enough to take on the four words of "small words and great righteousness". It is precisely because of those lovely, excellent, and resolute creators that literature has been able to struggle out of the cracks of history and eventually become a precious channel for people to taste history.
Editor-in-Charge: Gu Ming
Proofreader: Luan Meng