Translator on the banks of the Riva River
In 2020, the School of Foreign Languages of East China Normal University started the excavation and sorting out of the historical context of the college, and cooperated with Sun Mengjin Studio of Shanghai Radio and Television Station to shoot and produce the documentary "The Translator on the Riva River", tracing the footsteps of the master, inheriting the spiritual context, and presenting the 70th anniversary of the founding of East China Normal University.
After nearly a year of production, this painstaking and meticulously crafted documentary is finally completed, and it is time to meet with everyone!
At 19:00 on October 22nd, the documentary will be broadcast on shanghai documentary humanities channel! Tune in!
(The introduction of the film is reproduced from the Documentary Humanities Channel)
Riva River, nourishing the students of East China Normal University, has also given birth to a group of translators with far-reaching influence, which is distributed in major departments with the School of Foreign Languages as the axis, and has given birth to a group of translators with far-reaching influence in the academic field.
Seek truth from facts, but learn endlessly. In the autumn of October, East China Normal University ushered in the 70th anniversary of its founding. The documentary "The Translator on the Riva River" interviews students and relatives of 24 translators, scholars, writers and deceased translators, comprehensively reflecting the profound humanistic background of East China Normal University.
East China Normal University
Wang Zhiliang translator
Zhu Yisen translator
Gao Weiyi translator
Huang Yuanshen translator
Cao Guowei translator
Xu Zhenya translator
Zhou Kexi translator
He Jingye translator
Eight translators interviewed
01
History
East China Normal University was founded on the original site of Daxia University on the basis of Daxia University and Guanghua University, and transferred to some departments of St. John's University and other universities. Daxia and Guanghua have a group of deeply educated teachers, among which Zhou Xuliang, head of the English Department of Guanghua University, and Li Qingya, head of the Chinese Department of Daxia University, are all erudite translators. Among the students who inherited the famous masters, there were Ge Baoquan, Guo Dali, Luo Yujun, Ren Rongrong, and Wu Liangping from Daxia University, who first appeared in the translation industry.
Zhou Xuliang
Born into a Confucian and shang family, Zhou Xuliang twice served as the head of the English Department of Guanghua University, and in 1951, he became the first head of the Department of Foreign Languages at East China Normal University. Zhou Xuliang is knowledgeable and integrates Chinese and Western. He advocated a paraphrasing on the basis of literal translation.
Liu Qing, a professor at the Department of Political Science at East China Normal University, recalls: "Zhou Xuliang's translation of 'Existentialism is a Kind of Humanism' stimulated my initial interest in the outside world. Liang Chaoqun, a professor at the School of Foreign Languages of East China Normal University, believes that Zhou Xuliang regards translation as a mission of national rejuvenation, and he is a person with huge ideological tension. He's not a little literati, he's a big literati.
Shi Sting
Shi Jingcun is a writer and translator who has left an important mark in the history of modern Chinese literature, and once founded the "New Sensation School" with Mu Shiying and others, and his translations of novels, poems and plays have been outstanding.
Mr. Shi's translation lasted for a long time, from the twenties until his old age. He himself has a very famous saying, I have opened four windows in my life, one is open to ancient Chinese literature, one is open to Western literature, and one is open to new literature. Later, he added a window - the study of inscriptions. "Scholar Chen Zishan once had contacts with his predecessor, Mr. Shi." He was a very open-minded person, and when I came to his house he had a mantra, "I'm going to close the stalls", but then I found out that the old man had not collected the stalls, and he was still very excited.
Gobble-kuen
Ge Baoquan was not only the first senior diplomat to be sent abroad after the founding of New China, but also a translator and cultural activist, fluent in Russian, Japanese, French, English and other languages.
Ge Baoquan's nephew Sun Ge introduced: On October 5, 1949, China and the Soviet Union set up embassies, and just as Ge Baoquan was in the Soviet Union, he was appointed as the chargé d'affaires ad interim and the cultural affairs counselor to handle matters related to the relations between the two countries.
Regarding the group of translators, Tang Tao, director of the archives of East China Normal University, believes that this is a good concept, which represents the level of talent cultivation and the level of the teaching team of East China Normal University, and its connotation and extension should be more extensive.
Mei Bing, secretary of the Party Committee of East China Normal University, summed up the group of translators of East China Normal University: "They pursue ideological progress, academic excellence, and artistic perfection. ”
Mei Bing, Secretary of the Party Committee of East China Normal University
02
Strings sing
From the text of Riva River, Picking Up Incense to translate famous texts, East China Normal University has emerged a number of famous translators, Ye Zhi, Sun Liang, Wang Zhiliang, Zhu Yisen, Feng Zengyi, Xu Qingdao, Huang Yuanshen, Yu Sumie, Zhou Kexi, He Jingye, Xu Zhenya, Cao Guowei, etc., they have devoted themselves to translating, Dewo Qunfang, and together created another era of East China Normal University translators.
In 1951, when East China Normal University was founded, the Department of Foreign Languages had an English group and a Russian language group. There are 13 teachers. Since the 1950s, the students of East China Normal University have also joined the climax of staying in Suzhou. During this period, East China Normal University gave birth to many Russian translators.
Translator Xu Zhenya recalls: "After the 1970s, the atmosphere relaxed. The English language is Huang Yuanshen and Yu Sumei, and the Russian language is Feng Zengyi, Xu Qingdao, Cao Guowei and so on. ”
Translator Huang Yuanshen talked about his experience of translation: "You must use Chinese as your strong backing. On the one hand, you should have good English and accurate understanding, but the translation is good or bad is Chinese level. ”
Zhou Kexi
Translator Zhou Kexi hopes that the younger generation can endure loneliness, and only in this way can there be any hope of expanding the group of translators of East China Normal University.
"Now we must have cultural self-confidence, and multicultural exchanges and mutual learning are the main aspects of the progress of human civilization." Translator He Jingye went to France twice as a visiting professor to introduce China's political, social, economic, cultural and other aspects.
At the beginning of reform and opening up, East China Normal University continued to introduce a number of translators and teaching talents, including Ye Zhi, Sun Dayu, Wang Zhiliang and Yu Zhen.
Ye Zhi
Ye Zhi, pen name Lord Wan, was born in Shuxiang Mendi. In the early 1950s, Ye Zhi engaged in professional literary translation under the pseudonym "Zhongwan". Ye Zhi's younger brother and scholar Ye Yang commented: If it is summarized in one sentence, the translation of the eldest brother really deserves the word "rigorous".
Wang Zhiliang
The translator Wang Zhiliang believes that to translate Russian literature, you must study the Russian language of the 19th century well; in addition, you must understand life, which is a necessary condition for being a real translator.
03
The context continues
The School of Foreign Languages of East China Normal University has always stood at the head of the tide, continued the context, and emerged from generations of excellent translators. In recent years, the new generation of translators of the college has won many important translation awards, and the translation works have been outstanding. From the introduction of foreign literature and art to the external dissemination of Chinese literature and art, from the translation of texts to the translation of dramas, films and television, from telling "foreign stories" well in good Chinese to telling "Chinese stories" well in foreign languages, the translation "responsibility" in the new era has also undergone tremendous changes. Regarding the external dissemination of Chinese literature and art, Sun Dayu's translation of Qu Yuan's poetry in English and Yu Sumian's translation of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" have considerable influence, while Zhang Chunbai's translation of the American TV series "Detective Hunter" and "Growing Pains", as well as Fei Chun's translation work in the field of drama, have also expanded the scope of the group of translators of East China Normal University.
School of Foreign Languages, East China Normal University
Yuan Xiaoyi, dean of the School of Foreign Languages of East China Normal University, stressed: "Governing subjects with literature", foreign language disciplines in the beginning of the occurrence, are all based on literature to teach language. Writers such as Sun Ganlu, Chen Danyan, and Mao Jian pointed out the influence of translated literature on Chinese writing, "Every writer should create his own thesaurus, and this vocabulary really benefits from translated literature," Chen Danyan also recalled the scene when she went to Wang Zhiliang's home to take intensive English reading classes.
Speaking of the spiritual temperament of the group of translators of East China Normal University, Pei Wenli, deputy director of the Russian Research Center of East China Normal University, summed it up as "profound, humble and down-to-earth". Liu Qing summed it up like this: "It has such a humanistic tradition that is inseparable from the torrent of the times, with its own concentration and its own calmness. ”
Documentary "The Translator on the Riva River"
Shanghai Documentary Humanities Channel
It premieres on October 22 at 19:00
Replayed on 23 july 30 and 29 at 14:00
Tune in!
Documentary Center of Shanghai Radio and Television Station
Sun Mengjin Studio
School of Foreign Languages, East China Normal University