【Article/Observer Network Columnist Guo Chun】
In September 1915, Chen Duxiu wrote in the first issue of youth magazine (later renamed "New Youth") "Tribute to Youth": "Youth is like early spring, like asahi, like the budding of a hundred flowers, like the new hair of a sharp blade in arsenic, and the most precious period of life." He believes that the future trend of Chinese society is "only the young people who want to be fresh and lively, and have the ears to struggle with self-consciousness!" China needs these young people to "give play to the inherent wisdom of the world and choose the ideas of the world", and as for how to choose, he put forward the following six criteria: (i) autonomous rather than slave; (ii) progressive rather than conservative; (iii) enterprising rather than reclusive; (iv) the world rather than the national locked; (v) practical rather than imaginary; (vi) scientific rather than imaginary.
These six criteria are not only Chen Duxiu's action plan to awaken Chinese youth and expect them to build a new China, but also project the ideal reader of the magazine in his mind - a "new youth" image of "free, progressive, positive, open, pragmatic and scientific".
In addition to covering up the volume, some people will ask, did there really exist such a "new youth" in China at that time? Who are they?
In this TV series that "positively shows the early spread of Marxism in China and the whole process of the founding of the Communist Party of China", the screenwriters constructed a group portrait of "New Youth" and listed a long list of "New Youth" for the audience: Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Chen Yannian, Chen Qiaonian, Guo Xingang, Zhao Shiyan, Deng Zhongxia...
Careful viewers may find that in this TV series, each historical figure will be accompanied by a commentary on the side, introducing important information such as his name, year of birth and death, and identity when he appeared. Correspondingly, those characters who are fictionalized for the sake of the plot do not have such "treatment". Among them, it is quite surprising that "Guo Xingang", who frequently appears in nearly two-thirds of the length of this 43-episode TV series and has a heavy role, is also a fictional character.
Different from other embellished fictional characters, the audience can feel the screenwriter's preference for the character of "Guo Xingang" in the play, he is not only a "reference object" in "The Age of Awakening", threading the needle to connect the appearance of many protagonists, he himself is also an important character with an independent main story: Dongdu Japan to study, just when Yuan Shikai wants to accept the "twenty-one" and is indignant, and even Spit Chen Duxiu, who makes "negative remarks", but does not fight with him, he does not know, He also unexpectedly witnessed the historic meeting between Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu; came to Peking University to study, was deeply influenced by Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, Hu Shi and other major generals of the new cultural movement, and became the vanguard of supporting vernacular literature in the "literary reform"; he was the son of the general soldier of Dengzhou in Shandong, who lost Shandong because of the failure of the Diplomacy of the Paris Peace Conference, and he also spent the night whitehead because he failed to fulfill his father's last wish, dragged his sick body to participate in the May Fourth parade and demonstration, and finally vomited blood and died. This classically tragic ending moved countless viewers, but this is not a momentary stroke of the creative team, but a highlight moment given to this character by a real historical archetype.
The character "Guo Xingang" was born in 1895 to an ordinary peasant family in Wenchang, Guangdong (present-day Wenchang, Hainan). At the age of 6, he entered the school to study, and at the age of 12, he graduated from Luofeng Higher Primary School in Wenchang County, and then went to Sui and was admitted to the Guangdong Provincial Normal School. In Guangzhou, he was indeed indignant because Yuan Shikai secretly signed the "Twenty-One Articles" with Japan, and made a generous statement at the "National Shame Conference" held in the East Garden, setting up his ambition to repay the country with death with the words that "it is better to steal in danger than to die early than to support our country with two eyes and wait for outsiders to insult our country." In 1917, Guo Qinguang graduated from the Guangdong Provincial Normal School and was then admitted to the preparatory class of liberal arts at Peking University.
On May 4, 1919, more than 3,000 students from 13 Beijing universities and colleges headed by Peking University held a demonstration and put forward slogans such as "fighting for national power abroad, punishing national thieves at home," "returning qingdao to me," and "refusing to sign the peace treaty." Guo Qinguang was already suffering from lung disease at the time, and his classmates tried to dissuade him from participating in the parade again, but he insisted on refusing. When the procession gathered at Tiananmen Square, he immediately took the stage to give a speech, and then rushed to the Zhao Family Building with his classmates to search for traitors, during which he vomited blood on the spot due to overwork and emotional excitement, and once fell into a coma. After that, although he was sent to the French Hospital in Beijing for treatment, due to the rapid deterioration of his condition, the doctors also lacked strength. On May 7, Guo Qinguang died of illness at the age of 24.
Guo Qinguang was the first martyr to die in the May Fourth Patriotic Movement, and his death caused a fierce response among the students, and students in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Guangdong held mourning activities for him, and developed the memorial activities into political mobilization meetings to further promote the extensive development of the May Fourth Movement. On May 4, 1998, on the occasion of the centennial celebration of Peking University, the name of "Guo Qinguang" was engraved on the "Monument to the Revolutionary Martyrs of Peking University".
The real "Guo Qinguang" only lived for more than twenty years, and posterity can only rely on the memories of his people and the few words left by his contemporaries to piece together one or two pages of his life in local county chronicles and biographies of heroes and martyrs. The banner raised by "May Fourth" may have his red blood stains, but posterity regrets that he can only lament his fate, but can never understand his suffering and suffering. This large piece of "blank space" actually provides an opportunity for artistic creation. By selecting and refining documentary materials, the screenwriters overlapped the "new youth" that really existed in history and the "new youth" constructed with texts and historical materials, and kneaded a new character "Guo Xingang". The play is fake and true, and the creative team enriches the hero's life with fictional characters.
When we talk about "new youth", we tend to see it as a derivative of the "new cultural movement", but this seems to be sloppy and qualitative. "The Age of Awakening" is more cleverly handled, taking a debate among Chinese students studying in Japan in early 1915 as the first act, allowing "Guo Xingang" to appear here, laying a reasonable historical background for the opening of the plot: in the early 20th century, the Qing government launched the "New Deal" reform in an attempt to save the already precarious regime. However, in the nearly decade-long reform, only the abolition of the imperial examination, the establishment of schools, and the dispatch of students abroad have been implemented. The Qing government did not welcome helpers, but cultivated opponents: a new collective birth of intellectuals, the abolition of the imperial examination system, which made them constantly alienated from traditional ideas and the ruling class; the establishment of new schools and study abroad, which led them to have various forms of contact with modern Western civilization. The "new youth" came from these intellectuals. Armed with their own ideological weapons, they are eager for change. The League made its first attempt, but failed miserably, and although the Republic of China was established, the fruits of the victory of the revolution were stolen by the warlords of the North and the South. The revolution was at a bottleneck, and the depressed intellectuals rethinked China's fate.
It was during this period that Japan, which was in the same boat as China, became a gathering place for these intellectuals because of its economic convenience and cultural communication. The historic meeting between Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu witnessed by "Guo Xingang" is not all the artistic imagination of the creators: Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu came into contact with the theories of Isoo Abe, the "father of Japanese socialism", at Waseda University, and socialist ideas began to sow seeds in the hearts of the future leaders of these two "new youths".
The magazine "New Youth" founded by Chen Duxiu in Shanghai broke the ground and announced the birth of "New Youth". The new power needs careful care and nourishment, and there is a desire for strict grinding to enhance vitality. The "Age of Awakening" chose Peking University as the main venue to show the confrontation between the old and new forces in China's ideological circles, which has its own reason: as the only institution that has been retained in the "Penghu Reform Law", the predecessor of Peking University, "Beijing Normal University Hall", is China's first government-run modern university, and with the abolition of the Guozijian and the abolition of the imperial examination system, it has gradually evolved into the only official supreme institution of learning in China, becoming an institution that is both a study and a reserve bureaucracy. This also confirms the words of the negative character "Zhang Fengzai" in "The Age of Awakening": "To study at Peking University is to become an official." ”
Cai Yuanpei, as the president of Peking University, urged reform, and he began in his inaugural speech: "University students, researchers with advanced knowledge are also." Therefore, the princes must have a purpose, come to study, and those who enter the legal science are not to become officials; those who enter the business department are not to get rich. For the sake of a new Peking University, Cai Yuanpei invited Chen Duxiu to serve as the dean of liberal arts at Peking University, and from another point of view, Chen Duxiu also stood on the podium of Peking University in order to test his "new culture". The new cultural movement, which began with literary reform, needed the main general and the pioneer - in the play, "Guo Xingang" and Huang Kan argued about "respecting the teacher and the heavy way", just like the pioneer came on the field, relying on the momentum of the young people to give the opponent a dismount; it also needed a pawn - rehearsing the live newspaper drama "The Bells of the Red Chamber" and shouting for the vernacular text. The "new youth" have become more and more courageous in various frictions and conflicts, and have accumulated experience and courage for future struggles.
The patriotic demonstration of the students on May 4, 1919, made the Beiyang government see the determination and action of the "new youth". "The Age of Awakening" arranges the "death of Guo Xingang" here, which not only respects the objective historical facts, but also pushes the audience's emotions to a climax. The differentiation of the "New Culture Movement" is also cleverly displayed in the storyline: after the march, the Beijing government detained "troublemakers" students, rectified the publications that propagated progressive ideas, suffered heavy losses at Peking University and the editorial office of "New Youth", and Cai Yuanpei resigned as president of Peking University, making everyone feel that the school was in danger of being dissolved. Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi thus broke out into a fierce quarrel, and the former shouted out: "The reason why China is so nested is because Guo Xingang is too few, and Hu Shizhi is too much."
A "new youth" died in a posture of struggle, and his death made his mentor from the beginning to talk about "not talking about politics for twenty years, devoted to inspiring the minds of the people" to finally shouting "no argument, no dispute, no", confirming that "the new cultural movement cannot be separated from politics, and even it is politics itself". His death made people aware of the division of this intellectual community, and some of them will continue to move forward holding high the sign of "new youth", while others insist that "a cultural movement should not be transformed into a political movement", admonishing themselves to stay away from these right and wrong, "stay in the green mountains, not afraid of no firewood".
This article is the exclusive manuscript of the observer network, the content of the article is purely the author's personal views, does not represent the platform views, unauthorized, may not be reproduced, otherwise will be investigated for legal responsibility. Pay attention to the observer network WeChat guanchacn, read interesting articles every day.