ASIAN AND &of (Sciences AFRICAN (STUDIES Volume 4/1995 Number 2 CONTENTS Editor in Chief: Viktor Kr u pa Associate and Managing Editor: Articles JozefG enzo r G á l ik , Marián: Mao Dun and Me.................... 113 M ö l l e r , Hans-Georg: Philosophical Reflec­ We would like to inform our readers that tions on Life and Death in Twentieth Cen­ since 1992 our periodical ASIAN AND tury China: Hu Shi s “On Immortality'\... 137 AFRICAN STUDIES is published semi­ Li, Xia: Poetry, Reality and Existence in Yang annually in journal form rather than Lian s Illusion City ....................................... 149 annually in book form. The conception of K r u p a , Viktor: Cognitive Vagueness and Ter­ our journal, however, has not undergone minology o f Internal Organs ..........................166 any major changes. M o d in i , Paul: Korean and Japanese Inter­ The Editors nally-headed Relative Clauses: A Compar­ ison between them and with Headless Address of the Editorial Office Relatives...........................................................173 Institute o f Oriental and African Studies D r o z d í k , Ladislav: Identification Problems in Slovak Academy of Sciences the Arabic Derivation ....................................182 Klemensova 19 813 64 Bratislava S o r b y , Karol: Egypt 1954-1955: The Search for Orientation ................................................ 199 Slovakia tel/fax: (00427) 326 326 Book Reviews e-mail: [email protected] D a b r i n g h a u s , Sabine: Das Qing-Imperium The editors bear no responsibility what­ als Vision und Wirklichkeit - Tibet in soever for the views expressed by the Laufbahn und Schriften des Song Yun contributors to this journal. (1752-1835). By Martin Slobodník.......... 222 ASIAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES, 4, 1995,2, 113-136 ARTICLES MAO DUN AND ME* Marián Gálik Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia The aim of this article is to describe the process of the study of Mao Dun’s work and life within the framework o f Czech and Slovak sinology, especially in connection with the present author during the last more than forty years. This study is dedicated to and published on the eve o f the 100th anniversary of Mao Dun’s birthday on July 4, 1996. The interest in the study of modem Chinese literature in the PRC and else­ where, both from the intra- and interliterary aspects, is a positive development in the last more than twenty years. The quantity and sometimes also the quality of scholarly production in this realm of sinology increased tremendously. Not much is known about the physiology of this study, its difficulties, the ways of obtaining materials, bio-bibliographical data, the scholarly collaboration of the critics, historians, writers, etc. Especially before the years ending with the “Cul­ tural Revolution” (1966-1976), the whole field is more or less terra incognita, although its more detailed knowledge could show the odyssey of the pioneers of the study of modern Chinese literature and their first disciples. 1 My first contact with Mao Dun [1] (1896-1981) or, better to say, the general characteristics of his work, dates back to October 1953 when I started my sinology studies at the Charles University in Prague. Our most indispensable teaching materials included a book of exercises entitled Učebnice mluvené čínštiny (The Textbook of Spoken Chinese), originally compiled by Jaroslav Průšek in 1938. It contained two sentences which represented for me the first * First shorter Chinese version o f this article (analysing the facts up to 1986) appeared in Studies in Modern Chinese Literature, 1, 1990, pp. 231-249 under the title: Wo he Mao Dun [149] I and Mao Dun. Later nearly full version (analysing the facts up to 1988) appeared in German entitled: Begegnungen mit Mao Dun. Eine Erinnerung und ein Forschungsbericht, Minima sinica (Bonn), 2, 1993, pp. 64-90. 113 information on the subject: “In China there are published many new works of fiction. I personally like those written by Mao Dun. I think that he is the best fiction writer in contemporary China.”1 Students or disciples, when deciding whether to commit themselves to the chosen field of study, usually look at the “image” of their teachers. They may either accept their opinions or may view them in a critical way, but they always learn from them. In the early 1950s the knowledge of modern Chinese literature in the countries outside China itself was very limited. Průsek thus played a pio­ neering role in Central Europe and in the West in general. It was thus natural for us to reach for his works and learn from them. At the very beginning, we found two such books. One of them was Sestra moje Čína (China - My Sister) pub­ lished in 1940, the other O čínském písemnictví a vzdělanosti (On the Chinese Literature and Instruction) published in 1947. The latter volume comprised studies Průsek wrote in the period 1934-1945. The global political situation, Nazi victory in Germany, impending World War II and the war itself, USSR, oc­ cupation of vast Chinese territories by the militaristic Japan, difficult victories both in Europe and Asia, all this was reflected in the work. One of the studies in this collection covering subjects ranging from Confucius, his time and thought, up to the present days, was called Nová čínská literatura (The New Chinese Lit­ erature) and was first published in the journal Das neue China, Berlin 1940. This study, probably the first one in the world literature outside China with per­ haps the exception of The Creative Spirit in Modern Chinese Literature2 by A.Acton, gave us the most relevant information on the new Chinese literature from the end of the last century up to the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War. Prúšek’s major source was apparently the book, Zhongguo xin wenxue yundong shi [2] A History of New Chinese Literary Movement by Wang Zhefii [3], but his study also contains much of the fruits of his own readings and observations. This is distinctly visible in the section devoted to Mao Dun and Bing Xin [4] (1900- ). In contrast to German, Czech, or Slovak readers, Chinese readers may not find very interesting Prúšek’s interpretation of Mao Dun’s trilogy Shi [5] The Eclipse. All they need to do is to thumb through Wang Zhefii’s monograph in one of the libraries. Prúšek’s translation of the Ziye [6] Midnight and his long preface from Au­ gust 1950 played an important part not only in the cause of gaining Czech and, somewhat later, also Slovak sinologists for the study of modern Chinese litera­ ture, This Czech translation was, to a certain extent, stimulated by the German translation by Franz Kuhn published under the title Shanghai in Zwielicht, Dres­ den 1938. The Czech title of the novel Šerosvit (The Twilight) is closer to the German Zwielicht than to the Chinese Midnight. But while the Nazi censorship authorized the publication of Kuhn’s translation, Prúšek’s case was different. Although he translated Mao Dun’s novel in the years 1939-40, it appeared in 1 P r ú š e k , J.: The Textbook of Spoken Chinese, Zlín 1938. 2 T’ien Hsia Monthly, 1, 1935, 4, pp. 374-387. 114 print one whole decade later. It was published in 1950 by Svoboda Publishing House with the impression of 10,750 copies. The translation of the Midnight, both in the 1950 edition and in the 1958 edi­ tion for the Readers’ Club, the largest Czech readers’ organisation, is not com­ plete. Probably because of the censorship which, as it is known, befell Midnight also in the Kuomintang China, Průsek omitted from his translation a consider­ able part of Chapter 15 starting with the paragraph which begins as follows: “From a dark corner of the slum a shadow was creeping silent out...” up to the sentence: “You’re giving yourself away - you’re tarred with the same brush as the liquidationists.”3 It depicts the scenes from a slum room of women workers in which three labour-movement activists meet, i.e Cai Zhen [7], Ma Jin [8] and Chen Yue’e [9] and two Party representatives, i.e. Ke Zuofii [10] and Su Lun [11] and discuss the possibility or the necessity of a general strike for the Shanghai workers in the silk industry. The second edition had 34,000 copies. The character of Průsek’s preface to the translation reminds more of a his­ torical introduction than a literary study. He devotes a relatively limited space to the literary aspects, perhaps due to the need to explain to the Czecho-Slovak readers in the year 1950 the political background against which the changes af­ ter the founding of the PRC in October 1949 took place. The following words attest to Prúšek’s admiration for Midnight: “We may say that Midnight is, ex­ cept for the now already classic work of the greatest Chinese man of letters of modern time - Lu Xun, the greatest literary work of prewar China.”4 Průsek, however, did not invariably approve of Mao Dun. He was aware of his drawbacks and certain remarks brought to my notice before reading Mid­ night provided me with the food for reflection: “Perhaps the rapidity with which Mao Tun wrote his novels is to be blamed for a considerable lack of elaboration of many passages. And, in particular, he does not have the gift of Lu Xun for such a transformation of the seen and carefully observed reality which would enable the perception of it not only as a record of the events, but also as an ar­ tistic image and an experience.