Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t2: Lu Xun
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t2
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Lu Xun
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Lu Xun (September 25, 1881 – October 19, 1936) is one of the most prominent and influential writers in 20th century China. Born as Zhou Zhangshou (later known as Zhou Shuren), Lu Xun is considered a founder of modern vernacular Chinese literature (白话baihua) and an outstanding personality of modern Chinese literature as well as a key player in the May Fourth Movement. In India, Lu Xun is probably the best known among all modern Chinese writers and his works have been translated, studied and performed widely.
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*Lu Xun*
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He was born into a scholarly family in Shaoxing of Zhejiang province in China. Until he was 11, Lu Xun studied in a private school run in his home town. His family went through various troubles and suffered a gradual financial decline while he was in his a youth. The memories of this period became an important source material for his creative writing, and are vividly depicted in his later works such as *Call to Arms* (《呐喊》), *Wandering* (《彷徨》) and *Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk* (《朝花夕拾》).
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In 1898, 17-year old Lu Xun left home to study at the Jiangnan Naval Academy and in 1899, he shifted to Jiangnan School of Mines and Railways at Jiangnan Military Academy. It was there that he had his first contact with Western learning, especially the sciences. He studied some German and English, reading in translation Huxley’s *Evolution and Ethics*, J. S. Mill’s *On Liberty*, as well as novels like *Ivanhoe* and *Uncle Tom’s Cabin*. In 1902, Lu Xun went to Japan to learn Japanese but after two years, he joined the Sendai Medical Institute (later known as the Medical Department of Tokyo University) to study modern Western medicine. Later, he decided to abandon his studies because he felt that it was more important to cure the Chinese people of their spiritual diseases through literature and art. He returned to China in 1909.
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*Lu Xun delivering a speech at the playground of Beijing Normal University, November 27, 1932*
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After returning home from Japan, Lu Xun taught in Hangzhou High School and Shaoxing High School. During this period, he went through a phase of extreme depression and mental turmoil. The Xinhai Revolution of 1911 gave his feelings a temporary sense of excitement but subsequent events made him realise that the Revolution had neither changed China’s stagnating reality nor its social chaos. These events, compounded with national disasters and problems in his marriage, led Lu Xun to extreme depression. After the May Fourth Movement, his pent up thoughts and emotions burst forth like lava through the eruption of his literary writings. At this time he was working for the Ministry of Education and had moved to Beijing.
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In October 1923, Lu Xun began to teach the history of Chinese fiction to the Beijing Women’s Higher Normal University students. He later shifted to Sun Zhongshan University in Guangzhou. From October 1927, he began to formally live together with Xu Guangping.
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Lu Xun also served at various levels in the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China. Amongst his many achievements, he worked for the standardisation of Chinese, helped to develop the phonetic alphabet, designed the national emblem of the Republic of China along with Qian Daosun and Xu Shoushang, and designed the then emblem of Peking University. But Lu Xun soon left the civil service after a legal wrangle with the Ministry and the government.
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After the success of the 1917 Russian October Revolution, Lu Xun was highly inspired and together with many progressive intellectuals of the time such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu, he wrote essays and established journals which marked the beginning of China’s New Culture Movement. He was in the frontline of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle, actively advocating new culture, new ideas and new morals and severely criticising the old culture, old ideas and old moral values which had existed for thousands of years in China. In 1918, he published the novel *Diary of a Madman* (《狂人日记》), published in the magazine *New Youth* (新青年). This was the first vernacular novel in the history of modern Chinese literature. Partly inspired by a short story by Nikolai Gogol, it was a scathing criticism of outdated Chinese traditions and feudalism which was metaphorically 'gnawing' at the Chinese society, and daringly exposed the evils of feudal etiquette and the feudal patriarchal clan system. It immediately established him as one of the most influential writers of his day. After that, he never stopped writing, and wrote many novels, essays, satirical essays and commentaries. Another one of his well-known longer stories, *The True Story of Ah Q* (《阿Q正传》), was published in installments from 1921 to 1922, and came to be regarded as one of his finest works.
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While teaching and writing, Lu Xun devoted himself to the revolutionary struggles of his times. From 1927 till his death in 1936, he lived in the more liberal city of Shanghai, where he co-founded the Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers and focussed his attention on revolutionary literary and artistic movements. Most of his essays date from this period. In 1930, Lu Xun’s *A Concise History of Chinese Fiction* (《中国小说史略》) was published.
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'True Story of Ah Q' (A Q Zhengzhuan), front cover
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Based on his lectures delivered at Peking University, this work is a comprehensive overview of the history of Chinese fiction until that time. It went on to become one of the landmark books of Chinese literary criticism in the 20th century.
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His other important works include volumes of translations, notably from Russian, discursive writings like *Re Feng* (热风, Hot Wind), and many other works such as prose essays, which number around 20 volumes or more. He was the editor of several left-wing magazines such as *New Youth* (新青年), *Sprouts* (萌芽) and so on. His works exerted a very substantial influence on the Chinese literature produced after the May Fourth Movement. He was eulogised by the government of China after 1949; Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun’s works. Though sympathetic to the ideals of the Left, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party.
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His importance to modern Chinese literature lies in the fact that he contributed significantly to almost every modern literary medium during his lifetime. He wrote in a clear lucid style which was to influence many generations. His translations were important in a time when Western literature was not widely read and his literary criticisms seem acute and persuasively argued even today.
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The work of Lu Xun is world renowned. In India, there is a general consensus that despite cultural and geographical differences, his writings are extremely relevant to contemporary India. Moreover, his works are included in the syllabus of courses on Chinese Literature and History of Chinese Literature, taught in the university departments/centres of Chinese language, literature and culture. On the occasion of Lu Xun’s birth centenary, a three-day seminar was organised in New Delhi in 1981. Indian scholars of Chinese Studies and academics from other institutions presented papers on him, his works, and, his social, cultural and political philosophy. The seminar was also attended by a number of well-known writers from all over India and was marked by a compilation of Lu Xun’s works and commentaries on his works entitled ‘*Lu Xun ki Virasat (Legacy of Lu Xun)*’ edited by Manager Pandey, *et al*.
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The students of India’s prestigious National School of Drama have produced a stage adaptation of the *The True Story of Ah Q*, set against the backdrop of the Naxalite Movement in Bihar, named *Chandan Singh urf Chamku*. It was directed by eminent Indian theatre personality Bhabu Bharti. A Marathi adaptation of *The True Story of Ah Q* was staged in early 2013, directed by Durvesh Arya and the production starred Girish Pardeshi in a 55-minute solo performance.
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In 2008, at the initiative of Chinese residents of Kolkata, a bronze statue of Lu Xun was installed in the town hall. The statue was unveiled by Qian Jianmin, the mayor of Shaoxing, the hometown of Lu Xun, and the mayor of Kolkata, Bikash Bhattacharya. Drawing parallels between him and Rabindranath Tagore, Jianmin said that both had left deep impressions in world literature. Pointing out that Lu Xun was popular in Kolkata, Bhattacharya said, “People of the city love him for his empathy for the poor and the marginalised.”
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To commemorate his 130ᵗʰ birth anniversary in 2012, an international conference on *Lu Xun and His Legacy* was organised in Delhi by the Institute of Chinese Studies, with many participants from India, China and other countries. On this occasion, an exhibition entitled *Life and Work of Lu Xun* was brought from China by the Beijing Lu Xun Museum and was on show in the Indian capital for a week. Students of the Centre for Chinese & South East Asian Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University also staged a theatrical production based on Lu Xun’s *The True Story of Ah Q* and a soliloquy on him.
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(Sabaree Mitra)