As soon as we mention Mr. Lu Xun, the "soul of the nation," we will see that a literary tough guy with an iron backbone and his literary works are even more compulsory in the textbooks of generations of students.
Lu Xun and The LeapIng Earth
Mr. Lu Xun's original name was Zhou Shuren, his two younger brothers are Zhou Zuo and Zhou Jianren, the literary giant Mr. Lu Xun naturally does not need to be introduced, and the third brother Zhou Jianren, although compared with Lu Xun, has a much smaller reputation.
But his achievements are also very high, he is a famous social activist, biologist, and one of the founders of the China Association for the Promotion of Democracy, and he has risen to the rank of vice-state.
Of course, the focus of what we want to talk about today is Lu Xun's second brother Zhou Zuoren, but before we talk about Zhou Zuoren, let's first talk about the relationship between the three brothers of the Zhou family.
Zhou Jianren (front row, second from left)
The achievements of the three brothers of the Zhou family are very great, but Mr. Lu Xun broke off relations with the second brother Zhou Zuoren very early, and the same third brother Zhou Jianren did not interact with the second brother Zhou Zuoren for decades.
The reason for this, the three Zhou brothers have not explained, leaving people with unlimited space for reverie. In fact, when zhou zuoren is mentioned, many people will be unfamiliar with him, because for a long time, people are reluctant to mention him.
If we open the history, we will find that Zhou Zuoren's literary and ideological achievements are not inferior to Lu Xun, he is a famous translator and thinker, proficient in Japanese, ancient Greek, and English.
Zhou Zuoren
Zhou Zuoren also made great contributions during the May Fourth Movement, he was one of the main contributors to the magazine "New Youth", and his article "Literature of People" published in the magazine "New Youth" was praised as "an important declaration of reform literature" at that time." ”
He also co-founded with Lu Xun and others, the first literary journal in the history of modern literature to focus on prose, "Yusi" Weekly, inheriting the ideological essence of the "May Fourth Movement".
In 1925, in the Women's Normal University incident, he also stood up, and jointly published the "Declaration on the Trend of Beijing Women's Normal University" in the Beijing Daily with Lu Xun and seven other professors, insisting on going to the Women's Normal University to take classes and support students.
It can be said that Zhou Zuoren in his youth was a warm-blooded young man who worried about the country and the people and looked at the world. But unfortunately, he did not inherit Mr. Lu Xun's hard bones, and this blood soon disappeared.
Zhou Zuoren's collection of essays
In 1937, after the Lugou Bridge Incident, peking university evacuated Beiping, because many important equipment could not be removed, jiang Menglin, then president of Peking University, arranged for Zhou Zuoren and four other professors to stay in Beiping.
Because Zhou Zuoren was close to the Japanese, Jiang Menglin specifically instructed Zhou Zuoren to negotiate with the Japanese as much as possible and make every effort to preserve the teaching facilities of Peking University.
Although Zhou Zuoren was close to the Japanese, he did not initially hold the work position arranged by the Japanese, but wholeheartedly preserved the teaching facilities of Peking University.
Cultural traitor Zhou Zuoren
But in 1939, his position suddenly changed, and the reason for the sudden change began with a shooting incident, on January 1, 1939, when he was meeting at home, someone suddenly rushed in and shot him down.
As for who shot him, there has been no conclusive conclusion, some saying that it was a Japanese agent, some saying that it was a Kuomintang agent, and some saying that it was just a student who simply did not get used to his pro-Japanese behavior.
However, Zhou Zuoren was only slightly injured, but then he compromised with the Japanese pseudo, and 10 days after his assassination, he took over the position of director of the pseudo-Peking University Library, and 2 months later took over the post of dean of the pseudo-Peking University School of Letters.
Ai Qing
After hearing this news, the cultural circles immediately fell into an uproar, and Ai Qing said sadly:
"Zhou Zuoren betrayed us when we needed it most!"
However, in the face of the reaction of the national cultural circles, Zhou Zuoren did not have the slightest intention of repentance, but continued to go farther and farther down the wrong path.
On January 1, 1941, Zhou Zuoren served as a member of the North China Political Affairs Committee and the superintendent of the General Administration of Education of the Wang puppet government, and if the above positions can be tolerated, then Zhou Zuoren went to the road of no return.
Also in 1941, Zhou Zuoren served as the president of the so-called East Asian Cultural Council, and even more egregiously, Zhou Zuoren also led a delegation to visit Japan to comfort the Japanese wounded who were wounded in the war of aggression against China.
At the same time, Zhou Zuoren also revised the textbooks of universities, middle schools and primary schools in North China in accordance with the requirements of the Japanese, and included Japanese language learning in the scope of compulsory courses.
Since then, when Zhou Zuoren was from the "May Fourth Movement," the progressive people in China were completely reduced to traitors who were only japanese and arrogant. Zheng Zhenduo, in the article "Xi Zhou Zuoren", once lamented:
"In the entire fourteen years of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the greatest loss of the Chinese literary and art circles was Zhou Zuoren's rebellion."
It can be said that Zhou Zuoren's rebellion has set off waves in China's cultural circles, and everyone is thinking sadly and indignantly about why Zhou Zuoren should be a traitor.
In his later years, Zhou Zuoren
Geng Chuanming has specifically analyzed this problem in his book "Zhou Zuoren in His Later Years", and Geng Chuanming believes that Zhou Zuoren is a thorough pessimist who has been influenced by modern nihilistic ideas.
When Mr. Lu Xun was alive, Zhou Zuoren had not yet become a traitor, but Lu Xun's evaluation of Zhou Zuoren had only one word: "Faint! ”。 Similarly, Zhang Zhonghang also commented on Zhou Zuoren: "Small things are not confused, big things are confused!" ”
Mr. Lu Xun
Before the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Zhou Zuoren said when talking to Zheng Zhenduo about the topic of anti-Japanese resistance:
"It is impossible to fight against Japan, people have a navy, there is no fight, people have landed." Our portal is open, how can we resist people? ”
Therefore, perhaps very early on, Zhou Zuoren had already planted the seeds of fear and pessimism in his heart. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan in full swing, people in cultural circles urged Zhou Zuoren to go south one after another.
Peking University celebrities
Mao Dun, Yu Dafu, Lao She, and 18 others even jointly issued an open letter to persuade Zhou Zuoren to go south. At that time, the literary world also shouted such a slogan:
"The city can be lost, the pool can be broken, and Zhou Zuoren cannot surrender!"
For Zhou Zuoren, his feelings for Japan are complicated, his wife Hata Nobuko is Japanese, and after he evacuated Peking University, he did his best to preserve the teaching facilities of Peking University.
First from the left: Yu Tai Nobuko, second from the left: Zhou Zuoren
At this point, when Zhou Zuoren was arrested for adultery after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Jiang Menglin also issued a statement saying that Zhou Zuoren's stay at Peking University was his arrangement.
However, no reason can become an excuse for Zhou Zuoren to be a traitor, as long as there is a conscience Chinese know that when the nation is invaded, any act of serving the aggressor cannot be tolerated.
Thus, in 1946, Zhou Zuoren was sentenced to 14 years in prison for adultery; in 1947, the sentence was changed to 10 years in prison, but after more than two years in prison, he was released in 1949.
Zhou Zuoren was put on trial
After his release from prison, Zhou Zuoren did not follow Hu Shi and others to Taiwan, but chose to stay in Shanghai. On July 4, 1949, Zhou Zuoren wrote a long letter of five or six thousand words, which Premier Zhou handed over to Chairman Mao, who read the letter and said:
"Cultural traitors, and did not kill people and set fires, now there are not many people who understand ancient Greek, raise him, let him do translation work, and publish it later."
Since then, Zhou Zuoren began a dull and lonely life in his later years, translating 11 works and writing a large number of articles and books commemorating Lu Xun.
In particular, the writing of articles and books commemorating Lu Xun and the payment obtained have given him a certain guarantee for his later life, but this also made many people satirize him, saying that Zhou Zuoren had scolded Lu Xun at the beginning, and now he ate Lu Xun again.
Lu Xun calligraphy
The three brothers of the Zhou family have left their own figures in modern Chinese society, but unfortunately, Zhou Zuoren has become a traitor and is despised by the world, and Zhou Zuoren wrote in his will in his will in his later years:
"The words of the rest of his life are not enough to praise, but the Greek dialogue translated by Twilight Nian is the wish of fifty years, and those who know it should know it."
Although Zhou Zuoren had been engaged in translation work in his later years, at that time, let alone in public, he could not appear in public, not even by name. "One wrong step, all lose", perhaps the best description of Zhou Zuoren.