He is the holy hand who created a new form of modern Chinese literature, and his writing, deep and broad, has a power and warmth that transcends words. He was a writer, but he was not a literary scholar who snored the wind and the moon, nor a successful person who sought a noble position, but a literary practitioner who devoted his life to using literature to improve society.
Almost every few years, we will solemnly gather to commemorate Mr. Lu Xun and express our respect and thoughts like all respected elders. Today is no exception. We came here from all over the world, and once again paid tribute to Mr. Lu Xun and told us what we had been thinking and thinking over the years.
Mr. Lu Xun's birth in 20th century China is a cultural miracle. There were no such figures before, and there have been very few since then, and among his contemporaries, there are a large number of outstanding literary artists such as Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, Lao She, Ba Jin, etc., and he has worked side by side with them to create the brilliant achievements of new Chinese literature. But unlike them, Mr. Lu Xun did not witness the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, as many of his literary friends did, nor did he experience the years that followed. But the flow of his 55-year-old life has forged the strongest and most brilliant literary coordinates in the field of Chinese literature. If other gentlemen were like torrents, like waves, in the long river of Chinese literature in the 20th century, then Mr. Lu Xun is more like the mainstay of the rapids. He was strong and fearless, never flinching in the face of strong winds and waves. He is like a high mountain and a valley, guiding the great rivers of Chinese literature, turning thousands of times and flowing to the sea; he is like the stars, giving confidence and hope to the vast number of readers who seek assistance in the darkest hours; he is like the earth, nourishing the spiritual world of generations of Chinese sons and daughters. His writing, deep and broad, has a power and warmth that transcends words. He was a writer, a man of letters, a saint who created new forms of modern Chinese literature, but people liked to call him "Mr. Big." The so-called big one "gets the big one and the small one." He has a huge bosom. In the early years, he "took a different road and fled a different place", broke away from the narrow world of Jiangnan Town, bid farewell to the traditional road of "reading and lifting", went to Jinling to study, and then crossed to Japan to study medicine. Along the way, his vision has become more and more open, and the connotation of life has become richer and richer. He met spiritual mentors such as Zhang Taiyan and Mr. Fujino, made friends with like-minded classmates like Xu Shousheng, and after returning to China, he joined the camp of "New Youth", published "Diary of a Madman", and set off a new cultural movement with Chen Duxiu and Li Dazhao, thus making a start on the road of literature.
Lu Xun was a literary scholar, but he was not a literary scholar who singed the wind and the moon, nor was he a successful person who sought an elegant position, but a literary practitioner who devoted his life to using literature to improve society. He said that the material of his novel was "taken from the unfortunate people of a sick society, which means to expose the suffering of the sick and attract the attention of the healer." Lu Xun's criticism of the sick society is merciless, showing the sensitivity and modern vision of the writer. Like the description of the perverted psychology of the madman in "Diary of a Madman", like the capture of Xiang Lin's demeanor after experiencing a huge life change in "Blessing", like the contrast between the juvenile leaping earth and the adult leaping earth in "Hometown", like the sympathy and sorrow of the readers who fell into the bottom of society in "Kong Yiji", these literary explorations all show Lu Xun's self-conscious consciousness in social criticism. This not only constitutes the most powerful ideological tradition and artistic highlight of New Chinese Literature, but also greatly enhances the cultural character and social influence of New Literature. Under the influence of Lu Xun's works, novels are no longer "carving insects and small skills", and people no longer regard "novels" as "idle books", but as textbooks of life, literature "for life", and "the great cause of the country", which is worth spending their life's energy on the great cause.
We can't imagine that in that old China, where the wind and rain were fluctuating and the horses were in full swing, we would be born out of nowhere, and a cultural giant like Lu Xun, who was unparalleled and far-reaching, would be born. This is a modern cultural wonder that many people marvel at, and it is also the proudest place in modern Chinese culture in the 20th century. In October 1937, at the meeting to commemorate the first anniversary of Mr. Lu Xun's death, Comrade Mao Zedong delivered a speech at Yan'an Public School, in which he compared Lu Xun with Confucius and praised Lu Xun as "China's first-class saint" and "the saint of modern China". Lu Xun "can see far and see the truth", has political foresight, uncompromising spirit of struggle, and the spirit of sacrifice like a soldier, these three characteristics constitute the "Lu Xun spirit" in Mao Zedong's mind. In his 1940 treatise On New Democracy, Mao Zedong once again spoke of Lu Xun, regarding Lu Xun as the most representative symbol of China's new culture, saying: "Lu Xun is the main general of China's cultural revolution, he is not only a great writer, but also a great thinker and a great revolutionary. Lu Xun's bones are the hardest, and he does not have the slightest servility and charm, which is the most precious character of the colonial and semi-colonial people. Lu Xun is the most correct, courageous, resolute, loyal, and enthusiastic national hero on the cultural front, representing the majority of the whole nation and charging at the enemy. The direction of Lu Xun is the direction of the new culture of the Chinese nation. ”
Mao Zedong's reference to the "spirit of Lu Xun" and "the direction of Lu Xun" has almost become a definitive conclusion for evaluating Lu Xun, influencing the development of modern Chinese thought and culture, including literature, since then. In his 1942 Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art, Mao Zedong quoted Lu Xun many times and endorsed the phrase "in the era of essays, lu xun's penmanship is still needed." After the founding of New China, Guo Moruo, Mao Dun, and other literary giants who fought side by side with Lu Xun in those years emphasized the importance of "Lu Xun's direction" at various meetings commemorating Lu Xun, interpreted and enriched the "Lu Xun spirit" from all aspects, and constantly gave the "Lu Xun spirit" and "Lu Xun direction" the connotation of the times. In September 1981, at the meeting to commemorate the centenary of Lu Xun's birth, Comrade Zhou Yang delivered a speech on behalf of the Party Central Committee entitled "Adhere to Lu Xun's Cultural Direction and Carry Forward Lu Xun's Fighting Tradition." He stressed that such a great figure as Lu Xun "was born in the era of great change and was created by revolutionary struggle." In the era when reform and opening up were just beginning, Lu Xun's name was once again called by people, and everyone invariably closely linked the rereading of Lu Xun with the practical problems of thinking about china's social change.
Lu Xun's topic will always bring us profound ideological content. In 1980, at the preparatory meeting to commemorate the centenary of Lu Xun's birth, Comrade Hu Qiaomu, who was in charge of ideological work at the central authorities, raised an issue that still deserves people's continuous consideration. In the speech "Come Up with More and Better Research Results to Commemorate Lu Xun", he believes that commemorating Lu Xun constitutes an important phenomenon in the socialist culture of New China, and we often miss Lu Xun and constantly emphasize the spirit of Lu Xun, but can the research results we come up match Lu Xun's literary history, cultural history, and intellectual history? As a reader, he hoped that Lu Xun's research horizons would be broader, his research methods would be more scientific and rigorous, and that lu Xun would not be separated from the times, that Lu Xun would not be separated from his contemporaries, and that Lu Xun's literary career would be terminated until Lu Xun. He believes that Lu Xun left many achievements that are difficult to reach, but "the so-called unattainable does not mean that it cannot be reached, nor does it mean that it cannot be surpassed." If that is the case, then a very pessimistic conclusion must be drawn about the development of Chinese literature. Lu Xun himself did not see it that way. ”
In fact, in the study and study of Lu Xun, since the reform and opening up, we have emancipated our minds, broken through the forbidden areas, and produced many outstanding academic achievements. Taking Shanghai as an example, Mr. Zhao Jingshen's "Slight Circumstantial Evidence of the History of Chinese Novels", published in the 1980s, enriched the material of Lu Xun's "Historical Outline of Chinese Novels", thus advancing the research of Chinese novel history on the basis of Lu Xun's research on the history of novels. Mr. Wang Yuanhua's thinking on Lu Xun ran through his thoughts in his later years, and his publications "Some Ideas on the Study of Lu Xun", "Lu Xun and Taiyan", "Revisiting Lu Xun and Taiyan", "Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren", "Lu Xun's Tortuous Course", etc., from the perspective of intellectual history and literary history, combed the sources of Lu Xun's thought and contained many new theoretical insights. In "On the > of < Injury and Death", Mr. Qian Gurong has a new understanding and feeling of the text interpretation of Lu Xun's novel "Wounded Death". Harvest magazine published a rebuttal article by Feng Jicai and Mr. Zhang Peiheng on Lu Xun's attitude toward traditional culture, which inspired literary enthusiasts in the new century to re-evaluate Lu Xun's anti-traditional attitude.
On the shanghai theater stage, since the new century, many stage plays adapted from Lu Xun's works have been exhibited, such as the body drama "Cast Sword" and polish director Lu Pa's "Diary of a Madman" based on Lu Xun's novel. In terms of language teaching, Lu Xun's works have always accompanied China's language education, although the number of problems in the selection of Lu Xun's works has triggered discussions in the field of language education, but for generations of Chinese young readers, Lu Xun's name is not unfamiliar.
Mr. Lu Xun has criticized the "national nature", but this criticism is not historical nihilism, but ideological abandonment and self-renewal. He has always been full of confidence in his own national culture and has always been enthusiastic about the future of Chinese culture. Did you lose your self-confidence Chinese? In articles such as ", Lu Xun not only praised the pragmatic spirit of Chinese immersed in hard work, but also full of confidence and hope for the "backbone of China". Since the beginning of the new century, under the leadership of the CPC Central Committee, the spirit of Lu Xun and the tradition of Lu Xun have been highly valued in China's cultural construction. During his work in Shanghai, Xi Jinping visited the Lu Xun Memorial Hall, and after serving as general secretary, he cited Lu Xun's works in speeches at the National Forum on Literary and Art Work and speeches at various important conferences. In recent years, the propaganda of modern writers such as Lu Xun has been strengthened compared with the past, especially in the chinese textbooks of primary and secondary schools, the number of works of Lu Xun and other writers selected has been guaranteed. Therefore, in today's world of massive information overflowing, Lu Xun has not faded out of people's vision, on the contrary, we feel spiritually enriched because we are close to Lu Xun, and we feel the power of literature because of reading Lu Xun.
On the occasion of commemorating the 140th anniversary of Mr. Lu Xun's birth, we have a lot to say to Mr. Lu Xun, a lot of feelings, and want to communicate with Mr. Lu Xun. I think this should be where Lu Xun's spiritual charm lies.
Author: Yang Yang
Editor: Wang Xiaoli