The Reception of Dostoevsky in Early Twentieth-Century China

Abstract

This chapter begins with an overview of the translation of Russian literature in China and of Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) in particular. It next examines two translators Geng Jizhi and Lu Xun, whose work respectively demonstrates the value of microhistorical methodology in translation history (Geng) and the difficulty of assimilating Dostoevsky’s philosophy into the Chinese cultural mode (Lu Xun). The early twentieth century witnessed the gradual reception of Dostoevsky in China, including the publication and introduction of his short stories in newspapers. Originally, English translations were the primary intermediary for Dostoevsky’s works in China. Not until the 1940s was the first translation directly from Russian completed by the translator Geng Jizhi. Chinese scholars and readers creatively misread some of Dostoevsky’s ideas; their adaptations of his work reflected their own social status and cultural milieu. Due to the dominant theme of ‘literature for life’ in early twentieth-century China, Chinese scholars positioned Dostoevsky as ‘a realist writer’. Hence their choices for translation and research mainly served pressing nationalist ideological principles. Partly because of Dostoevsky’s strong religious sensibility, a gap persists between his gloomy, laboured style and traditional Chinese cultural promotion of gentleness and generosity in aesthetics, thus distancing Chinese readers from his writing. Dostoevsky’s interpretation and promotion by the important Chinese writer Lu Xun (1881-1936) transformed the former’s reception in twentieth-century China. His articles ‘An Introduction to Poor Folk’ and ‘Something about Dostoevsky’ sent Chinese Dostoevsky research in a new direction.