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2017-June-22

Cao Ying: Translator into Chinese of Tolstoy's Works of Fiction

The same year, still cherishing the dream of agriculture as a means to save China, Cao Ying enrolled in Nantong Agronomic College after graduating from Lester Institute Middle School. Unfortunately soon after he contracted tuberculosis, and had to discontinue his studies there. During his treatment and convalescence, which took more than one year, Cao Ying read many progressive books, and slowly came to understand that "spiritual awakening is more important than filling the stomach". After making a full recovery, Cao Ying gave up his studies at Agronomic College, and started work formally at the TACC Shanghai Branch as a professional translator, so embarking on translation as a lifelong career. He was determined to introduce the best works of Russian literature into China, and to supply the Chinese with a precious, additional, spiritual nutrient.

The 1950s saw the honeymoon of China and the former USSR, when large amounts of Russian literature and scientific technologies were introduced to China. Although busy with his translation work, Cao Ying was invited to compile the "Handbook on Russian Grammar"—nearly 341 pages—to help the multitudinous students of the Russian language in China. It soon came to be recognized as an invaluable work. During that period, among the major works he translated and published were: "The Story of the Don", "New Land" (in two volumes), "Fate of a Man", "They Fought for the Motherland" by Sholokhov, "The Director of the Machine Tractor Station and the Chief Agronomist", and "Mikhail Kalinin on Literature and Art".

In January 1957, Cao Ying acquired a copy of "Fate of a Man", Sholokhov's last work. Tears coursed down his face as he read it. Immediately he set about translating it into Chinese and had it published in "World Literature" magazine. This had a great impact throughout China, striking a sympathetic chord with the Chinese people on the principle of "opposing war and winning over Peace".

In 1963 Cao Ying finished his translation of "Modern Hero", Lermontov's representative work, but could find nowhere to publish it, because by then the relationship between China and USSR had soured. Cao Ying had to abandon his plan of translating Sholokhov's great work "Quiet Flows the Don" because it was denounced in China as denigrating collective agriculture and propagating war-terrorism. Cao Ying then turned to the study and translation of the works of Tolstoy who, like Sholokhov, was among his favorite Russian writers. In 1964, "Caucasia's Story" was published.

Sholokhov came under bitter attack in China during the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976). Jiang Qing, Mao's wife and one of the infamous Gang of Four that instigated the "cultural revolution," denounced Sholokhov as the "originator of revisionist literature and art". As Sholokhov was too distant in the USSR to be physically attacked, Jiang Qing and her cohorts turned on Cao Ying, labeling him "agent of Sholokhov in China" and "spy of USSR revisionists". Attacked in many struggle sessions he was put in solitary confinement for more than one year to undergo political investigation. His wife, a well-educated and graceful woman who had always seen to Cao Ying's fundamental needs to enable him to devote his energies wholeheartedly to translation work, was also placed in solitary confinement, simply for being the wife of a "spy of USSR Revisionists." Her hair was cut off as a punishment. Their three children, then all in their teens, were left at home to do the housework and look after each other. Later, Cao Ying and his wife were sent for reeducation in the countryside where they did farm work. Thin and weak, Cao Ying struggled to cope with heavy physical demands of farming. While cutting rice one sweltering hot day in the summer of 1969 he suddenly fell into a coughing fit, and vomited a mouthful of blood. He was sent to hospital and diagnosed with a serious duodenal ulcer. A serious threat to his life was thus averted, but three quarters of his stomach was excised. He was then allowed to return home to Shanghai for recuperation, but was still sometimes required to perform physical labor.

On 28 January 1975, Cao Ying was ordered to carry sacks of cement on a construction site. After completing several trips he was returning to the truck where the sacks of cement had been loaded when, before he was ready, Cao Ying's fellow workers on the truck loosened their grip and a cement sack weighing 50 kilos - more than Cao Ying's own weight - fell on him, causing him to lose consciousness. Doctors in the hospital told Cao Ying that a section of his thoracic vertebrae had been crushed. As a "spy of the USSR Revisionists" he was not entitled to stay in the hospital for treatment, but was sent home after rudimentary bandaging. Following the doctor's advice, he lay on a plank, to restrict any further movement and so allow the break to heal naturally.

Later, Cao Ying recalled, "I lay on the plank for six solid months. I couldn't read, write or translate. I gritted my teeth, bearing the piercing pains, and kept reminding myself: You must overcome this setback. Otherwise you will be paralyzed and have to spend the rest of your life in bed. You still have a lot of work to do!"

With the help of painstaking care and nursing from his wife and relatives, it was one year before he could finally stand again. On the morning of 8 January 1976, as Cao Ying was walking out of his home with the help of a stick, he heard the heart-breaking news on his neighbor's radio that the beloved Premier Zhou Enlai had died. That date was, therefore, embedded forever in his memory. Later, when asked: "If you had not done the translation of Russian literature, maybe you would not have suffered so much. Do you regret your choice of profession?" He replied without hesitation: "All my life I have wanted to do only one thing well—that is literary translation. I have never regretted my choice!"

It was in the same year that the "cultural revolution" finally ended. The authorities invited Cao Ying to take the position of editor-in-chief of a major national publishing house, but he refused. He had greater ambitions.

When bedridden and bound to a plank, Cao Ying repeatedly agonized over how the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution could occur in China, and how the recurrence of such terrible events could be avoided. He concluded that there needed to be an appeal for restoration of humanitarianism to arouse humanistic feeling among the people. He set his sights on Lev Tolstoy, one of the greatest Russian writers and humanitarians, and decided to use his remaining reserves of energy to translate all of his works of fiction from Russian to Chinese.

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