Zhou Yang (literary theorist)
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Zhou Yang or Chou Yang (November 7, 1908 – July 31, 1989), courtesy name Qiying (起应), was a Chinese literary theorist, translator and Marxist thinker, active from the founding of the League of the Left-Wing Writers in 1930. In the 1930s he was notable for his sharp disagreements with other leftist writers, including
Lu Xun Zhou Shuren (25 September 1881 – 19 October 1936), better known by his pen name Lu Xun (or Lu Sun; ; Wade–Giles: Lu Hsün), was a Chinese writer, essayist, poet, and literary critic. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. ...
, concerning leftist literary theory.Lovell, Julia. "Introduction". In ''Lu Xun: The Real story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China, The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun.'' England: Penguin Classics. 2009. . p.xxxii After the People's Republic of China was declared in 1949, Zhou became one of
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
's most-supported literary theorists. His report, ''On the Military Tasks of Philosophy and Social Science Workers'', delivered to Mao in 1963, was one of the catalysts for the
Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
. However, during the late stage of the Cultural Revolution Zhou was himself imprisoned after falling out of favor. After the Cultural Revolution ended, he was rehabilitated and given new political offices. At that time he apologized to victims of his literary witch-hunt campaigns in the past. He also advocated the
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...
aspects of
Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
within the Communist Party near the end of his life, and was attacked again for such views. Zhou also translated the works of
Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...
and other Russian writers into Chinese.


References

Chinese literary critics 1908 births 1989 deaths Chinese communists Marxist theorists 20th-century Chinese historians Members of the Standing Committee of the 1st Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference {{China-historian-stub