REFLECTION OF THE PERIOD OF THE "CULTURAL REVOLUTION" IN CHINA

Zhang Xianliang* (b. 08.12.1936) is one of the luminaries of modern Chinese literature, whose origin can be traced back to 1976. A decade of severe trials during the "cultural revolution" led to the fact that the accumulated suffering of people in a rolling wave resulted in a powerful literary current of "wounds and scars", which became at the forefront of the initial period of post-Maoist literature. In the vast sea of returning writers and newcomers, Zhang Xianliang, along with such major figures as Wang Meng, Feng Jicai, Jia Pingwa, Zhang Jie firmly established himself on the bridge of Chinese literature in the 1980s. Famous both at home and abroad, he brought the novels "Half a man - a woman", "Acacia", the stories "Soul and Flesh", "Bitter Spring" and others. The last three of these works were awarded National Awards.

Zhang Xianliang's work is very multifaceted. An active participant in public and political life, he wrote works on a wide variety of topics, instantly reacting to events taking place in a renewed China. However, the theme of the political cataclysms of the 1960s and 1970s, which Zhang Xianliang had to go through on his own bitter experience, and he spent 22 years in correctional labor camps and prisons, was and still is the leading theme in his work. And although the main character in most of these works the writer brings out the injured intellectual, in his work there was also a place for the image of the "little man".

The most successful, in our opinion, work of the writer, reflecting the human tragedy of a simple worker in times of arbitrariness, was the story offered below " The Story of old Man Sin and his dog "(1980). Showing the background of the last years of the "cultural revolution", this story very convincingly and without too much pathos outlined the deep spiritual crisis in which Chinese society found itself during this period. The appearance of an "ordinary character" in Zhang Xianliang's early work was not just an accident, but rather it was dictated by the need to cure millions of his fellow citizens of the general psychosis that had seized the country. Drawing the hero as the only spotless island against the background of the black reality that killed him, the author achieved a strong accusatory effect.

Modern China of the XXI century looks like a pleasant contrast against this background. And here it is impossible not to recognize how great is the role of writers who, with such works, warn the younger generation against repeating the mistakes of the past.

The short story "The Story of Old Man Xing and his Dog" was perhaps the first significant work that brought Zhang Xianliang to great literature. This story almost always appears among the works that represent the writer in Chinese and foreign anthologies and dictionaries. The film "The Old Man and the Dog" (1993) was also widely known among the Chinese public. I would like to hope that the acquaintance with this psychological story will not leave our readers indifferent.

(Saint Petersburg)

* See: "Asia and Africa Today", 2003, N 7.

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