Ai Qing

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Ai Qing 1929

Ai Qing ( Chinese  艾青 , Pinyin Ài Qīng , W.-G. Ai Ch'ing ; born as Jiang Zhenghan 蒋正涵 , Jiǎng Zhènghán ; stylized name Jiang Haicheng 蒋海澄 , Jiǎng Hǎichéng ; born March 27, 1910 in Jinhua , Zhejiang ; † 5 May 1996 in Beijing ) was a Chinese poet and painter . He is considered to be the co-founder of "New Poetry" (Xin Shi), which in turn was formative for the further development of Chinese poetry. He was the father of the political conceptual artist, sculptor and curator Ai Weiwei .

Life

Ai Qing was born to a wealthy landowner. His family handed him over because of an unfavorable oracle after the birth of a wet nurse who raised him for the first five years in their poor farming family.

At the age of 18 he entered the Art Academy of Hangzhou and began a study of the painting . In 1929 he broke off his training and went to Paris . During his art studies in Paris from 1929 to 1932 he was influenced by the painting of Renoir and Van Gogh , by the philosophy of Kant and Hegel and by the poetry of Mayakowski and Verhaeren . During this time, Ai Qing wrote his first poems that can be assigned to the modern age .

In 1932 he returned to China, joined a leftist artists' association in Shanghai and founded the Chundi Huahui painting community . In Shanghai he met Lu Xun , the most important author in China's modern literary world , who made him devote himself entirely to writing. He was arrested by the Kuomintang for allegedly radical thoughts and was under arrest until 1935. In captivity he wrote his first long poem Dayanhe, wo de baomu ("My Nurse Dayanhe", 1933), in which he expresses his feelings towards his homeland and which made him known as a poet. Dayanhe was also the title of his first collection of poems, published in 1936.

In 1939, he moved to Guilin and began working as an editor for the Guixi Daily . In 1940 he became dean of the Chinese faculty at Chongqing Yucai University . After moving to Yan'an in 1941, he joined the Chinese Communist Party the following year . In the early 1940s, Ai Qing published his most famous collections of poetry, such as Kuangye ("Wide Country", 1940), Xiang taiyang (" Towards the Sun", 1940) and Beifang ("The North", 1942). In these, Ai Qing et al. a. socially critical of the conditions of the simple population in the country. He wrote mostly in free verse . His poetry was characterized by simple, clear language.

From 1949 to 1953 he was the deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Volksliteratur ( 人民 文学 , Rénmín Wénxué ). In addition, he was active in communist literary associations in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1958 he criticized the communist regime as part of the Hundred Flowers Movement , for which he was sent into exile in the Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Xinjiang during the " anti-right movement " and was banned from publication until 1978. In 1975 he was officially allowed to travel to the capital temporarily for hospital treatment.

After rehabilitation , Ai Qing started writing again. His trip to Germany , Austria and Italy in 1979 inspired him to write various poems, five of them about Germany. One of these poems, The Wall , was about the Berlin Wall . In 1980 his "Songs of Return" appeared. In the same year he traveled to France again.

Ai Qing died in 1996 of pneumonia and heart disease at the age of 86. His work, which in addition to more than 20 longer poems also includes around 1000 shorter and around 200 essays , has since become part of standard reading in Chinese schools again. He is the father of the artists Ai Xuan (* 1947) and Ai Weiwei (* 1957).

reception

"Ai Qing's poems, which are characterized by their simplicity, directness and emphatic expression, visibly flattened into pure propaganda after joining the CCP in 1941."

- Wolfgang Kubin

"The fact that Ai Qing - like many Chinese fellow fates - was an artistic free spirit and party apologist is one of the contradictions of his life."

- Barbara Strasser

Awards

The French President François Mitterrand honored him in 1985 with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres .

Works

  • «大 堰 河 —— 我 的 保姆» (Dàyànhé - wǒ de Bǎomǔ); Dayanhe - My Nanny (Collection of Poems, 1936)
  • «向 太陽» (Xiàng tàiyáng); To the sun (1940)
  • «北方» (Běifāng); The North (collection of poems, 1942)
  • «歸來 的 歌» (Guīlái de gē); Songs of Return (1980)
  • «艾青 选集» (Ài Qīng Xuǎnjí); Complete Works by Ai Qing (1991)

Translations

  • Manfred and Shuxin Reinhardt: On the scales of time. Poems. People and World, Berlin 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ai Qing. In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved January 10, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b c Barbara Strasser: Between party loyalty and ostracism - the poet Ai Qing, the famous father of a famous son: Ai Weiwei , Neue Zürcher Zeitung of July 2, 2011.
  3. ^ A b Brunhild Staiger: On the 15th anniversary of the death of the poet Ai Qing. Goethe-Institut China, May 2011, archived from the original on November 1, 2013 ; Retrieved October 6, 2012 .
  4. ↑ Ai Qing . In: Biographical Handbook of Chinese Writers: Lives and Works. (= History of Chinese Literature Volume 9), de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011, p. 4.
  5. ↑ The Wall ( Memento from November 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 61 kB)
  6. ^ Yun Shan: Poésie: Ai Qing et la France. Le Quotidien du Peuple, January 29, 2004, accessed October 6, 2012 (French).
  7. ↑ a b Asiaweek
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Kubin (ed.): News from the capital of the sun: Modern Chinese poetry 1919–1984 . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-11322-4 , pp. 153 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ai, Qing
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 艾青 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese poet and painter
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Jinhua , Zhejiang
DATE OF DEATH May 5, 1996
Place of death Beijing