（Trans-）National Contexts：The Russian Poetics of the Chinese Avant-Garde*#

CHU Jinyi

Abstract：To what extent is post-socialism a transnational conceptual frame‐work for cultural studies？In historiographies of both China and the Soviet Union，the 1980s is widely considered as an era of neoliberal reform，opening to the West，and turning away from“socialist cosmopolitanism，”the transnational socialist official culture with Russian characteristics bourgeoning in 1950s which had redefined two distinct national cultural traditions.By focusing on a Chinese avant-garde poet’s reading Russian poetry，this article proposes that the aesthetics of reform in post-Maoist China is continuously shaped by the legacy of transnational socialist culture，yet in amore complex and subtle fashion.

Keywords：Russia；China；poetry；worldl iterature；avant-garde

The 1980s in the Soviet Union and China，i.e.，the era ofand，is widely considered as a decade of neoliberal reform，of opening to the West，and of embracing the world of liberal democracy and the market economy.While this prevailing narrative does capture cultural and policymaking orientations in the Soviet Union and China，it overlooks the factors of the continuous Soviet-Chinese interaction and the internal mechanism of the development of socialist economy and culture.The socialist 1980s，however Westernizing they are considered to be，still come out fromthe socialist 1950s-1970s.

Recent English-language scholarship has become aware of the intensive political，cultural，and economic connections between the Soviet Union and China during the 1950s and 1960s.In lit‐erary studies，for instance，Mark Gamsa depicts the Russian influence on the formation of modern Chinese literature，from the great nineteenth-century Russian novels to Soviet socialist realism. Mark Gamsa，（London：Pal‐grave，2010），2.Focusing on theChinese reception of Soviet socialist realismin the 1950s，NicolaiVolland uses the term“socialist cosmopolitanism”to denote aCasanovian“world literary space”that exists in the socialist world.Volland shows that Soviet socialist realism is also“world literature”in that it shapes thinking and feeling beyond national borders. Nicolai Volland，（New York：Columbia Uni‐versity Press，2017），9.Socialist realismmay not be popular in theWest，yet within the socialistworld，it is still，to useDavidDamrosch’swords，“an elliptical refraction of national literature，writing that gains in translation，and a form of detached engagement with worlds beyond one’s own place and time.” David Damrosch，（Princeton：Princeton University Press，2003），281.

What interests me here，instead，is not the well-known Soviet-Chinese honeymoon in the 1950s，but the twisted scenes of cultural exchanges between two major socialist states in the 1980s，a period seen as the turning away from“socialist cosmopolitanism.”Alarger argument that I intend to pursue is that socialist cosmopolitanism，the legacy of Soviet-Chinese cultural and political interaction，was not entirely discarded by 1980s Chinese writers and artists；on the contrary， the socialist cosmopolitanism actively shaped the literary and artistic fashions in 1980s China，an era shadowed predominantly byWestern influence.

My focus will be the celebrated Chinese poet Bei Dao 北岛（1949-），who played a leading role in the Chinese poetic avant-garde of the 1980s.Towards the end of that decade，BeiDao began his journey as an expatriate in Europe and NorthAmerica，teaching at UC Davis and SUNYStony Brook for some time before returning to China and settling in Hong Kong in 2007.Born in 1949， Bei Dao belongs to the generation that grew up with socialist world literature，cinema，music，and art.Nonetheless，what fascinates him most among Russian literature is not socialist realism， which he knows well，but texts which are considered as oppositional to the cultural orthodoxy in the SovietUnion，such as those of Osip Mandelstamand Boris Pasternak.

Bei Dao’s interest in these“non-socialist realists”should not be reductively taken as a case for the collective cultural memory of socialist cosmopolitanism，known by many as the“Soviet com‐plex”of a generation.Yet Bei Dao construes these Russian poets as fellow travelers of a common underground socialist experience.As I will show，Bei Dao sees the Soviet experience as analogous to his own in China.Bei Dao’s“aesthetics of reform”—the cultural sentiment popular among Chi‐nese and Soviet intellectuals during the 1980s that radically sublimated the idea of reform，liberal‐ization，and Westernization—is still shaped by this twisted understanding of socialist cosmopoli‐tanism.

In what follows，I will first examine Bei Dao’s poetic sources in the context of a famous polemics overworld poetry betweenDavidDamrosch and StephenOwen，then trace BeiDao’s reading of Russian literature during his formative years.Towards the end，I examine BeiDao’s reading ofMandelstamand Pasternak.It ismy hope thatmywork can provide a lessWestern-centric case to the understanding of global directions in 1980s-1990s.

The Socialist World as a National Context

To further explore Bei Dao’s interest in non-socialist realist literature as an aesthetics of reformshaped by the socialist experience，we need to first intervene in a famous debate between Stephen Owen and David Damrosch over Bei Dao’s poetic sources.In his famous essay“TheAnxiety ofGlobal Influence：What IsWorld Poetry？”published in 1990，Owen criticizesBeiDao for being a representative of a“World Poetry”that abandons its national cultural tradition in exchange for translatability in to English：

Poets who write in the“wrong language”（even exceedingly populous wrong languag‐es，like Chinese）not only must imagine themselves being translated in order to reach an au‐dience of a satisfying magnitude，they must also engage in the peculiar act of imagining a world poetry and placing themselves within it.And，although it is supposedly free of all lo‐cal literary history，this“world poetry”turns out，unsurprisingly，to be a version of Anglo-American modernism or French modernism，depending on which wave of colonial culture first washed over the intellectuals of the country in question.This situation is the quintes‐sence of cultural hegemony，when an essentially local tradition（Anglo-European）is wide‐ly taken for granted as universal. Stephen Owen，“The Anxiety of Global Influence：What Is World Poetry？”（November 19，1990）：28.

Owen seesBeiDao as an overrated poet，whoseworkswerewritten outside of theChinese national context and without being nurtured by Chinese classical poetry.Being uprooted from its national tradition，Bei Dao’s poetry becomes a product of cultural hegemony and a mediocre imitation of Anglo-European modernism.Furthermore，Owen claims that Bei Dao becomes popular among Chinese andWestern readers only because of his dissident identity.

Owen’s point is not entirely ungrounded.Bei Dao’s popularity indeed stems from his political orientation and the translatability of his style.But should these two factors disqualify him as a good poet？David Damrosch thinks not.In“World Literature，National Context，”Damrosch argues that Bei Dao’s works are still of great value even if they are not embedded in the Chinese soil and its na‐tional context.For Damrosch，Bei Dao，as a poet of the age of globalization，is no longer just a Chi‐nese poet，but a world poet.Bei Dao does not only write for Chinese readers，though he writes poet‐ry in the Chinese language.For Damrosch，Bei Dao’s oeuvre，especially his post-emigration writ‐ing，is the positive example of“World Literature”that“gains in translation.” David Damrosch，（Princeton：Princeton University Press，2003），281.In English，another BeiDao appearswhose poems no longer belong to Chinese culture after themoment they are translated；it is thus unfair to deny the value ofBeiDao because of his“cosmopolitanism.” David Damrosch，“World Literature，National Context，” 100，no.4（2003）：526.

Nevertheless，Damrosch’s argument for BeiDao’s cosmopolitan style is still built onOwen’s observation.For both，Bei Dao’s poetry is less rooted in the Chinese national context andmore inspired by a global trend set byAnglo-Europeanmodernism.However，both overlook the definition of a national context in the first place.Here，for both Owen and Damrosch，the national context is the classical tradition—and admittedly，theChinese poetic tradition certainly constitutesBeiDao’s national context.Owen andDamrosch both notice the absence of the influence ofChinese classical poetry in Bei Dao’s work.Yet，is the demonstration of classical tradition the only evidence of a national context？Examining the worldliness of Bei Dao’s poetry，both Damrosch and Owen neglect amore overwhelming national context：the cosmopolitan socialist lifeworld.

For a poet like Bei Dao who grew up in 1950s-1960s，his national context is the Maoist China of socialist cosmopolitan culture and the twisted reaction to it.In these decades，Soviet literature became the major source for literary translations and the designated example for Chinese writers.The statistics are staggering：“From October of 1949 to December 1958，there were 3，526 works of Russian literature translated into Chinese（not including those works published in the newspaper and magazines）and more than 82，005，000 printed copies，each accounting for two-thirds of all the translated foreign literature works and three-fourths of all printed copies of the same period of the time separately.The aggregate amount far exceeded that of translated works in the first half of the century.” 卞之琳、叶水夫、袁可嘉、陈燊：《十年来的外国文学翻译和研究工作》，《文学评论》1959年第5期，第5页。［BIAN Zhilin，YE Shuifu，YUAN Kejia，and CHEN Can，“Shinian lai de waiguo wenxue fanyi he yanjiu gongzuo”（Foreign Liter‐ary Studies and Translations in the Past Decade），（）5（1959）：5.］In the 1950s，there were few young people who had not read major Soviet literary works，e.g.，，，and.

Like the Chinese youth of his generation，Bei Dao studied Russian as his foreign language subject when he was a teenager.“Apart from math，Russian was the most difficult subject...I recit‐ed Russian words by transliterating them into Chinese phrases of the similar pronunciations：（Saturday）—书包大（The school bag is big），（Sunday）—袜子搁在鞋里（To put socks into shoes）.” 北岛：《城门开》，香港：牛津大学出版社（中国），2010年，第126页。［Bei Dao，（The City Gates Open），Hong Kong：Oxford University Press（China），2010，126.］Translations are by the author，unless otherwise attributed.One of his teachers even published a monograph on Russian grammar.Bei Dao heard that his teacher also knew Japanese and taught himself Russian by Japanese textbooks.However，Bei Dao’s Russian never goes beyond elementary level.His futurerenditions of Pasternak and Mandelstamwere not fromtheRussian original，but fromEnglish.

Bei Dao once wrote that，as a schoolchild，he never regarded the Soviet Union as an exotic land，but as a more advanced socialist economy and culture that embodied the future of China.“Like devout disciples going to church，our family goes to the Huguosi cinema almost every Sun‐day...He［Bei Dao’s father］loved foreign movies.I always felt confused when I was watching them，but his fascination with the exotic influenced me.The early Soviet movies were dubbed by the Changchun film studio，so all the characters spoke Chinese with a northeastern accent.I even regarded that accent as Russian when I was a kid.”When Bei Dao played the drum at school，he fantasized that he was the protagonist of the Soviet 1955 film’（）.When Chuvash poet Gennady Aygi and his wife Galina were sitting on the grass of Beloit College together with Bei Dao in 2004，they sang Russian ballads and revolutionary songs such asor thetogether.Galina was strongly impressed and sur‐prised by Bei Dao，and asked how a Chinese poet could be so familiar with these obsolete melo‐dies.Bei Dao answered，“I grew up together with these songs，and that is why I have a special and complex feeling for Russia.” 北岛：《时间的玫瑰》，香港：牛津大学出版社（中国），2005年，第311页。［Bei Dao，（The Rose of Time），Hong Kong：Oxford University Press（China），2005，311.］For Bei Dao，the Soviet Aygi and the Chinese Bei Dao were both children of socialistworld culture.

Worlds in Translation

Between 1961 and 1966，the Writers Publishing House and China Drama Press published a set of foreign novels for criticism purposes.Some of these works were printed with an“anti-revi‐sionism”preface；these editions were called“books with a yellow cover.”Most of the“books with a yellow cover”were works of Russian literature，including’’（The Place Far and Far Away）and（Terkin in the Other World）by Aleksandr Tvardovskii，’（The Thaw）and，，’（People，Years，Life）by Ilya Ehrenburg，’（One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich）andby Aleksandr Solzhenit‐syn，（Tickets to the Stars）by VasiliiAksenov，by Chinghiz Aitmatov，and another 40works.

Bei Dao is one of the beneficiaries of the literary translations“with a yellow cover.”He did not acquire proficient knowledge of a foreign language before expatriation.Literary translations，he admitted，not only broadened his horizons，but also offered him another system of“discourse”as a counterpart to the“official discourse.”In his own words：“I had said to my friends Mang Ke and Peng Gang，‘If there will be a radical movement in China，we must devote ourselves to it！’Such words were inspired by reading nineteenth-century Russian writer Turgenev’s.We have waited for years...I proposed that we should run a literary journal.‘It was the right time！’And they all agreed.” 北岛：《古老的敌意》，香港：牛津大学出版社（中国），2012年，第86-87页。［Bei Dao，（Ancient Hostili‐ty），Hong Kong：Oxford University Press（China），2012，86-87.］The pursuit of“another voice”prompted Bei Dao to devote himself to poetry and the Chinese underground journal《今天》（Today）.Such convictions led Bei Dao to participate in underground literary salonswhere people shared and discussed“banned books.”

The following words byBeiDao vividly represent the situation in 1970s China：

I was reading Lev Trotsky’s（The Revolution Betrayed）on the train at night.A traffic policeman appeared and confiscated my neighbor’s book（Stories of Nasredin Hoca）.I should have argued with the policeman，but I suddenly realized that my book was far more suspicious than his.I had no choice but to sit down...An‐other time when I was reading Stendhal’sat the worker’s dorm，my foreman rushed into my room and asked me what I was reading.I answered that I was read‐ing a story about a battle between the Red Army and the White Army.He grabbed my book and turned to the first page.Fortunately，the title was. An interview by magazine《生活》（）.http：//www.jintian.net/today/html/57/n-2157.html.Here Bei Dao made a mistake.The title of the first chapter is.Probably Bei Dao was referring to the third chap‐ter：.

Bei Dao spoke highly of these“books with a yellow cover.”He said that he could hardly believe that Chinese literaturewould still be alive if there had been no such books1 北岛：《古老的敌意》，第158页。［Bei Dao，（Ancient Hostility），158.］：

The most popular thing at that time was a series of books published for the purpose of“internal circulation”among governmental officials，i.e.，“Books with a yellow cover.”The most impressive ones were Kafka’s，Sartre’sand Ehrenburg’s，，I read，，for uncountable times，which opened me a window to the world so far away from where we were.Probably，Ehrenburg’s book looks not that great today.Nonetheless，it was so exciting for someone groping in the dark，which played the role of spiritual guide offering us the power to dream.

Ehrenburg influenced Bei Dao indeed.He introduced him to the Russian modernist poets who，in BeiDao’s eyes，lived through an analogous cultural life to the Chinese one.

Bei Dao’s teenage reading history is certainly shaped by this socialist world culture；howev‐er，his taste is not formulaically determined by this national context.Similar to Mandelstam’s de‐piction of a bookcase in（The Noise of Time），Bei Dao also explained the formation of his poetic mind by depicting his engagement with his father’s library.Mandelstam wrote：“The bookcase of early childhood is a man’s companion for life.The arrangement of its shelves，the choice of books，the colors of the spines are for him the color，height，and arrangement of world lit‐erature itself.” Osip Mandelstam，，translated with critical essay by Clarence Brown（San Francisco：North Point Press，1986），78.In Bei Dao’s memoir，we can find a comparable description of the Chinese poet’s arrangement of world literature.From the top row of the shelves to the ground，the bookcase of Bei Dao’s father was separated into four sections in the following order：正统（Orthodoxy），传统（Classics），道统（Textbooks for Life），and俗统（Entertainment）. 北岛：《城门开》，第99页。［Bei Dao，（The City Gates Open），99.］Works by Marx，Engels，Lenin，Stalin，and Mao were placed in the“Orthodoxy”section located on the top row.The“Classics”section consisted of classical Chi‐nese literature and dictionaries，e.g.，《唐诗三百首》（Three Hundred of TangdynastyPoems），《宋词选》（Selected Poems of the Tang Dynasty），《水浒传》（Water Margin），《三国演义》（The Romance of Three Kingdoms），《红楼梦》（ADream of the Red Mansion），and a Russian-Chinese dictionary.Revolutionary novels were considered as“Textbooks for life.”The“Entertainment”section at the bottom consist‐edofmagazines，e.g.，《上海文学》（），《收获》（），《俄语学习》（），and《电影文学》（）.Reminiscing about his childhood，Bei Dao admitted that his interests were“upside down”：the most interesting book he found in this part of his father’s collection was Soviet filmmaker Ser‐gei Eisenstein’s theoretical works.“From my point of view，Eisenstein’s montage was rather a poetictheory than a filmtheory...My practice ofwriting poemswas relevant to this.”

This keen interest in Russian literature and culture continued during Bei Dao’s émigré years.When teaching at the University of California，Davis，he wrote a series of essays on nine poets，of which Russian poets occupied a third：Federico García Lorca，Georg Trakl，Rainer Maria Rilke，Paul Celan，Tomas Tranströmer，Osip Mandelstam，Boris Pasternak，Gennady Aygi，and Dylan Thomas.These essays later were published as a book entitled（The Rose of Time）in 2005.In an interview two years earlier，Bei Dao said that these nine were his favorite po‐ets：“The firsthalf of the twentieth century was the golden age of world poetry.I feelso nostalgic for that time that I even want to write a book about it.” 北岛：《古老的敌意》，第116页。［Bei Dao，（Ancient Hostility），116.］Bei Dao has always dreamt of a revival of na‐tional culture，i.e.，a new goldenage：

We watchedby Tom Stoppard at Lincoln Center.The drama de‐picted the life of a group of Russian intellectuals—Bakunin，Herzen，Belinskii，Turgenev，Chernishevskii—from 1833 to 1868...These Russian intellectuals（ten to twenty at most）dedicated themselves to a great movement of cultural revival.They changed the appearance and spiritual quality of Russian culture and its status on the whole planet...After the show，Li Tuo，Liu He，Xi Chuan，and I had a series of conversations.Though we talked about many topics，they were all related to one focus：has there been or will there be a movement of cultural revival in China，as the Russian intelligentsia had accomplished？

Bei Dao responded once to this question himself：“Every country has its own cultural upsurge，for instance，the Silver Age of Russian culture.The 1980s were the cultural upsurge for the twentieth centuryofChina.”

Bei Dao sees a spirit of innovation and open-mindedness in the Russian intelligentsia，as well as a“religious conviction”which，in Bei Dao’s view，Chinese poets needed.On the one hand，hav‐ing suffered a similar history of backwardness and revolution，Russian intellectuals never stopped fighting for their social ideal.By contrast，in Bei Dao’s analogy，the majority of Chinese intellectu‐als felt lost and befuddled in the 1960s and 1970s.On the other hand，Bei Dao is always interested in Russian poetry.For him，Russian poets lived through a historical experience comparable to the Chinese one，yet the Russian poets dealt with this experience with more“juvenile spirit”and“reli‐giousconviction”：

The Soviet Union and China both experienced economic reform，but poetry is still highly respected in Russia.Why is the situation of poetry in Russia far better than that in Chi‐na？This is probably because of the religious conviction of the Russian intelligentsia.Think‐ers like Vladimir Soloviev used the mysticism of Russian Orthodoxy and literature to fight against instrumentalist reasoning.Moreover，from my own point of view，youthful naivety and dedication also have something to do with this.Compared with China，Russia is a child，and the Russian language has only existed for about one thousand years.I always lament the oldness of our nation.And that is why there has always been someone advocating for a“Younger China”since the Qing dynasty.China lacks that juvenile spirit.

BeiDao’s judgmentmay not be right，but this idea breeds an emotional intimacy with Russian intel‐lectuals.

Here Bei Dao is making unspoken analogies between Russia and China.He sees the fate of himself and his peers.Bei Dao agrees with Aleksandr Blok：“The more mediocre our life becomes，the stronger we wish to touch the sky.This was the most valuable quality of the Russian intelligen‐tsia.They could endure tribulation with equanimity，but had no patience for a dull and stagnant life.From their point of view，it was not a matter of great importance that the material life was poor.A far worse thing was rancidness of the soul.” 北岛：《时间的玫瑰》，第219页。［Bei Dao，（The Rose of Time），219］In his anachronic imagination，the fate of these Russianpoets is comparable to his own generation in the 1980s.

From The Noise of Time to The Rose of Time：Bei Dao and Mandelstam

One of the essays in Bei Dao’sis dedicated to the author of，the Russian-Jewish poet Osip Mandelstam（1891-1938）.As a Russian modernist poet，Man‐delstam is canonized fortheAcmeistpoetics ofconcreteness and clarity；as a culturalcelebrity，celebrity，Sovietdissidents remember himas a“victim”of the Stalinist era.His life is documented in hiswifeNedezhdaMandelstam’smemoir，a book which became popular in the West dur‐ing the Cold War.In the essay entitled“Mandelstam：Carried off on a Black Stretcher，Yesterday’s Sun Goes，”Bei Dao mentions his discovery of the poet：“Mandelstam I knew from Ehrenburg’s，，.These four volumes of memoirs were the holy scripture for our generation...Even today I still can hardly believe that，，was selected into this series of publica‐tion for‘internal reference’...The four volumes fell into my hands in a random order，so my reading was as special as some kind of intersection where I met Mandelstam by chance.”The Soviet cul‐ture of the Khrushchev era is crystallized in the title of Ilya Ehrenburg’s novella.Bei Dao obtained Ehrenburg’s memoirs from Yifan，a friend of his and a protagonist of this essay on Man‐delstam.

The story ofYifan and the biography of Mandelstam form a parallel narrative in Bei Dao’s es‐say.Two plots mirror each other to the degree that readers can feel spontaneously the spiritual affin‐ity of Bei Dao，Yifan，Ehrenburg，and Mandelstam.Bei Dao quotes Ehrenburg：“Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was two weeks older than me.When I was listening to his poems，I felt that he was much smarter and more mature than me.”Bei Dao then conveys his admiration for Yifan who“was always so energetic that he could stay up for days.He knew more words than meHe was aproofreader for dictionaries.”

In the depiction of Mandelstam’s last days，Bei Dao also parallels it with his last meeting with Yifan.In Bei Dao’s account，Yifan was arrested in 1975 for distributing banned books：“Two years later，when I saw him again...he could not walk anymore，but was still as optimistic as before.”Mandelstam also retained a sense of optimism under duress.After being released from prison，Mandelstam was watched over in Voronezh.Living in very modest material conditions，Mandels‐tam wrote his best poems in Voronezh.In 1936，two years before his death，Mandelstam could still write verses like：“But simile is inartificial.How dear，/indocile it is.It serves nobody.”Osip Mandelstam，（Moscow：Adelant，2011），258.Bei Dao writes that although Mandelstam might not have been a prophet，he nevertheless had a strong sense of calling.For Bei Dao，no matter how difficult life is，a poet with a strong sense of calling will never give up writing and“longing for world culture，”a term which Mandelstam used to define the Acmeist poetics.Yifan，in this sense，always did his best：he kept many manuscripts of creative writing during the turbulent years.After 1976，he started a media company to support poets，though his planwas never fully realized.

Bei Dao considers Mandelstam’s famous poem“Leningrad，”written in 1930，as the poet’s best work：“‘Leningrad’is a modernist classic which brought fame to Mandelstam as one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century.This poem is marvelous for its accurate imagination，struc‐tural unity and stability...”Bei Dao is certainly misguided here：by 1930 Mandelstam had already become one of themost celebrated Russian poets.

Лeнинград

Я вернулся в мой город，знакомый до слез，

До прожилок，до детских припухлых желез.

Ты вернулся сюда，так глотай же скорей

Рыбий жир ленинградских речных фонарей，

Узнавай же скорее декабрьский денек，

Где к зловещему дегтю подмешан желток.

Петербург！я еще не хочу умирать！

У тебя телефонов моих номера.

Петербург！У меня еще есть адреса，

По которым найду мертвецов голоса.

Я на лестнице черной живу，и в висок

Ударяет мне вырванный с мясом звонок，

И всю ночь напролет жду гостей дорогих，

Шевеля кандалами цепочек дверных.

I’ve returned to my city，familiar to tears，

To veins，swollen glands of childhood years，

You’ve returned here to Leningrad，so quickly gulp down，

Fish oil from the riverside lamps in the town.

Recognize all the sooner the day in December，

Where mixed with black tar is an egg yolk of sulphur.

Petersburg，I still do not yet want to die，

You have my phone numbers，please give them a try.

Petersburg，I still have an address that boasts，

Surroundings filled with the voices of ghosts.

I live on the dark stairs，and inside my head，

Sounds a bell torn out from the flesh of the dead.

And all through the night I await my dear guests，

Moving door chains，like shackles，their coming attests.

The title of this poem of anapestic tetrameter indicates“the city of Lenin”；however，already the first line，“I’ve returned tocity，”contradicts the title.Here Søren Kierkegaard’s notion of the word“My”can illuminate Mandelstam’s poem：“‘My’—what does this word designate？Not what belongs to me，but what I belong to，what contains my whole being，which is mine insofar as I be‐long to it.After all，my god is not the god who belongs to me，but the god to whom I belong，and the same when I say my native land，my home，my calling，my longing，my hope.” Søren Kierkegaard，，eds.and trans.Howard V.Hong and Edna H.Hong，Part I（Princeton：Princeton Uni‐versity Press，1987），406.The dialectics of mutual possession is also reflected in Mandelstam’s“Leningrad.”Mandelstam suggests that he has returned to his city，or the city he belongs to，but not the city of Lenin.And in the fourth and fifth stanza，Mandelstam exclaims the former name of his home city：Petersburg.Leningrad replaced“Petersburg.”Here，the history of appellation designates a political tension.The word“Petersburg”does not indicate that it is Mandelstam’s city either.It is either“the city of Peter”or“the city of stone.”Unlike in his first book of poetry（The Stone，1913），here Mandelstam does not re‐call the architectural grandiosity of the imperial capital，but things that are much more personal：a streetlight，a telephone number，an address，a doorbell，etc.，which represent Mandelstam’s sense of affiliation to the city.Petersburg indicates his childhood interwoven with the history of imperial Russia，the history of the Russian experience of modernity.Petersburg is the city that he knows as well as“tears，”“veins，”and“swollen glands.”It is also the place to which Mandelstam could never return.

Bei Dao may not have been aware that，in Soviet singerAlla Pugacheva’s adaption of this po‐em，this most crucial shift from Leningrad to Petersburg is deliberately excised.As Bei Dao says，Mandelstam uses his Petersburg to negate the legitimacy of Leningrad；Bei Dao does the same with his own hometown.He mentions this intention in the foreword of his memoirs，：“I will use my language to rebuild a city，rebuild my Beijing to deny the current Beijing.”He also admits that it is Mandelstam who inspires him with this idea. 北岛：《城门开》，第xi页。［Bei Dao，（The City Gates Open），xi.］To use the term of Svetlana Boym，BeiDao’s“MyBeijing”isa“restorativenostalgia.” Svetlana Boym，（New York：Basic Books，2001），41.

“Hamlet”from Pasternak to Bei Dao

Unlike the essay on Mandelstam，“Pasternak：Passion，as a Witness，Sits in the Corner”is rather a concise critical biography than an examination of Chinese translations of Pasternak’s poet‐ry.Bei Dao argues that“February，”“Marburg，”and“Hamlet”represent three phases of Pasternak’s career.For Bei Dao，the poetic achievements of these three phases form a parabola.“February”rep‐resents the early，naïve，and symbolist Pasternak：“This poem is apparently characterized by its ad‐olescence.When Russian symbolism was declining，Pasternak stood out among the symbolist cliché with his nascent talent.” 北岛：《时间的玫瑰》，第241页。［Bei Dao，（The Rose of Time），241.］Bei Dao rates“Marburg”as the best work of Pasternak，though the author himself did not think so：“This［“Marburg”］is a process of understanding the sense of call‐ing and a skeptic view of the world，which is caused by a breakup.From my own point of view，this is the climax of Pasternak’s writing...”In Bei Dao’s view，“Hamlet”is the author’s lamentation for societal uncertainty：“Frankly speaking，I do not like the later works of Pasternak.They lack novel‐ty，surprise，and acuity...He attempts to convince readers that there are two Pasternaks：a young revolutionary，andanold，disenchanted，butwisepoet...”

Many researchers have pointed out that the absence of the lyric hero“I”is a special feature of Pasternak’s poetry.Dmitri Bykov also discusses this issue in his biography of Pasternak：“Blok started poems with‘I’hundreds of times.‘I’also speaks loudly in the verses ofAkhmatova.Man‐delstam always wrote about himself...but we cannot recognize the author from［Pasternak’s］po‐ems...” Dmitrii Bykov，（Moscow：Molodaia gvardiia，2011），98.It is clear that Mandelstam always spoke about himself in his poems，for example：“”（I hate the light of monotonous stars）；“Ya”（I feel an invincible horror）；“”（I never heard of the storiesaboutOssian）；andsoon. Mandelstam，，38，41，84.

Bei Dao also liked to show himself in his earlier work，but after emigration he became more Pasternakian.However，Bei Dao underwent a dramatic change after his return from exile.The fa‐mous“Idonotbelieve”in“Huida”（Answers）hasbeenreplacedbythedepictionofstilllifeandnat‐ural phenomena.The powerful and agitated“I”seems to have left the stage.If earlier Bei Dao was more concerned with the relationship between the individual and authority，then the mature and post-emigration Bei Dao becomes more interested in the fate of poetry and native language in an age of globalization and globalmedia.

Bei Dao’s translation of Pasternak demonstrates his understanding of the Russian poet.Al‐though，as mentioned earlier，Bei Dao did study Russian in school，his Russian never reached a proficient level for the translation of poetry.Bei Dao renders Mandelstam and Pasternak from Eng‐lish.Thus，comparing the Russian original and Bei Dao’s rendition，we should not overinterpret Bei Dao’s intention in translation.For instance，Bei Dao’s translation of Pasternak’s“Hamlet”is quite different from the original，but so are the English intermediaries he used.Bei Dao admits to having used the English translations of Jon Stallworthy and Peter France 北岛：《时间的玫瑰》，第271页。［Bei Dao，（The Rose of Time），271.］；in order to show the re‐semblance between his translation and Stallworthy’s，I have translated the first and the last stanza of his version of“Hamlet”backinto English：

语静声息。我走上舞台。

依着那打开的门

我试图探测回声中

蕴含着什么样的未来。

……

然而整个剧情已定，

道路的尽头在望。

我在伪君子中很孤单。

生活并非步入田野。

Speech has been muted and sound has been stopped.I come onto stage.

Leaning in an open door

I try to detect from the echo

what the future has in store.

...

But the plots have been set，

the end of the road is in view.

I feel lonely among hypocrites.

Life is not passing a field.

The buzz subsides.I have come on stage.

Leaning in an open door

I try to detect from the echo

What the future has in store.

...

But the order of the act is planned，

The end of the road already revealed，

Alone among the Pharisees I stand，

Life is not a stroll across a field. Boris Pasternak，，trans.Jon Stallworthy and Peter France（New York：Norton，1983），125.

Гул затих.Я вышел на подмостки.

Прислонясь к дверному косяку，

Я ловлю в далеком отголоске，

Что случится на моем веку.

...

Но продуман распорядок действий，

И неотвратим конец пути.

Я один，все тонет в фарисействе.

Жизнь прожить-не поле перейти. Boris Pasternak，（Moscow：Al’fa-kniga，2008），1225-26.

“Podmostki”is not equivalent to“the stage”；literally，it should be translated as“scaffold，”but since it is obvious that Hamlet is a theatrical character rather than a builder，the word is translated as“the stage”which literally equals“stsena.”Bei Dao follows Stallworthy’s example，while other Chinese poets translate theword as“scaffold.”

Stallworthy’s version is also not semantically faithful to the original in the third line：the Eng‐lish translator changes the poetic word“lovit’，”which is relatively closer to the meaning o“fcatch，”into a military“detect.”Bei Dao also chooses the Chinese military word探测（detect）in this version，regardless of the aesthetic intention of the author.Moreover，Bei Dao follows Stallworthy in using“future”to replace“our century.”Though the perfective aspect in the fourth line indicates a future tense，Pasternak did notmention theword“budushchee”（Future）.

Bei Dao continues to follow Stallworthy in the last stanza，the third line of which would liter‐ally be rendered as“I am alone，everything is drowning in pharisaism.”However，neither Stallwor‐thy nor Bei Dao keeps the verb“tonut’”（drown）that illustrates the author’s helpless despair in a world filled with hypocrites.Stallworthy’s“stand”presents a stronger version than Pasternak；Bei Dao even omits the verb“stand，”conveying only his feeling.

Conclusion

We have examined the presence of Russia in the reading history of Bei Dao’s formative years and his later translation of Russian poets，especially Mandelstam and Pasternak.This case shows that Bei Dao is not a poet without a national context.The national context for Bei Dao’s poetic mind is the thriving socialist cosmopolitan culture of Maoist China.While Bei Dao is neither politically nor poetically oriented towards the official establishment，it is socialist cosmopolitanism that di‐rects him to the Russian poets who are not part of the Soviet socialist realist canon.Bei Dao’s aes‐thetics of reform is not just an emulation ofWestern political and cultural values，but also a reaction to the intrasocialistworld-culturalspace.These（trans-）nationalcontexts lead BeiDao to read Rus‐sian poets as fellow travelers of a common cultural life.Bei Dao turns this affinity into the Russian poetics of theChinese avant-garde.

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