Chapter Как закалялась сталь в Восточной Азии

Abstract

How the Steel Was Tempered in East Asia. Nikolai Ostrovsky’s novel How Steel Was Tempered (1932-34) tells the story of a young Ukrainian man named Pavel Korchagin who sacrifices his life and body to forge a steel-like spirit amid revolution, civil war, and postwar socialist construction. Although his physical injuries, which left him paralyzed and even blind, looks somehow grotesque, but his heroic self-sacrifice also had the power to inspire young readers. Regarded as an exemplary work of Soviet socialist realism, it was translated into many languages and read avidly at one time by left-wing readers in the West as well as in the Communist countries in the East. It was particularly influential in China, where it is so popular that even today it is invariably named as one of the favorite books of university students. This is in contrast to post-Soviet Russia today, in which the novel has lost the privileged position it once enjoyed and is no longer widely read. In China under the socialist regime, Ostrovsky’s novel was published in large numbers as suitable reading for young people and incorporated into school education. However, their active introduction in the public sphere alone does not explain their popularity. Chinese readers seem to have become deeply emotionally involved in the protagonist’s unsuccessful love affair with Tonya, a young girl whose bourgeois gestures and characterization must have been considered negative. As a result, the Soviet ideological novel has brought an unexpected meaning of European-style romantic love for Chinese readers. This presentation will trace the reception of Ostrovsky’s novel and the changes in the heroine Tonya’s image by comparing five adaptations: two Soviet films in 1942 and 1957, a Chinese lianhuanhua (serial picture book) in 1972, a Japanese manga in 1975, and a Chinese TV drama in 1999.