鲁迅与果戈理的《死魂灵》

鲁迅青年时代留学日本时,果戈理即已进入他的艺术视野。不独鲁迅的创作深受果戈理之影响,而且在他的社会批评与文化批评中经常引用果戈理,并致力于翻译果戈理。他以中国没有《死魂灵》译本为耻,在晚年以健康与生命为代价译成此书,成就了"艰苦的奇功,不朽的绝笔"。他之所以如是为之,不仅因该作巨大的思想与艺术价值,更因鲁迅认为它对于中国当时的现实生活有着重要意义,它可以作为中国人认识自己社会的参照。鲁迅还高度重视《死魂灵》的插图,为搜求各种插图而不遗余力,并自费出版了《死魂灵百图》。鲁迅认为这些插图能使中国读者更明白19世纪上半俄国社会情形,又可给中国的插画家提供借鉴。《死魂灵》中译本与《死魂灵百图》均已成为中国文化艺术史上的珍品。

Lu Xun and Gogol's Dead Souls

When Lu Xun still studied in Japan, Gogol had already drawn his attention in the artistic arena. He is not merely influenced by Gogol in his novels, but also often than not quotes the latter in his essays of social and cultural criticism. Thinking that it was a disgrace that China had not yet a Chinese version of Gogol's Dead Souls, he engaged himself in its translation in his later years at the expense of health and life and accomplished "the difficult outstanding merit and the everlasting work before his death.". That he has finished the translation does not only lies in its ideological and artistic values, but at the same time in that, in Lu Xun 's mind, it, bearing great significance on the then China's reality, can be regarded as a reference for the Chinese people to understand their own society. What is more, he attached great importance to the illustrations of Dead Souls and had tried every means to collect all kinds of its illustrations and published The Illustrated Dead Souls at his own expense. To his mind, these illustrations can help the Chinese reader to more clearly understand the 19 th-century Russian society, and can serve as a model for Chinese illustrators. Nowadays both the Chinese version of Dead Souls and The Illustrated Dead Souls have become the collector's items in Chinese cultural and artistic history.