Donggan Literature Of Central Asia And Russian Culture

Dungan people are the descendants of the Chinese people who migrated to Central Asia after the failure of Shanxi-Gansu Hui Uprising over a hundred years ago. Their population has grown to more than 100 thousand, and they are mainly living within the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Donggan literature has experienced its development process from the oral literature to the written one. After relocation of Donggan people to Central Asia, Chinese characters had been lost, leaving only the orally instructed literature taken there from China. Drawing support in succession from Arabic and Latin alphabets, Donggan people spelt Donggan characters, and finally created the Donggan language by the use of Slavic alphabet, and then Donggan people became "the world's only people who speak Chinese and succeed in spelling Chinese entirely by letters." Along with the birth of Donggan characters, Donggan written literature gained its rapid development, and a number of outstanding writers and poets emerged.Foreign studies on Donggan literature have Russian Sinologists and Donggan scholars as the main body. They began in the late 19th century and early 20th century, especially in the 1950s when ministry of Donggan education in Kyrgyzstan was established, a true sense of Donggan literature research began. Studies on both the oral literature and the written one had achieved fruitful results. China's studies on Donggan literature started relatively late. Following people's concern about Donggan nationality, there appeared the boom of the studies on Donggan literature in the beginning of this century. Especially in the perspective of world's Chinese literature, Donggan literature was given a macro positioning, and a breakthrough has also been made regarding studies on the inheritance by Donggan literature from Chinese culture. However, researches with regard to the disclosure of the uniqueness of Donggan literature from its relationship with the mainstream culture of the country it is now living---Russia, are very weak. Most of them are theoretical definitions, and in-depth studies based on close reading of text is still virgin ground, which is a field of study which need to be further explored in this thesis.The major factor that affects the world's Chinese literature is its parent culture and the mainstream culture of the country where it is living. In an environment completely isolated from its mother tongue, Donggan literature did not break away from the influence of Russian culture in respect of creation of its characters and formation and development of its written literature. The study of the relationship between Donggan literature and Russian culture can not only help further open up new areas of Chinese literature researches, but also help to promote deeper cultural exchanges between China and Russia.Based on the large context of Russian culture, and focusing on linguistics, literary trends, themes and subjects of literature, case studies of the writer and other aspects, this thesis made a comprehensive study of the influence of Russian culture on Donggan literature, thus observing from the opposite aspect where how Donggan literature, which has Chinese culture as its matrix and which has Islamic cultural characteristics, formed its own characteristics through collision and fusion with different cultures.First, from social and cultural perspective, this thesis analyzed the influence of the Russian language on Donggan literary language, and then kept a close watch on cultural exchanges through language contact:the Russian language exerted a profound influence on Donggan literary language with regard to vocabulary, grammar and ways of thinking, which reflected the involvement and infiltration of Russian culture; at the same time, Donggan literary language experienced the process of reform and localization for the inputted Russian language, which reflected Donggan writers'efforts of maintaining the purity of Donggan language and attitude of loyalty to their mother tongue.Second, starting from the currents of thought of Russian-Soviet realistic literature, the thesis longitudinally organized the gradual evolving course of Donggan literature in different stages of its development and its political, cultural and ecological relevance to the mainstream culture during the specific period of time:Russian-Soviet socialist realism, realism after the "thaw", and the realism continuously developed and improved by the approach of modernism and other literary trends which changed in turn were, to varying degrees, influencing Donggan writers and their creation mentality, and they had left vivid imprints on Donggan literary works at different times; through the writer's ideas and practices of creation, we can clearly see that the development of Donggan literature shows a graceful bearing where modernism and tradition, nationality and internationality interweaved and fused, complemented mutually and developed together.Third, penetrating horizontally from the specific aspects of literary themes and subject matters, the thesis compared and examined the influence and remodeling of Donggan literature by Russian-Soviet literary themes and subject matters:all the natural themes, ironic themes, subjects of war and other literary topics and themes in Russian-Soviet literature gave feedback in Donggan literary works, making it show a variety of topics, themes and colorful artistic expression; at the same time, influenced by their unique national psychology, religion and traditional culture, even when writing on the same theme and subject matter, they also clearly revealed the unique personality of their own national spirit.Fourth, with the cases of writers as object of watching, the thesis probed into the influence of Russian culture on Donggan writers'moral judgments and value orientation and into the coherence between writers of the two nationalities with regard to the pursuit of human nature:the poetry of Yaser Shiwazi, founder of Donggan written literature, are deeply affected by Russian culture either in respects of language, imagery, themes, forms and others or in literary concepts, literary traditions and cultural spirit and others. The description of Russian folk customs in his poetry and repeated presentation of Russian people and events reflected the profound Russian complex of the poet.The innovation of this thesis is:first, in the great perspective of Russian culture, it conducted a careful and detailed analysis of the relationship between Donggan literature and Russian culture, and filled the gaps in the studies on Donggan literature; second, the information on which the thesis is based gave priority to original Donggan texts and Russian data, which were new first-hand information. Since the writer of the thesis is not only good at Russian, but also understands the Donggan language, and she is also familiar with China's Northwest dialect, based on research of reading first-hand information, reliability of information research and objectivity of argumentation can be ensured; In addition, in the process of research, the writer used the literary method of cultural criticism, research methods of comparative literature and research methods in which social linguistics, history and other disciplines intercross and integrate, and highlighted the characteristics of comprehensive multi-disciplinary research.