关键词: 阿尔志跋绥夫, 虚无主义, 中国新文学, 写实主义, 审美现代性

Abstract: The works of Russian writer Artsybashev were first introduced into China in 1920 in the name of “the true spirit of Russian literature,” and interpretations of its nihilism reflected the aesthetic demands and ethical standpoint of Chinese new literature construction in the 1920s. By identifying the images of Sanin and Sheviriof as modern men, translators explored the negative power, anti-tradition and the dilemma of revolutionaries in these novels, towards which the translators provided various and even conflicting evaluations at different times. In fact, nihilism must be understood as a consequence of Western enlightenment modernity, which involves the “I” occupying the position of God. What's more, in Russian social and cultural context, nihilism also represents a moral passion for resisting historical injustice. If nihilism can be regarded as one of the many representations of Western aesthetic modernity, the constructors of Chinese new literature used realism as a response to Western aesthetic modernity. In this dual realism of both writing technique and ethical standpoint, the heterogeneous Russian nihilism is replaced by a sense of social responsibility from the individual to the collective. Meanwhile, the moral passion contained therein has been truly grounded and transformed into literary and social practices in a localized Chinese manner, which is related to the ideological enlightenment and social evolutionary tasks of Chinese new literature. Furthermore, it suggests a Chinese possibility of aesthetic modernity that differs from Western one in the field of literature.

Key words: Artsybashev, nihilism, Chinese new literature, realism, aesthetic modernity