May Fourth and Translation

Abstract

The May 4th Movement in 1919 – and more broadly the so-called New Culture movement in the 1910s and 1920s, – a landmark in the history of China, was marked by a great wave of translations, without precedent other than the one inspired by the Buddhist faith more than 1000 years before. This volume, which includes five papers presented at the conference 4 May 1919: History in Motion (Université de Mons, Belgium, 2-4 May 2019), seeks to define and measure, in all its dimensions and complexity (from tragic theatre to revolutionary novels to literary journals), the impact of this intense translation effort in the early years of Republican China.