Sino-Russian Literary Exchanges in the Year of Russia

The year of 2006 was known as the “Year of Russia” in China.Reviewing literary exchanges between the two countries in the past 300 years,it could be said that Russian translators started ahead of their counterparts in China.There were already translations of Chinese literature in the late 17th and 18th centuries.In the 19th century the translations of Chinese literary classics started and continued as a fashionable enterprise into the 20th century.One can find Russian translations of Chinese literature from Shi Jing(The Book of Songs)to famous contemporary literary works.It was not until the late 19th century that Chinese translators started to translate Russian literature.There was a flood of translations of Russian literature in the 1950s,the ripple effect of which could still be felt in the 1980s.Russian literature,including the works of Pushkin and Tolstoy as well as the Soviet literature represented by Gorky,has had a great influence on Chinese literature.