Die Lieder der Roten Garden
Type
book
Date Issued
2007
Author(s)
Wagner, Vivian
Abstract (De)
Red Guard songs not only provide us with vivid accounts of central notions and concepts in the Red Guard Movement, but can also serve to illustrate certain inherent trends in the Chinese politics of language and art, which were taken to their extremes during the CR. Words obtain particular qualities when set to music -- looking only at the lyrics would be an incomplete approach. This book endeavors to take into account various facets of the subject: Besides questions of form, language, symbolism and content I examine different meanings and functions of songs or singing in the context of the Red Guard movement. Furthermore, I touch upon the Red Guard songs' place in the Chinese tradition of politically motivated songs. My research is based on a collection of eighty-one titles from various sources, predominantly originating in Beijing or neighboring provinces: songbooks and booklets, some edited by Red Guards; Red Guard publications, People's Daily, Masses' Daily [Dazhong bao], biographical works, and songs I recorded myself which do not exist in printed form (this book contains the complete lyrics of 81 songs, both in Chinese as well as in German). Additionally, I conducted about twenty interviews with former Red Guards in 1993 and 1994. These firsthand accounts, though too few in number to be representative, provided valuable information, particularly with regard to functional aspects of the songs. After an introduction I examine several prominent keywords and characteristic topoi of the Red Guard song-repertoire; I then give a brief linguistic analysis of Red Guard songtexts; finally I describe social and political functions of the song as a form belonging to Red Guard political culture. This is a slightly revised digital version of my masters thesis (University of Munich), which I completed in 1995. I have not incorporated research that has been published since then.
Language
German
Keywords
China
Kulturrevolution
Rotgardisten
Maokult
Propaganda
Symbolik
Rhetorik
Ideologie
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
No
Publisher
Creative Commons
Volume
Digitale Volltextausgabe: http://www.kwa.unisg.ch/org/kwa/web.nsf/wwwPubInhalteGer/Kulturrevolution:+%22Die+Lieder+der+Roten+Garden%22?opendocument
Start page
180
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
42971