The Beginnings of the Chinese Translation of Eastern European Literature in the Late Qing and Early Republic of China

The study of 16 Eastern European countries began in China in the mid-nineteenth century. As early as the 1840s, examples of descriptive records of Eastern European countries, in terms of their geography, people, history and culture, can be found in Lin Zexu’s 林则徐 The Encyclopaedia of Geography 四洲志 (1841), Wei Yuan’s 魏源 Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms 海国图志 (1842), Xu Jiyu’s 徐继畬A Short Account of the Maritime Circuit 瀛寰志略 (1848) and the works of others. Following the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842, the Qing government began to despatch ambassadors and consuls to sixteen countries, such as Great Britain, Germany, the USA, Japan, France and Russia. The official diaries of those diplomats contained a more detailed record of Eastern European countries, examples of which include Li Shuchang’s 黎庶昌 Treatises on Western Countries 西洋杂志, Zeng Jize’s 曾纪泽 Diary of My Experience as an Envoy to Britain, France and Russia 出使英法俄日记, Xue Fucheng’s 薛福成 Diary of my Experiences as an Envoy to Britain, France, Italy and Belgium 出使英法义比四国日记 and many others. Other writings, such as A Treatise on the Balkan Countries 巴尔干列国志 (1901), translated into Chinese by Xue Fucheng 薛福成, also included introductions to countries such as Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro. In spite of the literary attributes of these diaries and travel notes themselves, they failed to include any reference to literary history, or to provide records of the political and cultural situations of the countries.