The Transfiguration of Russian Nihilists: Chinese Translations of Kemuyama Sentarō’s Anarchism in Modern Times

In 1902, the Japanese scholar Kemuyama Sentarō(1877-1954) published Modern Anarchism. It was one of the first books in EastAsia to provide a comprehensive and systematic scholarly overview of the late nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary movement.This book of political scholarship had a sensational impact in China and motivated the Chinese to translate stories about the politically radical Russian nihilists-both factual and historical fiction-as well as write original fiction on these themes. This article traces the translations of Kemuyama's book in China at the beginning of the twentieth century, detailing the editorials and sketches in Chinese newspapers that drew direct inspiration from Kemuyama's book. By outlining how Kemuyama's scholarly research into Russian revolutionary politics eventually served as a crucial impetus for early twentieth-century Chinese social and revolutionary movements, the article explores the relationship between transcultural texts and politics, and the implications for translation as a cultural mediator.In addition, thearticle also explores how Kemuyama's book guided its Chinese readers to establish a link between revolution and literature that shaped the Chinese interpretation of Russian literature throughout the twentieth century. Inspired by the Russian nihilists and writers depicted in Kemuyama's book, the Chinese translators transformed their renditions into vehicles of their own revolutionary sentiments.