The death of Nie Er
For a long time, the impression he left on many of us may have only one sentence: "musician, author of the national anthem", but what kind of person is he? Why is he in Died at the age of 23? Was there any conspiracy behind his death?
Not many people may know.
On the evening of July 17, 1935, the Coast Watch Station in Fujisawa City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan suddenly received a report.
The reports are a Japanese woman named Hamada Hiroko and a North Korean man named Lee Sangnam. They anxiously told the police that a Chinese who was swimming with them at the Huuma Beach had disappeared along the coast.
disappeared at about 1:30 pm. Hamada Hiroko and Li Xiangnan searched for more than 3 hours, but they still could not find it, so they called the police.
According to records, the missing Chinese is called Nie Shouxin .
The next day, on the morning of July 18, Hamada Hiroko and Li Xiangnan received a notification from the Japanese police after they went to the beach again to find no results: the Chinese man was found, he was salvaged, and he was already dead. . According to the forensic examination, the deceased died of suffocation , in other words, drowning while swimming.
Soon after, a Chinese man named Zhang Tianxu (aka Zhang He, author of the novel "Iron Wheel") arrived, opened the coffin, and identified the deceased. Nie Shouxin is the scientific name of this Chinese man. He has a more familiar name: Nie Er.
Nie Er was only 23 years old at the time.
This year, a song he just finished was being sung by the Chinese in the north and south of China.
Nie Er The name of the song is " March of the Volunteers ".
Nie Er was born on February 14, 1912 in Kunming, Yunnan.
Nie Er's childhood and adolescence can be described as "displaced", which should be considered appropriate.
When Nie Er was 4 years old, his father Nie Hongyi died.The mother Peng Jikuan alone took on the burden of the family. She worked hard to obtain the qualification to practice medicine (Nie Er's father is a Chinese medicine practitioner), to see doctors and prescribe medicines to maintain the family's livelihood.
However, her mother's practice of medicine did not affect Nie Er's future career choice, but her other hobby had a huge impact on Nie Er: Peng Jikuan is a Dai ethnicity, and often likes to hum some ethnic minor tunes to Nie Er, Sing some folk tales in the local tune of minor .
In 1919, Nie Er began to study in primary school. Despite his family's financial constraints -- Nie Er couldn't even pay for a Boy Scout uniform and had to transfer schools -- his academic performance has always been excellent. Another notable feature is that Nie Er began to show a strong interest in music, began to teach himself bamboo flute , erhu and other instruments, and also served as the conductor of the school's student music troupe.
In 1925, Nie Er, who entered Yunnan No. 1 United Middle School, participated in the English study session held by French teacher Bo Xiwen every night, and learned the basic theory of music and piano playing from him. Later, he learned the violin from others.
In 1928, something happened that had a great impact on Nie Er.
Nie Er's teacher, Zhao Qiongxian, was arrested by the authorities (she was an early underground CCP member), paraded around the street in shackles and dragged to the execution ground to be shot. Zhao Qiongxian shouted slogans all the way, and Nie Er called "Teacher" and chased after him. After Zhao Qiongxian's death, his heart was dug out. At that time, some ignorant people thought that eating it could cure diseases, and even went to rob it.
This incident was very stimulating to Nie Er. He thought that optical music was useless, and he had to do something practical.
The 16-year-old Nie Er then signed up for the "Student Army" formed by the warlord Fan Shisheng in western Yunnan, and joined the army.
After several twists and turns, a year later, the student army was disbanded in Guangzhou, and Nie Er returned to his hometown, Kunming, to continue his music studies. Because Nie Er began to participate in some movements of the CCP's underground party at this time, he was gradually targeted by the Kuomintang spy organization. With the help of his family, Nie Er fled to Shanghai in 1930.
In Shanghai, Nie Er worked and lost his job, but finally he embarked on the road of music as he wished--entered the EMI record company , and presided over the work of the music department.
Because Nie Er is very sensitive to music, he can sing a lot of music as long as he hears it, so he is nicknamed "Ear".
At a party, Nie Er performed a stunt - moving his ears back and forth, the general manager laughed and called him "Dr. Nie Er". Nie Er said: "I already have three ears ("Nie" in traditional Chinese is "Nie"), you still want to give me one ear, that's fine!"
From then on, he simply stopped calling Nie Shouxin and changed his name It's called "Nie Er".
Although Nie Er's living conditions have improved somewhat, it was his previous poor life experience that really inspired his music.
Nie Er once wrote in his diary that he listened to the roars of selling voices and martial arts in an environment "full of the sweat of the workers, coachmen, and gangster proletariat", from which he learned the heart song of their "struggle in life".
In Shanghai, he went to walk the night road of female workers by himself, experienced the hard work of female workers, and wrote "New Women", which is "new women bravely rushing forward"; Wrote the "Song of the Dock Workers", which is "from morning to night, and from night to morning"; he listens to the cries of the little newsboys selling newspapers every day. After composing the music, I revised it together with the newsboy, and wrote " selling newspaper song " which is "La la la! I am a little connoisseur of selling newspapers".
Looking back on Nie Er's short life, he was engaged in music creation in the two years from 1933 to 1935. But in the past two years, Nie Er's musical talent seems to have exploded, leaving behind more than a dozen songs that were popular at the time.
After the " September 18 Incident " in 1931, the entire Northeast was occupied, and North China was crumbling, but some popular songs in the society are still "When Will You Come Again" and "Peach Blossom River is a Nest of Beauty". These songs are mainly from the Mingyue Song and Dance Club where Nie Er was working at that time. The president is Mr. Li Jinhui , the author of "Peach Blossom River is a Beautiful Woman's Nest" and a famous musician.
In fact, Li Jinhui also wrote a lot of anti-Japanese songs, but because these popular songs could bring high box office revenue at that time, they were the main songs of the song and dance club. But Nie Er couldn't get used to it. He believed that the situation was critical and that such songs and dances should no longer be written and performed. To this end, he also published an article in the newspaper to oppose this kind of behavior, which was considered by the colleagues of Mingyue Song and Dance Club to be "holding our bowl and smashing our pot". Not long after that, Nie Er left the song and dance club. .
But it was the critical article published by Nie Er that made a person notice him, and that person was Tian Han. A lyricist, a songwriter, have come together ever since. At that time, the two discussed whether they could write a few songs that would boost the morale of the Chinese people and resist aggression.
In early 1935, Tian Han adapted the movie " The Children of the Wind and Clouds ". The movie tells the story of intellectuals who finally gave up their hesitation and devoted themselves to the fight against Japan. Tian Han wrote the lyrics of a theme song, but at that time he was arrested by the Kuomintang authorities for "propaganda red". Before his arrest, Tian Han copied the lyrics on a cigarette liner and clipped it into the script. The script of
then came to Xia Yan , Xia Yan found the lyrics and told Nie Er about it. Nie Er looked at the lyrics and slapped the table: "Give it to me! I'll compose the music!"
It took Nie Er only two days to write the first draft of the song. But at this time, news came that the Kuomintang authorities were preparing to arrest Nie Er. According to the arrangement, Nie Er left Shanghai and went to Japan, and then from Japan to the Soviet Union.
In April 1935, Nie Er arrived in Japan, and then changed his draft three times, wrote the score of the theme song, and sent it back to China. [Nie Er then went on vacation to his friend Hiroshi Hamada's house, accompanied by his friend Lee Sang-nam (who is actually a member of the Korean Communist Party). ]
On the score that Nie Er sent back, the title only wrote three words " March ", at that time Zhu Qinglan, the investor of EMI record , added "Volunteer Army" before these three words. One word, "March of the Volunteers" was born.
In May 1935, EMI recorded the "March of the Volunteers" into a record and released it to the public. From the tune to the lyrics, every word and every note hit the heart of every Chinese at that time, and this song was quickly spread across the country.
Two months later, news came that Nie Er and his friends were on vacation by the sea and unfortunately drowned.
There is actually a debate about the cause of Nie Er's death.
In 1954, Yunnan Province rebuilt the tomb of Nie Er, and invited the then chairman of the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Guo Moruo to write the inscription on the tombstone. In what Guo Moruo wrote at the time, the last two sentences were:
"Unfortunately to die in an enemy country, it is a great regret. The reason for the drowning is still unclear!"
"enemy country" refers to Japan, and " It's not clear", clearly revealing a doubt. Coincidentally, the famous Brazilian poet and writer Andrade wrote an essay at that time called "The Outstanding Musician", in which he wrote: "Nie Er died a long time ago, killed by the Japanese. Yes....Yes, Nie Er knows very well that his name is on the blacklist and the enemy is likely to assassinate him....Nie Er is still a young man, only 23 years old. But he died less than a month later. After a bloody corpse was found, the Japanese police officially expressed their opinion that he was drowning.”
In particular, when Nie Er’s body was salvaged, there was slight bleeding from his head and nostrils, which led to a rumor circulating in China at that time. Kailai: "Nie Er was bleeding from the seven orifices at the time. The Japanese thought he was propagating anti-Japanese and sent someone to kill him and then throw his body in the sea.
Is this really the case?
All the evidence at present cannot support this claim.
First, although Nie Er wrote a number of widely sung songs at that time, including "March of the Volunteers", in fact, many people did not know that the composer was Nie Er. As an amateur composer at that time, Nie Er was by no means famous. To the point where the Japanese spy wanted to send someone to assassinate him.
Second, although Nie Er had joined the Chinese Communist Party at that time, he did so in secret, and almost no one knew the identity of his party members. He did not use a passport to go to Japan, he used a Zhang's student ID card, with the name "Nie Shouxin" written on it, it is difficult for the Japanese to know his identity. Even if they knew Nie Er's true identity, the Japanese police would not easily assassinate him, because he was the most famous person who lived in exile in Japan at that time. Guo Moruo,The Japanese police are also only under "residential surveillance". There was no full-scale war between China and Japan at that time, and Japan did not have enough reasons to assassinate a Nie Er who was not really famous at the time.
Third, all of Nie Er's diaries during his stay in Japan were later exposed, and there was no record that he was being followed by spies.
Fourth, Zhang Tianxu, a close friend of Nie Er's hometown at that time, participated in the whole process of Nie Er's identification and burial from beginning to end. All his later memoirs and writings did not mention the suspicion that Nie Er was assassinated by the Japanese. of.
Last but not least, his friends Sun Yu, Jin Yan, Wu Yonggang, Zhao Dan, Li Jinguang and others who had swum with Nie Er in Shanghai many times recalled It is said that Nie Er's swimming skills are not high, he can't breathe, and he often sinks to the bottom, so he has the nickname of "submarine".
And according to the memories of Hiroshi Hamada. That day, she took her son to swim in the shallow water, while Nie Er went to the deep water.
According to the experience of swimming professionals, some drowning people they have rescued do experience slight bleeding from the nose and mouth.
When Yi Jiuma, a famous Japanese music master group, came to China to shoot the feature film "Nie Er", he put forward his own conjecture: Nie Er may have suffered a heart attack while swimming that day.
The evidence that Nie Er was assassinated is indeed insufficient.
Nie Er's life stopped at the age of 23. But he left a legacy that is most precious.
In 1937, China and Japan started a full-scale war. From generals to soldiers, from businessmen to students, all the Chinese people were full of tears, clenched their fists and sang the "March of the Volunteers": "Get up, people who don't want to be slaves!"
In the battle of in Songhu in 1937, Xie Jinyuan led more than 400 warriors to defend the Sixing Warehouse and sang the "March of the Volunteers" every day; in Taierzhuang, Chinese soldiers gathered in the ruined village, high Singing "Build our new Great Wall of our flesh" and charging the Japanese...
Not just in China.
" WWII " duringIn the Soviet Union, in France, in Czechoslovakia , the "March of the Volunteers" was translated as "Rise" and recorded on a record, "Go forward, advance, advance forward!" resounded across Eurasia.
In 1940, the African-American singer Paul Robertson sang "The March of the Volunteers" in New York, and recorded a set of "Cheelai: Song of New China" the following year for the Chinese Revolution Song recording, Soong Ching Ling wrote the preface.
In 1941, the Pacific War broke out, and Southeast Asia fell under the hoofs of the Japanese. In 1944, the lyrics of "March of the Volunteers" in Malaya were changed to "The Malayan nation is at its most dangerous time". After being arrested, a Malayan guerrilla used to face the Japanese army.英文 Sing the "March of the Volunteers" to die.
At the end of "World War II", the Allies released a number of triumphant songs, and the "March of the Volunteers" was also on the list.
In September 1949, the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference was held, and a group of people such as Liang Sicheng and Xu Beihong proposed that the "March of the Volunteers" be used as the "National Anthem" of the new China. The National Anthem of the People's Republic , Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai immediately agreed.
After the "Cultural Revolution" and "March of the Volunteers", the lyricist Tian Han was persecuted, and the lyrics of the national anthem were overturned and rewritten, but no one dared to move the tune of this song.
In 1982, the Fifth Session of the Fifth National People's Congress decided again to restore the original lyrics of "March of the Volunteers".
In Japan, there are people who commemorate Nie Er.
1954,In Shonan Kaigan Park, Fujisawa City, Japan, where Nie Er was killed, the Japanese built a "Nie Er Monument", but it was destroyed by a typhoon in 1958. In 1963, the citizens of Fujisawa established the "Nie Er Monument Preservation Association". In 1965, the Preservation Society raised more than 4 million yen through the private sector to rebuild the "Nie Er Monument".
Every year on July 17th, Fujisawa City "Nie Er Monument Preservation Association" will hold "Nie Er Memorial Festival" with citizens in front of the Nie Er Monument, lay flowers, observe a moment of silence, and play the "March of the Volunteers" by the city fire band ".
The stone for Nie Er's portrait was taken from his native Yunnan. In 1981, due to Nie Er's life and death, Kunming and Fujisawa became sister cities. In the sound of passionate songs, everyone will read the inscription on Nie Er's monument again
