The lyrics of the "March of the Volunteers", also formally known as the National Anthem of the People's Republic of China, were composed by Tian Han in 1934[8] as two stanzas in his poem "The Great Wall" (萬里長城), (义勇军进行曲) intended either for a play he was working on at the time[9] or as part of the script for Diantong's upcoming film Children of Troubled Times.[10] The film is a story about a Chinese intellectual who flees during the Shanghai Incident to a life of luxury in Qingdao, only to be driven to fight the Japanese occupation of Manchuria after learning of the death of his friend. Urban legends later circulated that Tian wrote it in jail on rolling paper[9] or the liner paper from cigarette boxes[11] after being arrested in Shanghai by the Nationalists; in fact, he was arrested in Shanghai and held in Nanjing just after completing his draft for the film.[10] During March[12] and April 1935,[10] in Japan, Nie Er set the words (with minor adjustments)[10] to music; in May, Diantong's sound director He Luting had the Russian composer Aaron Avshalomov arrange their orchestral accompaniment.[13] The song was performed by Gu Menghe and Yuan Muzhi, along with a small and "hastily-assembled" chorus; He Luting consciously chose to use their first take, which preserved the Cantonese accent of several of the men.[10] On 9 May, Gu and Yuan recorded it in more standard Mandarin for Pathé Orient's Shanghai branch[d] ahead of the movie's [clarification needed] release, so that it served as a form of advertising for the film.[13]
Originally translated as "Volunteers Marching On",[14][15] the English name references the several volunteer armies that opposed Japan's invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s; the Chinese name is a poetic variation—literally, the "Righteous and Brave Armies"—that also appears in other songs of the time, such as the 1937 "Sword March".
In May 1935, the same month as the movie's [clarification needed] release, Lü Ji and other leftists in Shanghai had begun an amateur choir and started promoting a National Salvation singing campaign,[16] supporting mass singing associations along the lines established the year before by Liu Liangmo, a Shanghai YMCA leader.[10][17] Although the movie [clarification needed] did not perform well enough to keep Diantong from closing, its theme song became wildly popular: musicologistFeng Zikai reported hearing it being sung by crowds in rural villages from Zhejiang to Hunan within months of its release[11] and, at a performance at a Shanghai sports stadium in June 1936, Liu's chorus of hundreds was joined by its audience of thousands.[10] Although Tian Han was imprisoned for two years,[13] Nie Er fled to the Soviet Union, only to die en route in Japan;[12][e] and Liu Liangmo eventually fled to the U.S. to escape harassment from the Nationalists.[18] The singing campaign continued to expand, particularly after the December 1936 Xi'an Incident reduced Nationalist pressure against leftist movements.[16] Visiting St Paul's Hospital at the Anglicanmission at Guide (now Shangqiu, Henan), W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood reported hearing a "Chee Lai!" treated as a hymn at the mission service and the same tune "set to different words" treated as a favorite song of the Eighth Route Army.[19]
The song's first appearance in print, the May or June 1935 Diantong Pictorial[14]
The "March of the Volunteers" was used as the Chinese national anthem for the first time at the World Peace Conference in April 1949. Originally intended for Paris, French authorities refused so many visas for its delegates that a parallel conference was held in Prague, Czechoslovakia.[27] At the time, Beijing had recently come under the control of the Chinese Communists in the Chinese Civil War and its delegates attended the Prague conference in China's name. There was controversy over the third line, "The Chinese nation faces its greatest peril", so the writer Guo Moruo changed it for the event to "The Chinese nation has arrived at its moment of emancipation". The song was personally performed by Paul Robeson.[13]
In June, a committee was set up by the Chinese Communist Party to decide on an official national anthem for the soon-to-be declared People's Republic of China. By the end of August, the committee had received 632 entries totaling 694 different sets of scores and lyrics.[10] The March of the Volunteers was suggested by the painterXu Beihong[28] and supported by Zhou Enlai.[10] Opposition to its use centered on the third line, as "The Chinese people face their greatest peril" suggested that China continued to face difficulties. Zhou replied, "We still have imperialist enemies in front of us. The more we progress in development, the more the imperialists will hate us, seek to undermine us, attack us. Can you say that we won't be in peril?" His view was supported by Mao Zedong and, on 27 September 1949, the song became the provisional national anthem, just days before the founding of the People's Republic.[29] The highly fictionalized biopicNie Er was produced in 1959 for its 10th anniversary; for its 50th in 1999, The National Anthem retold the story of the anthem's composition from Tian Han's point of view.[10]
The 1 February 1966 People's Daily article condemning Tian Han's 1961 allegoricalPeking operaXie Yaohuan as a "big poisonous weed"[30] was one of the opening salvos of the Cultural Revolution,[31] during which he was imprisoned and his words forbidden to be sung. As a result, there was a time when "The East Is Red" served as the PRC's unofficial anthem.[i] Following the 9th National Congress, "The March of the Volunteers" began to be played once again from the 20th National Day Parade in 1969, although performances were solely instrumental. Tian Han died in prison in 1968, but Paul Robeson continued to send the royalties from his American recordings of the song to Tian's family.[13]
The anthem was restored by the 5th National People's Congress on 5 March 1978,[33] but with rewritten lyrics including references to the Chinese Communist Party, communism, and Chairman Mao. Following Tian Han's posthumous rehabilitation in 1979[10] and Deng Xiaoping's consolidation of power over Hua Guofeng, the National People's Congress resolved to restore Tian Han's original verses to the march and to elevate its status, making it the country's official national anthem on 4 December 1982.[33][34]
Sheet music from Appendix 4 of Macau's Law No.5/1999
The use of the anthem in the Macau Special Administrative Region is particularly governed by Law No.5/1999, which was enacted on 20 December 1999. Article 7 of the law requires that the anthem be accurately performed pursuant to the sheet music in its Appendix 4 and prohibits the lyrics from being altered. Under Article 9, willful alteration of the music or lyrics is criminally punishable by imprisonment of up to two years or up to 360 day-fines[37][38] and, although both Chinese and Portuguese are official languages of the region, the provided sheet music has its lyrics only in Chinese. Mainland China has also passed a similar law in 2017.[39]
Hong Kong
Nonetheless, the Chinese National Anthem in Mandarin now forms a mandatory part of public secondary education in Hong Kong as well.[40] The local government issued a circular in May 1998 requiring government-funded schools to perform flag-raising ceremonies involving the singing of the "March of the Volunteers" on particular days: the first day of school, the "open day", National Day (1 October), New Year's (1 January), the "sport day", Establishment Day (1 July), the graduation ceremony, and for some other school-organized events; the circular was also sent to the SAR's private schools.[41][42] The official policy was long ignored, but—following massive and unexpected public demonstrations in 2003 against proposed anti-subversion laws—the ruling was reiterated in 2004[43][44] and, by 2008, most schools were holding such ceremonies at least once or twice a year.[45] From National Day in 2004, as well, Hong Kong's local television networks have also been required to preface their evening news with government-prepared[46] promotional videos including the national anthem in Mandarin.[44] Initially a pilot program planned for a few months,[47] it has continued ever since. Viewed by many as propaganda,[47][48][49] even after a sharp increase in support in the preceding four years, by 2006, the majority of Hongkongers remained neither proud nor fond of the anthem.[50] On 4 November 2017, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress decided to insert a Chinese National Anthem Law into the Annex III of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, which would make it illegal to insult or not show sufficient respect to the Chinese national anthem. On 4 June 2020, the National Anthem Bill was passed in Hong Kong after being approved by the Legislative Council.[51][52]
Tune
A 1939 bilingual songbook which included the song called it "a good example of...copy[ing] the good points from Western music without impairing or losing our own national color".[20] Nie's piece is a march, a Western form, opening with a bugle call and a motif (with which it also closes) based on an ascending fourth interval from D to G inspired by "The Internationale".[53] Its rhythmic patterns of triplets, accented downbeats, and syncopation and use (with the exception of one note, F♯ in the first verse) of the G majorpentatonic scale,[53] however, create an effect of becoming "progressively more Chinese in character" over the course of the tune.[40] For reasons both musical and political, Nie came to be regarded as a model composer by Chinese musicians in the Maoist era.[12]Howard Taubman, the New York Times music editor, initially panned the tune as telling us China's "fight is more momentous than her art" although, after US entrance into the war, he called its performance "delightful".[13]
Lyrics
Original version for Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English
Arise! Those who refuse to be slaves!
With our flesh and blood, let us build our new Great Wall!
The Chinese nation face their greatest peril.
From each one the urgent call for action comes forth.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Us millions with but one heart,
Braving the enemy's fire, march on!
Braving the enemy's fire, march on!
March on! March on, on!
Arise! ye who refuse to be bond slaves!
With our very flesh and blood, Let us build our new Great Wall.
China's masses have met the day of danger,
Indignation fills the hearts of all our countrymen.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
Many hearts with one mind,
Brave the enemy's gunfire, March on!
Brave the enemy's gunfire, March on!
March on!, March on!, On!
1978–1982 version
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
March on! People of all heroic nationalities!
The great Communist Party leads us in continuing the Long March,
Millions with but one heart toward a communist tomorrow,
Develop and protect the country in a brave struggle.
March on, march on, march on!
We will for generations,
Raise high Mao Zedong's banner, march on!
Raise high Mao Zedong's banner, march on!
March on! March on! On!
^Pathé's local music director at the time was the French-educated Ren Guang, who in 1933 was a founding member of Soong Ching-ling's "Soviet Friends Society"'s Music Group. Prior to his arrest, Tian Han served as the group's head and Nie Er was another charter member. Liu Liangmo, who subsequently did much to popularize the use of the song, had also joined by 1935.[13]
^Nie actually finalized the movie's [clarification needed] music in Japan and sent it back to Diantong in Shanghai.[10]
^The lyrics, which appeared in the Music Educators' Journal,[21] are sung verbatim in Philip Roth's 1969 Portnoy's Complaint, where Portnoy claims "the rhythm alone can cause my flesh to ripple" and that his elementary school teachers were already calling it the "Chinese national anthem".[22]
^This song was also sometimes spelled as Chi Lai or Ch'i-Lai.
^中华人民共和国国歌法 [The Law of the National Anthem of the People's Republic of China] (PDF) (in Chinese). The National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China. 1 September 2017. Archived from the original(PDF) on 1 September 2017. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
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