Xue Fan (; 21 September 1934 – 2 September 2022) was a Chinese musicologist, translator, and leading figure in the adaptation of foreign songs into Chinese. His birth name was Wen Shengyuan (闻声远), and he also used the pen name Ji Zhimo (嵇志默).Over a career spanning more than seven decades, he translated and adapted more than 2,000 songs from outside mainland China, including over 1,000 from the Soviet Union and Russia, and compiled and published more than thirty collections of foreign songs. He was a member of the China Writers Association, Chinese Musicians' Association, and Translators Association of China, a national council member of the China-Russia Friendship Association, a guest professor at Shanghai Normal University, and an honorary committee member of the eighth session of the .
At the age of two, Xue Fan contracted poliomyelitis, resulting in permanent paralysis of his lower limbs. During his student years, he developed a love for literature and music and began creating and submitting works. After graduating from high school in 1952, he was admitted to the Shanghai Russian Language Vocational School but was denied enrollment due to his disability. He subsequently learned Russian, English, Japanese, French, and other languages through radio broadcasts and self-studied university-level Chinese literature courses. In his youth, Xue Fan actively engaged in the translation and adaptation of foreign songs, while also translating poetry, writing plays, and engaging in literary criticism. He gained fame in 1957 with his translation of the lyrics for "Moscow Nights". Following the Sino-Soviet split, his creative output gradually declined. After the thaw in Sino-Soviet relations, he abandoned literary writing to focus again on the translation and study of foreign songs. Xue Fan never held a formal job and had no children; prior to receiving the Order of Friendship, he long relied on manuscript fees and his parents' income for support.
As one of the few specialists in mainland China dedicated to the translation and study of foreign songs, Xue Fan comprehensively developed song translation theory and detailed methods and requirements for lyric adaptation. He also contributed to promoting people-to-people exchanges between China and Russia and disseminating foreign songs—primarily Soviet and Russian ones—in mainland China. In his later years, he organized more than five hundred concerts of foreign songs in mainland China, earning the title of "preacher" of Soviet and Russian songs. Xue Fan received honors from the Government of Russia six times. In 1997, for his "outstanding contributions to Russian-Chinese friendship and cultural exchanges," he was awarded the Order of Friendship by then-President of Russia Boris Yeltsin.
Biography
Early life Xue Fan was born on September 21, 1934, in Shanghai, with the birth name Wen Shengyuan. "Xue Fan" became his most commonly used pen name starting in the 1950s. Xue Fan was the eldest son in his family, born to parents who were senior factory employees. He had seven siblings. At age two he contracted poliomyelitis; despite two months of treatment by famous doctors sought by his grandmother, it left him permanently reliant on crutches and a wheelchair. He entered primary school at nominal age eight, with family escorting him through high school graduation. In primary school, he read Ye Shengtao's fairy tales and Heart, sparking his love for literature. In junior high, he read various Chinese and foreign novels and poetry, including General Yue Fei, the Family–– trilogy, and Ge Baoquan's translation of Alexander Pushkin's collected works, and began writing and submitting pieces. At his parents' request, he studied piano in primary and junior high but stopped due to inability to use pedals from his leg disability and only being able to play simple pieces "with difficulty". After victory in the Second Sino-Japanese War, he encountered his first Soviet song, "Wide is My Motherland", and the Soviet song that left the deepest impression in his youth was the Chinese lyrics "Guangming zan" (Hymn to Light, 光明赞) written by and Xiao San for "Brothers, to the Sun, to Freedom". Xue Fan also loved radio and semiconductors in his youth and could assemble a five-tube crystal radio independently.
In 1949, Xue Fan graduated from the junior high division of . That October, classmates carried him to the Shanghai Cultural Square to attend the "Xian Xinghai Night" concert, where the live performance of Yellow River Cantata rekindled his interest in music; he subsequently self-studied music theory and composition. In his second year of high school, he became editor of the class wall newspaper. In 1951, his radio drama Zuguo, wo weile ni (Motherland, for You, 祖国，我为了你) was broadcast on the "Youth Program" of East China·Shanghai People's Radio Station. During high school, he further explored Soviet, European and American, Arab, Indian, and other literary styles. In 1952, he graduated from ; English was the foreign language he had studied since primary school. He planned to apply for radio engineering but, due to his disability and the high point of Sino-Soviet relations at the time, his homeroom teacher Zhang Qikun persuaded him to switch to liberal arts and study Russian instead, "like Pavel Korchagin using the pen as a weapon in the battle of life." His first choice was Chinese department, second Russian. That autumn, he was admitted to the Shanghai Russian Language Vocational School but was rejected on registration day by the school due to his severe lower limb paralysis not being noted by the medical examiner.
Self-study, translation, and literary creation
After rejection by the Shanghai Russian School, Xue Fan focused on literary study, self-teaching literature and drama based on Fudan University Chinese department materials, and enrolled in Shanghai Russian Language Radio School to learn Russian via broadcasts. During this period, he read extensively in Russian translations and used two versions of Cao Ying's translation of Pyotr Pavlenko's novel Schastye () as self-study textbooks for translation. Due to frequent letters to the radio's "Friends of Listeners" column, he was invited multiple times to visit East China·Shanghai People's Radio Station. In 1953, encouraged by Zhu Chongmao, conductor of the station's orchestra, he published his first translated foreign song, "Peace Fighters' Song" (), under his birth name Wen Shengyuan in Shanghai Broadcast (上海广播, later renamed Broadcast Song Selection, 广播歌选), using the fee to buy foreign language dictionaries. In 1955, he underwent spinal surgery. That year, his translations Selected Soviet Songs (苏联歌曲选), Collection of Western Classical Songs (苏联歌曲选), Anthology of Western Classical Songs (西方古典歌曲集), and three volumes of Soviet Song Compilation (苏联歌曲汇编) were successively published. In 1958, he graduated from the Russian advanced class at Shanghai International Studies University. Besides songs, he translated poetry from Soviet, Yugoslav, and other writers, with some published in Yiwen (译文), People's Daily, Wenhui Bao, etc., and accepted invitations from to co-publish six volumes of foreign poetry selections. During the Great Leap Forward, inspired by Shanghai Conservatory students Xiao Bai and others winning first prize for large-scale works at the 7th World Festival of Youth and Students with the cantata-style Happiness River Chorus (幸福河大合唱), he wrote the music story film script The Unfinished Song (没有唱完的歌), adopted by Shanghai Film Studio but shelved due to the Three Years of Difficulty.
In July 1957, from Sovetskaya Kultura he saw the gold medal-winning songs from the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students, and happened to have sheet music for three including "Moscow Nights"; he decided to translate, but initial versions were unsatisfactory. In September, on the way home from a performance, hearing Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major on Huaihai West Road inspired him; he rewrote the lyrics in an hour at home. Soon published in Shanghai's Broadcast Song Selection (广播歌选) and Beijing's Songs (歌曲) magazines, the Chinese singing version aired on Shanghai People's Radio's "Song of the Week" (每周一歌). Provincial music publications reprinted it, causing a nationwide sensation. During translation, he wrote to composer Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi and the Red Banner Song and Dance Ensemble, receiving replies, scores, and manuscripts. In 1960, he revised the lyrics again; the revised version appeared in the third volume of Soviet Song Compilation (苏联歌曲汇编) published that year by Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House but was less widely circulated than the earlier one.
Sino-Soviet split and Cultural Revolution After the Sino-Soviet split, Xue Fan shifted to translating foreign songs outside the Soviet Union via Russian or English versions, mainly from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He self-studied full university Chinese courses, History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course, and political economy, hand-copied 16 volumes of Chinese and foreign poetry, studied Stanislavski and other dramatists' theories, and wrote plays based on the Cuban Revolution, Yue Fei, and Patrice Lumumba's assassination: Red Carnation (红石竹花), Man Jiang Hong (满江红), Roar! Congo (怒吼吧，刚果). The film script Man Jiang Hong was adopted by Film Literature (电影文学) but not published due to the Cultural Revolution halting the magazine; parts of the play Roar! Congo were used by the Navy Political Department Drama Troupe in the same-themed play Fury of Coconut Grove (椰林怒火). He wrote arts and literary criticism like "Comedy Scenery · Scenery Comedy" (喜剧的布景·布景的喜剧) published in Xinmin Evening News and others, hoping to focus on literary and dramatic research while translating. Due to meager song translation fees, he could not afford recorders or foreign scores; for hard-to-find Third World songs, he translated by ear in cinemas. In 1965, People's Daily cultural supplement editors required political background and attitude toward China for a submitted poem's author; lacking information, he did not provide it and stopped translating foreign poetry.
During the Cultural Revolution, his parents' salaries were halved, worsening his difficulties; he was forced to swear not to translate Soviet songs. During Destroy the Four Olds, Red Guards confiscated and destroyed his accumulated Chinese and foreign books, periodicals, scores, music materials, note cards, unfinished book History of "The Internationale", and other manuscripts, leaving only the four-volume Selected Works of Mao Zedong; he maintained translation thinking by reading foreign-language Selected Works and adapting Korean film The Flower Girl interludes, and learned English, Japanese, and French via radio after 1972. Besides criticism for listening to "enemy station" Radio Moscow, he avoided large-scale struggle unlike many artists. After the Cultural Revolution, rebels returned manuscripts gifted by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoi. After the Third Plenum of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, sensing relaxation in ideological control, he self-funded visits to Shanghai Library to review Soviet periodicals from the Cultural Revolution for Soviet music developments but still could not publish Soviet songs publicly. He completed the play Xin Qiji (辛弃疾) but abandoned drama after rejection by Shanghai Film for "outdated style"; inspired by rejection, he took pen name "Ji Zhimo" (嵇志默, homophonic with "die with unfulfilled ambition" from Jiang Yan's Fu on Regret), completing historical novels Lang pai Caishi ji (浪拍采石矶) and Ping shei wen (凭谁问), published in Da Jiang (大江) and Xiaoshuo tiandi (小说天地). In song adaptation, published his Selected Foreign Film Songs (外国电影歌曲选集) in 1981, including Cultural Revolution-era adaptations like The Flower Girl interludes. He also translated some Western popular music, notably "We Are the World".