Russian literature and its deep influence on Chinese people

From Leo Tolstoy and Alexander Pushkin to Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian literature has exerted a deep and lasting influence on the Chinese people. In addition, "How the Steel Was Tempered" written by Nikolai Ostrovsky between 1932 and 1934 is a milestone in Soviet literature that has been on the required reading list for Chinese primary and middle school students for decades.

As a semi-autobiographical novel, the story follows Pavel Korchagin, a working-class youth who overcomes poverty, war injuries, and blindness to dedicate his life to revolution and industrialization. His tenacity, fighting spirit and robust vitality have encouraged the Chinese readers for generations.

Paragraphs from the novel have been selected for Chinese textbooks, and the book remains on the shelves of many Chinese families.

"The most precious thing a person possesses is life. It is given to him but once, and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world – the fight for the liberation of humankind." This is one of the most famous quotes in "How the Steel Was Tempered," which is indelibly etched in the memories of many Chinese readers.