“中国通”谭若思逝世，曾撰写毛泽东与江青传记

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“中国通”谭若思逝世，曾撰写毛泽东与江青传记

CLAY RISEN2024年8月14日1987年，谭若思在悉尼歌剧院外。他出生于澳大利亚。 Ian Charles Cugley/Fairfax Media, via Getty ImagesRoss Terrill, a political scientist and journalist whose extensive travels in China, beginning in the 1960s, made him one of the West’s most insightful guides to the country as it grew from self-imposed isolation to become a global superpower, died on Aug. 2 at his home in Boston. He was 85.政治学家、记者谭若思(Ross Terrill)自上世纪60年代开始在中国各地旅行，这使他在中国从自我封闭发展为全球超级大国的过程中成为西方最具洞察力的中国向导之一。他于8月2日在波士顿家中去世，享年85岁。Philip Gambone, a writer and close friend of Mr. Terrill’s, confirmed the death. He said that Mr. Terrill had been ill in recent years, but that the cause of death was unclear.谭若思的好友、作家菲利普·甘本证实了谭若思的死讯。他说谭若思近年来身体欠佳，但死因尚不清楚。Born in Australia, Mr. Terrill first visited China in 1964, a few years after graduating from the University of Melbourne and just before the country walled itself off to foreigners during the Cultural Revolution, a disastrous attempt to purge Chinese society of any remaining capitalist influences.谭若思生于澳大利亚，他首次前往中国是在1964年，当时他刚从墨尔本大学毕业几年，而中国正处于“文革”前夕——这是一场旨在清除中国社会残余的资本主义影响的灾难性尝试，在此期间，外国人被挡在国门之外。He returned seven years later, one of the first Westerners allowed back into China as the fervor of the Cultural Revolution cooled. He reported on his travels in a two-part article for The Atlantic Monthly; its readers, eager for any insight into Beijing’s thinking, included President Richard M. Nixon, who relied on it in preparing for his historic visit to China in 1972.七年后，他再次来到中国，成为“文革”狂热降温后首批获准返回中国的西方人之一。他为《大西洋月刊》(The Atlantic Monthly)撰写了一篇旅行报道，分两部分发表；该刊读者渴望深入了解北京的想法，其中包括尼克松总统，他在准备1972年对中国的历史性访问时就参考了这篇文章。Mr. Terrill received a doctorate in political science from Harvard and remained affiliated with the university for the rest of his career, mostly as a research associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.谭若思获得了哈佛大学的政治学博士学位，在接下来的职业生涯里，他一直在哈佛大学工作，主要在费正清中国研究中心担任研究员。His work, especially in the popular press, straddled the line between journalism and academia. Many of his books, like “The Real China” (1972) and “Flowers on an Iron Tree: Five Cities of China” (1975), offered a compelling blend of travel reporting, history and political analysis that earned him followings among both Sinologists and the general public.他的作品，尤其是发表在大众媒体上的作品，打破了新闻和学术的界限。他的许多著作，如《真实的中国》(The Real China，1972)和《铁树开花——中国五城》(Flowers on an Iron Tree: Five Cities of China，1975)，将旅行报道、历史和政治分析引人入胜地结合在一起，赢得了汉学家和普通大众的追捧。《纽约时报》的纪思道在称赞谭若思1992年出版的书时写道，这本书“读起来就像在一家北京烤鸭店的角落里和作者边吃边聊”。 Simon & SchusterHis book “China in Our Time: The Epic Saga of the People’s Republic From the Communist Victory to Tiananmen Square and Beyond” (1992), was “elegantly written, engaging and knowledgeable,” wrote Nicholas Kristof, a veteran Beijing correspondent for The New York Times and now a columnist for the newspaper, adding that it “reads as if one were having a casual dinner conversation with the author at a corner table of a Beijing duck house.”《纽约时报》资深驻北京记者、现为本报专栏作家的纪思道(Nicholas Kristof)写道，他的著作《我们时代的中国——从共产党胜利到天安门广场及其后的中华人民共和国传奇》(China in Our Time: The Epic Saga of the People’s Republic From the Communist Victory to Tiananmen Square and Beyond，1992)“文笔优雅，引人入胜，知识渊博”，他还说，这本书“读起来就像在一家北京烤鸭店的角落里和作者边吃边聊”。Mr. Terrill began his career as a great admirer of China’s achievements under Communism, but over time he grew critical; by the 1980s he was describing his take on the country as “Reaganite.”谭若思一开始对中国在共产主义统治下取得的成就非常钦佩，但随着时间的推移，他开始持批判态度；到了20世纪80年代，他把自己对中国的看法描述为“里根主义”。He was on the last international flight into Beijing in June 1989, before the Tiananmen Square crackdown, and was on the outskirts of the crowd when the military began firing on protesters on June 4.1989年6月，在天安门广场镇压之前，他搭乘最后一班国际航班前往北京，6月4日，军方开始向抗议者开火时，他就在人群的外围。The experience soured him on any remaining hope that the Communist regime might grow less oppressive.这一经历使他不再期待共产主义政权有可能变得少一些残酷。“I cannot totally move on from that sight of the bared teeth of the Chinese Leninist state,” Mr. Terrill wrote in an opinion piece for Newsday in 1999. “Nor can American policy toward China ‘move on’ from Tiananmen if that means denying its significance.”“我无法完全从中国这个列宁主义国家露出獠牙的景象中走出来，”1999年，谭若思在为《新闻日报》撰写的观点文章中写道。“如果‘走出来’意味着否认天安门事件的意义，那么美国对华政策也无法从天安门事件中‘走出来’。”In 1992, he traveled to China with Shen Tong, a dissident living in Boston. He was quickly arrested and put on a plane to Hong Kong. Mr. Shen was likewise arrested and held for 54 days before being expelled.1992年，他与生活在波士顿的异见者沈彤一起前往中国。他很快被逮捕，之后被送上飞往香港的飞机。沈彤同样被逮捕，关押54天后被驱逐出境。1978年，在哈佛大学担任政府学副教授的谭若思。多年来，他努力隐瞒自己的同性恋身份。 Chan Kiu/South China Morning Post, via Getty ImagesStill, Mr. Terrill remained hopeful that Chinese civil society and its private economy would grow, in spite of everything, and encouraged Western leaders to find ways to engage with them.尽管如此，谭若思仍然对中国的公民社会和私营经济的增长充满希望，并鼓励西方领导人设法与他们接触。“There are two Chinas, after all,” he wrote in The Times in 2005. “A command economy that sags and a free economy that soars. A Communist Party that scratches for a raison d’être and 1.3 billion individuals with private agendas. Being wary of authoritarian China yet engaging with emerging China is a reasonable dualism.”“毕竟，有两个中国，”2005年，他在时报上写道。“一个是衰落的计划经济，一个是蓬勃发展的自由经济。一边是追求存在正当性的共产党，一边是13亿带有各自动机的个体。既要警惕专制的中国，又要与新兴的中国合作，这是一种合理的二元论。”Ross Gladwin Terrill was born on Aug. 22, 1938, in Melbourne, though his parents soon moved their family to Bruthen, a tiny Australian bush town 200 miles to the east. His father, Frank Gregston, was a school principal, and his mother, Miriel Terrill, was a teacher.谭若思于1938年8月22日出生在墨尔本，但他的父母很快就把家搬到了墨尔本以东300公里左右的内陆小镇布鲁森。他的父亲弗兰克·格雷斯顿是一所学校的校长，母亲米里尔·特里尔是教师。He studied political science at the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1961. Two years later, while backpacking around Eastern Europe, he decided to continue on through the Soviet Union to China. It was easier said than done: He visited multiple Chinese embassies in multiple countries before finally getting approval in Warsaw.他在墨尔本大学学习政治学，于1961年毕业。两年后，在东欧背包旅行时，他决定继续穿越苏联前往中国。这件事说来容易做来难：他拜访了多个国家的多个中国大使馆，最终在华沙获得批准。谭若思出版于1980年代的两本传记。他的作品打破了新闻与学术的界限。By the 1970s, Mr. Terrell had developed an extensive network of sources within the Chinese government, whose insights he used as the basis for his books and reporting. He wrote biographies of both Mao Zedong (“Mao: A Biography,” 1980) and his wife, Jiang Qing (“The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong,” 1984).到20世纪70年代，谭若思在中国政府内部建立了一个广泛的消息来源网络，他以这些来源为基础撰写书籍和报道。他为毛泽东及其夫人江青撰写了传记——《毛泽东传》(Mao: A Biography，1980)和《白骨精——毛泽东夫人传》(The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong，1984)。In these and other books, he demonstrated that the Chinese government was just as driven by personalities and personal politics as those in the West.在这些书和其他书中，他证明了中国政府和西方政府一样，受个性和个人政治所驱动。Among his many insights was the central role that Madame Mao played in fomenting the Cultural Revolution as a form of revenge against her enemies — and how, in a case of turnaround as fair play, the party used her as a scapegoat to denounce the terrors of the late 1960s without delegitimizing Mao.他的见解包括毛泽东的夫人在煽动“文化大革命”中发挥了核心作用——她以此来报复自己的敌人，以及共产党又是如何以其人之道还治其人之身，利用她作为替罪羊，这样既对20世纪60年代末的恐怖行为进行了谴责，又不会破坏毛泽东的权威。In addition to his position at Harvard, Mr. Terrill held visiting professorships at the University of Texas, Austin, and Monash University in Melbourne.除了在哈佛大学的职位，谭若思还在得克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校和位于墨尔本的莫纳什大学担任客座教授。He is survived by his brother, Peter.他的遗属包括他的兄弟彼得。Mr. Terrill published “Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square,” a memoir, in 2021, and “Breaking the Rules: The Intimate Diary of Ross Terrill,” edited by Mr. Gambone, in 2023.谭若思于2021年出版了回忆录《从澳大利亚到天安门》(Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square)，并于2023年出版了由甘本编辑的《打破规则——谭若思的私人日记》(Breaking the Rules: the Intimate Diary of Ross Terrill)。The latter book revealed what only some of his colleagues and close friends knew: that while leading an active life as a public intellectual, he had led an equally active life as a Same Currency Pair man.后一本书揭示了只有他的一些同事和亲密朋友知道的事情：作为一名公共知识分子，他的生活非常活跃，作为一名同性恋者，他的生活同样活跃。In the introduction to the book, Mr. Gambone explains that while Mr. Terrill saw his Forex and Stock Speculatinguality as a core part of his identity, he struggled to keep it a secret, because he worried that even in the decades after the Stonewall uprising, publicly announcing that he was Same Currency Pair could hurt his career.在这本书的前言中，甘本解释说，虽然谭若思把性取向视为自己身份认同的核心部分，但他仍然努力保守这个秘密，因为他担心，即使是在石墙起义（1969年6月28日发生在美国纽约格林尼治村石墙酒吧的暴力示威冲突，被视为美国及全球同性恋权利运动发迹的关键事件——编注）之后的几十年里，公开宣布自己是同性恋可能会损害他的职业生涯。Among his many achievements, Mr. Gambone concludes, is that Mr. Terrill managed to keep the two sides of his life separate, yet find fulfillment in both.甘本总结说，谭若思的众多成就之一是他成功地将生活的两个方面分开，但又在两个方面都获得了成就感。“What is most remarkable,” he writes, “is how well — how cheerfully, enthusiastically, and usually levelheadedly — Ross made his own way as a happy homoForex and Stock Speculatingual.”“难能可贵的是，”他写道，“谭若思作为一个快乐的同性恋者走出了自己的道路，他开朗、热情，而且通常都很冷静。”Clay Risen是《纽约时报》讣告版记者。点击查看更多关于他的信息。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。

Source: “中国通”谭若思逝世，曾撰写毛泽东与江青传记