A Study Of The Folk Drama In Long Dong Revolutionary Base During The Anti-Japanese War

The folk drama is one of the most representative recreational activities in China’s rural society. The folk drama in Long Dong area has a great variety and rich performance contents, which is not only the major entertainment of the people in Long Dong area, but also an important part of its rural culture.In October1935, Long Dong became the important areas for the Communist Party of China to develop the revolutionary forces and the Long Dong revolutionary base established there. In order to propagandize revolutionary ideas and to mobilize the people, the government in the revolutionary base areas made use of the Long Dong folk drama and made reform on it, which played a positive role in the democratic political construction and cultural construction in Border Region.After the establishment of the Long Dong Subarea, the Communist Party of China had reform on the folk drama of the revolutionary base in contents and forms, which marked a revolutionary imprint on it, especially the convening of the Yan’an Forum in1942made the folk drama in Long Dong Subarea enter into a new stage. Revolutionary Yangko, festive activity flourished in the red revolutionary zones, such as Qingyang, Huan County, Quzi, Huachi, Heshui and Zhenyuan, including the three folk songs which was famous in the Shanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Border Region. It is praised by the Border Region leaders.The reform on the folk culture made by the Border Region Government, in a certain sense, promoted people’s national consciousness, mobilized the producing zeal, and set an example for other base’cultural construction.This thesis consists of seven parts, namely the introduction, five chapters of the contents and the epilogue. The Introduction part discusses the background and reasons for choosing the topic of this article, the research status, the research emphasis and difficulties, as well as the research methods. The first chapter commence from the whole, summarizes the development of the folk drama in the Longdong area before the War of Resistance Against Japan, including the introduction of the folk drama types in Longdong, the living conditions of folk troupe and the devastation and persecution to the folk drama in Longdong area by the reactionaries; Chapter Ⅱ this the key part of the paper, which discusses the situation of reforming on folk dramas by the Communist Party during the War of Resistance Against Japan, which mainly includes the reform on the traditional repertoire, reform on the old artists and the contributions of foreign troupes to the literature and art in Longdong revolutionary base. The third chapter describes that the rise of the literary movement of the masses made the original entertainment-based folk dramas replaced by political education when the War of Resistance Against Japan enter the stage locked in a stalemate, which, in a sense, advanced the victory of the total resistance by the whole nation. The fourth chapter states that the Border Region government developed a new cultural policy and reformed on Shaanxi Opera, shadow play, societies and troupes after the Yan’an Forum, showing different cases of folk dramas after the governmental reform. The fifth Chapter discusses the influences of the folk dramas from four aspects, that is, the political, the economic, the cultural and military. The epilogue is the summary of the full text, pointing out that due to the infiltration of the Communist Party’s powerful political force, part of the traditional folk dramas was made use of and reformed and became the mass media for the Communist Party to propagandize anti-Japanese opinions, which made due contributions to the victory of the new-democratic revolution and the anti-Fascist War.