Zhang Pengchun ( Chinese trad. 張彭春 , ex. 张彭春 , pinyin : Zhāng Péngchūn ; English PC Chang ; 1892 - 1957 ) is a Chinese playwright , theater director and diplomat . He played a key role in creating the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights .
| Zhang Pengchun | |
|---|---|
| 张彭春 | |
| Date of Birth | 1892 |
| Place of Birth | Tianjin |
| Date of death | 1957 |
| Place of death | New Jersey |
| Citizenship | Republic of China |
| Occupation | playwright , diplomat |
Content
Biography
Born in 1892; the younger brother of Zhang Bolin . In the years 1910-1916. studied in the USA at Clark University . In 1915 he wrote and successfully staged two plays: The New Order Cometh (“A New Order Comes”) about a Chinese student who went to study abroad and fell out of love with his bride; and the anti-Japanese allegory of The Intruder . In 1916 he returned to Tianjin , became the head of the student theater and turned it, according to contemporaries, into the best theater in China [1] . He staged both Chinese plays (including his own) and Western ( Ibsen , Galsworthy , Wilde ). He introduced realism to the Chinese theater. One of his most successful actors was Zhou Enlai , the future premier of the State Council of the PRC [2] .
In the years 1919-1922. Zhang is back in the USA; in 1922 received his doctorate at Columbia University . Returning to China, he taught at Nankai University . In the 1930s, being a translator of the opera star May Lanfang , he visited the USSR.
In 1937, after the invasion of Japanese troops , he was forced to flee from Tianjin. He became a diplomat, tried to convince the Western powers to pay attention to the massacre in Nanjing . He served as ambassador of the Republic of China to Turkey and Chile.
In 1945-1952 member of the UN ECOSOC . As vice chair of the UN Human Rights Commission , he played (along with Eleanor Roosevelt ) a key role in creating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Zhang managed to achieve the most neutral formulations that would not cause rejection in non-Western countries. At his request, the text about God and nature was deleted from the Universal Declaration [3] . He insisted on the inclusion in the text of some elements of Chinese philosophy, including the Confucian virtue of "Ren" ( Chinese 仁 ) - that is, philanthropy or humanity - in the first article of the declaration [4] .
Zhang resigned in 1952 for health reasons. He died in the USA in 1957.
Notes
- ↑ Weili Ye. Zhang Pengchun and Hong Shen // Seeking Modernity in China's Name: Chinese Students in the United States, 1900-1927 . - Stanford University Press. - 2001. - P. 208-209. - 330 p. - ISBN 0804736960 .
- ↑ Chae-Jin Lee. Modern Englightenment // Zhou Enlai: The Early Years . - Stanford University Press. - 1996. - P. 65-66. - 256 p. - ISBN 0804727007 .
- ↑ Peng-chun Chang (inaccessible link) . UN. Date of treatment December 9, 2009. Archived June 10, 2011.
- ↑ Humanism (English) (inaccessible link) . Date of treatment December 9, 2009. Archived March 31, 2010.
Literature
- Pierre-Étienne Will. The Chinese Contribution to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1947–48: A Re-examination // Guoshiguan guanxun 國 史館 館 訊 / The Academia Historica Newsletter. - 2008. - No. 1 . - P. 2-29 .
Links
- The Westernization of Chinese Opera 4 - The New Word of Drama
- Dr. Peng-chun Chang (English) - a short biography