NEW DRAMATURGIES ABOUT CHINA’S FIRST MARXIST: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHICAL PLAYS ON LI DAZHAO

This article approaches the issue of Marxism in 20th and 21st century China from a very
special perspective: it provides analyses of four biographies – one literary biography and
three theatre plays – about Li Dazhao, who is well-known for having firstly introduced
Marxism to China in 1918. By describing the fundamentally different dramaturgies these
texts rely on, it is aimed to show how the life of this eminent person at the beginnings of
Chinese Marxism and Communism, and the history he is surrounded by, are not some thing stable or fixed, but subjected to change. It is suggested to read these texts
as mirrors for the changing understandings of Marxism in contemporary China.