December 1o, 1926, Stockholm, Sweden.

In the Blue Concert Hall in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Italian female writer Grazia Deleda. Her winning work is called The Road to Evil.

At the same time, a Swedish named Svenheding came to China.

Born in 1865, this man is proficient in many languages, often adventures around the world, and is an explorer.

His most important achievement was three brave adventures in the mountains and deserts of Central Asia.

He completed the map of the Taklamakan Desert and the Pamir Plateau, and successfully traveled through the entire Tibet.

Svenheding is a household name in Sweden. He is also a member of two Swedish science academies, so he has the right to speak in the Nobel Prize’s science and literature selection.

At the end of 1926, he was commissioned by Lufthansa to travel to China.

This trip was to conduct meteorological adventures to open a route to China through Central Asia, and brought a large-scale expedition team composed of scientists from different disciplines, mainly exploring the Gobi Desert and Mongolia.

In this era, flying requires great courage.

In 1920, the Aviation Department of the Ministry of Transport of the Beiyang Government prepared the "Beijing-Shanghai Route".

The Beiping-Tianjin section officially started on May 8, 192o, and the plane was named "Jinghan".

On July 1, 1921, the section from Peking to Jinan was added, but it was quickly grounded due to war.

This is the earliest airline route in China.

On February 8, 1919, the plane crossed the English Channel from Paris, France to London, England.

This is the world's first international route. By 1926, international routes between European countries were relatively common, but routes to Asia had not yet been opened.

Lufthansa is undoubtedly coming to the forefront.

To be honest, even if China has opened an international route, Lin Zixuan dared not fly abroad. Think about the example of Xu Zhimo, you will know that the plane is risky. You should be careful when riding.

This is Svenheding's fourth time coming to China. For this expedition, he needs the official consent of China.

In the eyes of the Chinese, Sweden is different from the Western powers. It is a relatively neutral country, not powerful, and does not seem to be threatening, so the Beiyang government has a good relationship with Sweden and will hire Swedish scientists for scientific investigations.

For example, Ding Wenjiang had a cooperation with Swedish geologist Anderson.

Svenhe was the first foreigner to want to push Chinese literature to the Nobel Prize in Literature.

He came to China in 19 years and met the German sinologist Wei Lixian in Peking.

Wei Lixian worked in the German Embassy at that time, proficient in Chinese and had deep connections in the Chinese political and cultural circles.

After parting in Peking, the two kept in exchanges of letters.

In mid-November 1924, Svenheding talked about the idea of ​​nominating Chinese writers to the Nobel Prize in Literature in his first letter to Wei Lixiande.

This is also the time when the Swedish Academy determines the Nobel Prize winners that year.

"I suddenly remembered that we had given Robin Delanate Tagore the Nobel Prize to him, and he came to Stockholm in person. What is the current situation of Chinese literature? Is there any living, real great writers, or is the literature there also in decline like Europe? We can only judge Tagore by translation. We can only do this for China."

This is just his idea, asking Wei Lixian whether there are any writers worthy of being shortlisted in China.

Wei Lixian was very excited after receiving the letter. The first person he thought of was Liang Qichao.

"I think the idea of ​​awarding the Nobel Prize to a Chinese writer is excellent. This will inevitably have the most profound impact on cultural policy. I am not sure which direction of candidates will be considered. As a scholar-oriented writer who has a stunning involvement in Chinese philosophy, history and literature, Liang Qichao, the leader in the field of modern humanities, should be considered."

Later, he mentioned Hu Shi and Lin Zixuan and gave his own evaluation.

Hu Shi, a philosopher and reformer, is very radical, although young, but has amazing knowledge and passion.

Lin Zixuan, a poet, novelist, and dramatist, is very young. But he is very talented and has an influence in the West.

"But I tend to be Liang Qichao because he is more representative." He said in the letter.

This was in 1924, when Lin Zixuan was still in the forefront of the Western literary world.

Svenheding read the letter aloud at the Swedish Academy of Literature, and all members of the Nobel Prize Committee were present.

Although the academicians of the Swedish Academy were shocked by his suggestions, they were still interested. They felt that nominating Chinese writers for the Nobel Prize in Literature is not unacceptable.

Svenheding explained the candidate in the letter.

"The first thing we can consider is literary authors, that is, creators based on imagination, and secondly those authors or philosophers who process existing materials."

At the same time, Svenheding also wrote a letter to seek the opinions of Swedish sinologist Gao Benhan.

However, Gao Benhan not only did not support Liang Qichao and other candidates, but even did not have any optimism about the nomination of Chinese candidates.

"As far as I see, China has not yet produced any important writers in terms of narratives or poetry. If the best works of Liang Qichao, Zhang Taiyan and Hu Shi were translated into Western languages, although these articles are important to the Chinese, they will not be appreciated at all. Therefore, I think that no candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature can be found at present."

These two sinologists are actually not very reliable.

When the Swedish Gao Benhan was in China, he studied Chinese pronunciation. He was a linguist and rarely came into contact with new Chinese literature.

The German Wei Lixian's main interest and energy focused on the translation of Chinese classical works, such as the Book of Changes, and he had no time to study Chinese new literature in depth.

Because Wei Lixian had a lot of contact with Liang Qichao, he strongly recommended Liang Qichao.

However, influenced by Gao Benhan, Svenheding's interest in nominating Chinese writers for the Nobel Prize has become much weaker.

He himself was an explorer, neither proficient in Chinese nor had profound literary attainments, and was easily influenced by sinologists.

This time, Swenheding came to Peking, and the German sinologist Wei Lixian was already in the country.

His inspection plan was approved by the Beiyang government, but unexpectedly it was fiercely opposed by the academic community in Peking.

This has something to do with Lin Zixuan.

Lin Zixuan established a Chinese Cultural Relics Relief Association to advocate the protection of Chinese cultural relics and strictly prevent foreign scholars from robbing tombs in the name of investigation.

After continuous publicity, the Chinese academic community is now very sensitive to foreign scholars coming to investigate.

Moreover, Swenheding inspected the northwest region of China, namely Gansu and Xinjiang.

The Dunhuang documents in Gansu were stolen by foreign scholars in the name of investigation. With the lessons learned from the past, it is inevitable that people will be suspicious.

Lin Zixuan saw the newspaper report and supported the protests in the academic community in Peking. Even if the Beiyang government agreed, the inspection operation would need to be supervised by the Chinese academic community. (To be continued.)
Chapter completed!