2008 Andrei Sakharov Prize Recipient

Liangying Xu 许良英
Chinese Academy of Sciences 中国科学院
Citation:

“For a lifetime’s advocacy of truth, democracy and human rights — despite surveillance and house arrest, harassment and threats, even banishment — through his writings, and publicly speaking his mind.”
尽管遭受监视,本宅软禁,折磨与威胁,甚至驱逐,他一生通过写作\公开演讲,为真理\民主\和人权鼓与呼.

Background:

Professor Xu Liangying, the main translator and editor of the three volumes of “The Collected Works of Einstein” in Chinese, was born in Zhejiang Province, China, in 1920. He studied under Professor Wang Ganchang, who later became one of the founders of Chinese nuclear-bomb project. 许良英1920年生于中国浙江,是三卷<<爱因斯坦选集>>中文译本的主要翻译者和编辑.他是中国核弹工程的奠基者之一王淦昌的学生.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Xu became an editor of Science Bulletin. In 1957, Xu was labeled a “bourgeois rightist” and exiled to his home village to work as a peasant. In 1962, he began translating Einstein’s work while working on the farm.He continued translating Einstein’s articles on physics as well as social issues during the Culture Revolution (1966-1976), when Einstein was targeted as “the most notable counter-revolutionary bourgeois academic in natural science in this century”.
中华人民共和国成立以后,他做科学通报的编辑.1957年,许被定为右派,发配家乡农村改造.1962年,他在农村干活同时开始翻译爱因斯坦的著作. WENGE时,阿因斯坦被定为”本世纪资产阶级最大反动学术权威”,许继续翻译爱因斯坦在物理学和社会问题的文章.
It was through Xu’s work that Einstein’s ideas on human rights, socialism, and the social responsibility of intellectuals became widely known in China and cited in the Chinese democracy campaigns since late 1970. During this period, Xu also wrote that academic freedom is needed for science and culture to flourish.
正是通过许的工作,爱因斯坦的人权,社会主义,知识分子社会责任的思想在中国开始广为人知,也被1970年末的民主运动所引用.在这一时期,许还写了关于科学与文化的繁荣需要学术自由的文章.

Between 1985 and 1989, Xu initiated at least two historic petitions calling the government to respect human rights. Such efforts were quickly suppressed. In 1989, Xu called on the Chinese regime to live up to the letter and spirit of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights. After the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, Xu was under intense surveillance by Chinese authorities, escaping imprisonment mainly because he suffered a heart attack that year.
在1985至1989年间,许至少发起两次有历史意义的要求政府尊重人权的请愿.1989年,许要求中国政府实践1948年中国人权宣言.1989年TIANANMEN事件后，许被中国当局严密监视，由于那一年他犯了一次心脏病而免予牢狱之灾。
In March 1994, Xu initiated the petition “A Call to Improve the Human Rights Condition in China”. In April 1995, he initiated the petition “Welcome United Nations Year of Amnesty by Calling for National Amnesty (in China)”. Signers of his petitions often became targets of persecution by the regime. Since the 90’s, the APS Committee on International Freedom of Scientists has actively monitored Xu’s political and physical welfare.
1994年三月，许发起“提高中国人权状况的呼吁”的请愿活动。1995年四月，他发起“要求国家特赦，欢迎联合国特赦年”的请愿。他的请愿的签名者常常成为政府的迫害对象。九十年代以来，APS 国际科学家自由委员会一直关注着许的政治和身体状况。

许良英 获奖感言摘要
Liangying Xu
(Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Ever since my youth, the writings of Einstein had always enlightened my life. However, I later began to follow Marxism and threw myself into the Chinese revolution. Yet, ironically, after the victory of the revolution I myself became a target of the revolutionary dictatorship. 自从我青年时代，爱因斯坦的著作一直启迪着我的人生。我后来追随马克思主义并投身中国革命。但是，很讽刺地是，革命胜利后，我自己却成了革命专政的对象。Started from 1962 I collected, edited and translated “Collected Works of Einstein” in the countryside. Fourteen years later the three-volume collected works were published in China, which created immense impacts to Chinese intellectuals.
1962年起，我开始收集，编辑，翻译《爱因斯坦文集》，那时我在农村接受改造。14年后，三卷文集在中国出版，对中国的知识分子产生强烈影响。
It was Einstein’s thoughts on human rights and democracy that awakened me. Since then I have devoted myself to the fight for human rights and to the cause of democratic enlightenment in China. My goal is to transform an autocratic China that tramples human rights into a democratic and free modern China that respects human rights.
是爱因斯坦的人权和民主思想唤醒了我。自那以后，我投身于中国的人权斗争和民主启蒙事业。我的目标是把践踏人权的独裁专政的中国变成尊重人权的自由民主的现代中国。