Yuzhan (, 28 November 1923 – 8 July 2016),

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

Jungu, was a Chinese

calligrapher Calligraphy () is a visual art related to writing. It is the design and execution of lettering with a pen, ink brush, or other writing instruments. Contemporary calligraphic practice can be defined as "the art of giving form to signs in an exp ...

Manchu The Manchus (; ) are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic East Asian people, East Asian ethnic group native to Manchuria in Northeast Asia. They are an officially recognized Ethnic minorities in China, ethnic minority in China and the people from wh ...

descent. He was a member of the

Aisin Gioro The House of Aisin-Gioro is a Manchu clan that ruled the Later Jin dynasty (1616–1636), the Qing dynasty (1636–1912), and Manchukuo (1932–1945) in the history of China. Under the Ming dynasty, members of the Aisin Gioro clan served as chie ...

clan, the imperial clan of the Manchu-led

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

. He was also the seventh son of

Puwei Puwei (; 30 December 1880 – 10 October 1936), courtesy name Shaoyuan, was a Manchu people, Manchu prince and statesman of the late Qing dynasty. He was a member of the Prince Gong (peerage)#Yixin's line, Prince Gong peerage, and held the title ...

() and a great-grandson of Yixin (Prince Gong). Yuzhan was born in

Dalian Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...

Liaoning ) , image_skyline = , image_alt = , image_caption = Clockwise: Mukden Palace in Shenyang, Xinghai Square in Dalian, Dalian coast, Yalu River at Dandong , image_map = Liaoning in China (+all claims hatched).svg , ...

on 28 November 1923. He developed a keen interest in calligraphy, and learned the style of the Qing imperial clan. During the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...

, Yuzhan and his father, Puwei, served in the puppet state of

Manchukuo Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...

, where

Puyi Puyi (7 February 190617 October 1967) was the final emperor of China, reigning as the eleventh monarch of the Qing dynasty from 1908 to 1912. When the Guangxu Emperor died without an heir, Empress Dowager Cixi picked his nephew Puyi, aged tw ...

, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, had been installed by the Japanese as Manchukuo's emperor. Puyi later referred to Yuzhan as "Xiaogu" () in his autobiography. When Puwei died in 1936, Yuzhan inherited his father's princely title, " Prince Gong of the First Rank" (), and held this title until 1945. At the end of the war in 1945, Yuzhan was captured by Soviet forces and extradited to the War Criminals Management Centre in

Fushun Fushun ( zh, s=, t=, p=Fǔshùn, historically Fuxi ()) is a prefecture level city in Liaoning province, China, about east of Shenyang, with a total area of , of which is the city proper. Situated on the Hun River ("muddy river"), it is one o ...

, Liaoning. He was released four years later in 1949. Yuzhan was sent to perform forced labour during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

(1966–1976) under the

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

regime. He was a member of many calligraphy societies in China and produced many works. He specialized in the

semi-cursive Semi-cursive script, also known as running script, is a style of Chinese calligraphy that emerged during the Han dynasty (202 BC220 AD). The style is used to write Chinese characters and is abbreviated slightly where a character's stro ...

and

cursive Cursive (also known as joined-up writing) is any style of penmanship in which characters are written joined in a flowing manner, generally for the purpose of making writing faster, in contrast to block letters. It varies in functionality and m ...

scripts. Yuzhan died on 8 July 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yuzhan 1923 births 2016 deaths Aisin Gioro Manchu Bordered Blue Bannermen Qing dynasty imperial princes Artists from Dalian Victims of the Cultural Revolution 20th-century Chinese calligraphers People from Manchukuo People extradited from the Soviet Union

See also

References