The "March of the Volunteers" is the national anthem of the People's Republic of China. Unlike previous Chinese state anthems, it was written entirely in vernacular Chinese, rather than in Classical Chinese.
The Japanese invasion of Manchuria saw a boom of nationalistic arts and literature in China. This song had its lyrics written first by the communist playwright Tian Han in 1934, then set to melody by Nie Er and arranged by Aaron Avshalomov for the communist-aligned film Children of Troubled Times (1935). It became a famous military song during the Second Sino-Japanese War beyond the Chinese Communist Party, most notably the Nationalist general Dai Anlan designated it to be the anthem of the 200th Division, who fought in Burma. It was adopted as the PRC's provisional anthem in 1949 in place of the "Three Principles of the People" of the Republic of China and the Communist "Internationale".
During the Cultural Revolution, Tian Han was criticized and placed in prison, where he died in 1968. The song was briefly and unofficially replaced by "The East Is Red", then reinstated but played without lyrics, restored to official status in 1978 with altered lyrics, before the original version was fully restored in 1982. In 2004, the March of the Volunteers was enshrined as the national anthem in the constitution. In 2017, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the National Anthem was adopted.
Contents
History
The lyrics of the "March of the Volunteers", also formally known as the National Anthem of the People's Republic of China, were composed by Tian Han in 1934 as two stanzas in his poem "The Great Wall" (萬里長城), (义勇军进行曲) intended for a play he was working on at the time. The poem's stanzas were adopted into the song by Nie the composer while Tian was imprisoned. Then the song was chosen as part of the plot's climax in Diantong Company's upcoming film Children of Troubled Times or Sons and Daughters of the Storm. It first appeared in public in the May 1935 screening of the film at Jincheng Grand Theater, Shanghai and two months later in July with Pathé's (a subsidiary of EMI) record release.
The film is a story about a Chinese intellectual who flees during the Shanghai Incident to a life of luxury in Qingdao, only to be driven to fight the Japanese occupation of Manchuria after learning of the death of his friend. Urban legends later circulated that Tian wrote it in jail on rolling paper or the liner paper from cigarette boxes after being arrested in Shanghai by the Nationalists; in fact, he was arrested in Shanghai and held in Nanjing just after completing his draft for the film. During March and April 1935, in Japan, Nie Er set the words (with minor adjustments) to music; in May, Diantong's sound director He Luting had the Russian composer Aaron Avshalomov arrange their orchestral accompaniment. The song plays in the film's concluding scene as the protagonists join the masses in taking up arms to oppose the invading Japanese. The song was performed by actors Gu Menghe and Yuan Muzhi, a future director, along with a small and "hastily-assembled" chorus; He Luting consciously chose to use their first take, which preserved the Cantonese accent of several of the men. On 9 May, Gu and Yuan recorded it in more standard Mandarin for Pathé Orient's Shanghai branch ahead of the movie's release, so that it served as a form of advertising for the film.
Originally translated as "Volunteers Marching On", the English name references the several volunteer armies that opposed Japan's invasion of Manchuria in the 1930s; the Chinese name is a poetic variation—literally, the "Righteous and Brave Armies"—that also appears in other songs of the time, such as the 1937 "Sword March".
In May 1935, the same month as the release of Children of Troubled Times, Lü Ji and other leftists in Shanghai had begun an amateur choir and started promoting a National Salvation singing campaign, supporting mass singing associations along the lines established the year before by Liu Liangmo, a Shanghai YMCA leader. Although the movie did not perform well enough to keep Diantong from closing, its theme song became wildly popular: musicologist Feng Zikai reported hearing it being sung by crowds in rural villages from Zhejiang to Hunan within months of its release and, at a performance at a Shanghai sports stadium in June 1936, Liu's chorus of hundreds was joined by its audience of thousands. Although Tian Han was imprisoned for two years, Nie Er fled to the Soviet Union, only to die en route in Japan; and Liu Liangmo eventually fled to the U.S. to escape harassment from the Nationalists. The singing campaign continued to expand, particularly after the December 1936 Xi'an Incident reduced Nationalist pressure against leftist movements. Visiting St Paul's Hospital at the Anglican mission at Guide (now Shangqiu, Henan), W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood reported hearing a "Chee Lai!" treated as a hymn at the mission service and the same tune "set to different words" treated as a favorite song of the Eighth Route Army.
Special administrative regions
The anthem was played during the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom in 1997 and during the handover of Macau from Portugal in 1999. It was adopted as part of Annex III of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, taking effect on 1 July 1997, and as part of Annex III of the Basic Law of Macau, taking effect on 20 December 1999.
Macau
The use of the anthem in the Macau Special Administrative Region is particularly governed by Law No.5/1999, which was enacted on 20 December 1999. Article 7 of the law requires that the anthem be accurately performed pursuant to the sheet music in its Appendix 4 and prohibits the lyrics from being altered. Under Article 9, willful alteration of the music or lyrics is criminally punishable by imprisonment of up to two years or up to 360 day-fines and, although both Chinese and Portuguese are official languages of the region, the provided sheet music has its lyrics only in Chinese. Mainland China has also passed a similar law in 2017.
Hong Kong
The anthem now forms a mandatory part of public secondary education in Hong Kong as well. The local government issued a circular in May 1998 requiring government-funded schools to perform flag-raising ceremonies involving the singing of the "March of the Volunteers" on particular days: the first day of school, the "open day", National Day (1 October), New Year's (1 January), the "sport day", Establishment Day (1 July), the graduation ceremony, and for some other school-organized events; the circular was also sent to the SAR's private schools. The official policy was long ignored, but—following massive and unexpected public demonstrations in 2003 against proposed anti-subversion laws—the ruling was reiterated in 2004 and, by 2008, most schools were holding such ceremonies at least once or twice a year. From National Day in 2004, as well, Hong Kong's local television networks have also been required to preface their evening news with government-prepared promotional videos including the national anthem. Initially a pilot program planned for a few months, it has continued ever since. Viewed by many as propaganda, even after a sharp increase in support in the preceding four years, by 2006, the majority of Hongkongers remained neither proud nor fond of the anthem. On 4 November 2017, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress decided to insert a Chinese National Anthem Law into the Annex III of the Basic Law of Hong Kong, which would make it illegal to insult or not show sufficient respect to the Chinese national anthem. On 4 June 2020, the National Anthem Ordinance was passed in Hong Kong after being approved by the Legislative Council.
Tune
A 1939 bilingual songbook which included the song called it "a good example of...copy[ing] the good points from Western music without impairing or losing our own national color". Nie's piece is a march, a Western form, opening with a bugle call and a motif (with which it also closes) based on an ascending fourth interval from D to G inspired by "The Internationale". Its rhythmic patterns of triplets, accented downbeats, and syncopation and use (with the exception of one note, F♯ in the first verse) of the G major pentatonic scale, however, create an effect of becoming "progressively more Chinese in character" over the course of the tune. For reasons both musical and political, Nie came to be regarded as a model composer by Chinese musicians in the Maoist era. Howard Taubman, the New York Times music editor, initially panned the tune as telling us China's "fight is more momentous than her art" although, after US entrance into the war, he called its performance "delightful".