The Construction of the Image /Myth of a Martyr in the Cultural Revolution: An Interpretation/Demythicization of The Song of Ouyang Hai
Jin Jingmai’s novel The Song of Ouyang Hai was published in 1965 and became extremely popular in 1966 right before the launch of the Cultural Revolution. It can be regarded as a prelude to Cultural Revolution literature. The novel epitomizes the transition from the politically inclined “seventeen-year literature” (1949–66) to the highly politicalized “Cultural Revolution literature” (1966–76). It is also the perfect embodiment of the creation of the myth of a socialist martyr. In this article, I attempt to examine the features of socialist martyrs and decode the construction of the myth of such martyrs by exploring motifs such as diaries, letters, and the performative bodies in The Song of Ouyang Hai as well as related works and posters that feature revolutionary and socialist martyrs from the 1960s. The article also examines how the constant revisions of the novel driven by the political power struggles during and after the Cultural Revolution complicate and adumbrate the myth of the socialist martyr.
Can a Revolutionary Be Happy?

 In 1963, China Youth published letters from youth on the topic of happiness. While some agreed that following the model of self-sacrifice exemplified by Lei Feng was the only way to be a happy revolutionary, others brought up contradictions in the approach to happiness promoted by the Chinese Communist Party. Through an investigation of happiness in Marxism and Maoism, the author analyzes the arguments put forward in the letters, concluding that by the early 1960s any notion of a unified revolutionary subjectivity was riddled with cracks. The young letter writers question the panreligious embrace of self-sacrifice, struggle, and misery, which can then be transformed into revolutionary happiness through willpower.
The Tsadik and His Soul’s Sparks: From Kabbalah to Hasidism
The present study shows the continuity between the Safedian Kabbalistic view of the relations between the sparks of a certain soul, and the Hasidic theory, that was conceived of as innovated by and characteristic of 18th century Hasidism, as to the responsibility of the Tsadik for the sparks that belongs to his soul. In the two literatures, the rescue of a spark of one's soul is related to the beautiful captive woman that is conceived of as an externalization of an inner dimension of the righteous person, immersed in a shell.