Liu Yazi

Liu Yazi (traditional Chinese: 柳亞子; simplified Chinese: 柳亚子; pinyin: Liǔ Yàzǐ; Wade–Giles: Liu Ya-tzu, 28 May 1887, at Wujiang, in Suzhou, Jiangsu – 21 June 1958 in Beijing) was a Chinese poet and political activist called the "last outstanding poet of the traditional school." He married Zheng Peiyi in 1906, and was the father of two daughters, Liu Wufei and Liu Wugou, and of a son, Liu Wu-chi, a literary scholar.

Liu was a leader of the Southern Society (Nanshe), founded in 1909 in Suzhou, Jiangsu, just south of Shanghai. During the last years of the Qing dynasty Liu and his associates advocated use of their southern dialect, the Wu dialect, rather than Mandarin Chinese and wrote poetry in classical forms using Classical Chinese. They supported the Tongmenghui Partyof Sun Yat-sen and opposed the Manchu government. After the Revolution of 1911, Liu became a committed journalist and activist in opposition to Yuan Shikai. The Southern Society, whose national members numbered in the thousands, with Liu as its head continued its activities during the anti-traditional New Culture Movement. The Society broke up in the early 1920s as Liu came to support the position of Hu Shi that literature should be written in the vernacular language. Liu went to Canton in 1923 to join the Guomindang Party (GMD) in 1923, but soon became resentful of the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek and in 1927 fled to Japan to escape repression. In 1932, however, he was re-elected to the GMD Central Supervisory Committee and was appointed to a position in the Shanghai City Government.

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