Qu Duyi

Qu Du Yi, born Shen Xiaoguang, was born on November 5, 1921, in Shanghai. In the spring of 1925, she accompanied Yang Zhi Hua to Shanghai and lived with Qu Qiubai; Qu Qiubai gave her the name Qu Du Yi. In May 1928, at the age of six, she attended the Sixth National Congress of the Communist Party of China with her parents, and afterwards she lived at the Ivanovo International Children's Home in the Soviet Union until 1941. In 1942 she returned to China with her mother and was placed under house arrest and imprisoned by the Xinjiang warlord Sheng Shicai. She was released in 1946, assigned to work at Xinhua News Agency, and joined the Communist Party in August.

On October 1, 1949, at the founding ceremony, she broadcast Mao Zedong’s proclamation to the world in Russian by radio. In March 1950, she and her husband Li He went to the Soviet Union to help establish Xinhua’s Moscow bureau. She returned to China in 1957 and worked at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. In 1978 she returned to Xinhua, serving as translator and editor for the Russian section of the International Department, and she retired in 1982. She advocated for her father’s exoneration, submitting a petition to the Party Central Committee and advancing related work.

Family: biological father Shen Jianlong; mother Yang Zhiya; stepfather Qu Qiubai; husband Li He; daughter Li Xiaoyun; cousin Wu Youying. In later life she participated in documentary production, receiving the 2015 70th Anniversary Medal of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the 2020 75th Anniversary Medal of Russia, and the nomination and conferment of the July 1 Medal in 2021. She passed away on November 26, 2021, in Beijing, at the age of 100.