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7. Creating Academic Qing History: Xiao Yishan and Meng Sen
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Chapter 7 Creating Academic Qing History: Xiao Yishan and Meng Sen* Madeleine Yue Dong The remembering of the Qing has been a struggle no less political than the overthrow of the dynasty itself in 1911. A large amount of narratives of Qing history began to emerge, often in the form of personal accounts and miscellaneous essays, when the imperial state, faced with domestic and international crises, lost some of its abilities to impose censorship in the late nineteenth century. Such narratives were then adopted as propaganda tools by the anti-Manchu revolutionaries in their agitation for the 1911 Revolution. When the Republic was established, a number of books of Qing history were quickly published to satisfy demands from the general public and the new school system. However, it was not until the publication of works by Xiao Yishan 蕭一山 (1902–78) and Meng Sen 孟森 (1868–1938), who were both associated with universities in the late 1920s and 1930s, that an academic field of modern history of the Qing is considered to have come into existence.1 The establishment of Qing history as an academic field was part of the creation and development of professionalized, institutionalized, and disciplined modern academic research in the humanities and social sciences concentrated at newly founded universities in the early twentieth century. By the mid-1930s, professional historians were researching and * I am grateful to Alys E. Weinbaum, Mark C. Elliot, Peter G. Zarrow, James A. Mill-ward, Brian Moloughney, R. Kent Guy, Joseph Esherick, Michael Chang, Tze-ki Hon, On-cho Ng, and Ping Zhang whose comments, suggestions, and help were crucial to the completion of this chapter. Due to space limitations in this chapter, some of the important questions that they recommended I examine will be addressed in my book on a related topic. 210 · Madeleine Yue Dong teaching Qing history in universities and writing textbooks in a commonly accepted format for high school and college students. In other words, new conventions had been established by then in the writing of Qing history and history in general. At a time when duandai shi 斷代史 (dynastic history) was out of fashion and the rage was to write tongshi 通 史 (comprehensive history), the strong interest in Qing history was an exception. This can be explained partly by the Qing’s temporal proximity to the Republican period, but more importantly, by the political, cultural, and racial implications of Manchu rule in a time of imperialism, colonialism , and the struggle for national independence. Together with tongshi, Qing history was a locus for those attempting to put into practice the principles of “new history” promoted by people such as Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929). With history being an element central to the creation of a national identity and a new citizenry, fundamental issues of historiography were debated intensely in the early twentieth century in China. In the case of Qing history, issues debated include the following: What are the functions and objectives of history? What is, and how to seek, historical truth? What constitutes a reliable archive for history? And what format should Qing history take? Who should be the protagonist of this history? And from whose perspective should this history be written? In short, what should modern, disciplined Qing history look like?2 Following a brief account of the development of Qing history in the twentieth century, I investigate the contemporary understandings of these issues and their implications by examining some of the debates Xiao Yishan and Meng Sen engaged in, focusing on how this first generation of academic Qing historians used concepts and practices from earlier Chinese historiography in the process of modern disciplinization. In short, I explore how they tried to create a professional history within the constraints of having to be both scientific and national at this moment of political and cultural breakdown and transformation. Furthermore, I suggest that the differences among these historians revealed sometimes conflicting national thoughts during China’s transition from an empire to a nation-state. The Emergence of Qing History Political needs pushed Qing history into the limelight at the beginning of the twentieth century. When signs of Qing decline became evident in the late nineteenth century, scandalous popular histories of the Qing, yeshi [23.20.220.59] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 04:34 GMT) Creating Academic Qing History · 211 野史 (unofficial histories) and yanyi 演義 (historical legends), began to circulate.3 Before the 1911 Revolution, such books were reprinted by the revolutionaries, together with Yangzhou shiri ji 揚州十日記 (Ten Days in Yangzhou) by Wang Xiuchu...