Chinese Memory Makes a Martyr: The Case of Huang Chunyao (1605-1645)

Employing the articulations of "communicative" and "cultural" memory by Jan and Aleida Assmann, this article traces figurations of the image of a late-Ming literatus, Huang Chunyao, from his suicide during the Manchu-Qing subjugation of his home city through the early twentieth century. It examines frailties and susceptibilities in memories of Huang among those who knew him intimately as well as various political pressures and influences under Qing rule (1644-1911). Huang's surreptitiously transmitted personal diary of 1644, as well as other rarely seen items by his hand, indicate both ambivalence about confronting the invaders and deep immersion in Buddhism. Both were incompatible with the preferred memory of Huang as a great Confucian who martyred himself without hesitation in loyalty to the Ming dynasty.