Politics versus scholarship: the history department at Beijing university revisited, 1949-2009
The article examines the development of the History Faculty of Peking University from 1949 to 2009. An attempt is made to investigate the evolution of the history faculty in four different periods under the influence of the Chinese Communist government.
| Рубрика | История и исторические личности |
| Вид | статья |
| Язык | английский |
| Дата добавления | 28.07.2023 |
| Размер файла | 37,7 K |
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Conclusions
The story of the History Department at Beida after 1949 is the best illustration of twist and turn, ebb and flow of the scholarship of Humanities in this communist regime. In the early 1950s, when Jian Bozan was in charge of the History Department, though many historians at Beida were genuine and committed Marxists, they were not ossifying persons in ideology, and did not view their role as mere propagandists, and they were not willing to subvert academic standards or distort history to serve immediate political ends [Goldman, Cheek and Hamrin 1987, 67-65].
Even history professors at other Chinese universities submitted to the Party authority, therefore submerged their own opinions but saved their political fates by hiding their individual arguments which might get trouble in the political heyday of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. On the other hand, Beida historians still refused to acknowledge that Marxism should replace the evidential research method in historical enquiry, and thought that Marxism must always apply to the Chinese situation. They persistently regarded that history is science, not political ideology.
After Mao Zedong died and Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978, through the sea change of curricula and research, the History Department at Beida no longer solely emphasized on political indoctrination, thought remolding, or ideological correctness, but wholeheartedly embraced the cultural heritage of China as well as the cultural achievements of foreign nations. The CCP after 1978 also allows the open expression of diverse views and proposed the elimination of "forbidden zones" in historical research. However, almost half a century later the Communist Party in China still towers over daily life, including the historical scholarship. The censorship prevails, and the national policy of "openness and reform" is viewed more as window-dressing than as the home of freedom.
As M. Goldman, T. Cheek and C.L. Hamrin write: "No matter how enlightened the leaders are or how much freedom they may grant intellectuals at a given time, so long as intellectuals do not have legally protected freedom, leadership can withdraw that "freedom" whenever it believes necessary" [Goldman, Cheek and Hamrin 1987, 19].
After sixty years from the founding ofthe People?s Republic of China (1949-2009), at the beginning of the twentieth-first century, the History Department at Beida seemed to end its long time isolation and suffocation in the pre-1978 decades, and returned to its heyday during the 1920s and 1930s. The Department looked more cosmopolitan, and the professionalization and academic autonomy quietly came back. The slogan was no longer "politics in command"ЃCbut "scholarship in ascendancy". While the History Department looking forward to the future, although a long time of torment, sacrifice, and dire hardship had been imposed on in the past; in 2009 and beyond, the increasing contact with the outside world, the relax control of the politics, and the everlasting spirit of freedom and democracy in scholarship, these were factors on which optimists could seize.
References
1. Chen Pingyuan and Xia Xiaohong (1998), Beida jiushi [The Old Stories of Beijing University], Sanlian shudian chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
2. Goldman M., Cheek T., and Hamrin C.L. (1987), China's Intellectuals and the State: in Search of a New Relationship, Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge. (In English).
3. Guo Weidong and Niu Dayong (2004), Beijing daxue lishi xuexi jianshi [A Concise History of the History Department at the Beijing University], Beijing daxue lishixi chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
4. Hu C.T. (Ed.) (1969), Aspects of Chinese Education, Teachers College Press, New York. (In English).
5. Israel J. (1998), Lianda: a Chinese Uni^versity in War and Re^volution, Stanford University Press, Stanford. (In English).
6. Jian Bozan (1962), Lishi wenti luncong [The Collection on Historical Questions], Renmin chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
7. Lin Xiaoqing D. (2005), Peking Uni^versit^y: Chinese Scholarshipa^dIntellectuals, 1898-1937, State University of New York Press, Albany. (In English).
8. Liu Lejian (1988), Jinn. Beida [Beijing University Today], Beijing daxue chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
9. Lu Lin (1989), Beijing daxue [Beijing University], Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, Changsha. (In Chinese).
10. MacFarquharR. (1960), The µ¤undred Flowers, Stevens, London. (In English).
11. Peking University, available at: http://www.history.pku.edu.cn (In English).
12. The Department of History at Beijing University (1986), Jian Bozan xueshu jinan wenji [The Collection of Scholarly Essays in Memory of Jian Bozan], Beijing daxue chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
13. Wang Chunmei and Wang Meixiu (2007), Nashi women zhengnianqing: Beijing daxue lishixi xiyou huiyilu [We Were Young Then: the Memoirs of History Department Alumni at the Beijing University], Xiandai jiaoyu chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
14. Zhang Guoyou (2008), Renwen guangcai, sheke fenghua: Beijing daxue renwen shehui kexue gailan [The Colorfulness of Humanities and Social Sciencess: An Outlook of the Faculties of Humanities and Social Sciencess at the Beijing University], Beijing daxue chubanshe, Beijing. (In Chinese).
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