Historical Scepticism in the New Culture Era: Gu Jiegang and the "Debate on Ancient History"

10.6353/BIMHAS.199406.0353

Ursula Richter

近代史研究所集刊

23_下期（1994 / 06 / 01）

353 - 389

英文

This paper deals with iconoclast antitradionalism in the era of the ”New Culture movement”, exemplified by a sceptical approach towards China's ancient history, particularly concerning spurious ancient texts and ”fabricated” historical myths. This scepticism was expressed in a debate on ancient history which, begun in 1923 in a Shanghai newspaper and continued throughout the 1930s, was published in the 7-vols. Gushibian (1926-1941). Over 100 scholars participated in the debate, among them some of the leading intellectuals of the ”New Culture movement” and May Fourth era. Doubtlessly, the iconoclast spirit of Gu Jiegang and his fellow ”antiquity doubters” owed momentum to the general antitraditionalist mood of the late Qing and early Republican reform movements which, in their turn, had been enhanced by the influx of foreign ideas. But Westerncentric sinology sometimes over-emphasized the role ”Western impact” had played in the search of ”Young China” for a new cultural self-assessment, while it tended to neglect indigenous sources of inspiration. At the same time, many Western China scholars mistook Chinese self-criticism of the period for an objective description of reality, overlooking the fact that Chinese scholars, ever since high antiquity up to the New Culture era, had engaged in polemic dispute Iunzhan論戰, while it is in the nature of polemics (both East and West) to exaggerate. This paper tries to show to what extent indigenous Chinese scholarly traditions as well as individual motives were viable, in the early decades of the 20th century, in forming a decidedly modern scientific approach towards China's historical inheritance.

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