The Historical Memory Of Qing Dynasty And Political Culture In Republican Era

Historical texts are not pure and transparent medium,through which one can arrive at the "objective" past directly.They seem to be prism resulting from the game of different political powers and cultural standpoints.Through historical texts,one can only see "images" that are presented by facts refracted through a certain angle.In different human societies and cultures,historical memories mingle with political reality in different ways all the time.History is not a mummy concealed in a coffin.As the arenas and containers of battles between different political powers,it's closely related to current politics.Since the Revolution of 1911 and the fall of the Qing Dynasty,how to narrate and understand the previous Qing Dynasty has become an arena fought by various political powers.Consequently,historical memories of Qing Dynasty present different patterns.Under the circumstance of transition of political culture,the final dynastic historical memory is like a broken mirror scattered on the ground,through which reflects different political standpoints and cultural attitudes of various narrators.And this kind of image still relates to various comprehensions of Qing history.Due to the transition of political culture,traditional "history" was marginalized gradually,following the fate of many classics in traditional times.Liang Qichao once said in the late Qing period:"Among the various disciplines in the west,history is the only one that exists in China since ancient times." But the goal of his statement was to transform Chinese traditional historiography completely.In the process,"creative transition" and "consumptive transition" are inevitable.Some critics refer the thirty years between the Sino-Japanese War around 1895 and the Great Revolution around 1925 as the "transitional period" in modem intellectual history of China.The 1911 Revolution was the midpoint of the thirty years of transitional period.The traditional monarchy that spanned for over two thousand years was terminated in a short period.In addition,measures such as the abolishment of imperial examination system,the establishment of schools,and the set-up of Advisory Bureau,can be considered as dramatic changes throughout Chinese history as well as world history.Besides changes in political system small changes,huge changes,and fundamental changes occurred in mentalities and ideas.How people in Republican era consider Qing history is closely related to narrator's political standpoints and cultural attitudes.Different versions of memories of Qing Dynasty reflect different persons' and different groups' attitudes toward present and future China.This dissertation investigates the establishment of the the Qing History Institute(Qing Shi Guan)and cases in the early Republic.This dissertation analyzes in the republican regime,how the old historiography reacts to new political reality in transitional period;how the central government,local societies,and individuals utilize(Xuan Fu Shi Guan Li Zhuan),a remaining system of the era of monarchy,to express their own appeals;How personal emotions,different political attitudes,and cultural ideas are presented in the cases in.By observing the publication of Draft History of the Qing Dynasty(Qing Shi Gao)around the Northern Expedition,the prohibition by the Nationalist Government,and the fate of becoming "historical sources",one can examines how historiography is intertwined with politics,and how political and cultural ideas of new and old sides are interacted with each other in the Republican ear,a "transitional period" in which political culture and academy were transforming.The final shift from traditional "history" to "historiography" in the modern sense is presented in this event.This dissertation studies the Forbidden City(the Imperial Palace),a unique geographical space that carries the changes in historical memory of Qing Dynasty after the Chinese Revolution in 1911.This dissertation displays the function of the Forbidden City changing from the space of arousing the nostalgia for native land and former dynasty,to the comparative site of republican and autocratic regimes,and finally into the space of historical memories on national treasures and class struggle.