Perplexity And Advance-The Ethnologists In Modern Nation State Building

After the Revolution of 1911,Sun Yat-sen declared that China would be a country composed of Han,Manchu,Mongolian,Hui and Tibetan,which completely abandoned Han racism that had been advocated during decades of anti-Manchu revolution before 1911 and depicted a harmonious future of a multi-ethnic China.However,the political system of multi-ethnics republic lacked neither theoretical support nor internal and external environment.In the early 20th century,nationalism had become the trend of the world and the "Han Chinese" consciousness became a basic ethnic identity of most people through the baptism of anti-Manchu revolution.Therefore,we can find both Sun Yat-sen's claim of national self-determination under the influence of the Comintern and the Soviet Union and his frequent remarks about integration and assimilation,especially the assimilation of all ethnics to the "Han" ethnic.During more than 20 years of state construction after Sun Yat-sen's death,the National Government was not only engaged in dealing with the challenge of warlords,factional force and the growth of the Communist Party,but also had to face Japan's increasing invasion pressure.In the pursuit of national integration,especially in the national survival crisis,how to explain and convert the so-called multi-ethnic republic into administrative measures became an inevitable issue for both the National Government and its adversary,the Communist Party.How did the contemporary Chinese academic circles,especially the ethnology scholars answer this question?This dissertation takes Yang Chengzhi,Ling Chunsheng,Rui Yifu and other famous ethnology scholars as case study,in attempt to reproduce the ideological concepts and social activities of ethnologists in the 1930s and 1940s during the Chinese nation-state building process.Focused on ethnologists' activities,this dissertation attempts to observe the historical process of ethnology's participation in the construction of modern country in the view of the interaction of academic and era background and reveal the efforts and contributions of ethnologists during the changing times as well as choices and hesitations they experienced.And it will discuss the internal organization form of multi-ethnic country based on their assumption and practice on a unified and multi-ethnic country.The text is divided into three chapters.The first chapter is titled "The 'Nation' Arrangements in a Unified Country—The Thinking of Yang Chengzhi and His Colleagues on 'Only One Chinese Nation"'.Beginning with Gu Jiegang's view of "Only One Chinese Nation ",this chapter points out the different opinions on the relationship between ethnic and nation in the circle of both ethnology and national historiography and makes a textual study on Yang Chengzhi's application of the word "nation".It indicates that Yang Chengzhi and other ethnologists' explanation on the internal mechanism of national unity,and analyzes the reason why ethnologic community lapsed into silence after the claim of "Only One Chinese Nation".The author believes that Yang Chengzhi and other ethnologists realized vaguely that the use of "nation" did not necessarily mean secession,but patriotism and low academic status prevented them from expressing opinions that were politically right and not against academic rules at the same time.At that time,the ethnology circle had no mature ideas on the construction of unified multi-ethnic country.The second chapter is titled "The Effort for 'Nation' Argumentation-A Survey Centered on Ling Chunsheng and Rui Yifu"."Miao" investigation in west Hunan in 1933 is one of the most important fieldworks in the history of Chinese ethnology.After his textual analysis on the "Flood Song" which was sung in the "Miao"'s sacrifice ritual,Rui Yifu came to the conclusion that the Fuxi(??)and Nvwa(??)were the "Miao"'s ancestors and their stories were passed to "Han"area later.Ling Chunsheng concluded that "Miao" originally lived in the region inhabited by "Han"today and then migrated to the southwest after the investigation on "Miao"'s origin.Based on the studies mentioned above and combined with their academic environment,the author points out ethnologists' special circumstances in the official academic system and reflects the tortuous development process of ethnology.The third chapter is titled" Frontier Politics Studies and Southwest Cultural Elite's Response".This chapter begins with the rise of frontier politics studies after Anti-Japanese War broke out and analyzes ethnologists' increasingly mature nation ideas in their frontier politics studies.They hoped to exert "modernization" influence on the frontier people through borderland education under the guidance of ethnology and that these people could gradually develop modern nation citizenship identity while remaining their own national characteristics and thus they aimed to establish a unified multi-ethnic coexistence country.The author compares these ideas with the practice of the minorities' intellectual elite and finds out its imperfection and infeasibility.In the conclusion part,the author points out that the ethnologists' nation ideas were affected by the political reality to a large extent.Although they realized that the government should give minorities equal rights and also put forward the idea of "autonomy",without solid theoretical basis,they had no choice but to resort to "assimilation" and "localization".Actually,they were exploring new national organization form under the guidance of "cultural centralism".However,their attempt to establish a unified multi-ethnic country's is in line with China's national conditions and their national subject consciousness is worth highlighting.The subject development history that is associated with the national building,which itself has sketched out a development trajectory of ethnology in modern China,provides another perspective of the history of Chinese ethnology.