The Analogy To Chinese Modern National Historiography Of 1920-1930s

As we all know, the study of national history plays an important part in the field of historiography research. Being an ancient civilization of various nationalities, China enjoys all kinds of contributions made by the nationalities living both in and beside its territory for quite a long time. Chinese historical documents have attached great importance to their behavior since the very early years. Original specialized ethnic writings even came to existence among the traditional historical books during that time, but, those ethnic documents were too simple and doubtful, except those of Han national group. Besides this, ancient historians looked down upon the minor nationalities because they were greatly influenced by such an idea from Confucianism, which regarded the nationality living outside Chinese territory as undeveloped and barbarous tribes. Duyou, a famous historian of Tang Dynasty, once said,'China is located on the center of the world. Its people gain favor directly from the sun and the moon. Sharing ample resources, they are more modernized and therefore, more polite, than any other people all over the world. Using appropriate laws and rules to manage their society, they have everything in order.'As he put it, those minor nationalities had nothing but deserted areas and fool dogs. It was under these circumstances that objective and just comments were failed to given to the minor nationalities during that period.Threatened by the domestic trouble and foreign invasion, more and more historians realized the necessity of studying the ethnic history. Especially in 1920s and 1930s, scientific methods and theories in the field of several new-born subjects, such as ethnic history, anthropology and sociology, were introduced into China. Under these circumstances, a large number of experts devoted themselves into the ethnic history research. Wang Guowei and Liang Qichao, followed by Li-Chi, Wang Tongling, Lv Simian, Lin Huixiang, wrote a large quantity of books dealing with nationalhistory. Based on modern ethnology theory, these books are of modern academic form. The idea of the surrounding barbarous tribes, which used to be very popular in official historical books, was simultaneously swept. The national history of China and its surrounding area was rewritten systematically with brand-new visions and methods. Both the trend of the nationalities' development and the law of their merging were revealed. All these conditions mentioned above directly resulted in the born of a new subject, namely, Researches of China's national history.Focusing on the books of China's national history, which were written in 1920s and 1930s, the essay discusses the academic background, the development, the theories and the achievements of this field. There are three parts forming it.The first chapter discovers and outlines the rise and development of China's national history research according to the discussions of its academic background and developing process.The second chapter lists the achievements and characteristics of China's national research, which covers all kinds of schools in this field. It can be divided into three parts: theory achievements, methods of researching and way of using materials.The third chapter's main task is to raise some most representative characteristics among the China's national history research in 1920s and 1930s, such as the establishment of its discipline system, the wide range of its research content, the mature of its theories and methods, etc. All these prove the fact that during the period of 1920s and 1930s, national history research had completed in establishing modernized research pattern.