A review of nationalism in the late qing dynasty.

Under the background of political turmoil and surging revolution in the late Qing Dynasty, a social trend of thought with the aim of "learning Chinese studies and preserving the quintessence of the country" appeared. 1905, the establishment of the "Society for the Preservation of Chinese Studies" and the publication of the Journal of Chinese quintessence marked the emergence of this ideological trend of Chinese quintessence. The main representatives of the quintessence school are Zhang Taiyan, Liu,,, Huang Kan, Ma Xulun and so on. Most of them are revolutionaries with deep roots in Chinese studies, among whom Zhang Taiyan, Liu are the standard-bearers of the quintessence of Chinese culture. The quintessence school thinks that "quintessence of our country" is "the history of our Chinese nation", including "language and writing", "laws and regulations" and "people's deeds" (note: Zhang Taiyan's speech is a record, originally published in People's Daily, No.6, July 1906, see the second volume of Selected Works on Time in the Ten Years before the Revolution of 1911. )"。 The purpose of advocating the quintessence of Chinese culture is: first, to "stimulate the patriotism" and advocate "revolutionary recovery"; The second is to find the countermeasures to overcome and avoid the disadvantages of capitalism from the ancient "good intentions, beauty and law" and oppose "infatuation with Europeanization"

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The ideological trend of quintessence came into being at the beginning of 20th century, which was the result of the collision between western culture imported into China and traditional culture. In the process of cultural conflicts between China and the West, ancient and modern times, it is an urgent historical task to clean up the essence and dross of traditional culture, combine the preservation and development of traditional culture with the absorption of western culture, and establish a modern national culture with China characteristics. In this regard, the quintessence school put forward a clear proposition.

First of all, the quintessence school believes that the western culture that comes with the political, economic and military aggression of imperialism against China is, to a great extent, imperialist culture; At that time, China's ideological circles made no distinction and admired it. Even self-belittling, promoting China's cultural backwardness and advocating "total Europeanization". The quintessence school resolutely criticized this erroneous tendency.

After the Opium War, western capitalist forces infiltrated China, including cultural aggression in the name of preaching, running schools and running newspapers. Due to the long-term closure, China's ideological circle has shown great interest in western civilization and a high enthusiasm for learning from the West due to the lack of in-depth understanding. From 65438 to 1960s, translation became popular in coastal cities, and people read all western books. /kloc-at the end of 0/9, I learned and spread western learning, and "buying western books and returning to China" became a common practice. At the beginning of the 20th century, a large number of intellectuals studied abroad, and the wind of learning from the West became more and more fierce. At this time, the western countries have made a transition from liberal capitalism to imperialism, and in the process of capital export, they have stepped up their plunder of the weak ethnic groups and slandered the ignorance and barbarity of the eastern ethnic groups. In this regard, the quintessence school pointed out that this kind of western cultural input is essentially an imperialist cultural invasion. Zhang Taiyan said: "Those ... in the eyes of outsiders, if Mohuang people are conscious, they will abandon Chinese studies." (Noe: Zhang Taiyan: The Benefits and Diseases of the Qing-US Alliance, see Selected Works of Zhang Taiyan, edited by Tang Zhijun, Volume I, 475 pages, Zhonghua Book Company, 1977. ) Western powers at that time. Running a school in China has enabled scholars in Shanxi and other places to "specialize in European languages, but few of them do not understand Chinese" (Note: Zhang Taiyan: The Benefits of the Qing-US Alliance, see Selected Works of Zhang Taiyan, Volume I, 475, Zhonghua Book Company, 1977. )。 In order to resist the invasion of imperialist culture, the quintessence school raised the banner of "Chinese studies": "If you are not independent of your country, but slaves are in the people's country, you are called a national slave; A slave who does not learn independently from others is called a slave who learns from others. The autocracy enslaved by foreign countries is called national slavery, and it is not slaves who are enslaved by East and West Studies. The same people died on the day when the country was not established, so they looked up at the sky and fired, planted things and created a national quintessence to the sea. " (Note: Zhang Taiyan: Introduction to the Journal of Chinese quintessence, Journal of Chinese quintessence 1, January 20th, Guangxu thirty-one. At the same time, the quintessence school also criticized the imperialists for abusing the "evolution theory" and spreading the fallacy that "advanced nations should rule backward nations" and "the West should rule the East". Zhang Taiyan denounced Christianity as a weapon of aggression, and thought that Christianity spread in China at that time was an imperialist aggression thought, not a religious creed, and people believed in "Western Emperor" instead of real Christianity.

The "revival of ancient learning" of the quintessence school is not only the revival of Confucianism, but also the revival of the learning of various philosophers, that is, the re-promotion of the thoughts of various philosophers in the pre-Qin period. As Zhang Taiyan said: "After the Spring and Autumn Period, the theory was not prosperous. After Hanwu, I decided to pay homage to Confucius. Although I want to talk about it, I still want to take Confucius as my ancestor. If the quotation is strong, arrogance will lose its authenticity. The more reconciliation, the more it violates its solution. " (Note: Zhang Taiyan: An Introduction to the Studies of Various Scholars, see Selected Works of Zhang Taiyan, Volume I, p. 285. Therefore, to revive the "ancient learning", the first thing is to restore the "authenticity" of history, restore the academic status that a hundred schools of thought contend, and pull Confucius down from the "supreme" throne. The quintessence school criticizes and denies the supremacy of Confucianism for two purposes: first, it points out that Confucianism is the root of the accumulated disadvantages of authoritarian system and the backwardness of the country, and clears the ideological obstacles for opposing feudal autocracy and establishing a bourgeois country; Second, by denying Confucius's "supreme" status, a hundred schools of thought contended for equal academic status, thus fully excavating the academic essence of China's ancient culture and realizing the comprehensive revival of "ancient learning".

Under the slogan of "reviving ancient learning", the quintessence school enthusiastically engaged in the propaganda of national quintessence. The magazine "quintessence of Chinese culture", compiled by the Society for the Preservation of Chinese Studies, published a large number of papers promoting the quintessence of Chinese culture, collected six or seven hundred authoritative works of Chinese studies at that time, four or five hundred articles left by adherents of Confucianism since the late Ming Dynasty and Ganjia, and published more than six hundred portraits of celebrities. In addition, the Sinology Preservation Society is also engaged in the large-scale collation of ancient books, editing and publishing books such as National Essence Series, National Essence Series, China Guoguang Collection, and Sinology Textbooks. It has established a library and printing factory in Shanghai, and plans to establish a quintessence school. At the same time, a seminar on Chinese studies was held with Wei Liu as the keynote speaker, and textbooks on ethics and Confucian classics were compiled. Later, Zhang Taiyan established the president of the Society for the Promotion of Chinese Studies, with the aim of "revitalizing and promoting Chinese studies" and widely promoting the quintessence of Chinese culture. At the same time, other newspapers and periodicals publicized the quintessence of Chinese culture, making it an influential social trend of thought at that time.

While propagating the quintessence of the country and sorting out the national heritage, the quintessence school made a comparative study of Chinese and Western cultures, and put forward the viewpoints of "Western politics comes from China", "the combination of Chinese and Western cultures" and "the combination of democracy and Chinese and Western cultures". The representative work of the theory that "Western politics comes from China" is Wang Renjun's Gezhi Gu Wei. The book collects nearly 200 historical materials from Confucian classics, historical books and works of various schools, and expounds that "western learning, western law and western politics all originated in China" from 2 1 aspects of natural science, commerce, industry and political customs. Sun Yirang, a famous scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, systematically expounded the viewpoint that "Western politics coincides with Zhou Li". He compared the Three Questions of the Zhou Dynasty with the modern parliamentary system, the three-thorn system and jury system of the Zhou Dynasty, the official and business department of the Zhou Dynasty, the traditional Chinese studies of the Zhou Dynasty, primary schools, rural schools and modern schools, and thought that there were similarities. On this basis, he put forward that western politics conforms to "the way of saints". Liu's Essentials of China People's Covenant discusses the theory of "the combination of Chinese and Western democracy". This book collects more than 180 sentences reflecting the anti-authoritarian spirit from the writings of famous people in past dynasties, compares them with Rousseau's On Civil Contract, explains the similarities and differences between ancient sages and western philosophers, and draws the conclusion that modern democratic thoughts that westerners are proud of can also be found in China's ancient books.

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The views of the quintessence school on Chinese and Western cultures profoundly reflect the comparative thinking of China people on Chinese and Western cultures in the process of "Western learning spreading to the East" for half a century. At first, it was put forward that "Western learning originated in China", and later "Chinese style and western use" appeared. At the end of 19, there was "total Europeanization", and then "revival of ancient learning" was put forward. Thus, how to treat Chinese and Western cultures and how to integrate Chinese and Western cultures to establish a new modern national culture are inevitable problems that China must face and answer in modern times. However, the quintessence school failed to solve this problem.

First of all, under the slogan of "Reviving Ancient Learning", the quintessence school showed a tendency of excessively worshipping China's ancient culture and knowledge without analysis and criticism, and praised it regardless of its merits, even touting feudal dross as the essence. For example, while they advocate getting rid of family bondage and striving for the liberation of human nature, they also put forward that "family ethics cannot be abolished suddenly." If family ethics is abolished, it will be impossible to live in harmony with a group of people, and we hope they can live in harmony "(Note: Liu: Ethics textbook, 65 volumes of Mr. Liu Shenshu's suicide note. ); On the one hand, it publicizes that "the unification of the two parties is unattainable", on the other hand, it threatens that "the name of * * * is not enough, and the name of autocracy is not enough" (Note: Zhang Taiyan: "Daiyi", see Selected Works of Zhang Taiyan, 469 ~ 470 pages. ), causing confusion in people's ideological understanding and weakening the anti-feudal edge of the quintessence school. In order to attack the disadvantages of the western political system, the quintessence school blindly believed in and infinitely raised the traditional culture of China, and made the mistake of "retro". For example, while promoting democracy and ideas, China's ancient book "The System of the Tang Dynasty" and "The Law of Consulting the People" are compared to the western democratic system (Note: Ma Xulun: The Sixth and Third Periods of Tianlu Politics, the Ninth Issue of the Journal of Chinese quintessence, September 20, Guangxu Thirty-one). ); And think that China has a "monarch", there is no need to set up a "president", "a country can't abolish the monarch, abolish the monarch, but also abolish the group" (Note: Ma Xulun: @ ② Tianlu's political general meaning, the sixth and third times, Journal of Chinese quintessence, 9th issue, September 20th, 31st year of Guangxu. )。 The propaganda of "what has existed since ancient times" can easily lead people's thoughts into misunderstanding. It seems that as long as we go back to ancient times, all the disadvantages in reality can be solved. Many people in the quintessence school have just left the feudal scholar-bureaucrat camp. Although they participated in the bourgeois revolution, they still had too much feudal consciousness in their minds. On the issue of building modern national culture, although they subjectively want to create a new culture, they excessively admire ancient academic thoughts, which, to a certain extent, encourages the countercurrent of feudal retro-ism, hinders the spread of bourgeois culture and hinders the construction of modern new culture.