The Development Of Sinology In Germany And Replacement Of Sinologist Groups

This dissertation, with an emphasis on the research of ancient Chinese literature, explores the development of Sinology in Germany, replacement of Sinologist groups through generations and the formation and features of those groups so as to find out the historical motivations behind this phenomenon. It falls into five chapters.Chapter 1 divides missionary German Sinologists into two categories according to their schools, research methods and research findings after briefing their background and formation process. The Great Navigation Age from the 15 to 16 century witness missionaries of the maritime powers of Europe's entering the new "continent" to promote Christian doctrines with the exploration of the new rout from Europe to Asia. In order to ensure smooth preaching work, the missionaries began to observe the local scenery, customs and study the local culture. The missionaries from European powers such as Ttaly and Portugal conducted the earliest research on China while only one missionary-- Fr.Athanasius Kircher came from Germany under division and had never been to China, who began his Sinologist research based on a book written by other missionaries late in the 17th century--hina Illustrata, which takes a significant place in facilitating Europeans to learn about China with detailed description of China's characters, customs, religions, thinking and architecture and illustrations as well. This chapter emphasizes on introducing two aspects of literature and Confucianism. With the improvement of national strength of Germany, missionaries were gradually dispatched to China, which helped to shape the Sinologist group of missionary. Due to different attitudes towards China, they are quite distinctive in their performance of Sinologist research, based on which this chapter divides them into two types--he cultural missionary who follow the principle of preaching Confucianism and Christianity, represented by Ernst Faber and Paul Kranz, and the "aggressive" type who targets at invasion, represented by Karl Friendrich August Gutzlaff and Johann Baptist Anzer.Chapter 2 elaborates on the formation of the first generation of academic Sinologists and the second "China rush" appeared in the 1920s, making comments of the total value of this Sinologist group and detailed description of some of them as well, with the four Sinology Centers at as the focus. From the year 1909 to 1925, universities offered Chinese course and invited Otto Franke, Alfred Forke, August Conrady, Richard Wilhelm to teach respectively, who formed the first academic group of Sinologists along with Erich Haenisch and translated Chinese classics and ancient Chinese literary works into German when many German people began to doubt the values of the West after the first World War and helped them out of spiritual confusion, arousing the second "China rush" in Germany. They formed a remarkable framework of Sinologist study, with Otto Franke focusing on the research of classics, Alfred Forke on history, August Conrady on The Songs of Chu, and Richard Wilhelm on translation. Their research findings are to be introduced in this chapter.Chapter 3 focuses on analyzing features of and distinction between the second and the third academic group of Sinologists in order to explore the inheritance relations between them. The reconstruction of Sinology after the Second World War, the formation and research achievements of the three major schools and shift in the research directions of Sinology after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Germany have also been included. There exists obvious kinship or teacher-to-student relationship between the second and the first generation of academic Sinologists, who takes on the responsibility to reconstruct Sinology in Germany after the war and all of them are quite accomplished in their respective research field. The war resulted in the separation of Germany and severe imbalanced development of Sinology between the West Germany and the East Germany. The School of Leipzig in the East Germany, led by Eduard Erkes carried out research on the Songs of Chu and made tremendous achievements under the political tension; Hamburg school of thought, Munich school of thought in the West Germany led by Wolfgang Franke and Herbert Franke focused their research on history and ancient Chinese literature and make their effort in boosting development of Sinology and cultivating Sinologist talents. After the establishment of Sino-German diplomatic relation, those overseas students send by the West Germany to China became the majority of Sinologist study and formed the third generation. In their specific study, they formed two schools:"the Chinese experts", who regarded Chinese politics, economy and culture as the research objective and the Sinologist repressed by Wolfgang Kubin?Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, who still took the traditional approach in their research on ancient and modern Chinese literature.Chapter 4 summarizes translation of literary works, the most important part of Sinologist publicity. Through introducing translation works and their influence, the author also tries to make a just comment on the Sinologist group, who were excluded from the academic school with Franz Kuhn as the reprehensive. During the process of development, some translation of ancient Chinese literature did appear, but only as secondary one or whim of some Sinologist and failed to attract due attention of the Sinologist circle until the emergence of translation of novels by Franz Kuhn, who achieved great success by employing the translation strategy of adaptation, which will be demonstrated in this chapter by positive analysis. Besides, this chapter elaborate on the impact of translation of ancient Chinese literature on German literature, drama and music by analysis of works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Hermann Hesse and Hui-Lan-Kii and Das Lied von der Erde.Chapter 5 makes an exploration of the formation reason of different Sinologist groups of Germany. The reason for the emergence of missionary Sinologist is due to economic development and cultural output with the development of the country, for the first generation of Sinologist is because of the demand of colonization, which shined brightly after the failure in the world war, for the second generation of Sinologist is due to the requirement of reconstruction of Sinology after the Second World War and for the third generation of Sinologist is owing to the establishment of diplomatic relation and cultural exchange between China and Germany. To sum up, the formation of the German Sinologist groups were closely connected with politics, economy and culture. The conclusion part demonstrates the role played by ancient Chinese literary works and Chinese scholars in the research of German Sinologist. Ancient Chinese literary works are so enchanting that they are popular abroad, attracting German Sinologists in their study with fantastic contents and spirits. During this process, many Chinese scholars spare every effort to lead their research direction and make future clarification.