Ethnicity And Historiography

The presentation and comprehension of history reality can be changing with different narrative modes, though it is unchangeable to history reality itself. In this situation, history reality must be presented in the same narrative mode. It is the only way to guarantee that "history becomes the essential portion of an educated man's knowledge". In traditional Chinese society, there was only one main history narrative mode, which was based on the three cardinal guides and five constant virtues as specified in the Confucian ethical code and regarded kings and princes,generals and ministers as descriptive subjects. Under this condition,people may have different opinions in the specific history events, but seldom varies on the presentation and comprehension of history reality.However, after the failure to Japan in sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the authority of traditional Chinese history narrative mode was queried and replaced by modern marrative modes soon.Chinese modern history narrative modes that rose in late Ching dynasty took form under the influence of western modern history. From the 1820s,to change Chinese people's prejudice that western people are barbarous and backward, western missionaries began to spread western history and geography knowledge in China by establishing Chinese publication and some other ways. With the deepening of invasion from the west, Chinese scholar-officials realized the deficiency of the country and began to learn from the West initiatively. The loss to Japan and the following partition raging tide totally destroyed Chinese scholar-officials'Tianxia conception, and then they built their new space-time perception.The Chinese people who had expanded their vision to the whole world found the way to become rich and powerful from western powers' history, and learned an important lesson from other conquered countries. In order to promote Wu Hsu Reform and save China,modern history was pushed to the front stage and became an important resource for Chinese political reform. The history narrative mode's replacement from tradition to modern also took place when history was made use of by reformers.The modernity of modern history narrative mode mainly embodys three aspects.First, evolutionism takes the place of cyclicism as history guiding notion. Second,western modern universal values have become the new kernel of history value.Third,the subject of history writing has transferred from the emperor to public groups. These three factors are common factors of modern Chinese history narrative mode. Due to the influence of ethnic consciousness,the narrative mode's replacement from tradition to modern is not changing from one traditional dominant history narrative mode to another modern dominant one,but to three modern modes.Under the severe oppression of foreign aggression, the modern national history narrative mode is the first to emerge. In order to rescue from the crisis, the open-minded intelligentsia of late Ching Dynasty gradually formed the modern national history narrative mode. Through the mode, the intellectual tried to build the country identity of the people from different ethnics, so as to unite the interior to resist the aggression from western powers and eventually restore China. The mode has four main characteristics,namely,to regard promoting the integration of the nation as the main purpose, to put nationalism as historical value reference, the multi-ethnic of the historical system, and the emphasis of the writing is nation and society rather than ethnic conflicts. Despite many tender problems in practice, such as how to deal with the origin of the ethnic Han and other ethnics, how to cope with the invasion from other ethnics like Hun, how to assess the dynasty built by other ethnics except Han, and how to evaluate those historical figures related to ethnic competitions, and so on. The intelligentsia of late Ching Dynasty preliminarily constructed a new system of Chinese history, and displayed it by textbooks and other forms.The destroy and retroaction of Empress Cixi and other conservative powers of Manchu Dynasty not only destroyed Wu Hsu Reform which aimed at saving from peril, but also led to great disturbances like The Boxing Event and the Invasion of Eight-Power Allied Forces. The intelligentsia of Han nationality could not express their patriotism properly, which roused their racial consciousness. So they constructed racial history narrative mode, which aimed at promoting for anti-Manchu revolution.This narrative mode is Han nationality oriented, and upholds the value of the Han nationality, which not only criticized traditional history racially, but also constructed Han history system. Zhang Taiyan, Liu Shipei, Liu Chengyu,Tao Chengzhang and other anti-Manchu revolutionaries contributed greatly to the formation and practice of the racial history narrative mode. Because of the narrowness of racial history narration and the utilitarian of anti-Manchu revolution, the mode began to decline from the year 1906. Three reasons lead to the phenomenon, one is that Sun Yat-sen and other people began to get rid of the narrow racialism, the other is that data concerning racialism was used up after a few years, and it was hard to find new materials. The last one is that after revolutionary magazines promoting anti-Manchu revolution, the effect of Han nationality narrative mode on promoting anti-Manchu and encouraging Han ethnicity began to waneAfter 1902, with the rise of local autonomy,modern local records mode also appeared. While the mode can be affected by nationalism and racialism in value, it also has its own characteristics.First, to seek local position in the world-nation pattern. Second, to seek national identity from local identity.Three,to explore local characters for local improvement.With the trend of implementing local education,the writing of modern local records quickly approached prosperity at the last years of Ching dynasty. However, since the emphasis on regional consciousness has negative effect on strengthening national identity, and the adjustment of national education policy and some other reasons,the local records soon appeared a trend of decline.Historiography aims at the self of the moment by tracing the past. In the unique late Ching Dynasty, the original closed Celestial Empire was broken.Everyone who had affection for the country, the race and hometown was faced up to the question "Who I Am",which was big and difficult to answer but must be answered quickly. The reason is that a huger,more important and critical problem is hidden behind "Who I Am".That is "What China is".Only by answering this question correctly can China be saved from peril and approaches prosperity. In that situation intellectuals of late Ching dynasty tried to answer this question from national,ethnic and local three angles. From the point of academic history, the three modern history narrative modes for answering the issue have a profound impact on Chinese historical narration. Of which the biggest influence is causing the Chinese people disagree greatly in understanding the same historical facts. In current China, to solve historical disagreements and carry out history writing reasonablely, we should base on developing and discarding previous modern history narrative modes, and then build a more inclusive history narrative mode.