Yan Zonglin And His Study On History Of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange

The first chapter presents a brief introduction of Yan Zonglin’s lifetime.The second chapter mainly presents Yan’s study on "History of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange" and emphasizes on his research about Chinese and western culture. After years of living in Europe, Yan had a microscopic view over European culture which enabled him to write several works about France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Italy, and shared fantastic view on The Balkans’problem. The research on European culture is one of the cornerstone of his study of "History of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange’Yan had learned about Pascal and Baudelaire, and was acquainted with Romain Rolland which led him translated R’s "The biography of Michelangelo". Yan often use French culture as his research object, which not just because he was proficient at French culture, but also because he had a special affection over it more than just saw it as academic. In perspective of History of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange, France has the closest relationship with China. The base of Yan’s study of History of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange was exactly the Sino-French intercourse history. And this will be found detailed in the second part of second chapter.Yan embarked on literature in his early days, which affected his history writing markedly. After the Chinese Anti-Japanese War broke, Yan went back to China and gave an innovative view of why China would win the war in terms of culture history. The third part will interpret this in detail.Yan opposed accepting western culture entirely and indiscriminately, so he stressed the influence that China brought to France in his Sino-French Interaction research. This will present in the first part of third chapter. The second part mainly wrote about the influence of Chinese culture which promoted the French Revolution and how it affected French Enlightenment. Since "the relationship between Chinese culture and French Revolution" is the emphasis of Yan’s research of European culture and the base of "History of Sino-Western Cultural Exchange", and he was the earliest historian who had profound view over it (another is Zhu Qianzhi),it will be underlined in the thesis.The fourth chapter is formed by "the study of early Sinologist","the study of Duheard",the study of Qing’s missionary.Yan said during the Yuan Dynasty,"The history of Franciscan coming to China, is the most touching and interesting one of Interaction History between East and West.Yan had attached importance to missionary who came to China in early days that the old scholars had often neglected, which suggest to be another Yan’s contribution. Yan’s PHD thesis was named after Duheard, which would be explained in second part. Moreover, besides the contribution towards missionary Sinology study, Yan also spared no efforts to collect history documents, which had benefited the offspring. The fifth consists of two part—"the main reason Yan studied at Annotation" and "four Annotations".Yan was born at Shanxi, that’s why he paid a lot of attention to Fa Xian and Fan Shouyi who were also born in Shanxi and went abroad at early times, and also annotated their works.The sixth chapter is a summary. It summarizes the lifetime of Yan, presents his contribution and also analyze his shortcomings, which brings the enlightenment significance to the contemporary world.