Gu Jiegang

Gu Jiegang was a historian who is known best for his seven volume work ''Gushi Bian'' . He is considered the founder of the Skeptical school of early Chinese history, known as ''yigupai''.

Biography

Gu Jiegang was born two years before China's defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War. As a result, the country during his early years was wrought with turmoil. During high school, Gu briefly joined a revolutionary group during the 1911 Revolution. However, he soon realized that he had "no personal aptitude for politics, and no ability in promoting great social movements". He developed an interest in history while a student at Peking University, and resolved to use a new historical narrative to calm his country's social and political turmoil.

Historiography

Gu has been viewed as something of an enigma by many scholars. His work has been characterized as scientific and antitraditional, while at the same time showing pride in Chinese culture and believing that the Chinese identity would withstand modernization. The German scholar Ursula Richter characterized this discrepancy by labeling Gu "the traditional and yet modern scholar who was true to tradition also in that he 'obeyed yet resisted'".

According to Laurence Schneider, the "most persistent theme" in Gu's writings is "the central role of the intellectual in Chinese history, and the centrality of history to the Chinese intellectual". He attributed China's failure to modernize to opportunistic intellectuals who allied with the aristocracy, rather than pursuing truth. In order to restore China to greatness, Gu, along with his mentor Hu Shi, advocated a non-political role for Chinese intellectuals, against the emerging trend of Marxist histories.

To this end, Gu used textual criticism to challenge traditional Chinese historiography. One example is the myth of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, a supposed golden age in China's antiquity that had scarcely been doubted up to the present. It is important to note that Gu's purpose in questioning the historicity of this myth was not only to rectify errors in understanding, but also to destroy the entire philosophy of history that revolved around looking back to this supposed golden age.

Gu is also known for his theory of Chinese diversity, as opposed to the idea of Chinese homogeneity, which is the main assumption of hanism. He states that there is no such thing as the Chinese national identity. This is a bold remark, considering the fact that he was living in a period of fundamental change and the period of pan-hanism in China.

Further Reading

* Richter, Ursula Richter, 'Obituary: Gu Jiegang ', ''The Journal of Asian Studies'', Vol. 41, No. 2. , pp. 441-442.
* Schneider, Laurence A. ''Ku Chieh-kang and China’s New History: Nationalism and the Quest for Alternative Traditions''. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.