Huang Xianfan
Huang Xianfan (Chinese黄 现 璠/黄 现 璠; born November 13, 1899 in Fusui, Guangxi, † January 18, 1982 in Guilin, Guangxi ) was a Chinese historian, anthropologist, folklorist, anthropologist and educator. He is regarded as the founder of anthropology in China.
- 3.1 historiography
- 3.2 Ethnology and anthropology
- 3.3 Zhuangologie
Life
Study time
Huang Xianfan came from a farming family in a circle Fusui (Guangxi ). Fusui is the district of the city Chongzuo in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the population was predominantly Zhuang on. Huang grew up in an area that shaped him and his faith strong. As a child he was an avid reader and was particularly interested in history. He is said to have read at age seven, the Shiji by Sima Qian three times. He attended elementary school in the Quli and then high school in Fusui. After high school he studied from 1922 to 1926 at the 3rd Pedagogical School Guangxi, where he studied classical languages, history, literature and philosophy, and deepened his knowledge of the history of the Zhuang minority. During this time he wrote smaller treatises on history topics. From 1926 to 1935 he studied at the Pedagogical University Beijing history, palaeography and classical Chinese phonology. Here he was strongly of Chen Yuan (Chinese陈垣) and Qian Xuantong (钱玄同) coined. He gave of his time in Beijing to circle around Tao Xisheng (陶希圣) and was associated with Xiao Yishan (萧 一山) and Tan Qixiang (谭 其 骧) friends. In 1932 he founded the Sympathy Society, in 1934 he founded with his school friend Tan Qixiang and other historians company Beijing. In Beijing, he devoted himself to historical studies and published from 1932 to 1935 several works, including a three-volume history of China and a work on the life of farmers in the Yuan Dynasty.
From 1935 to 1937 he studied at the Tokyo Imperial University folklore, ethnology, linguistics and Japanese history. His teachers included the historian Wada Be (Japanese和田 清) as well as the practical economist Katō Shigeshi (Japanese加藤 繁). In addition to the historiography he devoted himself to archaeological lectures, particularly those of Harada Yoshito (Japanese原田 淑 人). With fellow students, he formed a discussion group and published from 1936 to 1937 several works, including a Social History of the Tang Dynasty, and a work on patriotic activities of the students in the Song Dynasty.
Huang came in his time in Tokyo for the circle around Kurakichi Shiratori (Japanese白鸟 库 吉) and was associated with Soukichi Tsuda (Japanese津 田 左右 吉) and Guo Moruo (郭沫若) friends.
Career
1937 returned Huang Xianfan back to China and began teaching, first at the high school in Nanning. In 1938 he was a lecturer in Chinese history at the Guangxi University; In 1940 he was appointed extraordinary professor. There he taught history and folklore and supervised the student book club. In 1941 he became professor of ancient Chinese history at the Sun Yat -sen University (Guangdong ), where he taught from 1941 to 1942. In the same year he began an extensive study of minorities and thus became the founder of anthropology in China. Besides his work in the teaching profession he pursued his ethnographic research on.
During the Second Sino-Japanese War, he was with his friends and colleagues Professor Luo Xianglin (罗香林) and Yang Chengzhi (杨 成 志) involved in anti-Japanese propaganda.
In 1944 he was appointed professor of classical philology at the Chinese Guangxi University, where he taught from 1944 to 1953. He then taught from 1953 to 1982 Classical Philology and ancient history at the Pedagogical University Guangxi. At the same time, he devoted himself intensively continue the exploration of Ethnology. He published a series of studies on the history of minorities, wrote about mysticism and superstition, explored habit and custom, and collected data for the purposes of oral history. Huang Xianfan died on January 18, 1982 in Guilin.
Education
Huang Xianfan was described as a quiet and friendly person. He four decades, a considerable number of students supervised, of which particularly the later Professor Huang Zengqing, Zhang Yiming, Li Guozhu, Guanchang Su, Li Ganfen, Zhou Zongxian, Qin Suguan, Zhou Zuoqiou, Huang Shaoqing, Weicheng Huang, He Yingde, He Longqun, Yu Shijie, Gong Yonghuei, Deqing Qin and Han scholars are Ou Yang and Xiao Ruoxiou Zechang are highlighted.
In 1932 he became a member of the Association for Educational Research of Beijing Normal University. In 1942 he was researcher of Education Institute of Guangxi, and thus the beginning of his work as an educational reformer in this Guangxi.
In 1981 he founded the Lijiang private university in Guilin. As rector, he became involved in curriculum development and in gifted education. In addition, he prepared a series of educational reports, and thus promoted the reputation of Lijiang private university. As followers of the theories of his contemporaries, the Chinese educator Cai Yuanpei (蔡元培), he believed in the unlimited betterment of mankind and was the belief that nothing so much of moral, intellectual and material benefits that would result as sustainable education.
Research
Historiography
Besides his work in the teaching profession he pursued also had a wealth of knowledge in history. When he professor of history with the history of Chinese antiquity, of the minority, and particularly the Zhuang. His research interests lie in the study of folklore culture, the oracle bones of the narrative research, the Dong Son culture, cultural studies and the cultural and social history. Huang Xianfan probably the strongest work effectively represents the history of China, whose several volumes were published 1932-1934. It is one of the standard works of Chinese history. In the last years of his life Huang Xianfan was especially active in journalism and wrote several comprehensive works on the history of Zhuang.
Ethnology and anthropology
Huang Xianfans work in Chinese ethnology were extensively particularly in the areas of their culture, dissemination areas in Guangxi, religion, language and population research, and within anthropology. His first fieldwork took place in 1943 and went to the village Dong in Sanjiang in Guangxi. However, it was not his first field research. Three years earlier he had performed in Longsheng anthropological fieldwork.
From 1950 to 1953 he practiced his field research into Donglan, Tian'e, Fengshan, Pingguo, Tianlin, Longlin, Luocheng, and Bama in Guangxi Dahua. He collected information from the oral history and contradicted the evolutionism of Lewis Henry Morgan. He conducted research at the Yao, Mulam and Gelao. As he studied them, he was struck by the incongruity of Morgan's theory.
As followers of the theories of the American anthropologist Franz Boas, Huang Xianfan advocated the cultural relativism. He believed every national culture ( culture of an ethnic group ) is relative and can only be understood from within itself. He developed a historical nationalism: Every culture of an ethnic group have their own history and development, and one should not try to formulate a general law of the cultural development.
Huang Xianfan considered the founder of Baqui School (八桂 学派), the first ethnological school in the People's Republic of China, and as one of the leading figures of the post-war Chinese ethnology.
Zhuangologie
Became famous for his exploration of the Huang Xianfan Zhuangologie of China. Xianfan Huang and his students ( Huang and Zhang Yiming Zengqing ) affected the Chinese Ethnology sustainable. He spoke fluent English, Japanese, Yao, Dong, and various Chinese dialects. Notoriety reached Huang Xianfan through his field research in the Zhuang.
Huang Xianfan published numerous works with a wide range of topics. He was concerned with history, ethnology, anthropology, folklore, linguistics, and wore, among other major contribution to the study of Zhuang. In 1957 he published the Guangxi Zhuangzu jian shi (广西 童 族 简史, historical demolition of the Guangxi Zhuang - '), which is the most important work of the 20th century to the Zhuang. It was essential for a progressivist historiography of China. Huang Xianfan became the leading authority on the Zhuangologie in China and is regarded as the father ah.
His estate is successively edited by his students, including Nong Zhigao ( Zhuang tong shi, Wei Baqun ping zhuan ).
After 1949 he was a member of the National People's Congress and the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese people. During the Hundred Flowers movement, he was considered quite extreme and rehabilitated in 1979.
Works (selection)
- Zhongguo tongshi Gangyao (中国 通史 纲要). Beijing 1932-34
- Xianfan Huang, Huang Zengqing, Zhang Yimin (黄 现 璠,黄增庆,张一民 编著): Zhuang tong shi (Chinese壮族 通史). Nanning, 1988, ISBN 7-5363-0422-6.
- Wei Baqun ping zhuan (韦 拔群 评 传). Guilin 2008, ISBN 978-7-5633-7656-8.
Bibliography
- Chen Jishen. Historical contribution Huang Xianfan. Nanning: Ethnic Research in Guangxi, Vols 1, 2007, pp. 82- 104.ISSN 1004- 454x. .