Liang Wendao | Prophet's Bookstore, ed
Recently, there is not only a craze for the Republic of China, but in fact, since more than ten years ago, everyone has a fever of intellectuals in the Republic of China, that is to say, they like to study the living conditions of intellectuals during the Republic of China and study their biographies.
Why? I think this often contains some dissatisfaction with our modern situation, or some questions, so I want to look back and see what Chinese intellectuals were like back then.
▌ The master is gone, and there is no master
In this case, many people found that the previous masters were all from the Republic of China, at least from the Republic of China.
And then compare it with today, I feel oops, you see, there is really no master today, I don't know why we Chinese are very much looking forward to waiting for a master to come out. But we don't think it matters what the master writes, what matters is whether people recognize him as a master.
For example, like the book "Chen Yinke and Fu Sinian" I introduced today, there is such a slogan under the book, "The master is gone, and there is no master".
So I think this sentence is wonderful, why do you write it like that? Do you think these two people are unprecedented? So these two people are unprecedented, and there is no master after them, what bothers us about this? What's the problem? Or what lessons can we learn?
For example, in this book, I think the interesting thing is not just about Chen Yinke, but also about Fu Sinian, who I think is a little unfamiliar to many friends in the reading world in the mainland.
This is because Fu Sinian has been in Taiwan for a long time, and in the past, the mainland would think that this person was a rightist, a lackey of capitalism, and hid in Taiwan and followed Lao Chiang, so many people felt very strange to him. So I suggest that when you read this book, you might as well focus on the part about Fu Sinian.
As for the author Yue Nan, he is actually also a famous writer, and I have read his book on archaeology in the past, "Archaeological China", which I think has taught me a lot, because it allows us to know some interesting facts and experiences in the history of Chinese archaeology. He is such a writer who writes reportage, and in this book, he tries to find a way to compare and talk about Chen Yinke and Fu Sinian, two masters of history.
▌Why were people of that era so powerful?
Mr. Chen Yinke
Then let us see that the personalities of these two people are very different, Chen Yinke is very introverted, and he learns for the sake of learning, of course, Fu Sinian is also, but Fu Sinian has his successful side, that is, he established the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica, which is a very important position in modern Chinese historiography.
At the same time, in terms of personality, he is the opposite of Chen Yinke, Fu Sinian is short and fat, very hot, very impatient, so the two people look very different, but this book wants to put them together, because they are related, they are also good friends, and even have an in-law relationship in it.
Let's look back at the question of the master, it is easy to give me an impression in this book, that is, to repeat an impression to us, that is, why were Chinese intellectuals always so powerful in that era? What a powerful method?
For example, he said that Fu Sinian was very popular when he was at Peking University, and we know that the "May Fourth Movement", the commander-in-chief of the Peking University Student Parade was Fu Sinian.
And he later went to study at the University of London, what did he study at the University of London? Experimental Psychology with elective courses in natural sciences such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, and medicine.
Well, then he studied Freud's writings; Later, he went to Berlin and was a classmate in Berlin with Chen Yinke, and at this time it was mentioned that one night, when Mao Zishui, Luo Jialun, and Fu Sinian were having dinner, they saw what book Fu Sinian was reading? It's a geology book.
But at the end of the day, we know what Fu Sinian is studying. It was historiography, and he followed the father of modern German historiography, that is, Ranke, who influenced the trend of historiography in the first half of the 20th century, to learn historical materials and empirical historiography from him. So think about it, what kind of person can start with natural science, then engage in psychology, Freud, then study geology, and finally settle down in historiography?
For example, Yu Dawei also studied in Berlin, and he was originally engaged in literature and history, and later became a researcher of military industry and ballistic technology, and in the end, he even became the Minister of Defense of the Nationalist Government.
So when we see such a clip, it's easy for us to have a sigh, why are people of that era so powerful? But I find that many of us who read these books and ask why, not so much that we really want to know why, but rather that it's a sigh. That is, you see, people are so powerful, why?
We don't really want to understand the background of this era, why such an era produces such characters, and can such an era be replicated? If it can't be copied, we should objectively study why something should be copied in it, why it can't be copied, and what consequences will it cause?
And not simply saying, oops, this era has passed, there are no more masters. I think such a sentimental attitude is not necessarily very suitable for us to look at the intellectuals of the Republic of China.
▌The backbone of a generation of intellectuals
Mr. Fu Sinian
Okay, let's go back to the later to talk about Fu Sinian, Fu Sinian was in Taiwan in his later years, I remember when I was a child, I heard this Fu bell ringing at National Taiwan University, this Fu bell is every December 20, the day he died, when commemorating him, this Fu bell is of course to commemorate the president of National Taiwan University, Fu Sinian.
In his later years, Fu Sinian went to Taiwan University to become the president, and went to Taiwan with the Kuomintang.
First of all, in order to improve the quality of National Taiwan University at that time, he fired 70 professors who he thought were unqualified as soon as he came, and the requirements were very strict, and at that time we knew that Taiwan was afraid of redness, and the Communist Party was to be arrested everywhere.
Fu Sinian is anti-communist, but Fu Sinian opposes you indiscriminately saying that there is a communist party in the college or students, and you want to catch it and do it, so he scolded people in the newspaper, what did he scold?
He said that the school absolutely does not also serve as a police officer, that I am not a police officer, nor does I also act as an agent, and that if the authorities have the truth to say that someone is a communist, I will investigate and deal with it according to the law, but I must not be vague or bloody in handling this kind of thing. It can be said that he, like Fu Sinian during the "May Fourth" period, defended this position of academic freedom and the independence of the college.
At the end, in a meeting, he said that the scholarship system should not be abolished, and I sympathize with students who have good knowledge and are willing to work hard and cannot study just because they have no money. We should first solve the difficulties for our students, so that they can have a stable environment so that they can study diligently.
After saying this, he fell into anger on the spot, because he was arguing with others at the time, and as a result, he fell into anger and died soon after.
After his death, the students of National Taiwan University later went to the streets to march for him, trying to find out the person who made him so angry that he fell ill, and the incident was very big.
It can be seen that Fu Sinian was in the minds of many students and later scholars, although he felt that he was domineering, but in the end he did not insult the character of that generation of intellectuals.
The style of the intellectuals of that generation of the Republic of China is amazing, they are not only knowledgeable and talented scholars, they are also the husbands of Mencius who said, "the rich and the rich cannot be lewd, the poor and the lowly cannot be moved, and the mighty cannot be bent".
Mr. Chen Yinke has become a key cultural symbol, his works have been reprinted and reprinted again and again, his family story and legendary experience have been repeatedly disseminated, and his "independent spirit, free thought" has become a sobering motto that people have memorized.
Fu Sinian is an academic fighter who has made great contributions to the promotion and construction of the modern academic system. After his death, Tao Xisheng was saddened: "When Fu Sinian was alive, people were afraid of him, but when he died, when he encountered something to argue, he found that no one came out to fight for you." ”
The two masters with very different personalities uphold the same intellectual personality, which deserves to be remembered by all Chinese people.