Liu Jiahe: The similarities and differences in the meaning of "chronicle" in the tradition of Chinese and Western historiography

Author: Liu Jiahe

Source: "History Monthly" WeChat public account

The original article was published in the Monthly Journal of History, No. 3, 2022

Now when we conduct historical research, those who do Chinese history inevitably quote some popular foreign words; those who do foreign history, because we are Chinese ourselves, naturally use Chinese words. Such a word, sometimes everyone is saying it in the same venue. However, in fact, what the person who says in his heart and what the person who hears it feels is not necessarily the same, which will lead to some invalid situations and even cause misunderstandings.

"Chronicles" is one such example. Here "chronicle" is in quotation marks, and one would ask, does the word still need to be explained? Chinese as long as they are engaged in history, or even do not need to be historical, they can know the meaning of chronicles. Chronicles are one of the most important genres of Chinese historiography, and "Stone" talks about "six schools" and "two bodies", and the so-called "two bodies" are chronicles and chronicles, which is very clear in the eyes of Chinese. Chinese talking about chronicles and chronicles is a matter of genre, does not indicate any specific meaning, and does not negate the internal relationship between chronicles and chronicles. A certain history can be written in chronology or in a chronicle style. Ban Gu, together with his father and sister, wrote the Book of Han, a great work in the Ji Chuan style, but by the time emperor Xiandi of Han came, he felt that the Book of Han was too big, so he ordered Xun Yue to change it to the chronicle of the Han Dynasty. Why rewrite it? Because there are many special problems like "Ten Zhi" in the Book of Han, Emperor Xiandi of Han can't understand it, and he doesn't want to read it—just as many people now read the Book of Han and don't read "Ten Zhi". Emperor Xian of Han wanted to know the reasons for the rise and fall of the Western Han Dynasty, and he only wanted to know a rough idea of politics, so he switched to the chronicle, mainly to record major political events. It can be seen that although the Chinese chronicle and the jichuan style are different genres, they can be transformed into each other. In fact, the so-called Ji Chuan body, Ji Ren, Ben Ji Ye, this Ji is a chronicle, is a chronology, so the Chinese Ji Chuan itself includes a chronology. This chronicle is the outline, and then there are various topics, such as the family — of course, there is no family in the Book of Han and so on — and there are legends, and so on. Therefore, the Chinese chronicle and the chronicle are one, as long as it is conducive to the expression of history, it can be used either. And it's not just these two individuals, if it's not convenient to read, but later there is also the end of the chronicle. Therefore Chinese it is a genre that treats the chronicle as a chronicle, which is relatively clear in China.

Foreigners are different. Foreigners talk about history, which is divided into history and chronicles. Where did this start in the first place? There are many chroniclers in Rome, and what is the difference between their chronicles and the Greek Herodotus and Thucydides? History, as Herodotus and Thucydides speaks, is a history in English, and its original Meaning in Greek is inquiry, inquiry. How to explore? That is to say, what he writes must be proved by witnesses, which determines that what they write can only be contemporary history, because we cannot directly prove the past and history, and when those things happen, we are far from being born, of course, we cannot prove for future things. So in Greece, the original word "history" itself had an intrinsic meaning of contemporaneity. In the West, in addition to this kind of history, there is also the chronicle. Chronicles are generally said to be annals in English, and the root of the word comes from the Latin word for "year.". Chronicles are a general statement, and there are many kinds of them, including chronology, timelines, and so on. Not only in Greece and Rome, ancient Assyria had a king's table very early in BC, as well as various institutions such as temples and later monasteries, which are recorded according to the year. These were later called chronicles, and by the Middle Ages the Chronicles of the West were already very developed. This is the origin and development of chronicles in the West.

So are Western chronicles the same as Chinese chronicles? They are very different. Western chronicles cannot find the characteristics of Chinese chronicles. The characteristics of Chinese chronicles, such as Sima Guang's Zizhi Tongjian, can be seen, and the chronology is clearly recorded, and the Spring and Autumn Is even more so, with years, sometimes - that is, four seasons - months, dry days, and everything is strictly recorded below. Western chronicles, on the other hand, do not have such a thing. The Chronicles of the West that we see are written in the same way as their histories. Here I can give a more explicit example, which is tacitus, a historian of the early Roman Empire. Tacitus' own experience is vague, the year of birth and death is not clear, and he himself has not written it. But he wrote two big books and two small books. The two smaller books are the Germania Chronicles, which are about Germania and are not direct historical sources, and the other is the Agulikola, which is a biography of his father-in-law. The two large books are one of "History" and the other is called "Chronicle". In the middle of tacitus's writings, there is both a "history" and a "chronicle", what is the difference between the two? If you look at them in terms of the form of writing, they are the same, and the form of the record is no different from the form of Herodotus's record. The difference between Tacitus's History and the Chronicle is that the History records what he personally experienced between 69 and 96 AD, and he thinks that this is his direct experience, evidence, and living, so he wrote these as History. After writing the Historia, I will return to the beginning, from the second year of Augustus's death, which is the Chronicle. The Chronicle was written after History, but the time of content was before History, and Tacitus wrote the back and then the front. In fact, before Tacitus, many historians in Rome wrote chronicles, such as the old Gatu. But by the time of Tacitus, chronicles and histories in his writings showed a clear distinction. What the same person writes can be part history and part chronicles. Is the difference in genre? No, the genre is exactly the same. In fact, the difference is that history is Tacitus's memory of his own personal experience, which is history; before him, what his father and grandfather experienced were all chronicles. This is reminiscent of the "three worlds" in "The Ram", that is, the world seen, heard, and heard. Tacitus's "History" is equivalent to the world seen, and the "Chronicle" is equivalent to the world heard and rumored. Tacitus uses his own writings to show that Western chronicles are not a matter of jucheism, but of their view of history. Therefore, when we also use the word chronicle, we must pay attention to it, we must not think that their chronicles are like us, and the chronicles spoken of in the West may not be understood by our chronicles in the genre of year, month, and day. Tacitus, in his own practical writings, shows that history is contemporary history and chronicles are past history.

To what extent is this idea clear in the West? After that is the Croce of Italy. Croce lived long, from 1866 to 1952. He wrote a book called TheOry and Practice of Historiography, in which he devoted a special chapter to "History and Chronicles" in the theoretical section. Croce famously put forward the slogan that "all true history is contemporary history", which is familiar to everyone. Why "all true history is contemporary history" is not necessarily studied in depth by everyone, and it is not too hot a question now, but this statement is very noteworthy. Why is it said that "all true history is contemporary history"? It's about how to look at time. For example, Croce said, for example, I am writing a paper, or I am doing such a speech now, I have just started to say it until now, I have not finished, and I have to continue, then in this process, time is not a matter of how many minutes have passed for me. It seems to me that time at this time is a whole, it is all now, not that what I said at the beginning is called the past, and what I have not said now is called the future. The time in this process is linked as a whole, the "one" from the present to the present, so history is contemporary to me at this time. Croce believed that history is contemporary as long as it is spiritually linked; if it is spiritually disconnected, it is a chronicle. Even if it is a very distant ancient history, as long as it has a spiritual connection with us today, it is contemporary history. Some of them were originally historical, but over time, some things we forgot, did not know, lost contact, so living history becomes chronicles. So Croce metaphorically said that history is the living man, the chronicle is the remains of the living man, the chronicle is produced from history, it is history that has lost its spirit and lost its connection. So from living history to dead chronicles, is it possible to resurrect its spirit? It is also possible. For example, many people write the history of Greek art, originally we can not see the Greek paintings, so it can only be a chronicle with materials but no spirit, but when the Renaissance occurred, the greek spirit was resurrected at this time, then we can see the spirit of Greek art. So he said that chronicles are like fragments of broken relics that can only be viewed in the Museum of Antiquities, but it is useful to preserve them for later resurrection. So Croce wrote a special chapter on "History and Chronicles." I would like to say here in passing, he said that there is another thing called "pseudo-history", that is, false history. Fake history is to take some historical content, materials, and add a little literary color to the processing, and it becomes a thing that is not really history.

Croce interprets his own views on history and chronicles, from which it can be seen that the Western tradition is different from ours, we are talking about genre, they are talking about spiritual consistency. For China, chronicles are only a method, and in terms of understanding, Chinese talking about history is about the development situation, not about the difference between chronicles and history. Chinese talks about "changes through the past and the present", history is changing, and it is developed through the negation of continuous negation, that is, the so-called "poor change, change is general, general is long". Therefore, the Chinese nation has a long history, has undergone changes, self-innovation, and then continues to develop. This is the reason why the history of our Chinese nation can have five thousand years of civilization, which is very rare in the whole world, which shows that our historical spirit actually has a positive role and expression. In short, I want to say that we, as historical researchers, must leave a room for distinction in our minds when Chinese terms are the same as Western words, and do not mix them together, and once they are mixed together, this matter may not be easy to handle.

The author, Liu Jiahe, is a professor at the School of History, Beijing Normal University

Comments from omitted, the full version please refer to the original text.

Editor: Xiang Yu

Proofreader: Water Life

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