Abe: Salvage the Voice of the Silenced Under the Stars of the Middle Ages

The gap between time and space makes the past feel like a foreign country to the present. The process of exploring history is like a journey to a foreign land in time and space. Historians are like travelers in time and space, traveling back and forth between the modern and the past. Look for the past in the strange past, and look for the traces of the past in the familiar present. Abe Ishiya, is such a time traveler. As a historian of medieval society in the East and the West, compared with his Western counterparts, he not only had to travel through thousands of years of time, but also crossed the long space between Eastern and Western civilizations. However, it is precisely such a long and arduous historical journey that allows him to make a novel and unique interpretation of Western medieval society from the historical perspective unique to the East.

Abe also looked downwards, with a penmanship full of empathy, meticulously observing the people who were silent in history, to spy on their spiritual world, to discover the connection and communication between people. His medieval history of the West is no longer a huge oil painting rendered by war and politics, but a long scroll of Slowly Unfolding Medieval Ukiyo-e, where every commoner deserves attention and every life deserves respect. From "Under the Stars in the Middle Ages" to "The Magic Piper", from "The Universe of the Middle-Aged Untouchables" to "The Social History of the Undead". Folklore hides the sorrow, joy and bitterness of the common people for thousands of years, and the life and death and mourning of the common people are lurking in the songs and sayings day after day. Abe is also attracted by the sun, moon, and stars that shine in the long sky of history, but he sees the vast number of beings on the earth under the stars who are busy between sorrow and joy and death, and those who are silent in history should also have a glorious light of dignity that is worth writing. (Introduction: Lee Shane)

This article is from B02-B03 and B06 of the Beijing News Book Review Weekly's May 6 feature "Under the Stars in the Middle Ages: A history journey of Abe Keiya".

"Theme" B01 丨 Abe Keiya's historical journey

"Theme" B02-B03 丨 Let History Meet Reality: Abe's Historical Thoughts

"Theme" B04-B05丨 Legend also has history: history and fiction in "The Magic Piper"

"Theme" B06 丨 Reading History in Yourself: The Path of Social History of Abe Kenya

"Literature" B07 丨 Mua: From "The Horse" to the Poetry of Prometheus

"Commemoration" B08 丨 Xie Chensheng: With a century of life, to prevent the annihilation of cultural relics and monuments

Written by 丨Luan Yingxin (PhD student at the French Institute for Advanced Study of Social Sciences)

Shortly after the end of World War II, in a monastery in Japan, a child in the form of a middle school student said in Latin, "In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." After the ceremony, he was responsible for extinguishing the candles on the altar.

On his days off, he left his dorm room to meet his mother. On the way back, his mother sometimes bought him ice cream. Ice cream was cold, and my mother wrapped it in napkins. As he ate, he walked to his dormitory, and the napkin wrapped in ice cream was reluctant to throw it away, because there was a residual cream aroma on the napkin.

Everyone in the monastery, even himself, thought he would become a cleric, and he did not know that he would leave the monastery and enter the university and become a researcher of history. He is the historian Abe Who is known for his study of the social history of medieval Europe.

Why study history hundreds of years ago? As a historian, what is the relationship between historical research and real life at present? Abe also began to think about these questions from the beginning of his academic career, and he spent his life answering these questions through research, writing, and action.

Abe Is also like the american editor Haruka.

"People without a hometown"

In 1935, Abe was also born in Kanda, Tokyo. His father, Kiyotaro Abe, a native of Takamatsu, runs a bicycle factory in Hongo, Tokyo, and sells bicycles. Abe's mother, the second wife of Kiyotaro Abe, married Kiyotaro Abe at the age of 18. Abe's parents were 18 years apart, and when they married, Kiyotaro Abe already had a daughter and two sons. As a child, Abe also lived mainly in Tokyo Hongo, and sometimes went to villas in Kamakura.

After the outbreak of World War II, Abe also left Tokyo with his family and took refuge in Kamakura. At the end of the war, Kamakura was no longer safe, and Abe went to Kawagoe again. Abe was also frail, and when he was in elementary school in Kamakura, he spent a year at the nursing school for frail children before officially starting elementary school. Later, he transferred schools due to moving. In 2005, Abe also published his autobiography, in which he recalled feeling in his childhood that "it was not my current self before I looked at myself, but as if I was watching something else in another dimension."

For Abe, who was still a child, the most direct manifestation of the war was the shortage of food. In the past, his mother used to make him donuts, and during the war, even daily food was difficult to guarantee, and his mother began to cultivate land and grow vegetables such as tomatoes and eggplants. At that time, Abe also had the opportunity to return to Tokyo with his mother from time to time. In the face of food shortages, the Meiji and Morinaga sweets shops in front of Tokyo Station sell only roasted apples. In Abe's view, roasted apples at that time were simply "the delicacy of another world." Abe's family also changed. In January 1943, Akiya Abe's father died of cirrhosis. In the same year, Abe's half-brother died of tuberculosis.

After Japan's defeat, Abe returned to Tokyo with his mother. However, the house in Kanda had been burned down. At that moment, Abe also felt that he had lost his hometown and became a "person without a hometown". The good old life was gone, and Abe's mother had to start working. After his mother started working, she did not have time to take care of Abe Kenya and decided to send him to an institution that could take care of food and housing. In 1947, Abe also entered a dormitory run by a German monastery.

It was at this monastery that Abe was first exposed to European culture. He studied catechism and also the history of Europe, centered on the history of the Church. During this period, Abe was also baptized. From time to time, Abe also had the opportunity to leave the monastery and meet his mother. His mother gave him pocket money and took him to eat ice cream. However, Abe also suddenly found himself on a completely different path from his peers. "I was talking to my friends in Tokyo, and I had only studied The essentials of Catholicism, and they were already thinking about which university to apply to, and I was wondering if I had lost my way on a special path."

In 1949, Abe also decided to leave the monastery's dormitory and return to Tokyo. Relatives of Abe's relatives, who were working in similar institutions at the time, believed that such institutions could provide better food, lodging, and clothing than the average Japanese family, and did not understand why Abe should leave. Years later, Abe also wrote in his essay collection Reading History in Yourself:

"No matter how good clothes and food can be provided, institutions cannot replace families."

Cover of the Japanese edition of "Abe Keiya Autobiography".

"You can't live without studying it"

After returning to Tokyo, Abe entered Tateshii Nishi Junior High School in Ryoma-ku, where he was in the third grade. In 1950, he entered Ishijini High School (High School). Abe's mother opened a Chinese restaurant near Oizumi Gakuen, and Abe also helped deliver takeaways while studying. Botanist Tomitaro Makino lives nearby and often orders takeout from Abe's mother's shop. When Mr. Abe went to deliver food, Mr. Makino saw that he was a student, asked him what he was studying, and encouraged him to learn a foreign language seriously.

At that time, Abe was already able to read English books. At Ishijini High School, students learn a second foreign language from the second year of high school, either German or French. Abe also chose French under the persuasion of his teacher. The teacher is Professor Kenzo Mizutani of Gakushuin University. When Abe recalled this experience in his autobiography, he felt that it was a very luxurious thing for a very famous university professor to teach French to high school students every week.

When he was about to graduate from high school, Abe also listened to a lecture at the school, and he was impressed by the eloquence and style of the teacher who gave the lecture. After learning that this teacher was Professor Uehara Ofahashi University, Abe also decided to apply for Hitotsubashi University. However, Hitotsubashi University is a very difficult school to take, and Abe did not pass the examination. After falling off the list, he attended preparatory school for one year and finally got admitted the next year. "During my time in prep school, I realized that there are people in this world who are not recognized by others," he said. ”

In 1954, Abe also joined the Faculty of Economics at Hitotsubashi University. Although I was a student in the Faculty of Economics, I was very interested in history and naturally began to take a lot of history classes. It was at Hitotsubashi University that Abe realized the importance of learning a foreign language. In his sophomore year, Mr. Abe also attended a seminar by Professor Ryūo Mabuchi, who led his students to read the German edition of Max Weber's Economic History. Some students are lazy and do not read the German version, but read the Japanese translation. When Professor Zengyuan found out, he reprimanded them severely, stressing that they must read the German version. Abe's mentor, Uehara, also placed great emphasis on foreign language learning. A student instructed by Professor Uehara wanted to study Rilke, but the student did not speak German and studied it in japanese texts. When Professor Uehara heard about it, he reprimanded the student.

Under the Stars in the Middle Ages, by [Japanese] Keiya Abe, Edition: Life, Reading, Shinchi Triptych Bookstore, 2011-2

Uehara's attitude toward research profoundly influenced Abe's academic career. In his second year of college, Mr. Abe also wanted to attend Uehara's seminar. In order to obtain permission, Abe also went to Uehara's house. At that time, Uehara was in a meeting with several scholars at home, and he introduced Abe to all the scholars present. Abe also saw an equal attitude in Uehara-sensei, and some high-ranking scholars believe that second-year undergraduate students are equal to other students. In his autobiography, Abe recalls a visit to Uehara's teacher's house, which he felt changed his life. Abe also obtained the consent of Uehara's teacher and entered Uehara's seminar to begin studying history.

Professor Uehara was very strict, and before listening to his seminar, he needed to write a ten-page report in German explaining why he wanted to join the seminar. Abe had only studied English and French at the time, so he asked Professor Uehara if he could write the report in French. Professor Uehara agreed. After that, Abe also began to learn German. In order to study medieval history, he began to study Latin again. At that time, Hitotsubashi University did not have a teacher who taught Latin, and the teacher of Latin class was hired externally. Yuji Omura of the "Athénée Fran ais" language school (Athénée Fran ais) opened classes at Hitotsubashi University. At the beginning of the class, there were about 20 people in the class, but the number gradually decreased, and sometimes there was only one person in the class. Yuji Omura sometimes takes Mr. Abe to classes at a café near the station, inviting him to eat cake and coffee.

At this stage of the seminar, Abe also faced a major challenge in choosing a topic for his graduation thesis. At that time he was very interested in the Roman Empire, also interested in the question of Japan, and interested in the monasteries of the European Middle Ages. How exactly do you distill the topic of the paper from these interests? Uehara had neither affirmation nor objection to Abe's interests, but told him, "You can choose any problem to study, but you must find a subject that you will not be able to live if you do not study it." The experience of living in a dormitory attached to the monastery deeply influenced Abe, and in the end, he chose the Teutonic Knights (known in Japanese as the "Knights' Order") as the subject of his graduation thesis.

Illustrations in the Duke of Bailey's Book of Prayer show the aristocratic feasts and wars.

After becoming a teacher, Abe also told his students this sentence of Uehara's words. Jun Ito, who is currently the priest of the Diocese of Tokyo, Japan, studied at Hitotsubashi University and attended a seminar at Kenya Abe. Jun Ito said that he had heard Abe say this many times. Abe also believes that Uehara is one of the few scholars who unifies his approach to research. As Uehara said, "The so-called understanding of a thing is because I understand that thing, and I have changed myself." "Knowledge that has an impact on oneself is knowledge that is understood."

It was because of Uehara's words that Abe began to think about the significance of the study. In the European Middle Ages, there were hundreds of years apart in time, and geographically, Germany and Japan were also very far apart. Abe's research doesn't seem to have anything to do with the real life he's living. "What is the point of research? I doubt this. Writing papers that have nothing to do with the life I'm experiencing also makes me suspicious. "I've been asking myself what it was like to study medieval Europe at a time when the situation in my country and the world has changed so dramatically." ”

Later, Abe also read the German historian Hermann Heimpel's "Man and Its Present" and found the answer to the question in his heart. At that time, Uehara took students to read Hempel's articles in the seminar, and it was because of this seminar that Abe knew Hempel. After reading and thinking, Abe also realized that the lower layer of the present we live in actually contains the past, which can be seen in language, habits, food, etc. Many aspects of the present have relics from the past. The dead live in the present in another way. Hempel's book also had a great influence on Abe, who later translated it into Japanese.

Painted on the front and back of The Erection of a Married Couple, circa 1470, artists of the late Middle Ages liked to show the impermanence of life and death in this contrasting way, and even Shaohua's face and sweet love would eventually be turned into emptiness by death.

Let the silent people of history give voice

Abe has also found a connection between academic research and real life. History and the present are not disconnected, but closely linked. Now contain traces from the past that may not be so obvious and may be ignored if not observed, without thinking. People hundreds of years ago were not the same as people today, but there are still commonalities between the two. Studying how people lived in history allows us to see how people have gone from the past to the present.

War, food shortages, loss of old homes, failed entrance examinations, financial constraints... Abe's upbringing profoundly influenced his research orientation. He focuses on people in history, seeing people in history as individuals rather than numbers, especially the common and marginalized. As Abe also wrote in The Flower-Clothed Piper, "Man is not an animal that can live with a house, food, and a natural environment. What matters is the relationship between these things, the natural environment, the objects, and themselves, and this relationship constitutes the world. ”

Illustrations in the Book of The Time of the Duke of Bailey show the farmers working hard in the manor house of the castle.

Therefore, in historical research, Abe also pays attention to how people in history lived specifically, pays attention to the connections between people, and pays attention to people's emotions and concepts. He embarked on the path of studying the history of society and the history of mentality. Abe's "field" was a German city in the late Middle Ages. In this context, he focuses on how people in cities live, how they work, and how they connect. He is very concerned about groups that have not been paid attention to before, such as children, women, and Dalits. Using the confrérie in Hamburg as an incision, Abe also studied the connections between people in medieval cities, observing how people crossed professional, geographical and blood relations, using religion as a link and through fraternal groups. In the Medieval Brotherhood, members helped each other, and if any member was going on a pilgrimage, sick, dead, etc., the other members would help the person. Brotherhoods often chose a monastery or church to set up altars and ask religious figures to help pray for deceased members of the brotherhood.

The 13th century was also the century in which the belief in purgatory began to emerge and spread widely, and people's perceptions of death also changed. Abe also began to study the brotherhood, and soon realized this, and he began to study the change in the concept of death in the Middle Ages. He believes that the medieval concept of life and death had a great influence on modern Western European society. By reading the wills of Lübeck and Hamburg, Abe also believes that the "gift to the world" embodied in these wills is one of the testimonies of the transition from gift relations to monetary economy in the middle of the Middle Ages.

The "Grim Reaper" in the Visconti Tarot card, designed by the 15th-century artist Bonifacio Bambo for the Duke of Milan Visconti, this card shows that in the face of death, it is difficult for both the royal nobles and the common people to escape, and death makes everyone equal.

It is not an easy task to study what kind of life and mentality ordinary people in the middle of the century live. Because there is no historical data that directly answers these questions. Abe also believes that there are a large number of silent people behind the medieval history of Europe. In order to study these people who have not been noticed before, we must first change our attitude towards historical materials, and we must not only look at the works of famous chroniclers, because these famous chroniclers only pay attention to major events at the national level, and rarely record famines, abnormal weather, and poor harvests related to the lives of ordinary people. Abe also advocated paying attention to the regional chronicles written by the unknown monks. As Sharon Farmer, an American historian who studies poverty in medieval Paris, puts it: "Medieval writing was controlled by the elite, and what they wrote determined which aspects of the lives of the poor would be passed on to future generations." The things we want to know about the poor in medieval Paris have been taken to the grave by them. Catherine Vincent, a French historian who studied the medieval Brotherhood, wrote: "People say that honest people have no history, and the poor have not written their own history." ”

In order to find traces of these ordinary people, Abe also paid attention to popular novels, paintings, ceremonial materials, wills... The legend of the Flower Flute Bearer opened up the train of Abe, and many texts that were not previously considered historical materials were actually historical materials. By studying the history behind the story of the Flower-Clad Piper, Abe also noticed the wandering musicians. In the 13th century, wandering musicians were untouchables. As a result, Abe also began to pay attention to the medieval Untouchable community. He believes that contempt is not the same as contempt, that contempt is neither contempt, and that contempt contains a feeling of fear. Criminals, gravediggers, public bath operators, surgeons, chimney sweepers... In the late Middle Ages they were all considered untouchables.

The 16th-century Dutch painter Bosch's Tricks of the Beggar.

Abe also attaches great importance to the boring story of Tyre Earl Erlen Spiegel. It is a popular novel printed around 1510-1511, and its protagonist, Tyre Earl Ören Spiegel, is a pariah. The novel tells the story of Erren Spiegel's mischief in dealing with people from all walks of life, and Abe believes that the novel vividly reflects the mentality of the people in the 15th and 16th centuries, especially the attitude towards the Untouchables. Abe not only used this popular novel as a historical material in his research, but also told the interesting plot of this novel in newspaper articles. He also translated the novel into Japanese (published by Iwanami Shoten in 1990).

Abe also pays attention not only to the living conditions of these marginalized people, but also to the social constructs that produce contempt. After The Flower-Clad Piper, Abe also wrote The Social History of The Criminals: The Life of the Common people in medieval Europe and Crime and Punishment in the Middle Ages: A Social History of the Dead, arguing that medieval contempt arose in the 13th and 14th centuries. In these two centuries, due to the widespread spread of Christianity, especially the popularization of the belief in purgatory, people's views on the world, life and death, have undergone tremendous changes, and it is in this context that contempt has been formed.

Abe's "Crime and Punishment in the Western Middle Ages: A Social History of the Dead" is covered in the original Japanese edition.

"In Europe, the historical existence of dalits is quite extensive, and when I excavate these in terms of regions one by one and study them, I have also re-examined the society of the modern and modern European society as a whole."

Abe also began his research on the social and psychological history of medieval Europe, using the Untouchables as a starting point. This focus on everyday life and ordinary people seems very much like the research orientation of the French School of Almanacs, but according to the recollections of Jun Ito, a student of Abe Kenya, Abe was often asked if he belonged to the Annals school, and he always replied no.

As Abe also wrote in the epilogue to "Reading History in Yourself":

"It seems to me that the basic lines of my research are all questions that arise from within myself. Later, I began to think about how I was going to understand my relationship with my surroundings, how I was going to act in that relationship, and from this reflection, my research extended to the Middle Ages in Europe. ”

Fate gave him tribulations and prompted him to think, and the extension of these thoughts profoundly influenced his research.

In Japan, Abe is also known as the first person to study Western social history. In Japanese historiography, the term "social history" can be used as early as 1922, when the journal "Ethnicities and History" was renamed "Social History Studies". However, what we now mean by "social history" emerged in Japan in the 1970s. Social history advocates an interdisciplinary perspective on history, using new historical sources that were previously not noticed by scholars, and focusing on groups that were previously not noticed. Abe also believes that social history occupies a very important place in the study of history, and advocates the emphasis on daily life and mentality. "European social history cannot grasp its core through the accumulation of legal history, political history, economic history, etc., but can begin to touch its essence by approaching the daily life of the people and the world of thinking." Abe not only conducted his own research from the perspective of social history, but also promoted the research direction of Japanese historians. In 1982, Abe also co-founded the journal Social History Research with Shunzo Kawada, Hiroyuki Ninomiya, and Rishi rishi.

At that time, the representative social history researcher in the field of Medieval History in Japan was Yoshihiko Unino, and the representative social history researcher in the field of European medieval history was Kenya Abe. After studying in Germany and returning to Japan, Abe began to be interested in marginalized people in Japanese history, and began to pay attention to the current discriminated groups in Japan, and gave speeches on the subject many times. As a scholar of medieval European history, Abe was not limited by his own field of study, but actively engaged in dialogue with scholars in other fields. Mr. Abe has also spoken to Yoshihiko Ueno on several occasions, discussing and contrasting the Middle Ages in Japan and the Middle Ages in Western Europe. The two scholars also published a transcript of their conversations and wrote several books together.

The Boring Tale of Tyre Ehren Spiegel. It is a shumin novel printed around 1510 and 1511, and Abe also translated the novel into Japanese (published by Iwanami Shoten in 1990).

Discover traces of history that have survived to this day

His reflections on the relationship between history and reality not only influenced Abe's historical research, but also prompted him to begin non-scholarly writing. Since 1975, Abe has also published articles in newspapers such as the Hokkaido Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and Literary Circles, which were later included in Under the Stars in the Middle Ages (translated by Li Yuman and Chen Xianruo, Life, Reading, and Shinchi Triptych Bookstore, 2011). If "The Magic Flute Bearer," as Abe says, is "a small flower that blooms in my research life that I never thought of," then these newspaper articles published outside academic journals are also small flowers. Abe also starts from the observations and reflections in his current life, introduces his research results in clear and understandable language, and tells the connection between his research and the present.

When he studied in Germany, Abe paid close attention to the differences between German society and Japanese society. He found that the same is the case for buying oil, and the tax rate on oil used in heating homes in Germany is much lower than that of large companies, while the opposite is true in Japan. One summer, the postman who had been delivering letters to Abe had not been here for a while, and he thought the postman had retired. At the end of August, the postman reappeared, tanned. It turned out to be a vacation to the island. In Japan at that time, taking a vacation was a difficult thing to imagine. Abe asked himself, "How did these habits or rules, which are completely different from those of the mainland, come about?" As one of the researchers of European history, I always wonder if I can explain these memorable experiences from a historical point of view. Faced with these questions from everyday life today, Abe has also found answers in the process of studying daily life in history.

Bruegel's humorous painting "The Donkeys of the School".

The average consumer is taxed at a lower rate than bulk buyers when shopping, and the tradition of consumer priority dates back to medieval European cities. Abe also believes that the principle of consumer priority is one of the embodiments of European civic consciousness, and the modern European civic consciousness comes from the civic consciousness that sprouted in the cities that emerged in the 12th and 13th centuries. The development of commerce gradually made the location of the market a settlement place for merchants, who in the process of struggle, confrontation and compromise with the lords, gained independent living space, and the identity of the citizen was born. "The so-called civic consciousness is the expression of the consciousness of life cultivated in the medieval urban space." Abe also believed that the civic life of the medieval cities was organized around the organization of the same trade, "the principle of the organization of the industry is to exclude all types of competition, to avoid the situation of the strong dominating the weak, and the rich dominating the capital poor." "When buying the same item, in order to avoid competition, there is a consumer priority principle. The principle behind the lower tax rate observed by ordinary consumers when studying in Germany can be traced back to the market rules of medieval cities.

Abe also saw from the postman who went on vacation in the summer the efforts of medieval laborers to fight for leave. Craftsmen in the Middle Ages worked for a long time, and although Sundays were closed, because Sundays were designated as holy days, craftsmen were not allowed to assemble. To this end, the craftsmen advocated a Monday vacation and continued to fight for it. Monday's day off was then known as "Blue Monday." On this day, the craftsmen gather to eat and drink together in the same industry organization. Some craftsmen will go to the bathhouse on this day. Abe also believes that craftsmen strive for "Blue Monday" not only to shorten the working hours, but also to pursue free time and enjoy life. The rest days and holidays enjoyed by modern workers did not appear out of thin air, and the workers of the Middle Ages were already fighting for more rest days.

Keiya Abe, "The Universe of the Medieval Untouchables", original Japanese book cover.

"Words are gifts from the past"

Abe's articles also written in the press were born out of his historical research. In these seemingly light and simple articles, Abe still mentions or cites the historical materials he reads in his research. When he refers to a phenomenon, he always says in detail what era and which region the phenomenon occurred in. The areas he mentioned in his scholarly and newspaper articles were consistent, namely the cities of medieval Germany, especially Hamburg, Lüneburg, Frankfurt... It can be seen that the articles that Abe also wrote in the press are closely related to his academic research.

Abe also described in detail the daily life of medieval people, especially the mentality of the people at that time. In his writing, the people of the Middle Ages are no longer distant and strange, but have a close connection with us in the present. The path taken by people of the past has shaped the present, and life in the present preserves traces from the past.

In these articles, Abe also discusses not only the relationship between people in the Middle Ages, but also the relationship between people and things. He believes: "The different modes of getting along between people come from their different cultural roots, and thus produce cultural characteristics. Moreover, the relationship between people is established by the relationship between the object as the medium, and the relationship formed by the entanglement invisible to the naked eye. In this respect, he was deeply influenced by anthropology and folklore. He pays attention to medieval bridges, churches, bells... Abe was also deeply influenced by Moss, who was very concerned with mutual remuneration, not only the act of giving gifts between people, but also the donations of people to the church in the Middle Ages. In addition, he pays attention to the relationship between humans and animals, such as the relationship between humans and dogs and wolves.

Abe is also very sensitive to language. He argues: "Words are gifts from the past. If you try to find the original meaning of words, there are actually many words that have been handed down from very ancient times. We didn't care about that at all, we just used those words. The example he gave many times was "borrowing a fire." People who want to smoke can naturally borrow fires from other people if they don't have matches or lighters. The other person will easily lend out the fire without saying, "You can give it back to me later." Abe also believes that the act of borrowing fire is so natural, "because fire has been something that all human beings have shared since ancient times, and we can also see in this small action of daily life that the pattern of ancient interpersonal relations still exists in modern life." "I had never thought about it until Abe made this point as well. In the Chinese, it is also said to "borrow a fire". In the face of fire, people who speak different languages use the same verb.

Abe has also translated many books, in addition to the aforementioned "Humanity and Its Present" and "The Boring Story of Tyre Earl Erren Spiegel", he has also translated books such as "The Loneliness and Freedom of the University: The Ideas and Forms of German University Reform", "The Social History of Prostitutes in the Middle Ages", and "Women in medieval Europe". The translations he makes are closely linked to his research, writing, and actions. Of the translation, he wrote: "When translating foreign Chinese into Japanese, I am often saddened that I can't find words with exactly the same meaning as the original. Japanese is one of the reasons why the performance of the Japanese language is both colorful and delicate, but there are also reasons why the language behaves in a completely different way. In this case, in addition to the difficulties of translation, there are also difficulties in understanding foreign countries, and it can be a good opportunity to rethink the meaning of our Japanese behavior. ”

Akira Abe (fourth from left) with the students.

When Abe was in college, his teachers, Uehara Andrao Uehara, and Ryūo Masouchi attached great importance to foreign language learning. Under their influence and encouragement, Abe also learned German and Latin during his university years. After Abe became a teacher, he was equally strict with his students. Abe's student, Noriko Hansai, a scholar of medieval Nordic history, recalls that Abe's seminars were difficult, and she had to read articles in German or French every week, and it was intensive. Abe not only asks his students to learn foreign languages, but also shares his experience in learning foreign languages with ordinary readers. In 1992, Abe also edited a book on the law of foreign language learning, entitled "My Foreign Language Learning Law" ("Private Foreign Language Cultivation Method"). In the book, 17 scholars describe their own methods of learning foreign languages.

In 1976, Abe was also a professor at Tokyo University of Economics. In 1979, Mr. Abe returned to his alma mater, Hitotsubashi University, as a professor at the Faculty of Sociology. In 1992, Abe was also appointed president of Hitotsubashi University. He retired in 1998 and became an honorary professor at Hitotsubashi University. In addition, he was president of the National Association of Universities of Japan and participated in the reform of universities in Japan. In 2006, Abe also died in Tokyo at the age of 71.

The reason why we can learn more about Abe's life experience, especially his thought journey as a researcher, is because Abe has also written many articles about his personal experiences. In 2002, Shinchosha's magazine "Thinking Man" ("Kao える人") was launched, and from its inaugural issue to the summer issue of 2004, Abe also serialized it in the magazine, writing a total of 9 articles. In 2005, these nine articles were put together to form the Autobiography of Abe Kenya ("Abe Shōya's Autobiography"). In addition, Abe also published a collection of essays entitled "Reading History in Yourself" ("自分のなかに歴史をよむ"). He believes that this kind of writing is "deeply excavated within oneself", from a historical point of view, to treat his life as a historical material, "try to salvage himself". In these two books, Abe also writes about his childhood experiences, telling the story of his continuous learning and thinking on the way to becoming a researcher of history. He not only studies medieval history, but also pays attention to the present, and the ultimate in this thinking about the relationship between history and reality is to read history in himself, take life experience as historical materials, and think about his own life. It is precisely because Abe also wrote these words that we have the opportunity to understand his life as a scholar and as a human being in more comprehensive and detail.

What does historical research have to do with real life? Through reading, thinking, writing, and acting, Abe has also spent his life answering this question.