Guobo, in the name of the country, guards and inherits the Chinese civilization. And Guobo's own memory of 100 years is hidden in the hearts of Guobo people. In their view, whether it is the narrow house temporarily placed in the Guozijian, or the majestic temple that moved to the Noon Gate of the Forbidden City, or the magnificent new museum that now stands on the east side of Tiananmen Square, the ups and downs and development of the National Expo have always been closely related to the country's reform and development.
On the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the founding of the National Expo, General Secretary Xi Jinping replied to 10 veteran experts such as Qi Jixiang, saying, "I have visited the National Museum many times and left a deep impression. As we all know, Xi Jinping first proposed the "Chinese Dream" in a speech he made during a visit to the "Road to Rejuvenation" exhibition.
The National Expo is like this, telling history and witnessing new history.
The "Ge Libo" under construction.
Guozijian Liuli Arch.
Cai Yuanpei was created, and Lu Xun chose the site
Cai Yuanpei worked as a museum docent, but not in China, but in Germany.
In 1907, Cai Yuanpei went abroad for the first time and studied at the Institute of Civilization history and world history at the University of Leipzig. His ethnology teacher, Fu Lai, who happened to be the director of the Leipzig Folk Museum, often asked Cai Yuanpei to explain Chinese cultural relics for the librarians.
At that time, in China, there was only a private collection, and there was no public exhibition, but in Germany, people could appreciate Chinese treasures in the palace. In this regard, Cai Yuanpei's mood is probably quite similar to That of Kang Youwei: "The continent is so large that it has been called civilization for thousands of years, and there is no museum to enlighten the people's wisdom." Whenever Europeans and Americans ask about the affairs of our country's museums, they are red-faced, and the great shame and humiliation are not worse than this. ”
After the Xinhai Revolution, Cai Yuanpei returned to China to serve as the first chief of education of the Republic of China, proposing to incorporate social education into the management and construction of the country. In addition, the Department of Social Education under the Ministry of Education is in charge of museums, zoological and botanical gardens, art galleries, art exhibitions, surveys and collection of antiquities.
In April 1912, the Provisional Government moved to Beijing. Cai Yuanpei thought that "the capital of Beijing, the four sides are zhan, the cultural relics canon, can not be abolished", so he prepared to set up China's first national museum in Beijing , the National Museum of History. This is also the predecessor of Guobo.
Zhou Shuren (Lu Xun) is the chief of the first section of the Department of Social Education, responsible for the exploration of the site of the museum, And Lu Xun's diary records the selection of the site of the museum: "In the afternoon, I inspected the Guozijian and the Xuegong, and saw the Ten Matters of Bronze Ware and the Stone Drum Text..."
Guozijian, founded in the Yuan Dynasty, is the highest institution of learning in ancient times, and there are buildings such as Peiyong and Yilun Hall, all of which are related to canonical learning. On July 9, the "Preparatory Office of the National Museum of History" was established in Guozijian, with a total of 210 houses and 304 and a half houses attached to the northeast corner of the department.
Guozijian's 57,127 cultural relics, such as ceremonial vessels, book plates, and stone carvings, became the first collection of Libo. Important cultural relics mainly include Zhou Dynasty Yi ware, including Zhao Zhongqi (fǔ), KangHouding, Neiyan Ji (yǒu), Su Wash, Lei Wen Yao (gū), Yi Shou Wei (léi), Viscount, Shi Wang, Zhen Zun, and Lei Wen Jug, a total of ten pieces.
For the National Museum of History of an ancient civilization, such a family foundation is really shabby. However, under Cai Yuanpei's decisive decision-making and Lu Xun's full operation, it was not easy to go from deliberation and investigation to the stage of making decisions and implementing in less than two months.
Unable to tolerate Yuan Shikai, the day after the establishment of the Preparatory Office, Cai Yuanpei resigned indignantly at the temporary education conference he presided over. In the chaos of Beiyang, the National Museum of History is only a cover for civilization after all. Because of this, "the collection of historical museums, the addition of European-style museum buildings, the manufacture of display utensils, and all kinds of expansion plans have been carried out with funds and have not been carried out on a large scale."
At the time of "holding on to the crippled and guarding the deficiencies", the collection and sorting out of cultural relics has become the first priority. The Preparatory Office received cultural relics left by the Qing Dynasty Military Aircraft Department, such as the jade seal of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the "Kunyu Wanguo Quantu" drawn by the missionary Matteo Ricci, and the Ming Dynasty acupuncture bronze man of the Qing Dynasty Tai Hospital. The Ming and Qing archives of the Qing Dynasty Cabinet Treasury, the engravings of the Qing Dynasty engraved and printed books, and some torture equipment, weapons and other items from the Qing Dynasty Punishment Department Yamen were also included in the collection.
In 1917, due to the remote location of the Guozijian and the lack of heating, the Preparatory Office moved into the Duanmen to noon gate in the front of the Forbidden City and its court room. Although the office conditions here are simple, they stand high above the towers of the Forbidden City, which is enough to show the world the end of China's feudal monarchy and the founding of a multi-ethnic republic.
The allocated Ouchi archives were also moved to the room outside the noon gate, and these archives were packed into more than 8,000 sacks and piled up in a messy pile at the end door opening. Some workers often casually dump these priceless treasures on the ground and exchange sacks for money.
In 1921, the Beiyang government was financially embarrassed and it was difficult to pay wages, and the government department had to raise funds to maintain its expenditure. At that time, the Ministry of Education sold the contents of these sacks as waste paper to a paper shop in Xidan for 40 catties per silver dollar. The store purchased about 150,000 kilograms of "waste paper", some of which flowed into the ancient book market and the rest was sent to the paper mill. Later, the Beiyang government's finances improved, and it planned to recover these archives, but at this time, the remaining of these cultural relics was only one-fifth of the original.
Lu Xun wrote about this matter as "On the So-Called "Great Inner Archives", lamenting that "China's public things are really not easy to preserve." If the authorities are laymen, he will spoil the things, and if he is an insider, he will steal the things. And it's not just books or antiques. ”
While scolding, he silently worked hard for the history museum. The diary shows that from April 17 to May 12, 1920, Lu Xun had 14 afternoons at noon. According to Zhang Wenxun of the History Museum, after the European War, the Ministry of Education confiscated the books of the Shanghai Deqiao Club, transported them to Beijing, placed them in the Xiyan Wing Building, and sent 8 experts to sort them out separately, including Lu Xun.
In 1913, for the first time, under the name of the National Museum of History, some cultural relics were sent to Germany for exhibition. Before the transfer, the cultural relics were temporarily placed in the Ministry of Education, and Lu Xun stayed in the office for safety for one night until XiaoFang rested.
From 1912 to 1926, for 15 years, Lu Xun devoted great enthusiasm to the preparation of Libo, and also donated Ming Dynasty bronze mirrors, blue and white Shouzi porcelain bowls, etc., but until he went to Xiamen to teach, he could not wait for the official opening of the museum.
In the face of turmoil, the National Museum of History took 14 years to prepare, and it was not officially opened until October 10, 1926. The opening fund of 10,000 yuan is still led by Stuart Layden and sponsored by the Hall Foundation of the United States.
This exhibition, only 10 showrooms were opened, and it was held only in the autumn for one month, but the total number of visitors reached 185714, and the average number of daily visitors reached 6404, which is equivalent to one for every ten Beijingers.
After 1928, the capital moved south, and the history museum changed its name several times, becoming more and more difficult. During the stagnation period, the museum still insisted on running periodicals, holding lectures, and holding some small thematic exhibitions, with a collection of more than 210,000 pieces.
After the "918" incident, the situation in North China was critical. The museum specially organized a series of exhibitions such as "Exhibition of Ancient Firearms", "Exhibition of Relics and Historical Materials of Hong Chengzuo", "Exhibition of Relics of the Yuanmingyuan", "Exhibition of Historical Materials of the Ming Dynasty", etc., to use ancient irony to enlighten the people's wisdom.
In order to avoid the loss of national cultural relics, more than 10,000 treasures of Libo and the national treasures of the Forbidden City embarked on a difficult road of southward migration. In 1935, Cai Yuanpei proposed to build a home for these displaced cultural relics, and also held a museum architectural design competition for this purpose. In The charter drawn up by Liang Sicheng, the entries "must fully adopt Chinese-style architecture", and finally Xu Jingzhi's design of the large roof was selected. In the era of salvation, this plan is pinned on expectations, but it is ultimately a paper cake.
In the end, only a small number of Libo fine products returned to Beiping, and most of the fine products were transported to Taiwan by Chiang Kai-shek, such as the Zhou Dynasty Yi ware of the Guozijian. More than 200,000 pieces of the collection, which were not moved south, were plundered during the Japanese occupation period.
The National Museum of History took 14 years to prepare, and it did not officially open until October 10, 1926.
Shen Congwen explained, Mao Zedong watched the exhibition
A series of blows have made the country's earliest public museum almost scattered. The curator, Han Shouxuan, complained that the administrative fee allocated was not enough to buy stamps, and there were only 9 employees left in the museum.
In May 1948, Wang Zengqi was introduced by Shen Congwen to the History Museum as a clerk, responsible for keeping the warehouse and writing instruction cards for the collection, without a fixed salary.
In his eyes, the historical museum at that time was very large, the collection was not much, and the cultural relics were not systematic. His dormitory is next to the right gate, which is said to be the place where the former Jinyi Guard was staying. At night, Tiananmen, the end gate, and the left and right tuck doors were all closed. The Forbidden City was afraid of fire and did not install electric lights, Wang Zengqi had to walk out of the door in a dark, "looking up at the sky full of stars, I think the whole world is cold, just here I am a little hot."
Probably unable to stand this kind of idle and low days, soon after the liberation of Peiping, Wang Zengqi joined the Siye Work Group and went south with the army. The Historical Museum was taken over by the Cultural Council and incorporated into the new Chinese cultural system.
Wang Zengqi felt cold, bid farewell to the noon gate, and introduced Shen Congwen to come here, but from August 1949, he was transferred from Peking University to the History Museum. In the past 30 years, Shen Congwen's life has also been divided into two distinct segments: literary creation and cultural relics research.
For this transfer, Shen Congwen's wife Zhang Zhaohe once recalled: Han Shouxuan was the director of the Peking University Museum Department at that time, and Congwen went to help and donated a lot of things to the exhibition hall. Naturally, I turned to the field of cultural relics and stopped teaching at Peking University.
According to outside legends, Shen Congwen was "sealed" after being publicly criticized by Guo Moruo, but Shen Congwen took the initiative to refute the rumors, saying that my "purpose is very far away" and that I want to "take a brand-new road" and carry out an "academic revolution."
In the first ten years of the museum, Shen Congwen, in addition to miscellaneous, appraisal, and collection of cultural relics, often volunteered to work as a narrator on the noon gate. He does not pick people, even the old lady is seriously received, and he is even more talkative about people who need relevant knowledge. Worried that others would not be able to hear his Xiangxi accent, after speaking, he asked them to leave an address and write a long letter of more than a dozen pages to send.
To Wu Han, then vice mayor of Beijing, Shen Congwen hid when he saw it. The museum scolded him, "Why did you come halfway and run away again?" Shen Congwen had no choice but to say, "I am afraid that he will treat me respectfully and respectfully—when you see him bowing, he will bow as well." At this time, everyone knew that when Wu Han was studying at a Chinese public school, he was Shen Congwen's student and love enemy.
In 1951, Chang Shuhong took many Dunhuang facsimiles to exhibit at the Noon Gate, and Shen Congwen went every day. When Wang Zengqi saw the scene of the teacher explaining to the audience, he could not help but sigh and sigh: "From a university professor to a docent, Mr. Shen did not feel that there was any 'loss of share'. He was not only happy with himself, he was simply happy. It's just that acquaintances see him explaining, and their hearts are always a little sad. ”
Shen Congwen cherished the "miserableness" in the eyes of others, believing that this was the "only opportunity to meet with the people", and all his research was promoted in the work of "explainers".
What is even more legendary is that in the "about 300,000 spectators" received, Shen Congwen met Wang Xu, a volunteer soldier. In July 1953, Wang Xu went to Beijing on a business trip, and in front of the bronze mirror display cabinet of the History Museum, Shen Congwen gave him a lecture alone for two or three hours. The two of them made an appointment to come back the next day, and it went on for a week.
Thirty years later, Wang Xu became Shen Congwen's last and most powerful assistant, the successor to the supplementary work of the Study of Ancient Chinese Costumes, and the editor of the Complete Works of Shen Congwen.
After sending off the visitors, Shen Congwen often stood alone at the head of the Noon Gate City, looking at the twilight city of Beijing. Although he was far away from the literary circle and was also snubbed in the literary circle, he found a new value in the cultural relics pile.
Without an office, he used the antiquities warehouse as his research place; When he saw the good things, he tried to buy them back, even if he first advanced the money and then handed them to the museum; In order to study ancient costumes, Shen Congwenguang's cards were filled with dozens of drawers; This is true of clothing, and it is also true of jade, bronze, bamboo, lacquer, painting, paper. In a letter to the curator, he said that these accumulations were "all for the development of the only historical museum facing the whole country and facing the whole world."
After 30 years of tenacious work, "Studies on Ancient Chinese Costumes" was finally published in 1981. This is also due to Premier Zhou Enlai's wish many years ago: to produce a clothing atlas as a diplomatic state gift.
Shen Congwen concluded in his later years: "In the drastic changes in China in the past three decades, I have adapted to the new environment... Live a healthy life! ”
If the most famous docent in the noon period was Shen Congwen, then the most famous audience is Mao Zedong.
Archives show that Mao Zedong climbed the walls of the Forbidden City three times in four days in April 1954, twice, all of which were visited the History Museum.
After the founding of New China, large-scale civil engineering construction was carried out, and precious cultural relics were also published one after another. Accompanied by Chen Shutong and Luo Ruiqing, Mao Zedong visited the "Exhibition of Cultural Relics Unearthed in the National Capital Construction Project" twice.
Geng Zongren, an expert on cultural relics, was responsible for explaining to Mao Zedong, and he often told his descendants about what he had seen in the reception:
That afternoon, Chairman Mao, dressed in a gray Zhongshan suit, with cloth shoes on his feet and a bamboo pole in his hand, climbed up the steps along the horse road and walked more than a hundred narrow and steep steps in one breath.
In front of the progress hall, he saw some tender green wild alfalfa growing in the weeds near the city tower, so he squatted down and picked a handful, took out a handkerchief and wrapped it up, said to the guards, and brought it back to eat.
Halfway through the visit, the guards were afraid that Chairman Mao was tired and suggested that they take a cigarette and take a break. Chairman Mao waved his hand and said, "You didn't see that sign that says 'No smoking.'" ”
Mao Zedong was very interested in each exhibit, and the portrait stone unearthed in Yinan, Shandong Province, had acrobatic patterns on it, and the chairman also danced with a cane, and said: "This is our acrobatic troupe of the Han Dynasty." ”
The exhibition alone attracted 170,000 visitors. In March 1958, Vice Minister of Culture Zheng Zhenduo praised: "The History Museum is in front of the noon gate, and the Kuomintang period is gray and slippery, and only three or five people visit it a day." In the past few years, the progress has been great and rapid. ”
Premier Zhou Enlai examines drawings from the Museum of Revolutionary History in Zhongnanhai.
Inspired by Li Dazhao, Wang Yeqiu was created
For the general audience, "National Expo" is a concept that only existed after 2011, so there is also the term "New National Expo". Before the renovation and expansion, the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution were affectionately called "Ge Libo".
Li Bo originated in the Republic of China, so how did Ge Bo come from? This has to start with Gebo's Collection 0001.
On April 28, 1927, Li Dazhao and 19 other revolutionaries were secretly hanged by the warlord Zhang Zuolin in the Jingshi Detention Center in Xijiaomin Lane, Beijing. Li Dazhao was the first to board the gallows at the age of 38.
In order to torture Li Dazhao and others, Zhang Zuolin deliberately imported an advanced gallows from Germany. Because the torture device was newly bought, Li Dazhao was the first to die generously, and the executioner took Li Dazhao to "test his hand."
Later, the comrades who died later took about 20 minutes, but Li Dazhao took 40 minutes. When Li Dazhao was about to suffocate, the executioner picked him up and untied the rope. When he wakes up, he is advised to "repent."
Li Dazhao said angrily: "Hang me, my soul will not die, the revolution will not die!" The executioner put Li Dazhao on the rope again. When Li Dazhao's body was hanging in the air and about to suffocate, the enemy put him down again, trying to make him submit. Li Dazhao still sneered and said, "Strive to do it quickly!" The executioner saw that he could not shake Li Dazhao's will, so he hung him up for the third time...
Wang Yeqiu joined the party as a teenager, and Li Dazhao was hiding in the Biyun Temple in Xiangshan when he was righteous. The little Bolsheviks saw the pictures of the executions in the newspapers and were eager to avenge Li Dazhao, but because of their hasty actions, they made sacrifices. After that, Wang Yeqiu fought on the hidden front for many years, and finally ushered in the day of returning to Beiping.
At the end of 1948, on a clay kang in Liangxiang, Wang Yeqiu convened everyone to discuss the takeover of the Beiping cultural institution, and talked about this unforgettable matter: "After entering the city, we must find this counter-revolutionary torture instrument and display it to reproduce the tragic scene and let people know that the revolution is not easy to come by." ”
In March 1949, when he was taking over the work, Wang Yeqiu called Yu Jian and went to find the gallows together. The two rode their bicycles to the court detention center behind the Justice Department Street, where Li Dazhao was righteous, but the gallows were no longer there. After guidance, they found the Gongdelin No. 2 Prison outside the Desheng Gate, which was empty, and the two of them rummaged through the dark corners of the surrounding area before finding the gallows that were quickly falling apart in a broken shed. After they pulled the torture device back to the city, they sent it to the history museum, and then placed it on the East Horse Road of the Duanmen Gate for people to visit.
The collection of this cultural relic gave Wang Yeqiu a revelation that if the revolutionary cultural relics were not collected in time, they might be treated as waste. On the occasion of commemorating the "May Fourth", Wang Yeqiu commissioned the History Museum to publish a notice in the newspaper to openly collect revolutionary cultural relics since the "May Fourth".
Only a few months after the liberation of Peiping, Li Bo collected the knife that killed the martyr Liu Hulan; Copper coins cast by Xu Xiangqian in 1933 when he retreated to the Daba Mountains; Precious cultural relics such as photos of martyrs martyrs of the Literary Society during the Wuchang Uprising.
When the Beijing History Museum was listed, Wang Yeqiu suggested to Zhou Enlai that he hoped to build a museum of the Chinese Revolution, which was approved by Zhou Enlai. In 1950, the "Preparatory Office of the Central Museum of the Revolution" was formally established, working in the Wuying Hall of the Forbidden City, and Wang Yeqiu, who was in charge of cultural relics, was also the director.
With a collection of more than 10,000 pieces, Wang Yeqiu proposed to Zhou Yang, vice minister of culture, that he wanted to hold an "exhibition to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Communist Party of China" in 1951. This exhibition, previewed as scheduled and opened internally, became the prototype of the exhibition of the New Democratic Revolution Period in the Museum of the Chinese Revolution. For this exhibition, the painter Luo Gongliu created the oil painting "Tunnel War", and Dong Xi created the oil painting "Founding Ceremony", which became immortal works.
Wang Yeqiu was very strict about the place, time, and participants of the historical occurrence, and often personally consulted and verified with the central leaders. For example, when the CPC "First Congress" held a meeting in Jiaxing Nanhu, he repeatedly asked Dong Biwu for verification. The place where the "Eighty-Seven Conference" was held was not Jiujiang, Jiangxi, as stated in the party's history at that time, but Hankou, Hubei Province, which he also learned after asking Premier Zhou for verification.
In the 1960s, the Young Pioneers visited the Museum of the Chinese Revolution.
In 1954, Mao Zedong visited the Beijing History Museum.
Zhou Enlai set the tone and Zhang Kaiji designed
In 1958, in order to present the tenth anniversary of the founding of New China, the central government decided to build "ten major buildings" in Beijing. The new museum of history is located on the east side of Tiananmen Square, under the same roof as the Museum of the Chinese Revolution.
The weight of being able to face the door of the Great Hall of the People is self-evident. Not only that, the design specifications and scale of "Ge Libo" are also very exquisite.
When Tiananmen Square was planned, it was less than 400 days away from the National Day in 1959. The Planning Bureau first came up with the "four-building plan": the buildings on both sides of the square are the National Centre for the Performing Arts, the History Museum, the Great Hall of Ten Thousand People and the Revolution Museum, and the two are separated from the east and west sides of the Monument to the People's Heroes. The four buildings are independent, covering an area of 150 meters × 220 meters, and the body size is long from east to west and short from north to south.
However, this plan did not pass, and the Planning Bureau was soon informed that in order to highlight the political significance of Tiananmen Square, the National Centre for the Performing Arts would move out of the square.
In recent years, the National Expo is often referred to as the ancestral hall and ancestral temple of Chinese culture, and when people mention Tiananmen Square, they always like to say that the architectural layout is arranged according to the traditional Chinese "Left Ancestor Right Society". However, looking through the literature of that year, there is no evidence that there was such a presupposition, but the withdrawal of the Grand Theater objectively caused a pattern of "left ancestors and right societies".
After the revised plan, the north and west sides of the square are arranged with the Revolutionary History Museum and the Ten Thousand People Hall, and the two buildings are axially symmetrical, and the colonnade structure is adopted, forming a contrasting relationship between the "corridor" and the "column" and the circle.
Unfortunately, in 1958, the new office building of the Ministry of Public Security had just been completed, and this building was "pressed" on the extension line of Nanchizi. In this way, the width of the museum left for the east-west direction is only 140 meters, and the size of the museum can only be long from north to south and short from east to west.
The construction area of the City Hall is 170,000 square meters, and the "Ge Libo" is limited by the land plot, which is only more than 60,000 square meters. Zhang Kaiji, the chief engineer and master architect of the museum, had to adopt the method of "enriching with virtual" and made two courtyards, which made the volume of "Ge Libo" basically coordinate with the Great Hall.
At that time, Premier Zhou said that the shoulders of the Great Hall were high, and the shoulders of the "Ge Libo" side were low, and this problem should be solved in the future. By 2011, the renovation and expansion of the "New National Expo" was completed, and Premier Zhou's wish was finally realized.
Zhang Kaiji said many times that when Premier Zhou looked at the façade map, he found that the pillars of the Great Hall of the People were thick and the pillars of "Ge Libo" were thin, and proposed to change them. He insisted on not changing, because the pillars of the Great Hall were round, and the pillars of the "Ge Libo" were square, and it was impossible to see only one face when looking, but two faces, and the visual would not be thin. Premier Zhou gladly accepted, "You are an architect, listen to you."
Why do they attach so much importance to the vestibule? Cheng Lizhen, the author of the book "Architect Zhang Kaiji", told reporters that the vestibule not only has the function of unifying the two museums, but also a very important part of the visiting streamline: when people follow the set visiting streamline, browse the Chinese Revolution and the History Museum, and finally return to the vestibule and look out from the colonnade, what appears in front of them is the Monument to the People's Heroes symbolizing victory and the open Tiananmen Square, which can form an emotional climax.
From the start of construction to the completion of the project, the "Gelibo" project took only 293 working days. In order to speed up the construction period, the construction personnel adopted the method of designing, preparing materials and constructing at the same time. Zhou Shiqi, the head of the design team of the former Gebo Art Department, was responsible for contacting the Beijing Architectural Design Institute at that time, and he rode his bicycle every day to run back and forth between the office, the design institute and the construction site.
The central government's decision to base the two museums in Tiananmen Square was to display the history of China's five thousand years and modern revolution on the tenth anniversary of the founding of New China. To this end, the Ministry of Culture has set up a full-time preparatory office for the establishment of two museums, with Wang Yeqiu, director of the Cultural Relics Bureau, as the director of the preparatory office, and Yu Jian, deputy director of the Museum Department of the Cultural Relics Bureau, as the secretary, with the task of borrowing people, transferring cultural relics, and completing the exhibition.
Yu Jian recalled: "At that time, it was emphasized that the whole country played a game of chess, whether it was a museum of revolution or a history museum, what was needed, listed a list, and the central government opened a letter to adjust the cultural relics, and when they went, they took it back, generally opening the cabinet door and saying 'you take it'. The Forbidden City alone has supported more than 20 pieces, all of which are first-class cultural relics!"
According to statistics, there are 77 units across the country to support cultural relics, and more than 30,000 cultural relics have been called and borrowed, and the treasures of the town hall such as Siyang Fangzun entered the museum during this period.
Qi Jixiang, the former director of the Libo Qun Engineering Department, also entered the museum at this stage to engage in interpretation work. "At that time, the museum was in urgent need of docents, and Premier Zhou asked for 100 fresh university graduates. There were not enough college students, and I and dozens of other eligible high school students became the museum's first generation of docents. ”
"As soon as I entered the museum, I felt like I had fallen into the pile of experts. At that time, there were many experts supporting the construction of museums throughout the country, including research institutions and major universities, all of which were top-notch. One day, an old man with round glasses pushed the door in and introduced himself to these "Ming and Qing Group" interns, saying that I am Shen Congwen, and I will take you to visit the Forbidden City. At that time, Qi Jixiang still didn't know who Shen Congwen was, but he only remembered that when he spoke about the Three Great Halls, his accent was very heavy, "Ten sentences can understand two sentences."
With the opening of the museum imminent, Qi Jixiang only took less than a month to memorize a thick book of commentaries written by experts and scholars to the history museum. "More than 10,000 words, memorized to a word."
At the end of September 1959, the exhibition was completed, and Zhou Enlai arrived at the museum for two consecutive days to make the final check on the contents of the exhibition.
On the first day, Zhou Enlai went to the Revolution Museum. In the foyer, he asked Wang Yeqiu if he had a cloakroom, Wang Yeqiu said that there was no one in the design, premier Zhou said that in the future life will be rich, there will be heating in the house, and there will be many foreign guests visiting, they must take off their coats, and there must be a place to store clothes. He checked the bathroom again, said it was too small, asked what the houses on the mezzanine were used for, heard that it was the office of the preparatory office, and instructed to change it to a toilet.
A photograph of Zhou Enlai at the Whampoa Military Academy hangs in the prologue hall, but it is not entirely certain. Yu Jian wanted to take the opportunity to ask him to identify himself, so he asked, "Premier, is this you?" Zhou Enlai asked Yu Jian to take the photo off, directly to the display case next to him, and said, "This piece is removed."
The next day, Zhou Enlai went to the History Museum again. Qi Jixiang was in the office at the time, and when he heard that Premier Zhou was coming, he immediately rushed to the exhibition hall. "The premier has seen the section of the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty in the general history exhibition, because Li Zicheng's statue is more than 2 meters high, and the leaders in the museum asked the premier if he could use it." The Prime Minister circled the statue a few times, took two steps back, looked up at the 7-meter-high exhibition hall, and finally came to the conclusion, 'I think it's better to be bigger'. ”
For the history museum, the prime minister basically did not give any opinion, but asked them to add a map of the territory of the Qing Dynasty.
On October 2, 1959, Li Bo's "General History of China Exhibition" was publicly previewed. "Every day, visitors flock to the museum as soon as it opens, and on average they have to give three or four lectures a day."
However, the real opening of a museum of revolution under the roof of a museum will take more than a year to open.
In 1965, Zhou Enlai took foreign guests to visit the Museum of the Chinese Revolution.
From "General History" to "Ancient China"
The "General History of China Exhibition" is the permanent museum of Libo, and it is also the first exhibition of Chinese general history in history, which still influences the exhibition of "Ancient China" of the National Expo.
Wang Hongjun, former secretary of the Party Committee of Libo, said that the study of the "exhibition of China's general history" began in 1951, and Zhou Yang proposed in his report in the museum that "according to the Marxist concept of history, we should organize and display Chinese history with cultural relics."
The use of cultural relics to display the history of a country has not been seen in our country in the past, and there are few precedents in museums in other countries. The Louvre museum in France and the British Museum do not have, only the National Museum of American History is somewhat similar.
For five thousand years in China, the method adopted by Li Bo is to study and set up exhibitions one by one. First of all, the primitive society, the Xia, Shang, Zhou, Spring and Autumn Warring States, Qin and Han, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the modern history are presented in small exhibitions. This work continued until 1958.
On this basis, the outline of the "Exhibition of General History of China" was revised more than ten times from October 1958 to July 1959, and finally deng Tuo finalized it and submitted it to the Central Committee. "In fact, the study of this outline is equivalent to holding a series of academic seminars on the general history of China in the past year."
At that time, historians had different views on Chinese history, and the first difference was the issue of historical periodization. Some people advocate the feudal theory of the Western Zhou Dynasty, others advocate the feudal theory of Wei and Jin, and some people advocate the feudal theory of the Spring and Autumn Warring States. How to solve this problem, and what principles should be followed?
Presided over by Deng Tuo, invited authoritative experts in the field of historiography Fan Wenlan, Hou Wailu, Zhai Bozan, Yin Da, Wu Han, Deng Guangming, Xia Nai, Su Bingqi, Zhang Zhengxiu, etc. to hold a meeting at the Wuying Hall, and finally decided to base it on Guo Moruo's views (that is, entering feudal society during the Warring States period).
Qi Jixiang remembered Guo Moruo's visit to the museum vividly: "I did not expect that before Guo Lao entered the hall, he first bowed his head and bent down, straightened the crooked anti-slip mat on the ground, and then walked into the hall. When he inscribed Mao Zedong's poem "Man Jiang Hong", he also wrote down the names of the comrades who were watching and wrote a poem of Chairman Mao to each of them. ”
In 1959, the exhibition was divided into three halls: the Primitive Society Hall, the Slave Society Hall, and the Feudal Society Hall, and the peasant uprisings of successive dynasties were regarded as the focus. What should I do if there are no relics? Give Chen Sheng a statue, paint an oil painting for Huang Chao, put up a banner when showing the big scene of the Yellow Turban Uprising, and even the leader of the rebel army who is unknown must be mentioned in the explanation. When the crowd heard the doorway, they often followed the narrator's words and said, "It's time for another uprising." ”
In 1972, under the influence of the "Left" trend of thought, the General History Exhibition devised a new plan, each historical stage began with a peasant uprising.
Wang Yeqiu took the opportunity to report this revision to Premier Zhou, who said: "The peasant uprisings are all failures, so hasn't China's history become a history of failure?" According to the spirit of the prime minister, after nearly a year of hard work, Li Bo basically restored the appearance of 1959.
For Qi Jixiang, the most difficult explanation occurred on the eve of the rectification. One day in October 1976, he introduced Confucius as "a stubborn defender of slavery" according to the slogan of "Approving TheOry", and a Japanese audience member (who later knew it was a journalist) asked, "Is there nothing to be sure about Confucius?" Qi Jixiang did not want to say anything against his heart, so he replied according to the 1959 version of the explanation, Confucius also ran a school and sorted out cultural heritage.
Whoever admitted it, just because of this sentence, "Confucius can reappraise" became the headline of the major Japanese media, and the report spread all over the world and was reprinted by the Xinhua News Agency. Just as Qi Jixiang was writing the review, a leader of the Academy of Social Sciences spoke, "Don't punish this comrade, he is right." Soon, the People's Daily published a full-page article re-evaluating Confucius.
After rectifying the chaos, Li Bo began to revise the general history exhibition several times from 1984, and it was basically completed in September 1997, which mainly included three main points:
First, the controversial "periodization by social development" has been abolished, and only the dynasties are arranged; The second is to seek truth from facts to express the class struggle in ancient times, and to dilute the display and evaluation of historical figures and historical events; The third is to pull the lower limit of the "Exhibition of General History of China" to 1911, ending with the Xinhai Revolution and the fall of the Qing Dynasty (originally ending with the Opium War in 1840).
People listen to the explanation in front of the oil painting "The Founding Ceremony".
From "Revolution" to "Road to Rejuvenation"
"Don't look at Li Bo and Ge Bo in the same building, but most of the time, the responsibilities are clear, only the bathroom and the auditorium are shared."
As Qi Jixiang said, the History Museum is responsible for the "Exhibition of The General History of China", and the Museum of Revolution is responsible for the "Exhibition of the History of the Chinese Revolution".
Libo and Gebo, which were supposed to open at the same time as the National Day in 1959, actually opened nearly two years apart. It was not until July 1, 1961, that the Revolution Museum officially opened.
When the museum was built in 1958, the general person in charge of GeBo's exhibition was Tian Jiaying, Mao Zedong's secretary and deputy head of the preparatory group. The central authorities also designated Luo Ruiqing, minister of public security, and An Ziwen, director of the Organization Department, to form a review team to examine the list of martyrs, maps, and other contents.
On the evening of September 19, 1959, the leaders of the Secretariat of the Central Committee reviewed the rehearsal of the National Day parade on the upper floor of Tiananmen Square, and came to Gebo at 12 o'clock in the evening to review. After reading it, they left two opinions: the land is large and scarce, and the focus is not prominent.
When the exhibition of the history museum was in full swing, GeBo could only continue to change the museum. The Ministry of Culture convened a meeting of the expert group and postponed the opening of the museum to July 1, 1961, as a gift for the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Party.
On May 16, 1961, Deng Xiaoping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, led a team to Gebo to review the exhibition.
Yu Jian remembers that when he walked to the exhibition hall of "old democracy," he said that "old democracy" was a very important stage. Seeing a photo of a work-study trip to France, he immediately said that it was a group photo of the congress of the General Branch. When he walked to the exhibition area of the Great Revolution, he first asked whether there was any content showing Chen Yannian before he had read it.
In the end, the central leadership pointed out that "as an exhibition of revolutionary history, the historical figures that appear are narrower, and the materials for international assistance should be more enriched." ”
After several rectifications, on July 1, 1961, the "Exhibition of the History of the Chinese Revolution" was officially exhibited. This day is also the official opening day of the Museum of the Chinese Revolution.
In 1970, in order to present the 50th anniversary of the founding of the party, the State Council instructed Ge Bo to prepare the "28-year party history exhibition" on the basis of the "exhibition of the history of the Chinese revolution". However, at the time of the ten years of civil strife during the "Cultural Revolution," two counterrevolutionary cliques, Lin Biao and Jiang Qing, wantonly tampered with and smeared party history and revolutionary history, and the "party history exhibition" program was almost at a loss. So much so that the content of the "28-year Party History Exhibition" has been repeatedly revised, and one change is 9 years.
After the "Cultural Revolution," the party and the country faced a major historical juncture of where to go. In the midst of the turmoil, the great debate on the standard of truth began vigorously. Ge Bo also conscientiously summed up experience and made major revisions to the "28-year Party History Exhibition." Although there are still certain historical limitations in this revision, some places have boldly broken through the box at that time. For example, Chen Duxiu during the founding period of the party, Lin Biao in the Battle of Pingxingguan, and Liu Shaoqi, who had not yet been rehabilitated at that time, were all given certain performances. These revisions actually preceded the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee.
After the display was ready, More than a dozen revolutionary seniors, including Chen Yun, Xu Xiangqian and Deng Yingchao, were invited to the museum for examination.
When Deng Yingchao saw Chen Duxiu's name, he said happily: I was influenced by Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu to embark on the revolutionary road, and Chen Duxiu's deterioration is a matter of the future. Seeing that only He Xiangning, Liu Yazi and others were exhibiting group photos, Deng Yingchao quipped: "These two people have been cooperating with us until death, giving people photos, how can they be so stingy!" She also said: "We must not isolate our Party in the Museum of Revolution, and do not engage in closed-door doctrine. ”
Seeing that the size of the martyrs' photos was small, while the pictures of the living people and oil paintings were large, Deng Yingchao said unevenly: "History should not be placed according to the status of our living people, you are a revolutionary museum." ”
After the rectification and reform, the party leaders who have made "line mistakes" such as Qu Qiubai and Li Lisan will no longer blindly criticize them; For non-party figures who were not mentioned in the past, how XiangNing, Feng Yuxiang, etc. have been recorded; There were more than 100 revolutionary martyrs, including many patriotic democrats and patriotic generals in addition to Communists.
On October 1, 1979, the nine-year revision of the "Historical Exhibition of the Communist Party of China (Period of Democratic Revolution)" was opened on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China, which was also the first time that the Gebo Basic Exhibition was opened to the masses after a gap of 13 years.
Historian Ren Jiyue wrote to Ge Bo: "After seeing the exhibition of party history, several of our old comrades here feel that your mind has been emancipated and have begun to restore our party's good tradition of respecting history and seeking truth from facts. ”
In addition to the basic exhibition of "Ten Years of Grinding a Sword", "Ge Libo" has also held some unforgettable special exhibitions.
The "Comrade Zhou Enlai Memorial Exhibition" uses green velvet as the back panel of the large cabinet, the stave is bent and floating up (because Zhou Enlai is singing the "International Song"), and three cultural relics are placed in the cabinet: the first is the prime minister's desk calendar, which stops on January 8; One is the "Shanghai brand" watch he wore before he died; One is his "Service to the People" medallion. These three cultural relics are placed together, and the words are concise and profound.
The "Liu Shaoqi Centenary Birthday Commemorative Exhibition" also has a large cabinet and uses two exhibits: one is a photo taken by the special case team after Liu Shaoqi's death; The other was an urn with the name "Liu Weihuang" written on it (cremated in a foreign country at that time, liu Shaoqi's real name could not be used, the name he used when he was in school). All of this has a sense of indictment, which is very touching.
The designer of these two cabinets was Su Donghai, the former director of the Gebo Exhibition Department, in his heart, the museum is not exactly a political textbook and a temple of knowledge, but also a hall of emotion and a temple of art.
Soon after the reform and opening up, the Revolution Museum expanded the "Party History Exhibition" to the "Revolutionary History Exhibition", and by the 1990s, the clue of "modernization" was gradually enriched in the exhibition, but it needed further study and was immature, so the exhibition modified in 1996 did not have the name of "Modern History Exhibition", but was called "Modern China".
Until after the Eighteenth National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward the "Chinese Dream": "Realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is the greatest dream of the Chinese nation in modern times." The main thrust of the basic exhibition of the history of the Chinese revolution has since been clarified. Countless revolutionary predecessors, wearing livers and guts, and bathing the wind and rain, are for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The revolutionary road in modern China is also the road to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
In 2003, on the basis of the original Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution, the National Museum of China was merged to form the National Museum of China. From March 2007 to the end of 2010, the National Museum underwent renovation and expansion projects, and is currently one of the largest museums in the world for single architecture. Today, with a collection of more than 1.43 million objects from prehistory to contemporary times, the 110-year-old has become a world-class museum on par with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States, the British Museum in the United Kingdom and the Louvre Museum in France.
The "General History of China Exhibition" became "Ancient China", reflecting ancient Chinese civilization as the main line, divided by historical dynasties, and using cultural relics to speak and express, rather than textbook language. Here, we can see how the five-thousand-year history of the Chinese nation's civilization has been endless and brilliant.
The "exhibition of the history of the Chinese revolution" became the "road to rejuvenation." Mainly to review the thick historical nodes of the Chinese nation's humiliation, resistance, exploration and rejuvenation since the Opium War in 1840, and to look back at the century-old history and the magnificent vicissitudes and great changes...
Here, we can see how history and the people have chosen Marxism and the Communist Party of China. How did the COMMUNIST Party of China shoulder the historical mission of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, unite and lead the people in an extremely arduous struggle, and compose a magnificent epic poem of swallowing mountains and rivers. To this day, we are closer, more confident and capable of achieving the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than at any time in history.
(Original title:
The national blog is real）
Source: Beijing Daily Reporter: Sun Wenye
Process Edit: TF021
Copyright Notice: The text copyright belongs to The Beijing News Group and may not be reproduced or adapted without permission.