Fan Wenlan and ancient books are collated and published

In July 1961, the delegation took a group photo in front of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Museum. Front row from left: Qiu Pu, Lü Zhenyu, Fan Wenlan, Zhai Bozan, Wen Hao, staff The middle row is from left: Han Rulin, Jin Canran, Wang Yeqiu, Liu Danian, Weng Dujian, Zhang Chuanxi, Cai Meibiao

　　Fan Wenlan is a famous historian in China, who served as the first director of the Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the vice president of the Chinese Historical Society, a member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a member of the planning group for the collation and publication of ancient books in 1958. Fan Wenlan has done a lot of work in the collation of ancient books.

　　Compiling the "Twenty-Four Histories"

　　"Twenty-Four Histories" is the collective name of the twenty-four chronicles of ancient China. Since the 1950s, zhonghua bookstores have begun to sort out and publish the "first four histories", and then punctuate and break sentences of the remaining twenty histories, which lasted more than 20 years, and finally completed the collation and publication of the "Twenty-four Histories", providing the academic community with a systematic, complete, scientific and standardized modern collation. The Zhonghua Bookstore edition of "Twenty-Four Histories" has become a modern standard book recognized at home and abroad, and enjoys the reputation of the "National History" standard book, which is a great contribution made by zhonghua bookstore to the field of historiography. Whenever we talk about the collation and publication of the Zhonghua Bookstore edition of the "Twenty-Four Histories," we must start from the initiative of Mao Zedong and the organization of Fan Wenlan and Wu Han.

　　In July 1958, Chairman Mao Zedong instructed Wu Han and Fan Wenlan to organize the punctuation of the "first four histories" work. After receiving the task of organizing and sorting out the "Twenty-Four Histories," the two held a small-scale work meeting on the afternoon of September 13, 1958. Cai Meibiao recorded the meeting in the article "The Origin of the "Twenty-Four Histories"": "Fan Wenlan was then the director of the Third Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the meeting was held in the conference room of the Institute. The participants of this meeting may not have thought that it was the first meeting held to sort out the "Twenty-Four Histories" work of the school, which opened a long road of punctuation and sorting out the "Twenty-Four Histories" for more than twenty years, and the work they did also left a strong mark in the history of Chinese scholarship and publishing. The importance of this meeting lies in the determination of the specific plan of the "first four histories" of the point school, and the punctuation work of other "twenty histories" and the "Qing History Draft" was also studied. The meeting finally decided that the Zhonghua Book Company would formulate a planning plan and start to organize manpower to carry out the work.

　　On October 6 of the same year, Wu Han and Fan Wenlan wrote a special letter to Chairman Mao Zedong to report on the work, in which they said: "Regarding the work of punctuation of the first four histories, it has been agreed that it has been discussed and arranged with relevant comrades from all walks of life, and it has been decided to publish a book before October next year as a gift for the tenth anniversary of the National Day. The minutes of the meeting are hereby sent, whether it is appropriate or not, and beg for instructions. Soon, Mao Zedong replied: "Comrades Fan and Wu: I have received the letter, the plan is very good, and I hope to implement it accordingly." ”

　　Since then, the collation and publication work of the "Twenty-Four Histories", with the cooperation of the academic circles and the publishing circles, has gradually advanced, gone through ups and downs, lasted more than 20 years, and has had nearly 200 people participating in it, and finally completed the punctuation and collation work in the 1970s, providing the world with a modern collation of the largest scale, the most far-reaching influence, and the complete scientific norms of the system in New China.

　　Edited the Compendium of the General History of China

　　In 1940, Fan Wenlan first arrived in Yan'an and was appointed director of the Historical Research Office of the Central Marxist-Leninist College. At that time, the cadres and masses in Yan'an urgently needed to improve their cultural level, but there was a lack of applicable teaching materials, and in order to solve this problem, the Historical Research Office of the Marxist-Leninist College in Yan'an received instructions from Mao Zedong on compiling a concise and concise general history of China. As the director of the research office, Fan Wenlan and his colleagues Xie Hua, Tong Dong, Ye Jie [huò] Sheng, Yin Da, Jin Canran, Tang Guoqing, etc. divided their work, each responsible for a part, and Fan Wenlan composed it.

　　A book is cooperated by many people, the difficulty of writing a book is bound to be very large, such as the grasp of the style, the unity of the style of the text, etc., almost every "general rule" of the whole book affects the completion of the manuscript, which brings greater pressure to Fan Wenlan's "total" work.

　　In 1941, the textbook entitled Compendium of General History of China was finally completed on schedule. At that time, this book provided a very good teaching material for officers and soldiers in the Liberated Areas to understand and study Chinese history, and Mao Zedong also spoke highly of this textbook at that time: "We Communists not only have our views on the history of our country for thousands of years, but also write a systematic and complete general history of China. This shows that our Communist Party of China has a say in the history of its own country for thousands of years and has also written scientific works. In 1949, the Textbook Editing and Review Committee of the Ministry of Education of the North China People's Government took the Compendium of General History of China as the base, which was deleted by Ye Yansheng and Song Yunbin and prepared for use as a high school history textbook.

　　However, Fan Wenlan himself was not satisfied with the Compendium of the General History of China and was always thinking about revision work, but during the Yan'an period, he did not have the time and opportunity to carry out this work. It was not until after the founding of the People's Republic of China that the revision of the Compendium of the General History of China was finally put on the agenda.

　　How to write a good history of China? Fan Wenlan himself summed up three points: one is the guiding ideology, the second is historical knowledge, and the third is ample time. Of these, one and three serve two. To put it simply on the second point, we must have solid historical knowledge, which includes understanding and familiarizing ourselves with the history of nationalities, the history of natural sciences, the history of art, the history of philosophy, etc., and to accurately grasp the characters, place names, canonical system, edicts, public archives, official systems, martyrdom systems, etc., as well as the vast ancient historical books in Chinese history. Fan Wenlan said with great modesty that his knowledge of history was very poor, so he had been working hard to revise this general history to make it more perfect. In 1953, Fan Wenlan finally completed this work, and a revised edition of the Compendium of the General History of China was published by the People's Publishing House in August of that year.

　　Looking back at history, no book is as lively as the Compendium of General History of China, not only in terms of users, but also in the discussion and controversy of the revised version. Within a year or two after the revision was published, it received widespread attention from the industry. In April 1954, the first volume of the Compendium of General History of China (Revised Edition) was held, and the minutes of the meeting were published in the 2nd issue of "Historical Research" in 1954, and in the 6th issue of "Historical Research" in this year, Zhao Guangxian's "Reading Fan's Compendium of Chinese General History Revised Volume I", Wang Yuzhe's "Some Opinions on the First Volume of the Revised Edition of the Simplified General History of China", and Wu Dakun's "Discussion with Comrade Fan Wenlan on the Standard Issues for Dividing China's Slave Society and Feudal Society". In 1955, the first issue of "Historical Research" published an article signed "Opinions on the First Part of fan wenlan's revised edition of the compendium of Chinese general history", and in the third issue of "Teaching and Research" in 1955, Wang Renzhi (a third-year graduate student of the Chinese History Teaching and Research Department) published an article entitled "Some Opinions on the "Compendium of Chinese General History"" by Wang Renzhi (a third-year graduate student of the Chinese History Teaching and Research Department). These criticisms and discussion articles put forward different opinions on the treatment of ancient legends, the culture of the primitive commune, the process of historical periodization, and so on. These articles were a true reflection of the heated discussion of the Compendium of the General History of China (Revised Edition) at that time.

　　Fan Wenlan held a very modest attitude toward several opinions put forward in the Compendium of The General History of China, and at the same time carried out self-criticism, and in the preface to the re-edition of the Compendium of the General History of China, he wrote: "At the time of editing in Yan'an, due to the lack of materials and weak manpower, only a year and a half date, hastily withdrawn from the manuscript, naturally produced many shortcomings, and there were still 18,000 miles away from the actually usable general history. ”

　　In the face of some academic controversies, Fan Wenlan rarely responded positively, but from the beginning of the compilation of the Compendium of the General History of China, to the founding of the People's Republic of China, Fan Wenlan wrote a series of academic articles, on the one hand, expounding his thoughts on historical and academic issues and compiling the general history of China, on the other hand, it can also be said that he responded to some doubts. Most of these articles are Fan Wenlan's academic thinking, and they also basically outline the development context of Fan Wenlan's academic thinking.

　　The book "Compendium of General History of China" embodies Fan Wenlan's writing style--concise and concise, with exquisite words. This book sorts out Chinese history very clearly, not only explains the role played by emperors and generals in the long river of history, but also pushes the people to the center of the historical stage, fully embodying the concept of "history is the history of the people". It is precisely because of this that the Compendium of the General History of China is hailed as the first Chinese historical work written under the guidance of a Marxist point of view in China.

　　He is a member of the planning team for the collation and publication of ancient books

　　In 1958, the ancient book collation and publication planning group was established, and as one of the 19 members of the ancient book group, Fan Wenlan actively participated in the collation and publication of ancient books in China and did a lot of specific work. From February 9th to 11th, the inaugural meeting of the Ancient Books Group was held in the auditorium of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and nearly 100 people attended the meeting with Fan Wenlan and other group members, experts and scholars in the collation of ancient books, and representatives of the publishing industry.

　　In 1958, the Zhonghua Book Company formulated the 1959 publication topic selection plan and the book publishing plan, and Jin Canran, then director of the Office of the Ancient Books Collation and Publication Planning Group and general manager of the Zhonghua Bookstore, wrote a letter to Liu Danian of the Institute of Modern History, hoping that the Institute of Modern History and the Zhonghua Bookstore could cooperate closely, and sent the planning of the Institute of Modern History to the Zhonghua Bookstore, so as to be included in the plan for publishing topics, and the director of the Institute of Modern History at that time was Fan Wenlan.

　　In November 1960, Jin Canran sent a letter to Qi Yanming, the leader of the ancient books group, and sent a preliminary list of the symposium on the collation and publication of ancient books, which was a total of 54 participants, of which 20 were members of the ancient book planning team. The Institute of Modern History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences plans to attend the meeting by Fan Wenlan, Liu Danian, Liu Guiwu (academic secretary); Yin Da, Hou Wailu, Li Jiaju, etc.; He Qifang and Wu Xiaoling, all of whom are literary; Peking University, including Zhai Bozan, Zhou Zhouliang, Shao Xunzheng, Feng Youlan, Ren Jiyu, Wei Jiangong, and others; and other participants include Qi Yanming, deputy secretary general of the State Council, Ye Shengtao, vice minister of education, and Wu Han, vice mayor of Beijing Municipality, and other members of the ancient books group. Fan Wenlan's name is preceded by △ and √, and Jin Canran specifically noted in the letter that some △ are members of the ancient book group, a total of 20 people, and some √ are party members, a total of 44 people. Fan Wenlan was included in the list of participants as a dual party member and a member of the ancient books group.

　　In March 1961, zhonghua bookstore planned to compile a number of ancient books in ancient Chinese, ancient and modern philosophical and social science research works, and the zhonghua bookstore's editorial list of required reading books, among which "collating and publishing the draft long-term plan for modern Chinese historical materials" was also planned, and the formulation of the draft long-term plan for modern historical materials was once again strongly supported by Fan Wenlan.

　　(Source: People's Political Consultative Conference Daily, October 21, 2021, 11th edition; author: Qi Huanxin, editor of Zhonghua Bookstore; photo: original with picture)