The Paper's reporter Zhong Yuan
【Editor's Note】Tan Qijun (1911.2.25-1992.8.28) is the main founder and pioneer of the discipline of chinese historical geography, and this year marks the 110th anniversary of his birth.
Published in 2000, the Great Dictionary of Chinese History (16 compilations) was published as the first state-level extra-large historical dictionary in the history of New China, bringing together the first-class experts and scholars in the field of history in the country at that time, and its academic field was wide and the academic status was long, which could be called a popular choice. The dictionary was edited by the famous historian Zheng Tianting as the director and editor-in-chief of the compilation committee, and was succeeded by Mr. Tan Qijun after the death of Mr. Zheng in 1981.
As a student of Mr. Tan Qijun, Mr. Ge Jianxiong participated in the compilation of reference books such as the Dictionary of Chinese History. In an interview with The Paper, Ge Jianxiong recalled Mr. Tan's experience in editing the Dictionary of Chinese History and his concept of reference books. The following is the text of the interview.
The Paper: The compilation of the Dictionary of Chinese History began in 1978, what is the origin of this project?
Ge Jianxiong: After the end of the Cultural Revolution, the scholars of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Historical Association on the one hand corrected the political chaos, and on the other hand, many academic work that was originally included in the plan but was not done, or projects that had not yet been included in the plan, began. Some of these projects were planned after the founding of New China; some were planned well and were laid off during a three-year period of difficulty; and some were just carried out a little bit and were delayed by the "Cultural Revolution."
At the end of the Cultural Revolution, the oldest generation of experts and scholars had passed away, Mr. Tan, who was in his sixties and seventies, and some in their eighties. At that time, the idea was that many jobs would be too late to do any more, and the people below would not be able to keep up. So there were a lot of big projects at that time, not only in history, but in every other discipline.
Moreover, these large projects cannot be done by individuals or a unit, and require great cooperation, so they are all collective tasks. At that time, there was no later sponsorship from the Social Science Fund or other market-oriented large enterprises, and all of them relied on the Academy of Social Sciences and other units to obtain state funding.
The Paper: Mr. Tan Qijun suffered a sudden cerebral thrombosis in February 1978 and was hospitalized for more than a year. At that time, as the deputy director of the Editorial Board of the Great Dictionary, how did Mr. Tan overcome the difficulties to participate in this work?
Ge Jianxiong: Mr. Tan had a cerebral thrombosis attack in 1978, once critically ill, failed to fully recover after rescue, fell into a half-body problem, left hand and left leg are inconvenient, walking to use crutches, up and down the stairs need students to help, life can not completely take care of themselves.
After returning to work, he had to do more than one project at the same time: the revision of the Historical Atlas of China was very heavy, in addition to the compilation of the Dictionary of Chinese History. Soon there was a new project, and Li Yihao, head of the State Council's Leading Group for the Planning of the Publication of Ancient Books, asked him to sort out the "Zhaoyu Zhi", in addition to the revision of "Cihai". He also had to complete the new entries on history and historical geography in the Great Encyclopedia of China, as well as the Ministry of Civil Affairs to compile the names of places in various parts of China, and the Chinese Local History Association to revise new local histories, and so on. At that time, there was a saying called "a hundred wastes to be rebuilt", and there were many things to do.
There are so many things, so Mr. Tan is concentrating on one thing for a period of time. For example, for a while, in order to complete the task of sorting out the "Zhaoyu Zhi", a few of us stayed at the Shenjiang Hotel (now the Far East Hotel) near Fuzhou Road, and stayed for several months. I live in one suite with the teacher, and several other teachers live in several single rooms. In the middle of this, sometimes the "Great Dictionary of Chinese History" thing comes again, and he has to free his hand again. So in those years, Mr. Tan has been lamenting that he has no time to do his own things, it is one task after another, and it is several things at the same time that he is asked to do.
Take the "Dictionary of Chinese History" as an example, every year there is an editorial board, and the editorial board has been held in Shanghai and Wuxi. At that time, meetings, especially such business meetings, were held for several days. Before the meeting, you still have to do preparatory work, some need to speak, Mr. Tan is not speaking of that kind of socializing, but to make a substantive speech, the speech should be an example, then he will have to check the information, so often it takes a lot of time to prepare for the speech.
In 1984, I had more than one meeting in Wuxi, and I had the impression that everyone had a good impression of the Lakeside Hotel where the meeting was held at that time, it was quiet and the food was good. One year I was particularly impressed, when Shang Chuan in the editorial department suddenly received news that his father, Mr. Shang Hongkui, was critically ill, and he rushed back, and his father had died. Now, Mr. Li Xueqin and Mr. Lin Ganquan have passed away, and Mr. Zhang Yizhi and Mr. Dai Yi are ninety-two or three years old. At that time, some people came once during the opening of the editorial board and left the next time. Therefore, Mr. Tan sighed, we don't hurry to do it anymore, and the old man will leave.
On November 17, 1984, at the editorial board meeting of the Great Dictionary of Chinese History, Tan Qijun was the seventh from the right in the front row, and Ge Jianxiong was from the right in the back row
In addition, there are some sample drafts and articles, Mr. Tan wants to put forward opinions after reading them, and after putting forward opinions, the editors have different opinions, and then reflect with him, and sometimes write letters to him. At that time, it was inconvenient to communicate, it was through communication, and it was not like writing e-mail on the computer now, the communication was handwritten, and some letters were written very long. Later, a newsletter was specially compiled for internal distribution, like a magazine. For example, I remember that Mr. Guo Pingliang of Xinjiang at that time wrote a letter about the six towns of Anxi to discuss with Mr. Tan, and the letters were repeated more than once.
Sometimes the editorial department will take part of the sample of a certain fascicle to Mr. Tan to see, some of the editors-in-chief of the fascicles are very serious, the manuscripts and articles sent up he have carefully read, there are problems to put forward; but some fascicle editors are not very concerned, in fact, the following graduate students or young people wrote, such articles are very headache, have to spend a long time to modify. When I was sorting out his diary, I saw, sometimes for several days, "big dictionary, big dictionary, big dictionary."
The Paper: In 1981, Mr. Zheng Tianting died, and Mr. Tan took over as editor-in-chief. What work did he mainly do in the process of presiding over the compilation of the "Dictionary of Chinese History"? How to organize experts and scholars scattered throughout the country?
Ge Jianxiong: Yes, at that time, the daily work was presided over by Mr. Hu Yiya of the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the editorial department was located in the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In addition to him, there were a few young people who were about the same age as me, who were some of the earliest master's degree students or young staff of the Institute of History.
Mr. Tan's diary also mentioned that every time he went to Beijing for a meeting, Hu Yiya came to report on his work. Sometimes Hu Yiya would make a special trip to Shanghai to find Mr. Tan, especially before each editorial board. Sometimes he would write long letters to Mr. Tan and ask Mr. Tan to come forward to solve it. Every time the editorial board is held, in addition to routine, the editorial department must ask Mr. Tan to come forward to talk about several issues. For example, the large dictionary should have a unified style, but the style involves different branches, such as ancient history, specialized history, historical geography, some are officials, some are systems, and some are characters, so how is this style unified? There are often discussions at the meeting, and often some gentlemen will emphasize the particularity of their branches, and there have been several discussions among everyone, whether reunification is allowed or not, whether to unify or not.
Another is the schedule, such a large national project, basically delayed, not completed on schedule. There was also the problem of funding, the various units were very poor, most of the participants in the project were middle-aged and young people, on the one hand, they had low wages and no contribution fees - there was no concept at that time; on the other hand, they had to deal with the relationship between collective projects and individual projects.
Especially after 1980, everyone needed to catch up with the progress more and more, and these backbones were very busy, with more than one thing on their hands. Many units have emphasized their own difficulties, and Mr. Tan, as the editor-in-chief, of course, also needs to solve these problems, and sometimes has to coordinate under the meeting.
There are also some people who do things in the fascicle who cannot sign their names, and the signed and senior people may not do things themselves, so there is some contradiction. Mr. Tan also told me that the quality of the Dictionary of Chinese History will vary greatly in the future when it is published. Because some fascicles are written seriously, the editor-in-chief of the fascicle is personally writing, so the quality is high; and some fascicle editors-in-chief are listed and handed over to the following people to do, at that time, many people are just graduate students or have just been recruited from the society, not to mention professors, associate professors are not a few, so whether the quality can be guaranteed is a big problem, and the editor-in-chief is not good at reviewing. Mr. Tan was sometimes very embarrassed, and at that time, he asked the sample manuscript to be signed by the editor-in-chief of the fascicle, and all of them were signed, and some specific changes were made, and sometimes we directly changed them.
Mr. Tan himself was also the editor-in-chief of the historical geography volume, and he was assigning the work to the people in the historical geography institute at that time. This is what I just said, people with relatively high levels often need to do a lot of work at the same time, such as revising the "Cihai" and compiling the "Historical Atlas of China". Like Zhao Lezhi, many of his work is intertwined. Different books have their own rules, and even if they are the same article, the requirements are different. Some entries are single-use, some are dual-purpose, and they all need to be coordinated. All the middle-aged teachers who have edited "Ci Hai" in Shi Di are more familiar with the requirements; some are graduate students and young people who have not compiled "Ci Hai" before, so Mr. Tan is particularly serious about their spline review, and the institute often meets to discuss splines, and the discussion passes to write on a large scale.
At that time, the responsible editor of the publishing house also had more direct contact with Mr. Tan, who was very familiar with the publishing house because he edited "Cihai" in the early years, so this aspect of the business often directly looked for Mr. Tan.
Mr. Tan Qijun
The Paper: You once wrote an article entitled "Tan Qijun and the Reference Book", which mentioned Mr. Tan's quality requirements in the compilation of the Great Dictionary of Chinese History, and one of your articles provided a reference for the revision of the "Beijing" entry.
Ge Jianxiong: I once saw the entry "Beijing" on the newsletter, and a while ago I made the name Beijing, and there were some cards left, and half of the cards on the cards were not on this entry. So I went to tell Mr. Tan Qijun that you don't remember this entry in full, and I still have a lot of information. Mr. Tan said that's good, you write it down. Then I'll write it and give it to him. After reading it, he said that this was very good, helped him add more than half, and said that he would re-post my entry on the newsletter. He advocated that after the sample was published, I should listen to everyone's opinions, although I was only a graduate student at the time, but then I saw that in that newsletter, his reply to me was published along with my entry.
Another middle-aged teacher at the time— who has now passed away , was so dismissive that he didn't think there was any need to add more content, and that Beijing already had a lot of informal names that seemed to be meant to maintain the authority of the teacher. But Mr. Tan does not recognize this attitude, can not double standards, informal place names must also be included, not to mention that people have pointed it out to you. So he insisted that it must be included, and I remember that after I reflected it, Mr. Tan also published my article as a miscellaneous article in our historical geography journal.
Mr. Tan is very serious about academics. For example, when I wanted to write a preface when I was publishing later, I remember that this preface seemed to be a manuscript provided by Mr. Li Xueqin, and after Mr. Tan read it carefully, there was a sentence that he did not quite agree with. The article said that "China has a history of more than 4,000 years", generally we think that what is written is history, obviously the text is only more than 3,000 years, why write more than 4,000 years? Mr. Tan disagreed. Mr. Li Xueqin is also very insistent, he believes that before the oracle bone, some of the longshan culture should also be able to be used as writing. Mr. Tan still disagreed, believing that the words had not yet been officially identified, and that the oracle bones that were identified at that time were only more than three thousand years old. Mr. Tan believes that the compilation of dictionaries does not mean that the longer the history, the better, and to make such an important reference book, all concepts must be very accurate.
The Paper: Why does Mr. Tan pay particular attention to reference books? What was his philosophy for the compilation of reference books?
Ge Jianxiong: Some people say that the error rate of published books can be controlled within a few percent, but Mr. Tan said that even one in a thousand error rates is not enough. Reference books are different from other books, people will not look at the tool books 100%, if he checks the wrong one, it is a hundred percent error rate for him. He repeatedly stressed this point, which is often invisible and unappreciated by other scholars, but Mr. Tan is very serious about it.
In addition, Mr. Tan has always emphasized style and norms, which is probably related to his long-term compilation of the "Historical Atlas of China". Because the historical map of China is very rigorous, scholars who generally only write papers often cannot grasp the type of entry in the reference book.
He later wrote several entries in the Encyclopedia of China, some of which he repeatedly deliberated and changed again and again. For example, there is an entry: Qin County. He had previous papers on this subject, but he had compiled the material as carefully as he had re-studied it. I saw in his diary that some of the entries he repeatedly revised, for several days in a row were not satisfied with the beginning, re-written. So we look at the articles he wrote himself, which can be used as norms. How to grasp the most critical things in the prescribed word count, but also require that every time, place, and person involved cannot be wrong, as well as the use of words, how to express them correctly.
Some people look down on reference books, and Mr. Tan has said in several conferences that its value will at least not be lower than the value of your personal paper. And he believes that the applicable objects of reference books are different, and writing articles should consider your readers, and properly grasp the standards. For example, he said that the object of "Cihai" is wider, but the "Dictionary of Chinese History" is more aimed at more specialized readers. Even if the content of the two is the same, the writing style should be different and hierarchical.
Then there is, what to do with some nonsense? Some things have different statements, and judgments still need to be made in the reference book. Mr. Tan believes that important theories should also appear, for example, there are two kinds of theories, then you can't judge nothing at all, and you must adopt one of the main ones, but the most important ones should also be mentioned. Reference books cannot be listed in this way, not as an index or annotation. Say where a certain place is and where, and then put the saying in the back, so that people understand that the front one is the main one and the back is secondary. Mr. Tan also admitted that it was not easy to grasp, so he asked everyone to do it seriously.
Mr. Tan also believes that writing papers should have its own things, but the reference book should be comprehensively collected, including different views from you, you must also collect it first, and then make a judgment. Teachers are also like this in class, and they can use people's things. A good teacher is not the same as a good researcher, he needs to tell everyone about the existing research results, and the same is true of reference books.
Dictionary of Chinese History
The Paper: How has the compilation of reference books with Mr. Tan had on your academic career?
Ge Jianxiong: After following Mr. Tan over the years, what I have learned academically is that we must be rigorous, different achievements must have different standards, and we must strictly abide by academic norms. I also use these to demand of my students, and when I was the director of the Institute of History, I also demanded this from our colleagues.
Mr. Tan also said that the reference book is just a few words, and there can be no excessive adjectives, and it is not allowed to have a word of empty words. The reference book can not tolerate moisture, some can be put or not, can be used in the words, take it off. Mr. Tan himself also writes popular and popular articles without a word of nonsense. This also has a deep impact on me, so generally I write my own articles, even if it is a popular short article, I also feel that the moisture should be squeezed dry. Popular does not equal low level, popular does not equal parallel goods. People say that many of my articles are so short, I said that this article can be, not necessarily a long article.
As I said earlier, compiling reference books is not Mr. Tan's only job, but no matter what kind of work, Mr. Tan has always been consistent, it is such a work style, which subtly influenced me and played a great role in my academic career.
The Paper: What is your comment on the compilation method of the Dictionary of Chinese History?
Ge Jianxiong: Our previous collective tasks like the Great Dictionary of Chinese History had the advantage of concentrating first-class people from various branches of the discipline of history. But there are also its shortcomings, that is, as I said, everyone's work attitude is different, some are seriously done, and some are ordered to participate. There are also policy issues, these people belong to various units. Before the "Cultural Revolution," as long as it was something that the central authorities wanted to do, there was nothing that people did not take seriously; after the "Cultural Revolution," especially later, people gradually stopped buying your account.
Looking at it again today, we should use more of our own way of organizing the declaration of the humanities, which can avoid the ills of collective projects to a certain extent, but we will encounter new contradictions. Now this method, everyone pursues "short and fast", the pursuit of "sensational effect", rather than doing solid work. In addition, organizing a team by oneself or a unit to organize a team often cannot make up for its own congenital defects. For example, when we compiled historical atlases at that time, we encountered this problem. Like Tibet and Mongolia, not only the Chinese language information, but also rely on the national language information, as well as some investigations. At that time, relying on the cooperation of large projects, the Materials of Tibet were found to be specialized in Tibetan studies; the Mongolian ones were found by Mongolian research experts, so that they could make up for it. In this case, the organization may not be able to make up for these shortcomings.
When we look at this period of history today, we should seek truth from facts, carry forward the academic spirit of the big projects at that time, put the national interests first, and put the academics first; but we must also avoid ills, coordinate the forces of all aspects, and take into account the interests of reasonable individuals or small groups.
The Paper: The compilation process of the "Dictionary of Chinese History" lasted for 20 years, and there were as many as 786 scholars, this dictionary is the result of the hard work of hundreds of authors, and the compilation of the dictionary requires energy and time, many authors can not invest more time in writing academic papers and monographs in order to compile the dictionary, do you think it is worth it for scholars to compile a reference book in 20 years?
Ge Jianxiong: It depends on what perspective you use to look at this problem. I also wrote in Mr. Tan's biography, when Mr. Yang Kuan said to Mr. Tan, "You still have to meet those people at this age, what are you doing?" My experience is that I never do anything specific, so my personal book is written out locally." Mr. Tan also told me that Mr. Yang's words are not unreasonable, but can collective things not be done?
It depends on how you choose. If you start from your personal academic achievements, then of course you should not undertake such projects. A lot of the things in this kind of project are to solve other people's problems, not their own academic problems, but Mr. Tan always puts the interests of the country and the collective first. On the other hand, if Mr. Tan had not come out to do this work, would the Dictionary of Chinese History have reached its current level?
In fact, the relevant departments should help balance the work of these first-class experts. If the competent authorities had entrusted some things to others, perhaps Mr. Tan would have left more academic achievements, perhaps more conducive to the development of other editorial board members. So I think it's very difficult for individuals to handle this relationship well, depending on what your own value tendencies are. Mr. Tan also told me in his later years that he did not regret doing these things, and he even said that if I did not do this thing and only did historical geography, I am afraid that fewer people in China would know me, because our own knowledge is relatively biased. In fact, this is a dialectical relationship, although the results of individuals are certainly less, but the contribution to the country and to scholarship is actually greater.
The Paper: The 16-year-old compilation of the Great Dictionary of Chinese History has been published for 20 years, do you think it is necessary to revise and supplement it? How should revisions and additions be taken?
Ge Jianxiong: Should the Dictionary of Chinese History be revised? Definitely. Because it has been officially published for 20 years now, in fact, some of them were finalized earlier. For two or three decades, some concepts that have been proven wrong, of course, to correct it, new research results should also be included. At that time, there were "two sayings", but now it has been proved that there is only "one saying", and this kind of course needs to be revised. There are many names that are different today, taking our historical geography, many place names at that time have been changed, some have changed the level of division, counties have become cities, and some even have changed their names. In a situation like this, if it is not revised, non-professional readers will get it wrong. Some place names have also changed due to archaeological or documentary discoveries. For example, I mentioned the counties of the Qin Dynasty earlier, a few years ago, archaeology found that the original Qin Dynasty also had "Dongting County", which had not been included before, so now it has been discovered, and it is confirmed, then it should be revised. It is customary how many times a reference book should be revised every year, and it is necessary that the time has come for 20 years to be revised.
But how to revise it? I don't think there is a need to mobilize the masses and set up a very large group like in those years, but I don't think there is any need for this, and now the Institute of History of the Academy of Social Sciences can no longer organize the strength of the whole country as it did in the beginning.
I think there is another place that needs special attention here, that is, how to deal with intellectual property issues. For example, if an article is changed by the original author, then there is no problem; if someone else is found to change it, is the intellectual property for this purpose the original author or the reviser? Who will this benefit be counted on in the future? Before, it didn't matter, the organization told you to do it, no one cared, then now the intellectual property law has been very clear, you have to reflect it.
Therefore, I advocate taking the road of marketization and having the publishing house organize the revision. Reference books do not have to be compiled by first-class scholars, as long as they have a certain level and are conscientious and responsible, they can be done. Now that the information is relatively developed, it can be retrieved, and it can be revised by collecting some important and relevant treatises of the past twenty years, as long as there is a certain degree of judgment. The publisher can also make a judgment on the reviser, some entries can indicate that so-and-so wrote, and some if it proves that the predecessor is completely wrong, then replace, the publisher can protect the original author and the revision's intellectual property rights according to these, and this can also avoid the waste of time and costs in some meetings.
Such a revision would also solve the problem of funding. On the one hand, publishing houses can obtain funding through the benefits of the new book itself, and on the other hand, they can also apply for the National Publishing Fund. If it is now entrusted to a unit to do it, it will also have to apply for the project to get money. Of course, if the amount of revision is relatively large, it can also be found by the publishing house to jointly apply for relevant funds and use it as a scientific research project.
The Paper: Under the current system, it seems that scholars are not particularly enthusiastic about the work of compiling dictionaries and reference books.
Ge Jianxiong: Compiling reference books does not have to be a first-class scholar, but there should be a division of labor. For example, now when we talk about big data, we must first put the data into big data, compile and collect data, and standardize the data, which should not be done by first-class scholars. For example, undergraduate or graduate students trained by universities, some people are suitable for compiling reference books, and some people are suitable for guidance work, then they should be guided to develop in this direction. Some people lack creativity, and asking him to write a paper may not necessarily be able to write a good paper, but asking him to compile a dictionary or collect information, he can do a good job. For example, some teachers are very good in class, their scientific research ability is relatively poor, and the university itself needs such teachers. Play to different strengths and don't use the same standards. We in academia and society should do a reasonable division of labor, so that everyone can play to their own strengths.
Therefore, mature academia is to be diverted, and not everyone can be an elite in the future. For example, science laboratories also need the right people to manage, and some experiments can also get great results. Individuals should also make rational choices, and some people choose to compile dictionaries and reference books, which can also reach a very high level. Individuals and society rationally choose the division of labor in order to produce the greatest benefits.
In addition, publishing is also like this, to balance the relationship between social benefits, economic benefits and academic benefits. There are some well-known encyclopedia dictionaries in the world, which have a high academic status, and because it adapts to the needs of society, it also has very high economic benefits. In the future, we must also use this idea in the compilation of reference books, revisions, and publications. Some books have high academic value, but because they are too "high", relatively secluded and niche, then they need to have the government to coordinate, and the international situation is also the same, and some rely on government subsidies.
Blindly let the elegant, difficult, high-end tool books take the road of marketization is not enough, many advanced academic projects are not an institution can complete, the relevant departments should play a leading role, under this premise, individuals can make rational choices, so that all kinds of categories have been developed accordingly.
(Sherry also contributed to this article))
Editor-in-Charge: Han Shaohua
Proofreader: Yan Zhang