Jian Youwen

Name in Chinese
簡又文
Name in Wade-Giles
Chien Yu-wen
Related People

Biography in English

Chien Yu-wen (8 February 1896-), Protestant minister and scholar, is best known for his studies of the Taiping Rebellion.

Little is known of Chien Yu-wen's childhood, but he was born in Canton. After completing his early schooling, he went to the United States for advanced education. He attended Oberlin College and received his B.A. in 1917. He then returned to China, where he became instructor in English and Bible at Lingnan University in Canton; he also served as general secretary of the Student Christian Association at Lingnan, a Protestant-supported college. He returned to the United States in 1918 to study at the University of Chicago and received an M.A. degree in 1920. He then attended Union Theological Seminary in New York in 1920-21. From 1922 to 1924, Chien was acting pastor of the Church of Christ for Cantonese in Shanghai; he also served as editorial secretary of the national committee of the Young Men's Christian Association. In 1924 he left the ministry to go to north China, where he became an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Yenching University. He remained there until 1927, when the Northern Expedition swept northward from Canton to the Yangtze valley. Chien then joined the staff of Feng Yü-hsiarig (q.v.), the so-called Christian General, and served as head of the political department of Feng's army. After the establishment of the National Government in 1928, Chien held a variety of official posts: salt commissioner in Shantung province, counselor in the ministry of railroads, adviser to the provincial governments of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, and commissioner of social affairs in the Canton municipal government. He was a member of the Legislative Yuan from 1933 to 1946. Throughout this period Chien maintained his interest in education and helped to establish five schools in various parts of China, including one established in honor of his father in Hsinhui (Sunwui), Kwangtung. He was also the publisher and editor of several magazines during the mid-1930's, including the popular I-ching and Typhoon magazines, which were published, respectively, at Shanghai and Hong Kong.

After the Sino-Japanese war, Chien became a professor of history at Chung-shan (Sun Yat-sen) University at Canton in 1946; he was also the founder and director general of the Institute of History and Culture of Kwangtung province. In 1949 Chien moved to Hong Kong, where he continued his research on aspects of modern Chinese history. He was a research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the University of Hong Kong from 1953 to 1959, when he became an honorary fellow. He also served as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Oriental Studies, published by the University of Hong Kong, and became a corresponding research fellow of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 1956. In 1964-65 he visited the United States, where he worked as a research associate in history at Yale University. Chien Yu-wen's prominence as an historian rests on his studies of the Taiping Rebellion of 1851-64. That movement, which assumed the dynastic title T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo [the heavenly kingdom of great peace], issued from south China. It was led by Hung Hsiu-ch'üan (ECCP, I, 361-67), a native of Kwangtung who was influenced by Christian tracts obtained from early Protestant missionaries and who believed that he had a divine mission. The subject was one that attracted Chien's interest when he was still a young man. Despite the distractions and responsibilities of other duties, he continued to do research for many years and occasionally published his findings.

Chien's first important work, published in 1935, was T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo tsa-chi [miscellaneous notices of the Taiping kingdom], which contained his translation, T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ch'i-i chi, of a pamphlet by Theodore Hamberg entitled The Visions of Hung-Siu- Tshuen and the Origin of the Kwang-si Insurrection ( 1 854) . Also included were Chien's translations of M. T. Yates' lecture "The Taiping Rebellion," Chapter XIV of G. L. Wolseley's Narrative of the War with China, and other first-hand accounts of the Taiping Rebellion written by Western observers. In 1944 Chien published a second work, Chint'ien chih-yu chi ch'i-t'a [a trip to Chin-t'ien and other essays], which described his investigations of localities associated with leaders of the Taipings. A notable assertion in this book was that the treaties of Tientsin (1858) and Peking (1860) were negotiated on the understanding that the Western powers would assist the Manchus in suppressing the Taiping Rebellion, but Chien did not cite any tangible evidence for this claim. In 1944 he also published T'ai-p'ing chün Kuang-hsi shou-i shih [history of the uprising of the Taiping army in Kwangsi], which was a carefully revised account of the early stages of the rebellion based on the two preceding works. Between 1958 and 1962 Chien published three more large-scale studies of the Taipings. In 1 958 there appeared T'ai-p'ing Vien-kuo tien-chih fung-k'ao [institutional history of the Taiping kingdom] in three volumes. Of note is his contention that the Taiping Rebellion was a nationalist as well as a religious movement, which contradicts the current Communist interpretation. In 1961 Chien concluded his history of the Taipings with the publication of T'ai-p'ing t'ien-kuo ch'üan shih [complete history of the Taiping kingdom], which carried the story down to 1866. The book contains many of Chien's mature conclusions about problems of Taiping history and is also of value for the many primary and secondary sources cited. Chien's sixth major contribution to Taiping studies was his "Hung Hsiu-ch'üan tsai-chi," an account of Hung's life which appeared in the 1962 Ch'ing Dynastic History published in Taiwan. In 1964 Chien published a long article reviewing Taiping historiography, "Wu-shih-nien-lai T'aip'ing t'ien-kuo chih yen-chiu" [the last fifty years in Taiping studies], which appeared in Hsiang-kang ta-hsueh wu-shih chou-nien chi-nien lun-wen-chi {Symposium on Chinese Studies Commemorating the Colden Jubilee of the University of Hong Kong 1911-1961).

Chien's wife, Mabel Yuk-sein Young, died in 1958. They had two sons and two daughters.

Biography in Chinese

简又文 字:驭繁

简又文(1896.2.8—),基督教牧师、学者,以研究太平天国而知名。

简又文幼年情况不详,他在广东出生。他在完成早期学业后,去美国深造,在美国奥伯林学院读书,1917年获文学士学位。回国后在广州岭南大学任英语和圣经讲师,同时担任教会学校岭南大学的基督教学生会的总干事。1918年又
去美国进芝加哥大学学习,1920年获得文学硕士学位。1920—1921年进纽约美国协和神学院。

1922年到1924年他在上海担任专供广东人使用的教堂“救主堂”的副牧师,并担任基督教男青年会全国委员会编辑干事。1924年他放弃了神职去华北,在燕京大学任宗教哲学副教授,他在那里一直到1927年北伐军控制长江一带时。

简又文投身于称为基督将军冯玉祥的部队当政治部主任。1928年国民政府成立后,简又文担任了各种官职:山东盐务使、铁道部参事、广东、广西省政府顾问、广州市政府社会局委员。1933—1946年在立法院工作。在这一期间,简又文始终关心教育事业,先后在各地协助创办了五所学校,其中有一所在新会,专为纪念他的父亲而创建。三十年代中期,简又文还发行和主编了好几种杂志,其中包括上海出版的《逸经》和香港岀版的《大风》。

抗日战争结束后,简又文在1946年担任广州中山大学历史教授,他又是广东省史馆的创始人和馆长。1949年他移居香港,在那里继续研究近代中国史。1953年到1959年,他是香港大学东方研究院研究员和名誉研究员,他是香港大学出版的《东方研究杂志》编辑部成员,1956年任台湾中央研究院通讯院士。1964年到1965年去美国耶鲁大学当研究员。

作为历史学家,简又文的主要工作是研究1851—1864年的太平军起义,那次起义始于华南而后建立了太平天国。起义是由一个受基督教传教士影响的广东人洪秀全发动的,他认为他系奉神旨。简又文在青年时期就对这一历史课题感
兴趣。尽管他有其他的事务缠身,但多年来一直对此进行研究,偶而发表他的研究心得。

他的第一部重要著作在1935年出版,书名为《太平天国杂记》,其中有韩文山著的《洪秀全的远见和1854年广西起义的原由》一书的译文,译文改名为《太平天国起义记》,译文还包括华尔斯莱著的《对华战记》十四章中夏芝叙述
的《太平起义》。还有其他西方作者有关太平军起义的第一手资料。1944年,简又文出版了第二本著作《金田之及杂谈》,记述了他所考察的与太平天国领袖们有关地点的调查材料。这本书中有一个值得注意之点,那就是对于1858年天津条约和1860年北京条约的签订,是基于西方列强帮助清政府。镇压太平起义的谅解之上的说法,简又文并未提出确凿的证明。1944年,他又出版了《太平军广西首义记》,这是根据前两本书重新审订起义初期的历史。1958年到1962年间简又文出版了篇幅较大的三种研究太平起义的著作。1958年岀版的三卷本《太平天国体制通考》,他认为太平天国是一次民族运动,也是一次宗教运动。这一点与当前共产党的解释颇有歧异。1961年简又文概述了太平天国的历史,岀版了《太平天国全史》,该书叙述到1866年的历史事迹。在这一著作中包括许多简又文对太平关国历史方面的一些问题所作的深思熟虑的结论和引用了许多有价值的第一、第二手材料。简又文研究太平天国的第六本重要著作,是他的有关洪秀全生平的《洪秀全传记》,已编入1962年台湾出版的《清史》中。1964年简又文写了一篇长文讨论有关太平天国的编史工作,题名为《五十年来太平天国之研究》,编入《香港大学五十周年纪念文集》中。

简又文的妻子杨玉仙殁于1958年,遗有二子二女。

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