A Historian’s Ethical Duty

Abstract

In the wake of Japan’s occupation of Beiping (now Beijing) in 1937, the historian Chen Yuan’s choice between staying in or leaving the city (which would imply accommodation or resistance) was regarded not merely as a personal decision but also as a symbolic stance for the ethical principles of the Chinese intelligentsia. Based on a close reading of Chen’s historical writings during the Japanese occupation, this paper focuses on the inner world of this historian, and argues that a salient rhetorical feature of Chen’s wartime work was its role as a mechanism which he referred to as ‘illuminating the subtle’. This involved historical facts being cited and interpreted in a way that demonstrated the historian’s attitude and feelings towards contemporary events. It is proposed that the ‘illumination of the subtle’ is not accepted at face value as academic research, but rather that it is treated as a rhetorical device, in order to understand the inner logic and dynamism of this expressive mechanism.