Loss of a Recorded Heritage: Destruction of Chinese Books in the Peking Siege of 1900

Late-nineteenth-century China suffered from a weak and declining central government, the incursions of Western interests, and a necessity to grapple with the demands of a modern national state. For sixty days in the summer of 1900 the legation quarters of Western governments in Peking came under siege by the Qing government and Boxer forces until finally relieved by an international military expedition. During the siege, the Hanlin Academy, a repository of Chinese bibliographical treasures representing centuries of cultural accumulation, suffered destruction through fire and pillage. From the immediate aftermath of the siege and throughout the century following, questions have been raised as to what actually happened and who was to blame for the atrocity. The observations of the British and other Western government officials differed from those of the Chinese participants. A variety of sources, some recently rediscovered, make fresh conclusions possible. Introduction The loss of recorded heritage has attracted the fascination of scholars for centuries, and no more so than in modern times. Since before Alexandria, the effects of natural and human disasters on books and libraries have received attention in lamentation, if not in description and explanation. In instances of expropriation and theft, cultural treasures may sometimes be returned to their place of ownership; in cases of loss to fire, flood, and other elements, there is little to be done.1 Individual incidents may include both kinds of threats. In the postcolonial and post–Cold War era of the past quarter century, delicate questions about cultural artifacts and books 432 library trends/winter 2007 have been raised and addressed, sometimes for the first time in a serious manner. The destruction and dispersal of the bibliographic contents of the Hanlin Yuan (or Hanlin Academy, imperial center for scholarly studies) in Peking in 1900 is one such event that has stirred the curiosity of few historians. The 1996 International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) conference in Beijing proved to be a memorable opportunity to open and discuss the matter. The further research that resulted has continued a process of historical revision. Thus, this article seeks to outline the historical context of the event, review the actions leading to actual destruction, describe the significance of the collection concerned, assess the extent and consequences of the loss, and in conclusion, place the event and ongoing research in modern library history. The Boxer Uprising and Western Interests The siege of the Allied Legations by the Boxers, known in China as the Yihetuan Movement, in the summer of 1900 was not an isolated series of events. It must be seen as one expression of mounting tension between the Chinese people and government and the Western powers with their commercial, military, and religious aspirations. Because the siege involved diplomatic missions of European nations, the United States, and Japan, it attracted worldwide attention in a way that previous incidents had not. For the Chinese, however, the two-month episode was, in the words of one historian, “of trivial significance” because it was eclipsed by the aftermath of humiliating concessions and crushing reparations.2 Nineteenth-century China witnessed a recurring cycle of “fragmentation and reform” as Great Britain and other powers resisted efforts of the Chinese to curb the opium trade, commercial exploitation, and missionary activity.3 Far too complex to detail here, but characteristic of the period, are the Opium Wars of 1839–42 and 1857–58 in the southeast, the Taiping Movement of 1851–66 in the central region and centered in Nanjing, the Muslim Revolts of 1855–73 in the northwest and southwest, and the loss of satellite states. All contributed to the effort to strengthen the imperial government through military preparedness and limited reforms. These initiatives suffered setbacks later in the century in disastrous wars with France (1880s) and Japan (1894–95), as well as from ominous threats from Russia. The carving up of the periphery of the Chinese empire and the Yangzi River, with treaty ports and concession regions, brought both some adaptation of Western administrative practices as well as much antipathy to reflective Chinese citizens. A brief attempt at reform by Emperor Guangxu under the leadership of Kang Youwei in the summer of 1898 was stifled by the Empress Dowager Cixi who had in effect ruled China for the Qing dynasty since the 1860s. The cumulative frustrations of all these factors seemed set to break out again.