China and the West

Jules Patenôtre des Noyers ist bevollmächtigter Gesandter der französischen Gesandtschaft in Beijing.

Gabriel Lemaire ist Generalkonsul des französischen Konsulats in Shanghai.

Laurence de Lalande ist Generalkonsul des französischen Konsulats in Shanghai.

Ernest Frandon ist Interprète-Chancelier des französischen Konsulats in Fuzhou (Fujian).

Ernest François Fournier ist Konsul des französischen Konsulats in Tianjin.

Samuel Couling graduiert am Bristol Baptist College und wird Pastor in Totnes, Devon.

Edward Harper Parker ist stellvertretender Konsul der britischen Gesandtschaft in Wenzhou (Zhejiang).

Lodovico Nocentini ist Dolmetscher der italienischen Gesandtschaft in Shanghai. [Cordier fälschlicherweise : 1883-1890 in Beijing].

Ferdinando De Luca ist Gesandter der italienischen Gesandtschaft in Beijing.

Stanislas Chevalier kommt in China an.

Jozef Hoogers kommt als Missionar in Kulja (Xinjiang) an.

Wilde, Oscar. Impressions of America. Ed., with an introduction, by Stuart Mason. (Sunderland : Keystone Press, 1906). (Library of American civilization ; LAC 40007). [Geschrieben 1883].
Er schreibt : "The people – strange, melancholy Orientals, whom many people would call common, and they are certainly very poor – have determined that they will have nothing about them that is not beautiful… When the Chinese bill was presented, it was made out on rice paper, the account being done in Indian ink as fantastically as if an artist had been etching little birds on a fan."

The era (14 July 1883) reported that "the lecturer [Oscar Wilde] dwelt upon the beauties and peculiarities of Chinese theatricals in San Francisco, where the audiences show their approval, not by applause, but by taking a little cup of tea".

Charles Robert Hager wird nach Hong Kong geschickt und arbeitet für die Hong Kong Missionary Association.

Charles Robert Hager tauft Sun Yatsen.

Maria Hager-von Rausch ist als Missionarin der Basler Mission in Hong Kong und eröffnet den ersten Kindergarten.

Sergej Michajlovic Georgievskij bereitet sich auf eine Professur für chinesische Philologie an der Universität St. Petersburg vor.

Aleksei Matveevich Pozdneev promoviert an der Universität St. Petersburg.

Leo Tolstoy general
Tolstoy's books about China (Yasnaya Polyana) :
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mélanges asiatiques [ID D1979]. [Auszüge].
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mélanges posthumes d'histoire orientales [ID D5231]. [Auszüge].
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-tseu [ID D11899].
Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Nouveaux mélanges asiatiques [ID D1984]. [Auszüge].
Balfour, Frederic Henry. Taoist texts : ethical, political, and speculative [ID D5888].
Beal, Samuel. A catena of buddhist scriptures from the Chinese [ID D8375].
Beal, Samuel. The romantic legend os Sâkya Buddha [ID D8366].
Carus, Paul. Lao-tze. Tao-teh-king [ID D5896].
Chalmers, John. The origin of the Chinese [ID D7404].
Chalmers, John. The speculations on metaphysics, polity, and morality, of "the old philosopher", Lau-tsze [ID D4588].
Faber, Ernst. A systematical digest of the doctrines of Confucius, according to the Analects, Great learning, and Doctrine of the mean ; with an introduction on the authorities upon Confucius and Confucianism. (Hong Kong : China Mail Office, 1875).
Georgievskij, Sergej Michajlovic. Principy zizny Kitaja [ID D35697].
Gu, Hongming. Et nunc, reges, intelligite! : the moral causes of the Russo-Japanese war. (Shanghai : Shanghai Mercury, 1906).
Gu, Hongming. The great learning of higher education.
Gu, Hongming. Papers from a viceroy's yamen. A Chinese plea for the cause of good government and true civilization in China. (Shanghai : Shanghai Mercury, 1901).
Gu, Hongming. The universal order, or conduct of life [ID D10718].
Harlez, C[harles Joseph] de. Textes taoïstes [ID D5886].
Hearn, Lafcadio. Gleanings in Buddha-fields : studies of hand and soul in the Far East. (Boston : Houghton, Mifflin, 1897).
Heysinger, Isaac W. Lao, Tsze. The light of China : the Tao Teh King of Lao Tsze [ID D36183].
Julien, Stanislas. Les Avadânas [ID D5235].
Julien, Stanislas. Lao-tseu. Tao-te-king : le livre de la voie et de la vertu [ID D2060].
Karyagin, K.M. Konfutsi, yevo zhizn I filosofskaya deyatelnost. (S. Peterburg 1897).
Konishi, D.P. Konfutsi. (Moscow 1896).
Konishi, D.P. Laosi. Tao-teking. (Moscow 1895).
Konishi, D.P. Velikaya nauka Konfutsiya. In : Voprosy filosofii I psikhologii (1893).
Legge, James. The Chinese classics. Vol. 1 : The life and teachings of Confucius. Vol. 2 : The life and works of Mencius. Vol. 3 : The She king. (1867-1876). [Original = ID D2212].
Liang, Qichao. Likhunchzhan, ili politicheskaya istoriya Kitaya za posledniya. (1905).
Meadows, Thomas Taylor. The Chinese and their rebellions, viewed in connection with their national philosophy, ethics, legislation and administration, to which is added an essay on civilisation and its present state in the East and West [ID D4620].
Müller, F. Max. The religions of China [ID D36161].
Müller, F. Max. Sacred books of the East [ID D8367].
Pauthier, G[uillaume] ; Bazin, [Antoine]. Chine moderne, ou Description historique, geographique et littéraire de ce vaste empire, d'après des documents chinois [ID D5286].
Pauthier, Guillaume. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient [ID D2040].
Pauthier, Guillaume. Lao-tseu. Le Tao-te-king, ou, Le livre révéré de la raison suprëme et de la vertu [ID D5892].
Plaenckner, Reinhold von. Lao-tse. Tao-te-king : der Weg zur Tugend [ID D4608].
Rosny, Léon de. Le taoïsme [ID D36182].
Schott, Wilhelm. Khung-Fu-Dsü. Werke des chinsischen Weisen Khung-Fu-Dsü und seiner Schüler [ID D1373]. [Lun yu].
Simon, G. Eugène. La cité chinoise [ID D2437].
Strauss, Victor von. Lao-tse. Tao te king [ID D4587].
Vasil'ev, Vasilii Pavlovic. Religii vostoka : konfucianstvo, buddizm i daosizm [ID D35619].
The world's Chinese students' journal. Shanghai, no 4 (1906).

General
Derk Bodde : Leo Tolstoy's knowledge and appreciation of Chinese civilization, and specially of Chinese philosophy and religion, was deep and sincere. The interest in China came as a direct result of Tolstoy's religious 'crisis', which, beginning in the second half of the 1870s, caused him to turn away from a fruitful literary career and devote his remaining years to a search for the religious meaning of life and death. This search led him to China and her sages.
Tolsty – in addidtion to Christianity itself – at first confined himself to the study of Buddhism and Islam. Only in 1882 did his intellectual horizons expand to include the Far East.
What was it that made Tolstoy feel so akin to the Chinese people : In part, it was the warm and repeatedly expressed sympathy which he felt toward all peoples who were victims of Western imperialism. But more specifically it seems to have been the qualities of pacifism, frugality, industriousness, and simplicity of living for which he lauds them, quite justly, in his Chinese wisdom. The fact that China was a great agrarian country, made up in large part of hardworking peasants. The simple and close-to-earth life of these peasants was, in Tolstoy's eyes, far superior to the corruptions, artificialities and class struggles which he saw in the industrialized countries of Western Europe, with their great factories and crowded urban communities. In this agrarian mode of life, he recognized a factor of basic importance which not only linked China with Russia, but also brought these two nations into spiritual kinship with the other great agrarian countries of Asia, especially India. In China itself, Tolstoy found the highest spiritual expression of this 'genuine' way of life in the Confucian writings and the book of Lao Tzu.
In Taoism, as in Confucianism, Tolstoy was not satisfied merely to seek for self-perfection on the human plane. He looked further for a clue to that higher spiritual force which he believed with his whole being underlies all human activity and gives it its meaning and justification. In the case of Taoism, he did not need to seek far, for the essence of Lao Tzu's philosophy is that underlying the universe, as we see it, there is an absolute first cause or principle, called the 'Tao' or Way, from which all being is evolved, and to the eternal laws of which man must conform if he is to gain enlightenment and true happiness.

Alexander Lukin : For Tolstoy, Achina was an important example of a nonindustrial, nonviolent, nonprogressive and close-to-nature way of life. He had always admired Chinese thought, was involved in several translations of Chinese classics, and even once wanted to study Chinese. Tolstoy especially admired the concept of ‘nonaction’ (wuwei, which he translated as nedelanie) as stated by Laozi, and he used it to attack the European fascination with the advances in science and technology and the intensification of labor. He found ideas in both Laozi and many other Chinese popular sayings that were close to his own ideals : life in manual labor and unity with nature.

Letters from Leo Tolstoy to Vladimir Grigoryevich Chertkov (Nov.)
"I have been rereading Lao Tzu and now have begun reading Legge, the volume containing Mo Ti. I should like to write a book about Chinese wisdom, and particularly a discussion about human nature being good, and human nature being evil, and that people must be either egoistic individualists, or must be loving. All this is very interesting and important to me, and I should like to make it accessible to all and to write about it. Please send me, if you do not need them, the remaining books of Legge and Pauthier, provided you have them." [Legge Mencius ; Pauthier Lao Tzu].
"I wrote you about the Chinese, asking you to send me Legge and Pauthier, and wanted to do this work. But now it is clear to me that it should be done by you, and that you will do it easily and beautifully. The work consists of translating Legge's two volumes on Confucius and Mencius, with all his investigations into the lives of these sages and of the philosophers contemporaneous and close to them. (I do not remember about the book of Confucius, but in Mencius there is an account of these philosophers, among them Mo Ti, which is extremely interesting as well as important.) Mencus himself is also exceptionally interesting. If you could manage and introduction for this book (it mus be written as a single book: 'Chinese sages', that would be fine. But if not, then simply a translation of Legge – omitting only some of the overly dogmatic Christian remarks – would be one of the best books for the intellectual 'Posrednik'. Firstly, because for most of the reading public all this is completely new ; secondly, the subjects discussed are the most important ones in the world and are treated with seriousness ; and thirdly, many highly moral ideas are beautifully espressed. So as soon as you tell me that you agree, I shall send you all I have. As for Budha, finish it up. You have made an excellent beginning and should not dig too deeply with the plow. Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien."
"I still want to look through the books on Chinese wisdom in order to work out a plan more clearly. As soon as I finish this one of these days, I shall send them to you. A marvelous work."