Stages of Decline

2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-378
Author(s):  
Ari Daniel Levine
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
The Past ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Social Trauma ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The City

After the fall of the Northern Song [Formula: see text] (960–1127) capital of Kaifeng [Formula: see text] to Jurchen invaders in 1127, diasporic literati of the Southern Song dynasty [Formula: see text] (1127–1279) recreated and revisited its lost sites through textual commemoration, especially in memorabilia literature (biji [Formula: see text], lit. ‘brush notes’). As knowledge of the city passed from communicative memory into cultural memory, its decline and destruction became the focus of nostalgia and indignation for Yue Ke [Formula: see text] (1183–1234), the author of the Pillar Histories (Ting shi [Formula: see text]), a collection of counter-narratives of Northern Song history that expressed the shared experience of social trauma induced by dynastic collapse. Disconnected from their spatial context and even from historical fact, the city’s memory sites became stages for amoralistic declension narrative, in which the city’s destruction and occupation was assumed to have been instigated by the decadence of the imperial court of the passive Emperor Huizong [Formula: see text] (r. 1100–26) and his ‘nefarious ministers’. The most colourful elements of Yue’s ludic and fantastical narratives became the focus of his indignation, which encouraged his readers to denounce the traitors who had betrayed the empire by inviting the Jurchen invasion. In the Pillar Histories, Yue deployed textual imaginaries of nostalgia as forms of resistance by re-contesting the past events that led to dynastic collapse. By reconstructing the city in the cultural memory of his fellow diasporic literati, Yue was creating a vision of an ideal political, cultural and moral community that once existed at the dynasty’s inception, and might be reconstituted in the future, if and when Song subjects recaptured their lost homeland.

City’s Cultural Memory: Modern Practices of Symbolizing the Past

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 352-364
Author(s):  
Natalia G. Fedotova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Fundamental Aspect ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Urban Identity ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
The Past ◽  
Symbolic Resource ◽  
The City

The article is devoted to the discourse of the city’s cultural memory. The relevance of studying this topic is determined not only by the fundamental aspect associated with the episodicity of existing studies of this phenomenon. From an applied point of view, the city’s cultural memory is a symbolic resource that can be used to create an appealing image, form a sustainable urban identity, and strengthen the citizen’s sense of belonging to the city. The accumulation and objectification of cultural memory take place in symbolic forms, which makes it important to study the practices of symbolizing the urban past, the essence of which is to generate the significance of the relevant or latent layers of cultural memory for the citizens.The article presents the results of the final stage of research related to the study of the process of constructing the cultural memory of the city. The purpose of the article is to analyze modern practices of symbolizing fragments of the urban past, which mean their significance for contemporaries. Basing on the culturological cross-section of the issue, the author integrates different research contexts. The methodological basis of the article is the communicative approach that focuses on the processes of meaning formation, and the constructivist method that considers memory as a multi-layered and dynamic construct. Analyzing the practices of symbolizing the urban past by the example of Russian cities, the author of the article demonstrates how the episodes of the city’s memory are updated in the modern world, how cultural meanings become memorable for citizens. The author uses the results of previous studies and identifies the following elements of the symbolization of the urban past: a) ways of encoding fragments of the past; b) communicative trajectories of memory symbolization; c) factors of producing meanings about the collective past of the city. The obtained results open up new frontiers in understanding the processes of formation of the collective ideas about the city, and prospects for empirical research, forecasting and constructing the cultural memory of Russian cities, giving them the opportunity to change their present and future.

scholarly journals Cultural Memory and Urban Space in Shaping Cultural Identity

2019 ◽  
pp. 160-183
Author(s):  
Valentyna Bohatyrets ◽  
Liubov Melnychuk
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Archives ◽  
City Space ◽  
New Type ◽  
The City ◽  
Historic Cities

Nowadays, in the age of massive spatial transformations in the built environment, cities witness a new type of development, different in size, scale and momentum that has been thriving since late 20th century. Diverse transformation of historic cities under modernisation has led to concerns in terms of the space and time continuity disintegration and the preservation of historic cities. In a similar approach, we can state that city and city space do not only consist of present, they also consist of the past; they include the transformations, relations, values, struggles and tensions of the past. As it could be defined, space is the history itself. Currently, we would like to display how Chernivtsi cultural and architectural heritage is perceived and maintained in the course of its evolution. Noteworthy, Chernivtsi city is speculated a condensed human existence and vibes, with public urban space and its ascriptions are its historical archives and sacred memory. Throughout the history, CHERNIVTSI’s urban landscape has changed, while preserving its unique and distinctive spirit of diversity, multifacetedness and tolerance. The city squares of the Austrian, Romanian and Soviet epochs were crammed with statuary of royal elites and air of aristocracy, soviet leaders and a shade of patriotic obsession, symbolic animals and sacred piety – that eventually shaped its unique “Bukovynian supranational identity”. Keywords: Chernivtsi, cultural memory, memory studies, monuments, squares, identity.

Identifying the Country of Meilugudun and the Significant Value of Zhou Qufei’s Lingwai daida

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-43
Author(s):  
Victoria Almonte
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Social Differences ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
The North ◽  
Maritime Silk Road ◽  
Chinese Texts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The City

Abstract During the last century, considerable interest arose regarding Chinese knowledge of western territories, with a long list of works being published on the topic. Joseph Needham’s Science and Civilisation in China (1959) states that Arab thinking had clearly influenced the Chinese conception of geography over the centuries. Zhang Xinglang analyses the relationship between the Chinese empire and countries overseas, focusing on Islamic countries and particularly those in the north of Africa. Feng Chengjun’s western territories toponyms and Gudai nanhai diming huishi have provided two powerful and even fundamental tools for the research presented here. The first gathers together a large collection of toponyms from various literary works; these are written in western language with their relative transcription or translation in Chinese. The second, the Gudai nanhai diming huishi, is divided in two volumes analysing many Chinese toponyms and their use in several geographical works. Li Qingxin’s Haishang Sichou zhilu, focuses on the development of the Maritime Silk Road and its economic-political consequences for China’s empire. Gabriele Foccardi’s research focuses instead on the motives for Chinese travellers and their expeditions, highlighting the historical and social differences between the different dynasties. Friedrich Hirth and William Rockhill provide a crucial literary resource with their translation of Zhao Rukuo’s work, Zhufanzhi (1966), as does J.V.G. Mills with his annotated translation of Ma Huan’s Yingya shenglan, a journey work of the fifteenth century. Yang Wuquan’s research into Zhou Qufei’s work, published in 1999, identifies several toponyms used by Zhou and compares several foreign geographical works. Zhou Qufei and Zhao Rukuo were both imperial officials during the Southern Song dynasty. They spent many years in the border territories of China: Zhou Qufei in Qinzhou, Guangxi province, and Zhao Rukuo in Quanzhou, Fujian province. Their works mention several toponyms never used before in Chinese texts: ‘Meilugudun’, or ‘Meilugu’ (as written by Zhao Rukuo), is one of these. The identification of this toponym has not been determined until now. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to determine which kingdom was identified with the ‘Meilugudun’ toponym during the Song Dynasty. Two different questions are here discussed and resolved. First, can the land of Meilugudun be identified with the city of Merv in Turkmenistan? Second, do Zhou’s ‘Meilugudun’ and Zhao’s ‘Meilugu’ both stand for the same place? This paper can be divided into four sections. The first section focuses on Zhou Qufei, the second on Zhao Rukuo. The third analyses and compares previous scholars’ studies. The fourth proposes the new identification of the Meilugudun kingdom.

Redefining Good Government: Shifting Paradigms in Song Dynasty (960-1279) Discourse on "Fengjian"

T oung Pao ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 97 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 301-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaeyoon Song
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Good Government ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
Constitutional Discourse

AbstractThis article describes changing political visions of the Chinese literati during the two halves of the Song dynasty, as reflected in their discourse on the fengjian (classical enfeoffment) system of antiquity. In the aftermath of the An Lushan rebellion (755-763), a group of political thinkers criticized that system as an ungrounded historical anachronism. This idea gained currency among a majority of the Northern Song statesmen and literati who supported the centralization project of the founding emperors. With the fall of the Northern Song, the ancient fengjian doctrine resurfaced as a sustained constitutional discourse on government. Contesting the imperial vision of centralization and interventionism, Southern Song literati redefined good government for their time.

BUILDING THE PAST: MONUMENTS AND MEMORY IN THE FORUM ROMANUM

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Social Transformations ◽  
The Past ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way ◽  
Late Roman

Memory played a crucial role in the shaping of Late Roman political consciousness and identity. This is clear in the case of the city of Rome, where political, religious, and social transformations affected the way that the city’s inhabitants defined their relationship between themselves and with the imperial court. The area of the forum Romanum was intimately related to Rome’s history, and was therefore particularly appropriate for the construction of different ‘Roman memories’. The aim of this article is to discuss how the monuments built or restored in this area helped to define these memories and turn the past into a political argument.

On the Water Environment of Kaifeng City of the Northern Song Dynasty

2013 ◽  
Vol 790 ◽  
pp. 437-440
Author(s):  
He Qun Li ◽  
Zhi Yi Song
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Water Environment ◽  
The Public ◽  
The North ◽  
Northern Song Dynasty ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
North Water ◽  
Kaifeng City ◽  
Bodies Of Water ◽  
The City

In the Northern Song Dynasty Dongjing city of Kaifeng, there were many rivers, ponds and other bodies of water, which had a certain relationship one another and relative independence. These waters had important influence on the layout of the city, urban economy, the public life and environment. Under its influence, now Kaifeng city has still many lakes, called "the North Water City"

Walls and Gates, Windows and Mirrors: Urban Defences, Cultural Memory, and Security Theatre in Song Kaifeng

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-118
Author(s):  
Ari Daniel Levine
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Urban Form ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Open Approach ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Personal Security ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
City Walls

Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song (960-1127) dynasty, boasted sophisticated siege defence installations, which were ultimately breached by the Jurchen invasion of 1126-1127. According to both the archaeological and textual evidence, its concentric city walls and militarized gates with barbicans and bastions represented a crucial stage in the militarization of urban form in early-modern China, as well as a more open approach to planning. While Kaifeng’s urban defences evoked imperial majesty and personal security for Northern Song residents who described them, diasporic literati of the Southern Song (1127-1279) invoked the violation of this defensive perimeter as a metonym for the invasion of their lost homeland. The concept of security theatre explains how Northern Song Kaifeng’s city walls and gates could simultaneously function as efficacious siege defence installations and be perceived as symbolic defences.

Construction of the Kaifeng Outer City Wall and the Form of the City Gate of Northern Song Dynasty

2012 ◽  
Vol 209-211 ◽  
pp. 165-168
Author(s):  
He Qun Li ◽  
Xiang Yu ◽  
Yang Yu
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
City Wall ◽  
External Structure ◽  
Northern Song Dynasty ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
Kaifeng City ◽  
The City

On the base of the city wall of the Wudai period, the outer city wall of Kaifeng of Northern Song Dynasty formed internal and external structure with maintenance of many times. On the wall are some defending facilities such as Mamian, barbican, dilou,zhanpeng,etc. The city gate consists of double ones, treble barbicans and water gates. The outer city make Kaifeng city of Northern Song Dynasty looks like a military castle.

scholarly journals Chemical studies of Chinese coinage II: from Qin to Yuan (221 BCE–1368 CE)

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
A. M. Pollard ◽  
Ruiliang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Southern Song ◽  
Northern Song ◽  
Chemical Studies ◽  
Diachronic Study ◽  
Plausible Mechanism ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
The Yuan Dynasty ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis paper surveys of the chemical composition of the copper alloy coinage in China from the Qin Dynasty to the end of the Yuan Dynasty (221 BCE–1368 CE). It shows a dramatic change in the alloying practice used to cast these coins from the Qin unification (after 221 BCE), compared to that practiced in the pre-Qin. There are a number of shifts in the quality of the coinage from dynasty to dynasty, such as the obvious debasement of the Southern Song coinage (1127–1279 CE) when compared to that of the previous Northern Song dynasty (960–1127 CE). Particular attention is paid to the low levels of zinc in the coinage over the period. Although not as obvious as the switch to brass coinage in the Ming, certain periods do show occasional values of zinc up to 2–4%, which we suggest could reflect the sporadic input of recycled brass (Cu–Zn alloy) into the raw material melt. There were several major suppressions of Buddhism during this period, when Buddhist brass statuary was recycled into the coinage, providing a plausible mechanism for the injection of small quantities of zinc into the coinage alloy. A diachronic study of the amounts of iron in the metal, taken to indicate changes to the manufacturing process of copper, also show changes over time. The median levels of iron jump from the Qin (221–206 BCE) to the Western Han (206 BCE–9 CE), possibly reflecting the adoption of slagging processes in the production of the copper, followed by a gradual decline to the Northern Song (960–1127 CE), and a rapid increase during the Southern Song (1127–1279 CE). Finally, a study of changes in the content of silver over time reveals differences in the sources of lead, or changes in lead and silver extraction technologies, over the period.

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