On October 10, 1911, the Xinhai Revolution (hereinafter referred to as the SR) began in China, which led to the overthrow of the ruling Manchu Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) and the proclamation of the Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the KR) on January 1, 1912, the first victorious republic in Asia. The centenary of the WED and the Kyrgyz Republic as events of great historical significance was solemnly celebrated throughout the modern "Chinese world" and found a lively response in the circles of the world scientific community. Russian scientists also did not stay away from the anniversary, having timed a number of scientific forums and publications to coincide with it. In particular, on December 19, 2012, Moscow hosted the international scientific conference "The Xinhai Revolution and Republican China-the Age of Revolutions, Evolution and Modernization", organized by the China Department and the Taiwan Studies Center of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the support of the Interaction of Civilizations Foundation. Well-known sinologists from Latvia, the USA, Taiwan, as well as Russian Sinologists from the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Moscow State University, the Higher School of Economics, and other scientific and educational institutions took part in its work.

A special feature of the scientific meeting was the composition of its participants (seven doctors and six candidates of historical sciences), who acted as speakers and invited debaters. The topics of the reports to be published in the conference proceedings are based on a wide range of archival and historiographical sources. They focus on individual events, problems, and personalities, as well as on general social processes, phenomena, and trends that are evaluated synchronously and in a multi-dimensional age-old retrospective.

In his report "The Xinhai Revolution and the Collapse of the Monarchy in China (1911-1912)", Yu.V. Chudodeev (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) examined the foundations of the monarchical state system in China, the reasons for the collapse of the ancient empire, and the differences between the revolution of 1911-1912 and the cyclical crises of imperial dynasties. The speaker offered his assessment of the nature and outcome of the CP, defining it as an incomplete "bourgeois" revolution caused by complex social processes that "fell far short of the models and principles of development that the capitalist West demonstrated to China."

Reports of Russian eyewitnesses to the revolution in China, stored in the AVPRI funds, were presented by A. N. Khokhlov (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in the report "The position of tsarist Russia in the question of recognition of the Republic of China in 1911-1913". Judging by the reports and newspaper articles of those years, in the absence of comprehensive information from Beijing, the Russian government considered and the right to resort to a policy of strict neutrality. This position was expressed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs S. D. Sazonov in his speech to the State Duma on 13.04.1912. He described Russia's current relations with other countries as follows: "It has just begun... In the summer of last year, the movement spread throughout China and led to the issuance of an imperial decree announcing the introduction of a new state system... Having no reason to impose this or that state system on the Chinese, from the very beginning of the crisis that China is experiencing, we decided to remain neutral in relation to the struggle taking place there, striving only to protect our interests..."

At the same time, archival documents reveal the important role of Russian diplomats as intermediaries in peace negotiations between monarchists and Republicans, and then in negotiations with interim President Yuan Shikai on China's relations with Russia and official recognition of the Republic of China.

A. L. Verchenko (IDV RAS) and E. A. Sinetskaya (IV RAS) paid attention to the revolutionary changes that took place after the formation of the Kyrgyz Republic in the field of social ideas, traditions, morals and law. Westernization, modernization, and emancipation, accelerated by the revolution, radically and in many ways irreversibly changed the age-old views of the Chinese on the family, marriage, the role of women, gender equality, and basic norms of social behavior. As noted by A. L. Verchenko (report "Changes in family and marriage relations in China and Taiwan after the Xinhai Revolution"), the fight against prejudice and domestic order in the family became an important part of the patriotic movement and the movement for a new culture soon after the creation of the Kyrgyz Republic. It was conducted both at the state level (adoption of laws) and at the level of propaganda efforts of the progressive public. At the same time, no revolutionary measures could instantly destroy the established mentality.

shocks. Even the "Civil Code" adopted by the Nanking government in 1930 was still valid only on paper for a long time, and the real liberation of women was extremely slow. After 1911, changes were observed in almost all spheres of society. But in the course of difficult development (the struggle between the new and the old), only those things that corresponded to the mentality of the Chinese nation and its ancient traditions took root. To be irreversible, the transformation had to go gradually, taking into account the national specifics and the peculiarities of the psychology of the people.

E. A. Sinetskaya (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences) in her report "The Revolution has Come True: New Ideas, Morals, and Forms of life on the eve and after the Xinhai Revolution"considered the problem of emancipation of Chinese women as a particular aspect of the broader topic of adaptation of an individual person drawn into the turbulent maelstrom of various ideas, cultures, and ways of life in the era of revolutionary changes. Events that took place in China at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. cultural changes have brought most of the leading ideas of world social thought to the country. The advent of modern education, the press, and communications made them accessible to an increasing number of Chinese. The revolutionary climate that was developing in the country contributed to the assimilation of these ideas with great enthusiasm. And this process reached its greatest extent after 1911, especially during the "May 4 movement". The author of the report showed the formation of a "new personality", ideas, morals and forms of life on the example of the new literature of China. The latter experienced a powerful overseas influence, often being a Western tracing paper, but it was a retransmission of Western ideas in a familiar environment for most, with thought patterns adapted to the local mentality. As noted by E. A. Sinetskaya, "accomplished revolutions" and world cultural shifts of the XX-XXI centuries require a person to adapt to other ideas, stereotypes, forms and styles of life. This process is not always comfortable and non-confrontational. And then the panacea for all ills is often seen as a return to the traditional - in life, behavior, thoughts. The latter observation is quite consistent with the thesis of A. L. Verchenko about the role of national mentality and traditions in the gradual implementation of "irrevocable transformations".

The unresolved internal and external problems in the Kyrgyz Republic also affected Soviet-Chinese relations in the 1920s. A. A. Pisarev (Tamkan University, Taiwan) considered the well-known conflict on the CER in an unexpected perspective for traditional assessments. In his article "The Soviet-Chinese conflict of 1929: Causes and consequences", he argued that Moscow did not actively support the Chinese Communists in the area of the CER in those years. The Chinese government did not plan to seize the territories of the USSR, and its struggle with the then meager number of communists in Manchuria was rather an ideological pretext. In fact, Chiang Kai-shek's stratagem was aimed at exploiting the contradictions between the great powers and using" revolutionary diplomacy " to turn the establishment of full control of the road by the Chinese government into the initial stage of eliminating the system of unequal agreements. As a result, Nanking's actions led to a sharp deterioration of relations with the USSR, the transition of the conflict to the military phase, and Japan took advantage of the fruits of the Soviet-Chinese confrontation, which gained control of the CER a few years later.

Reports on historiographic topics introduced the evolution of approaches to assessing the SR observed in world science, the historical role of Chiang Kai-shek, Zhang Zhidong and other historical figures. They reveal the metamorphoses of these often contradictory approaches and assessments in the twentieth century, as well as new trends in the historiography of the twenty-first century.

A series of academic meetings dedicated to anniversaries in Taiwan was presented in the report "The Centenary of the Xinhai Revolution and the Republic of China: an Overview of "Anniversary" Scientific forums in Taiwan"by D. A. Arincheva (HSE) and V. Ts Golovachev (Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences). As these international forums have shown, Taiwan still remains the world's leading center for the study of China's recent history. This is supported by a strong scientific tradition and training of scientists on the island. The free presentation and informal discussion of acute problems showed that the CP, evaluated in a century-old retrospective, was a real turn towards the future revival of China. The CD has been around for more than a century. The social macro-processes brought about by the revolution continue today. And the ideological legacy of Sun Yat-sen, which often seemed like a naive utopia and adventurism in the twentieth century, is increasingly being taken into account in modern political life (including in Taiwan), preserving the potential and relevance for the future of China, Asia and the whole world in the twenty-first century. In this sense, we can agree that the CP is still incomplete.

The topic of" Xinhai " celebrations in China is continued in the report of E. Y. Staburova (Riga Stradyn University)., "Zhang Zhidong as the forerunner of the Xinhai Revolution...", dedicated to the re-evaluation of the historical role of Zhang Zhidong (1837-1909). Moving away from the template patterns of Chinese history

Initially, it served as the ideological background of the course of reforms and modernization taken in 1978. As this retreat progressed, Zhang went from being a Qing comprador dignitary to an instigator of modernization. But the perception of Zhang Zhidong as a revolutionary personality and the idea of the revolutionizing role of foreigners in Hubei is a new phenomenon, behind which, according to E. Y. Staburova, the political course formulated by Hu Jintao in 2006 is clearly visible. It is aimed at supporting a number of political goals, including: a radical departure from the historical dogmas and labels of the first years of the PRC and the "cultural revolution"; reconciliation of supporters of the revolutionary and evolutionary development of China in the XX century; finding a common language with the Chinese diaspora and Taiwan; building wider bridges between China, Western countries and Japan creating a base of evidence for possible claims that China is no longer the periphery of the "international community", that since the second half of the XIX century, with the help of foreigners, the country has been not only a recipient, but also an active "motor" of world progress.

According to the speaker, these political signals were not heard in the West, but could be sensitively perceived in Taiwan and among foreign Chinese. At the same time, the re-evaluation of the historical role of Zhang Zhidong, timed to coincide with the centenary of the CP, did not find unanimous support among Chinese historians. Whether the Chinese leadership will continue to revise its messages to the world community, and how this will affect historiography, is the intrigue of the coming years.

An attempt at a holistic view of the role and place of Chiang Kai-shek in the history of twentieth-century China, taking into account changes in the current assessments of world experts, as well as information from the published diaries of the Generalissimo, was proposed by A. N. Karneev (ISAA MSU) in the report "Sketches for the biography of Chiang Kai-shek in the context of the analysis of modern Chinese historiography". As the speaker noted, the surge of interest in the PRC in the personality of Chiang Kai-shek caused an avalanche of new publications and research. Moreover, in recent years it has become appropriate to emphasize the immutability of its patriotic position to resist the "imperialist" plans of the great powers, which include the USSR. The departure of modern Chinese scientists from Marxist assessments of history leads to a gradual convergence of the positions of historians on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, facilitated by the growth of scientific and educational ties between the PRC and the Kyrgyz Republic in Taiwan. In general, the assessment of Chiang Kai-shek's life and political activities still causes a lot of discussion among historians of the PRC, reflecting the acute ideological and political struggle going on in modern China, including on historical issues.

The question of the division and unification of China, which arose in 1895, after the Japanese annexation of Taiwan, and then sharply escalated after the CP, remains unresolved even today. The history of the long struggle and disputes between Taipei and Beijing over the unification of the country is summarized in the report of A. G. Larin (IDV RAS) "The principle of "one China" in relations between the two shores of the Taiwan Strait". As the author has shown, Taipei and Beijing have repeatedly changed the interpretation of the "one China" principle and the tactics of their political actions over the past 60 years. In fact, while allowing for different interpretations, this principle is not an insurmountable barrier to separatist tendencies in the form of the Taiwan "independence" movement. Nor can it guarantee the unification of the two parts of China. Its real significance is that it strengthens (though not fixes) the island's status quo, hinders Taiwan's drift towards independence, and creates a solid foundation for the stable development of mutually beneficial ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. While not sufficient, it is a necessary condition for moving towards a solution to the Taiwan problem. According to A. G. Larin, the current shape of relations between Beijing and Taipei is highly consistent with the interests of both sides, as well as the goals of strengthening security in the Asia-Pacific region.

E. V. Chirkov (MGIU) considered the problems of regulating complex processes of Chinese migration in the current state and historical perspective in the report "Development of migration processes and the formation of their legal regulation in the PRC". The sharpness of the topic is related to the fact that the increased mobility of Chinese citizens and the growth of the foreign Chinese diaspora (over 30 million people) entail serious geopolitical, socio-economic and demographic consequences for the Middle Kingdom itself with its huge population, for the Asia-Pacific region, and for the whole world. Along with the large-scale export of surplus and cheap labor abroad in recent years, the PRC itself has encouraged a massive influx of foreign qualified specialists in order to actively use them in various fields of science, technology and production. Unlike Russia, the author believes, China's experience has shown a more thoughtful migration control system. This is not so much due to differences in the socio-political and constitutional system,

This is due to Beijing's more consistently formed and verified policy of regulating internal and external migration in the current and long-term national interests.

The thorny path of turning loyal subjects of the Chinese emperor into a community of full-fledged citizens, cultivating civic consciousness and civic culture, which China entered after 1911, is still far from being passed by Chinese society today. N. K. Semenova's report "Non-Governmental Organizations of the People's Republic of China Sprouts of democracy: history and trends" noted that before the beginning of the period of "reform and openness", the CPC and the Government of the People's Republic of China generally held a negative attitude towards public organizations, believing that it was impossible to form a relatively independent civil society in socialist China. After 1978, the CCP's attitude towards civil society gradually changed from denial to acceptance. In recent years, China has shown signs of growing civic consciousness. This trend has not yet become a dominant feature of civil society in China, but it has already revealed the direction of its development. In general, the level of autonomy, independence and voluntary participation of non-governmental organizations in China is still quite low.

The final part of the conference summarized the centuries-old cultural, ideological and other social processes for which the SR turned out to be a truly great turning point.

The epochal processes of "a complete reinterpretation of the three-thousand-year-old spiritual heritage based on its recoding into a completely different conceptual and methodological system" were considered in the report of A. I. Kobzev (IB RAS) "The Xinhai turning point in Chinese culture". As the speaker pointed out, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, with the growth of Western, aggressively colonizing influence, the disintegration of the empire, the crisis of ancestral values and the aggravation of problems of national identity in China, traditional culture began to collapse, and its self-understanding radically changed. According to a number of sinologists, the" bankruptcy " of China at that time was explained by the failure of the Confucian social and political order. According to their opponents, neo-Confucianism perished under the ruins of the empire at the beginning of the XX century, but post-Neo-Confucianism (modern neo-Confucianism) was immediately born. It was a reaction to global catastrophes and global information processes, which were expressed, among other things, in the rooting of alien Western theories in China. Many twentieth-century scholars believed in the compatibility of Chinese traditional culture with Western values, the possibility of its modernization, and even the ability to solve the fundamental problems of the West: the lack of spirituality, the atomization of people in the global world, and the crisis of the foundations of ethics and morality. These views are confirmed by the rapid and successful modernization of Japan under the slogan "Eastern (Confucian) ethics, Western science". A similar effect, achieved by the end of the twentieth century in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong, even gave rise to the concept of successful " Confucian capitalism."

Recording the milestones of the" recoding "of culture after the "Xinhai crisis", A. I. Kobzev noted that the division of China into the PRC and the Kyrgyz Republic in Taiwan in 1949 split the intellectual elite and polarized its views. In China, under the influence of the ideology of communism, a Westernizing approach to its culture prevailed, and in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of non - mainland China, a traditionalist approach prevailed. Since the late 1970s, China has moved away from sweeping political "criticism of Confucius." And with the beginning of the era of reforms and the search for new ideological guidelines, neo-Confucianism became the subject of special attention for Chinese scientists. By the end of the twentieth century, the struggle between "Marxists" and "traditional Confucians" had weakened, entering a phase of ideological convergence. Against the background of continuous dominance and development in the XX-XXI centuries in Taiwan and Singapore, Confucianism is now successfully revived in the PRC as a carrier of the national idea waiting in the wings. Moreover, by the twenty-first century. contrary to recent prophecies about the "end of history" and the victorious world march of Western culture, it has become clear that fundamentally different worldview models not only continue to successfully exist in their original areas, but also actively penetrate the Western world, have already invisibly conquered it and become universal values.

Recognizing that the Westernization approach to culture has prevailed in the PRC, A. I. Kobzev does not at all identify it with modernization. Meanwhile, L. S. Vasiliev (IB RAS) in his report "From inattention to the West to the triumph of Westernization of modern China" insists that in the non-European world, any modernization can take place only in the form of long-term intensive Westernization. China is an example of such Westernization (not equal colonization), and the whole point of modern Chinese history is to move towards a Western standard.

In the understanding of L. S. Vasiliev, SR was only a link in a grandiose chain of events that fit perfectly into the concept of "Westernization". It was the reaction of a great country in crisis because of its violent Westernization. Ideological manifestations of vester-

Both Sunyatsenism and Maoism, which decided the fate of China in the mid-twentieth century, were at the bottom. As L. S. Vasiliev concludes, the revolution should be considered not Xinhai, but the plenum of the CPC Central Committee in 1978, which radically changed China, breaking its traditional imperial-Maoist structure, similar to the classical Eastern structure of power-ownership, and replacing it with another, westernized, bourgeois, market and private ownership. This is also facilitated by the fact that the basic principles of Confucianism resemble the ethics of Protestants in the interpretation of M. Weber.

Today, China openly continues its policy of active Westernization, including borrowing everything that is useful to it from developed countries. Although China is still far from a Western - style society, it has already chosen this long and difficult path of becoming a bourgeois liberal democracy. At the same time, China will always remain a Confucian country with a repeatedly justified civilizational identity.

V. V. Malyavin (Tamkan University, Taiwan), who holds a different point of view on modernization and capitalism in China, the nature of Chinese modernization, and the correlation of Chinese and Western factors in it, acted as an opponent of L. S. Vasiliev's report. Objecting to the speaker, V. V. Malyavin asserts that the main thesis about the "triumph of Westernization" is fraught with a very serious logical contradiction. The development of China in modern and contemporary times is not reducible to the processes of Westernization. The very concept of "Westernization" encompasses a contradictory ideological conglomerate, far from being reduced to the Protestant ethic and spirit of capitalism according to Weber. The processes that took place in China from the moment of its forced introduction in the XIX century to the assimilation of the achievements of Western technology and culture did not fit too well into the mainstream of Western realities. Assessing the nature of the capitalist system in modern China, V. V. Malyavin emphasized its close connection with the peculiarities of social organization, life values and mentality of the Chinese. In his opinion, China and (in a broad sense) The East has always had and still has some viable alternative to the" West " both in the ontological and social sense. For example, unlike Western models of capitalism based on entrepreneurial individualism, China was able to develop and offer the world a model of "Confucian capitalism" based on eastern "networked" sociality and promising some alternative ways out of the dead ends of "Westernization".

V. V. Malyavin concluded that China's century-long historical path encourages a reassessment of European ideas about the history and nature of capitalism. Today, it is obvious that China was reluctant and only forced to adopt the socio-economic forms of European Art Nouveau. But Chinese civilization had the potential to develop capitalist relations in line with the" hypercapitalism " of postmodernity. This potential has been fully realized in recent decades, making China one of the world's leaders in development and revealing the need to revise the concept of capitalism in the light of the Chinese experience.

As the conference showed, the study of the CP and the centuries - old history of republican China remains the subject of active attention in Russia. Russian and international studies on SR themselves serve as the subject of regular historiographical reviews and, of course, require further in-depth study. There is also an urgent need to introduce more Russian contributions to the laboratory of world Sinology. I would like to believe that the conference materials will be a good tool for solving these problems, as well as for new research related to understanding the role of revolutions, evolution and modernization in the historical and modern development of China.

Permanent link to this publication: