Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 28, 19 April 2024
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Imagination and Reality: Analysis of Reasons of the Existence of Bias Against Xiongnu in Han Shu
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Abstract
The Han dynasty was an imperial dynasty in Chinese history that had been interacted with the Xiongnu (匈奴), a nomadic tribal confederation which was mainly active in the northwest region near Han’s boundaries in Eurasian continent, for four hundred years. Han Shu (汉书) is a historical record that comprehensively documents Han history, and Han Shu's recordings of the Xiongnu have been an essential source for Xiongnu studies. However, though there are concise and concrete facts and descriptions in the text of Han Shu, given the nationality of the author, Ban Gu (班固), bias that come from the imagination of Xiongnu that Han had and the reality of Han Dynasty inevitably exists in the text. Therefore, a deeper understanding of Xiongnu might be required for Han because of interactions and corporations happened between those two opposing nations. This paper will discuss the reasons for the existence of bias based on the text of Han Shu and attribute the bias to the imagination that Han people had of Xiongnu due to the geographical separation created by natural mountains and villages, and to the reality that Han interacted with Xiongnu in both peaceful and unpeaceful ways which led to complex feelings.
Keywords
Han Dynasty, Han Shu, Xiongnu history, Ban Gu
References
1. Chen, Tongsheng. “If Sima Qian Broke Through the Traditional Thoughts of Nationality.” Academic Journal of Hubei University, issue no. 1 (2005): 8-9.
2. Chen, Xujing. The Xiongnu Empire in Seven Hundred Years (Tianjin People Press, 2020): 108-149
3. Wang, Qingxian. “The Research of History of Relationship Between Han and Xiongnu, ” Inner Mongolia Univ. Journal no.4 (2004):144-148
4. Fan, Ye. The Book of Later Han. Zhonghua Book Company, 1956.
5. Zhang, Hongying. “The Analysis of Opinions of Ban Gu Towards Xiongnu.” Academic Journal of Southwest Minzu University. no.4 (2020):53-57
Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the International Conference on Global Politics and Socio-Humanities
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-363-0
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-364-7
- Published Date
- 19 April 2024
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/28/20230033
- Copyright
- 19 April 2024
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited