Saving the Nation Through Culture : The Folklore Movement in Republican China

The Modern Chinese Folklore Movement burst onto the scene at National Peking University between 1918 and 1926. A group of literary scholars, inspired by Western thought, turned to the study and revitalization of folklore – popular songs, beliefs, and customs – to rally the people around the flag during an era of deep postwar disillusionment.

Saving the Nation through Culture opens a new chapter in the world history of the Folklore Movement by exploring the origins and evolution of the discipline’s Chinese branch. Gao reveals that intellectuals in the New Culture Movement influenced the founding folklorists with their aim to repudiate Confucianism following the Chinese Republic’s failure to modernize the nation. The folklorists, however, faced a unique challenge – advocating for modern academic methods and constructions while upholding folklore as the key to the nation’s salvation.

Largely unknown in the West and underappreciated in China, the Modern Folklore Movement failed to achieve its goal of reinvigorating the Chinese nation. But it helped establish a modern discipline, promoting a spirit of academic independence that continues to influence Chinese intellectuals today.


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