Saluting the Yellow Emperor: A Case of Swedish Sinography

253 Pages·2012·1.92 MB·English

by  Perry Johansson

Saluting the Yellow Emperor
Sinica Leidensia
Edited by
Barend J. ter Haar
Maghiel van Crevel
In co-operation with
P.K. Bol, D.R. Knechtges, E.S. Rawski,
W.L. Idema, H.T. Zurndorfer
VOLUME 104
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/sinl
Saluting the Yellow Emperor
A Case of Swedish Sinography
By
Perry Johansson
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2012
The lion share of this book originates from Sinofilerna published in Swedish by Carlsson 2008.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johansson, Perry.
Saluting the yellow emperor : a case of Swedish sinography / Perry Johansson.
p. cm. — (Sinica leidensia, ISSN 0169-9563 ; v. 104)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22097-3 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. China—Civilization—
To 221 B.C.—Historiography. 2. Sinologists—Sweden—History—20th century.
3. Historiography—Sweden—History—20th century. 4. Excavations (Archaeology)—
China. 5. Karlgren, Bernhard, 1889–1978. 6. Andersson, Johan Gunnar, 1874–1960.
7. Hedin, Sven Anders, 1865–1952. 8. Myrdal, Jan. I. Title.
DS741.25.J65 2012
932.0072’022485—dc23
2011037324
ISSN 0169-9563
ISBN 978 90 04 22097 3 (hardback)
ISBN 978 90 04 22639 5 (e-book)
Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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Fees are subject to change.
“With a little help from my friends”

CONTENTS
Introduction ........................................................................................ 1
Chapter One What was Sinology? ............................................... 11
China As Career ........................................................................... 12
The Research of Bernhard Karlgren .......................................... 14
Inflating China .............................................................................. 16
Race and Empire ........................................................................... 20
Sex, Power and Karlgren’s Alter Ego ........................................ 23
Striking at Mediocrity .................................................................. 32
The Backbone of the Ruling Class ............................................. 34
Language and Power .................................................................... 37
Sinophilia ....................................................................................... 42
Chapter Two Archaeology and the Western Origin of China ... 45
The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities .................................. 46
Johan “China Gunnar” Andersson ............................................ 49
Unearthing a Chinese Stone Age ............................................... 50
The Mandarin Archaeologist ...................................................... 52
The Great Urn Traffic in Lanzhou ............................................ 56
The Archaeologist As Official of the Chinese Empire ........... 59
Orientalism in China ................................................................... 64
Chapter Three The Swedish Chinese Expedition ...................... 67
Sven Hedin under Attack in Beijing ......................................... 69
The Despot of Xinjiang ............................................................... 73
Meeting Chiang Kai-shek ............................................................ 76
Islamophobia Along the New Silk Road .................................. 81
Chapter Four Empire and Ethnography .................................... 87
The Plundering of Mongolian Culture ..................................... 90
The Golden Temple ..................................................................... 96
Chapter Five The Karlbeck Syndicate ......................................... 101
A Swedish Crown Prince in the Forbidden Palace ................ 101
Railway Constructor and Amateur Collector .......................... 103
viii contents
Collecting As Entrée to the Upper Class ............................... 105
Secretly Collecting for Western Museums ............................. 108
Treasure Seeker in China .......................................................... 111
China’s Cultural History under Threat .................................. 115
Back in Stockholm ..................................................................... 117
Chapter Six Distorting History .................................................... 121
The Peking Man Discovery ....................................................... 125
Chapter Seven Osvald Sirén’s Spiritual Far East ....................... 129
Snubbed by Feng Yuxiang, Received by the Emperor ......... 135
Starting a New Life in Paris ..................................................... 138
Smuggling via Diplomatic Pouch ............................................ 140
Modern Buddhism, Fascist Scholars, Chinese Art ............... 144
Old Times and New ................................................................... 150
Chapter Eight Swedish Maoism ................................................... 155
Political Pilgrims ........................................................................ 156
The Communist League Marxist-Leninists (KFML) ............ 159
The Swedish-Chinese Friendship Association ...................... 163
Sinology Hijacked ....................................................................... 166
Using Foreigners’ Strength to Propagandize for China ...... 172
China’s Financial Support ......................................................... 175
Utopia ........................................................................................... 176
Occidentalism ............................................................................. 180
Chapter Nine Report from a Chinese Village ........................... 185
Another Career in China .......................................................... 186
China’s Friend ............................................................................. 192
Chairman Jan Myrdal ................................................................ 197
Chapter Ten Anti-Imperialism? ................................................... 199
Revisiting the Silk Road ............................................................ 204
Myrdal avec Hedin ..................................................................... 209
“O My Friends, There is No Friend” ...................................... 211
Saluting the Yellow Emperor ................................................... 216
Sinophilia: A Conclusion .................................................................. 221
References ........................................................................................... 231
Index .................................................................................................... 241
INTRODUCTION
This is a case study about sinology in Sweden, an examination of the
development of this discipline in the twentieth century in a relatively
small country on the periphery of Europe.1 Investigating a small intel-
lectual community makes it possible to get much closer to individual
researchers than is feasible in more general overviews. A limited study
like this offers the opportunity to discuss individual Swedish experts
on China, to get to know their living conditions and to read everything
they published—all without turning into simple biography what is
principally a discursive study.
That said, Swedish sinology in the twentieth century was certainly
not a marginal endeavor. The Swedish China researchers were some of
the leading scholars of their time. Bernhard Karlgren performed path-
breaking research in reconstructing the spoken languages of ancient
China. Johan Gunnar Andersson unearthed the first proof ever of a
Chinese Stone Age, while Sven Hedin rediscovered buried cities along
the ancient Silk Routes. These scholars were also well connected to the
international scholarly community. Karlgren studied with Chavanne,
Maspero and Pelliot, and knew Fu Sinian. Andersson befriended Hu
Shi and Ding Wenjiang, and hosted many of the most important sinol-
ogists of the time at his museum in Stockholm. Osvald Sirén, who tra-
velled tirelessly in China and the United States, and was very familiar
with Paris, Tokyo and London, knew everyone of importance in the
field of Chinese art history. Hedin’s international network of world-
renowned scholars was immense. These were the scholars who in the
late 1920s turned Stockholm into an important international hub for
sinology.2
Ideas rarely exist on their own, ungrounded without material under-
pinnings. Nor are they simply byproducts of international or social
1 I want to thank Sven Windahl and Jean T. Olson for their generous assistance in
the copy editing of this book.
2 The Swedes spent a lot of time in China, but the East Asian collections in Stock-
holm eventually came to be their institutional home base. The first directors of the
museum, Johan Gunnar Andersson and Bernhard Karlgren, also served as editors
of the Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, which published articles by
renowned scholars from all over the world.