His view of history has strong characteristics of the times. In view of the current situation that "China's historiography is stagnant, and the earliest China historiography in the world keeps pace with foreign countries", he pointed out that the reason is that "China historians are limited by narrow views and conservative spirit". The epochal nature of Huang Xianfan's historical thought is closely related to his strong patriotism. In other words, his historical world outlook is based on the spirit of the times and patriotism, which is fully reflected in his historical works.
193 1 After the September 18th Incident, he immediately searched for historical materials and began to study the Northeast issue. In the autumn of the following year, he published a paper "Historical Investigation of Northeast China" in the eighth issue of the first volume of Progress Monthly. In this paper, the classics are quoted widely, which proves that Northeast China has been a part of China territory since ancient times, refutes some Japanese scholars' arbitrary distortion of Manchuria history, and makes people understand the ins and outs of Northeast China's history and strengthen their belief in defending the country.
1935, the Japanese invaders' ambition to occupy all of China became increasingly obvious. Feeling that Peking University students were indifferent to state affairs, he wrote the article "The Political Movement of imperial academy Students in Song Dynasty", and published the book "The National Salvation Movement of imperial academy Students in Song Dynasty" (published by the Commercial Press) on the basis of revising and supplementing this article the following year.
During the Anti-Japanese War in May, 194 1, Huang Xianfan, together with cultural and academic figures such as Lei Peihong, Sa, Dong Weichuan, and Jiao Juyin, served as the editorial board of National Defense Weekly, and he published a series of anti-Japanese articles in the column History of the Han People's Foreign War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression.
During the period of 1976, Sino-Soviet border disputes occurred frequently. Huang Xianfan first asked Deng Rui, the son of Zhicheng Deng, to help him find historical materials about Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Heilongjiang. Deng Rui provided historical materials, and he wrote an article. The two co-authored the first draft of The Formation of the Han Nationality and distributed it to the Central People's Institute, National Cultural Heritage Administration and other relevant units. The book uses a large number of historical records to fully demonstrate the problems such as "the area north of Heilongjiang was originally developed by our people" and "Xinjiang has been our territory since the Han Dynasty", and points out theoretically that the territorial dispute between China and the Soviet Union is really unreasonable.
198 1 year, he and Deng Rui jointly published "Inner Mongolia has been the territory of China since the Qin and Han Dynasties" (journal of guangxi teachers education university Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition No.2, 198 1), which once again demonstrated the historical formation of the frontier territory of the motherland from the objective historical affairs and emphasized the importance of the territorial sovereignty integrity of the country.
The combination of distinctive spirit of the times and strong patriotism constitutes the whole of Huang Xianfan's historical view of statecraft, which has also become the consistent theme of his historical exposition.
Huang Xianfan was born in poverty and lived in poverty, which made his view of history full of people-oriented thought. He expressed deep sympathy for the working people struggling at the bottom of society, believing that they were the backbone of social production and the beginning of the liberation movement. His people-oriented view of history is mainly reflected in his early historical theories, such as Life of Peasants in Yuan Dynasty, Life of Slaves in Yuan Dynasty, Dalit Class in Tang Dynasty, Han People of the Oppressed Class in Yuan Dynasty, Life of Tenants in Yuan Dynasty, Social History of China Yin and so on. In his article "Dalit Class in Tang Dynasty", he pointed out at the beginning: "China people despise handmaiden and call it Dalit. It has a long history and there is no generation difference, not just in Tang Dynasty." This paper deeply sympathizes with the so-called "untouchable class" living at the bottom of society and points out that they are the main force of social production. His people-oriented historical view is completely revealed. At the beginning of his article "The Life of Tenants in Yuan Dynasty", he said: "Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, after the private ownership of land occurred in China, farmers were oppressed and sold their fields, and the rich bought and merged, and the so-called big landlords came into being." By comparing the government and thieves, this paper reveals the social reasons why working farmers become tenant farmers. Comparing officials with thieves, we can draw the conclusion that "officials force the people to rebel", thus warmly cheering the emancipation of serfs. In his published papers, such as "The Liberation of Serfs and the Discovery of Man in the Warring States Period" and "The Discovery of Man and the Equality of Man in the Spring and Autumn Period". , this view has been clearly developed, especially in the preface of the book Social History of Yin Dynasty in China.
In addition, people-oriented thought also plays an important role in Huang Xianfan's historical thought. His love for the Chinese nation and concern for the rise and fall of this nation (Zhuang nationality) made him devote half his life to the historical research of Zhuang nationality. In his life, he led a team to various ethnic minority areas in Guangxi for dozens of times, eating and living with them, understanding their sufferings and expressing their grievances.
1956 After attending the Third Session of the First National People's Congress, he consulted Premier Zhou Enlai on the Zhuang issue. Inspired and encouraged by Premier Zhou, he began to compile A Brief History of Zhuang Nationality in Guangxi and published it the following year.
1957 was wrongly classified as one of 96 typical Rightists in China, and one of the charges was "narrow nationalism". Nevertheless, his enthusiasm for studying Zhuang history has not been affected or shaken at all. On the basis of A Brief History of Zhuang Nationality in Guangxi, after more than 20 years of continuous research, supplement and revision, he finally completed the compilation outline and part of the compilation of A General History of Zhuang Nationality. After his death, his students Huang Zengqing and Zhang Yimin compiled and published a book of more than 700,000 words based on his national historical view and historical materials. The book concludes: "In short, as a member of the big family of the Chinese nation, the Zhuang nationality, like other fraternal nationalities, has made due contributions to their motherland. The broad masses of Zhuang people deeply realize that all ethnic groups in China are "suitable for integration but not for division" and that "integration is mutually beneficial and division is harmful"; Unity and cooperation among all ethnic groups are the fundamental interests of all ethnic groups and the common aspiration of people of all ethnic groups. " "The combination is the combination, but not the division" is the essence of the national historical view. His national thought is not pure nationalism. In the ethnic relations between the Chinese nation and foreign invaders, he stood clearly on the position of the Chinese nation and attacked the aggressors with words and beads; On the issue of ethnic relations within the Chinese nation, he advocated "harmony without difference", correctly handled the relationship between individuals and groups, and endowed the proposition of "harmony without difference" with great historical and practical significance.
Huang Xianfan's historical thought includes his historical view of the world, people-oriented thought and national thought. Although this thought lacks a high theoretical summary of historical philosophy and does not constitute a system, it sparkles with his ideological spark of helping the people, distinguishing between love and hatred, and showing deep friendship to the country and the nation.
Huang Xianfan devoted his whole life to history, which can be divided into three periods, that is, in the early stage, he mainly studied China's ancient and medieval history, in the middle ages, he turned to folk history, and after liberation, he mainly studied minority history. Strictly speaking, this division means that the emphasis of each period is different and there is no clear boundary.
Textual research is an important research method in the history of China. Huang Xianfan's research on history focuses on textual research. However, he is no longer like "born in the Qing Dynasty, confined to primary school and ignoring historical events", "just arguing with the ancients on paper to exegesis, spreading numerous notes and relying on numerous books". He was poor in Confucian classics, obsessed with isolated and trivial research, and ignored contemporary affairs. Instead, he took the essence and discarded the dross, and inherited the rigorous research methods of Ganjia scholars. Huang Xianfan's research methods have been comprehensively and concretely reflected in a large number of papers he wrote and published about the origin, evolution and spread of Chinese etiquette, sitting customs, clothing, tea drinking, smoking and eating utensils. Through more than 40 years of continuous research, supplement and revision, he completed the three-volume heritage "The Evolution of People's Daily Life in China" at the age of 865,438+0. In specific writing, he always abides by the teaching of Mr. Chen Yuan's "fishing with exhausted resources" (that is, the collection of materials should be as complete as possible), regards tracing the source as an important part of textual research, insists that "the doubters lack knowledge", and has extensive evidence and well-founded, and repeatedly points out the mistakes of famous ancient textual research experts such as Duan Yucai.
At the beginning of 1962, after Huang Xianfan took off his rightist hat and re-entered the university forum, he felt that the students in the history department of Guangxi Normal University at that time had too weak basic knowledge of ancient Chinese. In order to improve students' ability to read and interpret ancient Chinese, he wrote a book "Introduction to Reading and Interpreting Ancient Chinese Books" after teaching, and entrusted the textbook department of Teachers College with mimeographed 500 copies at his own expense, which were distributed to students one after another to strengthen their basic knowledge of ancient Chinese. Huang Xianfan put down the ancient prose.