
SUMMARY
What we have here is the- sixth volume of 'a glossarial
translation into Russian of a remarkable monument of ea-
ly Chinese and world historiography,
Historical
Notes,
ear-
Ssu-ma ch'ien (145-87
B.C.),
which traces Chinese History
from hoary antiquity to the close of the first millen-
nium B.C. This massive effort by the 'father of Chinese
history' runs to over half a million hieroglyphs and
130
chapters,
broken down into five big sections. The
previous volumes in our, series were, The
Fundamental
Notes
(or
Annals)
-
Pen-ahi
(Vols. 1 and 2, published in 1972 and
1975);
Chronological Tables
- Piao (Vol. 3,
1984);
Treatises
- Shu (Vol. 4,
1986) and the first ten chapters of the fourth section,
Hereditary Houses
—
Shih-ahia
(Vol. 5,
1987).
Volume 6 consti-
tutes a translation of the remaining twenty chapters of
the
Hereditary Houses
section (chapters 41-60 of
Shihahi),
putting the finishing touches to translation of the
first four sections of the monument.
We have already elucidated in the preface to Volume 5
the historically evolved meaning of 'jia' and Shih-ahia
(clan,
patronimy, a noble hereditary house) and stressed
that these chapters used appropriate chronicles and li-
neages of the princely houses of the Chou period, which
survived until the Han empire. As noted (Vol. 5,
pp.15-16),
the section describes the world of hereditary nobility
and its retinue, scattered throughout the country. Its
chapters offer pene-trating clues to the diverse aspects
of Chinese society, the state structure, the nature of
political affray, ethnic processes, and the forms of ea-
rly Chinese ideology.
Chapters in this -volume may tentatively be divided
into several groups. The first, spanning chapters
41-45,
takes up the story of individual kingdoms and principa-
lities in the Chou China (Yue, Cheng, Chao, Wei and Han).
Remarkably, the narrative's mood and detail are fairly
variable.
Patently standing out here is the second group cove-
ring chapters
47-49.
Chapter 47 is on the early Chinese
philosophic luminary Confucius. It is China's earliest
consistent biography of him. Significantly enough, while
giving full credit to the founder of Confucianism, the
historian would not eulogize both the man and his school.
Chapter 48 follows the life of a certain farmhand Ch'en.
She who led China's first popular uprising against the
482