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The first international conference on the history of the Kingdom and Empire of Qin was held on December 10-19, 2008 at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The conference was organized by the Faculty of East Asian Studies of the Hebrew University of Yu. 14 scientists from China, the USA, Canada, Germany, Israel, Korea, and Taiwan made presentations.

The conference was divided into three thematic sections: "Archaeological Perspectives", "State and Society in Qin" and "Qin ideology and image of Qin". Several round tables were held, during which participants discussed a number of issues raised in the reports.

The conference participants were addressed by Lothar von Falkenhausen (University of California, Los Angeles, USA), R. Yates (McGill University, Canada) and Yu. Pines.

In his opening remarks to the archaeological section, von Falkenhausen noted that the archaeological material discovered during excavations in recent decades allowed us to identify previously unknown features of the Qin society and its evolution. In particular, it is becoming more and more clear that the Qin unification of the ancient Chinese ecumene was largely prepared by previous historical development, moreover, it can even be defined as the restoration of the original cultural unity of the Zhou world, the degree of unification of which was much higher than is commonly believed. Thus, even before political unification at the end of the third century BC, the states of the Zhou circle had a high level of standardization of coins, weights and measures, musical tones and written signs - in other words, everything that traditional historiography attributes to the first Qin Emperor. Thanks to archaeological and epigraphic findings, it can also be argued that the Qin rulers, in their desire to unite the Middle Kingdom, were guided by the already existing and well-known Zhou model.

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Qin epigraphic monuments dating both to the early period of Qin's existence (the inscription on the bell of Qin Gong, VII century BC) and to the time immediately preceding unification (mid-III century BC) indicate a desire to restore the Zhou order and an extremely high appreciation of Zhou. Ritual conservatism (the longest preservation of West Zhou ritual standards compared to other kingdoms) and at the same time the gigantomania of Qin burials are also evidence of a high level of political claims and a reference to the source of these claims - the continuity of Qin in relation to Zhou.

R. Yates devoted his speech to explaining the questions of whether the Qin unification of the ancient Chinese ecumene was historically inevitable and whether the builders of the Qin Empire realized their ultimate goals. If R. Yeats answers the second question in the affirmative, referring to the consistent, although sometimes leading to unexpected results, policy of imperial construction in Qin since the middle of the IV century BC, then he considers the inevitability of unification under the auspices of Qin largely as a historical accident. In his opinion, the excessive concentration of power in the Qin kingdom could have slowed or even stopped the Qin conquest in the event of the unexpected death of Ying Zheng, the future first Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, as a result of a palace plot or assassination attempt. With a high probability, the subsequent turmoil in the kingdom after the death of the ruler could lead to its weakening or even disintegration. R. Yeats also suggested that the early Imperial period of Chinese history should be counted not from the formal date of Ying Zheng's proclamation as emperor in 221 BC, but from the middle or even the beginning of the third century. BCE when the Qin Kingdom consistently included ethnically, culturally, and socially alien territories on its southern, western, and northern borders. Moreover, according to R. Yeats, the early Chu Empire can also be considered as an alternative to the Qin Empire. Other Zhanguo kingdoms could also claim the role of the unifier.

Yu. In his opening remarks, Pines addressed the problem of Qin history sources. The lack and lack of objective information about the early history of this kingdom in traditional written sources, especially in the Shi Ji (Historical Notes), is a major problem for the study of Qin. In this regard, it is especially important to study the primary sources on the ideology of the Qin Empire recorded in Shi Ji-the inscriptions on the stelae of Qin Shi Huang. In addition, in recent decades, new opportunities for studying Qin history have been provided by archaeological and epigraphic finds: the picture of Qin history recreated on their basis contains a lot of new things compared to the reports of traditional texts. Any modern study of Qin history should, as far as possible, involve and systematically analyze various categories of sources.

Within the framework of the archaeological section, five reports were presented.

G. Shelakh's report " Collapse or transformation? Anthropological and archaeological reasons for the fall of Qin" was devoted to one of the key issues of Qin history - the rapid collapse of the Qin Empire within a few years after the death of its founder - Qin Shi Huang-di. According to the speaker, there are no attempts in historiography to take a systematic approach to the question of the causes of the death of the Qin Empire and, in particular, to compare the Qin experience with similar episodes of the death of other ancient states. Traditional explanations for the collapse of Qin go back to the treatise "Guo Qin Lun" by the early Han thinker Jia And "On the Mistakes of Qin" and cite a number of specific reasons: the low moral qualities of the Qin emperors; the cruelty and immorality of the Qin government system; excessive strain of the people's forces on mass construction projects; the resistance of the elites of the former Zhanguo kingdoms to Qin unification.

The speaker proposed to consider the death of the Qin Empire as a systemic collapse. He defined the Qin system as "rigid," or well - integrated, striving for the most comprehensive control over resources-labor and material. In this sense, Qin was strikingly similar to the modern-day state, as described in a number of works on the theory of socio-political evolution. On the contrary, traditional (pre-modern, premodera) the State was not capable of such a high degree of control over its resources. Its structure was much more complex, or" fuzzy " (fuzzy), management at the local level was not so much dependent on the central one, and local social units (for example, communities) had much greater autonomy. As a result, such a state, due to a lower level of integration of its structural units, was more resistant to

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systemic crises. The Qin Empire, on the other hand, was able to manage effectively at the lowest levels of its organization (here the speaker briefly refers to administrative and legislative epigraphic documents from Shuihudi and Liye discovered in recent decades) and to mobilize all available resources, but it was too fragile, and a local crisis (the Chen She rebellion) led to the collapse of the entire structure.

Analyzing the immediate causes of the crisis of the Qin system, G. Shelah comes to the conclusion that, as in the case of some other civilizations (for example, the crisis of the Maya civilization in Mesoamerica), the most important reason was excessive stress on resources, primarily mass construction projects. According to the speaker's calculations, about 1.5 million people, or 22% of the able-bodied male population of the empire, were involved in them. (At the same time, Schelach has a total population of 20 million people, which caused the disagreement of von Falkenhausen, who spoke in favor of a higher figure.) The speaker cites a number of archaeological data confirming the colossal scale of construction work under the first and second Qin emperors and notes that, according to reports from Shi Ji, the scale and intensity of construction projects increased dramatically by the end of Qin Shi Huang-di's reign (starting from 214 BC). G. Shelakh generally agrees with the point of view from the point of view of one of the most authoritative experts on the history of the Zhanguo eras and early empires, M. E. Lewis, and explains this phenomenon by the crisis of the Qin model of governance, aimed at the maximum mobilization of resources in the context of wars of the Zhanguo era. After the creation of the unified empire, the Qin rulers were unable to develop a new model, and the application of the old one eventually led to a senseless waste of resources that could no longer be burned in continuous wars, on colossal construction works of ever-increasing proportions. Eventually, the system's overstrain caused a local crisis (local insurrection), which, given the high level of integration of the system, quickly turned into a general crisis. In conclusion, G. Shelakh expressed the opinion that the collapse of the Qin system did not lead to its disappearance, but to a transformation and weakening of integration, which made the system itself less "rigid" and more viable. It was in this form that it was inherited by the Han Empire.

Teng Ming-yu's report (Jilin University, China) "The development of Qin culture and the transformation of Qin from a regional state to an empire", based on "archaeological material", examined the social and political aspects of the transformation of the Qin state throughout its history: from a polity based on blood relations to a territorial state, and from the development of the Qin People's Republic of China. from the system of hereditary posts to the meritocratic system of selection of officials.

Traditional written sources, according to the speaker, allow us to identify four main phases of the socio-political and cultural history of Qin. The first period covers the end of the Shang Era and the Western Zhou era (XI - beginning of the VIII century BC). For this time, Teng Ming-yu notes, it is almost impossible to determine the features of the Qin archaeological culture that distinguish it from the West Zhou one. In the second period (the middle of the Chunqiu era - the beginning of the VIII - end of the VII century BC), the features of Qin material culture were developed, clearly distinguishing it from other Zhou kingdoms. During the third period (late 7th - late 4th century BC), the Qin culture spread to the entire territory of Guanzhong (the Wei River basin) and the eastern part of the present-day Prov. Gansu. Finally, the fourth period (the end of the IV-III centuries BC) is associated with the expansion of the territory of the Kingdom of Qin and the gradual seizure of all other state formations of Ancient China.

Further, the speaker provides archaeological materials illustrating the socio-political evolution in the Qin kingdom over four periods. Teng notes that while Qin cemeteries that date back to a relatively early time (the second period) include only one type of burial, which she defines as Qin, then later cemeteries of the third period (Maojiaping, Dengjiaya, Fengxiangxian) contain different burial traditions, and this trend is stronger by the fourth period (represented by the second period). cemeteries in Taerpo, Dianzi, and Gaozhuang). The speaker considers this to be a reflection of the gradual transition from generic to territorial organization of society. Although this transition was not a specific feature of the Qin state, it was happening faster in it than in other regions. From the very beginning of its existence, Qin was forced to constantly wage wars and integrate other ethnic groups into its composition, which accelerated the transition to the territorial principle of state organization and led to the emergence of a bureaucratic state that united the ancient Chinese ecumene.

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Report by Wang Hui (Center for Archaeology. research. Gansu Provincial Museum, China) "Discovery of the Zhanguo-era Western Rong Cemetery in Majiayuan" is dedicated to the description of nine burials excavated in 2006-2008 in the town of Majiayuan in the area of Tianingui prov. Gansu, which researchers have identified as West Gong. The cemetery dates back to the second half of the Zhanguo era. Judging by the richness of the burials, it was a necropolis of a noble Zhong family. The objects found in the burials show a mixture of different cultures: the Rong culture proper, the Huaxia culture of the Great Plain and the Qin culture, as well as the steppe cultures. The speaker believes that the burials in Majiayuan are the richest among the Rong burials known to date and provide important material for studying the material culture of the Rong. We will have to answer a number of questions, in particular about the origin of numerous glass objects found in burials (the glass itself, the technique of its manufacture, the place of making objects); about the origin of objects belonging to non-Zhun cultures; about the reasons why chariots played such a large role in the funeral rite, etc.

Report by Zhao Hua-cheng (Institute of Archaeology. Beijing University, China) "A new study of the Early Qin Culture" is devoted to the analysis of materials from burials and settlements that the speaker refers to the Early Qin culture. Excavations were carried out in the 1990s-2000s on the territory of the eastern part of the prov. Gansu, in the upper reaches of the Weihe River basin and in the Xihanggui River basin. On the territory of Lixian County, aristocratic (possibly royal) burials were discovered (unfortunately, most of them were looted before archaeological work was carried out) and urban settlements with remnants of walls. They are dated to the second half of the Western Zhou era. The speaker believes that the Qins came to these lands as a result of migration from the east at the end of the Shang era, although he states that there is almost no archaeological evidence of such migration (he relies on the account of the early history of Qin in Shi Ji). The migration to the Xihanpui River basin, according to Zhao, dates back to the middle of the Western Zhou era and was at least partly due to economic reasons - the presence of rich salt deposits in this region, as well as gold mines. The speaker also seeks to identify individual archaeological finds with reports from traditional sources about the geography of the Early Georgian polity. In particular, he considers the Xishan settlement discovered in the Xihanshui River basin to be the remains of one of the first Qin capital centers, Xiquanqiu, and the altar of the Early Han era discovered on the top of Mount Luantingshan to be the place where one of the Qin religious centers, the western altar (xi zhi), was previously located. Another urban settlement discovered on Mount Dabushan, the speaker identified as the remains of the Qin capital of the beginning of the Chunqiu era-Xixinyi.

Lothar von Falkenhausen's report "Ethnic Roots of the Qin (Historical and archaeological aspects" was similar in its subject matter to that of Zhao Hua-cheng, but dealt mainly with the historiographical aspect of the problem of the origin of the Qins. According to the speaker, Early Qin society was ethnically heterogeneous, and all attempts to attribute the origin of the Qin people to any one ethnic group are simplistic. This disadvantage affects both currently popular theories of Qin ethnogenesis - the so-called theory of Eastern origin, according to which the ancestors of the Qins moved to the Weihe River basin from Shandong, and the theory of Western (or local) origin, according to which the Qins were descendants of the local population, primarily the Rong. Falkenhausen noted the ideological bias of both theories and the inability to prove the correctness of any of them with the help of archaeological data. All such attempts lead to an unjustified linking of archaeological data to written sources and make it difficult to make an independent archaeological argument. The speaker considers disputes about the ethnic origin of the Qin People to be basically unsolvable on the basis of archaeological materials, since archaeological cultures are not directly related to ethnic communities; moreover, he considers a number of features that have traditionally been considered by archaeologists as an indicator of ethnicity to reflect religious practices that are not related to ethnicity. The speaker believes that the Qin people were a multiethnic community that united the Zhou-type lineage and the local population.

Within the framework of the section "State and Society in Qin", five reports were made.

Seung Yi-tian (Sinica Academy, Taiwan) in his report "Township farmstead and Tax administration in Qin and Han" consistently reviewed a number of Qin and Han documents discovered during excavations, materials from population censuses and tax lists. About-

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Registers of various administrative levels are analyzed: settlements (li), parishes (xiang), counties (Xian), and counties (jun). The speaker paid special attention to the problems of source studies. In particular, he noted that the documents found mainly in burials should be treated critically: they contain obvious errors and distortions, explained by the fact that they could not be data from real censuses, but "substitutes" created on their basis, specially designed for placement in the grave (ming qi). However, in general, the data on the structure of the population and its growth dynamics contained in the discovered documents correspond to what is known from traditional sources.

Referring to the organization of local government, the speaker stressed that volosts played a key role in government control at the grassroots administrative level. But in volosts and lower administrative divisions (settlements), along with government agents (officials), there were local self - government bodies not controlled by the central government-san lao at the level of volosts and fu Lao at the level of settlements, which represented a parallel administrative tribal organization. At the same time, officials were primarily responsible for organizing the performance of duties, collecting taxes and implementing the law, while representatives of local society ensured that the activities of officials did not lead to a violation of economic and social stability in a particular area. Large-scale government projects (primarily construction projects) often caused contradictions and even conflicts between the two management systems. During periods of turmoil, local self-government could temporarily replace the state bureaucracy, as happened after the fall of the Qin Empire.

Tsch. Sanft (University of Munster, Germany) in his report "Mass communication and' General knowledge ' under the Qin Dynasty "analyzed the findings of standards of weights and measures, which, according to the Shi Ji report, were distributed by the Qin Shi Huang edict to the entire territory of the recently created empire. The speaker considered the edict's notes on these standards as a form of self-representation of power and the creation of" common knowledge " about the new all-China state, the destruction of Qin's rivals, and the merits of the first emperor of the Qin Empire. Thus, the legitimacy of the new state was justified. The speaker noted that the Qin emperors Qin Shi Huang-di and his successor Er-shi relied on practices and ideas that had developed long before the creation of the empire related to the presentation of power: the use of inscriptions on ceramics (wa shu) to inform, perhaps, a fairly wide audience about significant legal and political events; inscriptions on bronze vessels, partly pursuing the same goal; ideas about the importance of" general knowledge "and public awareness of the legislative provisions of the authorities, recorded in such an important text for the Qin administrative and political tradition as "general knowledge".Shang jun shu." Thus, the Qin emperors were based on a ready-made set of tools for spreading "general knowledge", but they used it on an unprecedented scale and for an unprecedented purpose - to represent the "world" empire among the broad strata of its population, and not only among a rather small stratum of aristocrats who participated in ritual actions (as in the case of inscriptions on bronze vessels). The methods of "mass communication" tested by the Qin emperors continued to develop in the Han era, when a special form of mixed written and oral communication between the authorities and the population was developed, which was used at the lowest administrative levels.

R. Yeats 'report" Changing the Status of Slaves at the Turn of the Qin and Han Eras " is devoted to comparing the legal status of slaves in legislative and judicial texts discovered during the excavations of Qin burial No. 11 in Shuihudi (1975) and Early Han burial No. 247 in Zhangjiashan (1983-84). The speaker believes that at the turn of the Qin and Early Han eras, the status of slaves changed significantly, which helped to improve their legal status (for example, now slaves were included in the family structure). In support of this position, Yates cites a number of examples from the Early Han court book, which show that slaves were treated as younger members of the family (in particular, they were subject to the same punishment for not observing "filial piety" towards their masters, as younger members of the family were for a similar crime against older members of the family). and even had the right to inherit the entire household of the owner as his relatives. At the same time, the legal and social status of slaves is improving. So, the state begins to officially recognize marriages between slaves: This is expressed in the designation of slave wives by the term qi ("wife"), not by the term "wife".tse ("concubine"), as it was in Qin law. Legislative requirements

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the regulations also protect slaves to a certain extent from arbitrariness on the part of their masters (for example, the master is punished for the slave's suicide). Exactly the same punishment is imposed on parents for killing children, moreover, in the corresponding articles of the Early Han sudebnik, children and slaves are considered as a single legal category. The change in the status of slaves also manifested itself in the fact that at the beginning of the early Han period, new legal terms describing the slave state, different from those used in the Qin legislation, became widespread.

During the" Society in Qin "round table, the conference participants focused primarily on the issues of relations between society and the state, the degree of state control over society and the level of regional autonomy in the Qin state. R. Yates noted that in the state's desire for total regulation of social and economic relations through the system of ranks of nobility, the Qin legislation assumed high level of autonomy of individual households, where the head of household had considerable power over the household members and was not accountable to the State. Moreover, some of the most important measures of the Qin government aimed at strengthening control over society could lead to exactly the opposite result. Thus, the system of mutual responsibility of relatives and neighbors in critical situations generated their unity in the face of the state, which was especially pronounced at the beginning of the anti-Qin uprising after the death of Qin Shi Huang. Xing Yi-tian pointed out that the Qin government's control over the territory of its state was quite limited and only partially extended to the countryside, especially in the outlying areas. Local officials had considerable independence, including legislative independence. Thus, the text of the governor's message to his subordinates (yu shu) found in the Qin burial in Shuihudi indicates that the governor had the right to introduce his own regulations in the lands under his jurisdiction. Perhaps such regulations include previously unknown edicts that are part of the epigraphic corpus of the Yuelu Academy.

Report by Chen Sun-chan (Yuelu Academy. Hunan University, China) "Qin Bamboo Slats from the collection of the Yuelu Academy" was dedicated to one of the newest epigraphic discoveries - Qin documents acquired by the Yuelu Academy at the Hong Kong antique market. Despite the fact that the work on ordering and preparing the slats for publication has not yet been completed, it can be stated that the epigraphic corpus includes the following texts: calendars and diary entries; didactic instructions to officials (the text is very close, sometimes literally coinciding with a similar text from the Qin burial in Shuihudi - "The Way of an official" ("Wei li zhi dao"); a book of divination from dreams; a mathematical problem book; a collection of queries on court cases (which, by analogy with the similar text from the early Han burial in Zhangjiashan, was called "Zou Yan shu"; and a collection of statutes and decrees. The speaker noted that a number of key issues for studying these texts still remain unresolved, primarily about the origin of the texts and their belonging to the same corpus of texts (it was found that the texts of the Yuelu Academy were written in at least eight different handwritings).

Pu Mu-chou (Sinica Academy, Taiwan) in his report "Religion and religious life under Qin" examined the specific features of the Qin religion and its connections with the previous and synchronous religious traditions of the Shang and Zhou people. The speaker consistently analyzed traditional written and newly discovered epigraphic and archaeological evidence about the Qin religion, covering both official state cults and private religious life. He noted that at both levels, the Qin religion was a continuation of the Shang and Zhou religious practices and probably did not differ much from the religions of other kingdoms of the Chunqiu and Zhanguo eras. A special feature of the religious beliefs of the Qin people in the Zhanguo era (however, similar evidence comes from the territory of other states of the Zhou circle, which indicates common cultural trends for all of them), which the speaker draws attention to, was that the afterlife is a direct continuation of the earth, and that events in life are distributed according to happy and unhappy days 60-year cycle, and the characteristics of each day can be determined by special fortune-telling bookszhi shu, which were discovered in a number of Qin burials. According to the speaker, these texts reflect the optimistic nature of the beliefs of ordinary people (i.e., an unofficial, non-state religion).: knowing in advance what kind of activity a particular day has, they could achieve the greatest success in their planned activities. Opportunities

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The opportunities for choosing an auspicious day were further expanded due to the simultaneous existence of several different zhi shu systems. The religion of personal welfare, as the speaker defines the Qin (and ancient Chinese) religion in general, united both official and popular religious practices. In particular, state rituals were often also rituals aimed at achieving personal well-being for the ruler, such as immortality.

Within the framework of the Qin Identity round table, the conference participants discussed a wide range of issues related to the preserved texts of the Qin people's self-perception and their perception by representatives of other regions of the ancient Chinese ecumene, as well as archaeological evidence of the specifics of the Qin culture. The Zhanguo are associated with the reforms of Shang Yang. Von Falkenhausen pointed out that it was wrong from the archaeological point of view to speak of an independent Qin culture, which was just one of the variations of the Zhou culture. The so-called Chuska culture was also a similar variation, with many of its specific features apparently being traces of the spread of certain religious beliefs, rather than signs of an independent archaeological culture. The regional differences of the Zhanguo era were largely the result of deliberate efforts by the governments of various kingdoms to differentiate themselves from their neighbors. However, they continued to remain within the framework of Zhou cultural standards: a unified system of weights and measures, coin and music systems. R. Yates added that one of the measures to distinguish states in the Zhanguo era was the passport system, the existence of which is recorded in Qin epigraphic texts. Wang Hui pointed out that archaeology still allows us to identify a number of specific features of the Qin material culture, which, in particular, allow us to trace the territorial expansion of Qin. He stressed that it is necessary to distinguish between different levels of material culture. Teng Ming-yu noted that the alienation of a particular kingdom both in the Chunqiu era and in Zhanguo was related to the political situation. Thus, in Chunqiu, the" barbarians " most often appear as Chusans, who posed the greatest threat to the small states of the Yellow River basin. During the Zhanguo era, the growing Qin kingdom was increasingly referred to as "barbarian".

Yu. Pines suggested paying attention to two trends in the intellectual life of the Zhanguo era: the formation of state identities and the strengthening of ideas about the need for unification. Son Yi-tian believes that these ideas are well reflected in the perception of Qin in the Zhanguo texts: on the one hand, as a "barbarian" state, on the other - as an exemplary ancient kingdom, which best preserved the Zhou traditions. Perhaps this was due to the reforms carried out in Qin: the legist-style reforms carried a powerful ideological charge of restoring the ancient order, or rather, as R. Yeats noted, expanding the social practices of the aristocracy to all strata of society. According to Teng Ming-yu, in the Zhanguo era, the tendency to" restore antiquity " is archaeologically recorded in the territory of the Yan Kingdom, where manufacturers of bronze vessels deliberately reproduced the forms and ornaments of bronze from the beginning of the Chunqiu era.

Five reports were presented in the section "Ideology and image of Qin".

M. Nylen (University of California at Berkeley, USA) devoted her report "Han Portraits of Qin" to the issue of continuity between the Qin and Early Han empires and the perception of the Qin Empire by Early Han statesmen and thinkers. The speaker is of the opinion that the Han state inherited almost all the main features of the Qin state, including the bureaucratic and administrative system, methods of economic management and control over the economy, state cults and court rituals, social policy directions, legislation, calendar, postal system, features of official architecture and art, etc. on the one hand, between the Zhanguo era and the Qin Empire period, and on the other, between the Qin and Han eras. Reports in traditional written sources about radical innovations introduced under the first Qin emperor - the unification of the system of weights and measures and writing, the abolition of aristocratic ranks and destinies, ideological unification, expressed in the burning of books and the execution of scientists - are considered by the speaker as groundless and refuted by both traditional written and epigraphic sources. It is shown that in the first half of the Early Han era, the attitude towards the Qin state experience was generally positive.-

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Despite the critical comments of some thinkers, the issue is still being resolved. Most of all, Han statesmen appreciated the achievement of the Qin rulers in uniting the Middle Kingdom and creating an empire. On the contrary, the negative image of Qin as a despotic state was formed towards the end of the Early Han era, primarily during discussions at the court of Emperor Cheng-di (33-7 BC). It was then that the Qin empire began to be perceived as an antagonist of the Confucian state, the ideal of which was being formed at the same time.

The report of G. Fankerbergen (McGill University, Canada)" Appanage rulers (Zhuhou) in the era of early empires "was devoted to the analysis of the fragment" Shi ji", describing the court discussion on the feasibility of partial decentralization of government and the creation of fiefs granted to imperial relatives. According to the Shi Ji, this discussion arose shortly after the formation of the unified empire, and as a result, the emperor agreed to the proposal of the chief of the court order, Li Si, not to distribute their fiefs. The speaker considered this fragment in the context of a broader discourse on the significance of the appanage system, which took place in the early Imperial period of Chinese history - under the Qin Empire and at the beginning of the Early Han era. For this purpose, such texts as the inscriptions on the stelae of Qin Shi Huang and Er Shi, the writings of the Early Han thinker and statesman Jia Yi, various fragments of "Shi ji" and texts found in the Early Han burial site in Mawangdui were used. The speaker came to the conclusion that the Qin emperors were not fundamentally opposed to the distribution of allotments, and the discussion about the feasibility of creating allotments on the conquered lands was conducted throughout the entire imperial period of Qin history. According to the speaker, the fragment in question from Shi Ji does not reflect historical reality and is a literary treatment of the inscription of the second Qin emperor on the stele in Langye. In the course of this revision, the authors of Shi Ji significantly changed the meaning of the inscription (which does not say anything about the decision against the distribution of allotments) in order to dramatize the narrative. This distortion became possible, on the one hand, as a result of the formation in the first half of the Early Han era (after Jia Yi, but before the compilation of Shi Ji) of the idea of the Qin emperors as principled opponents of the appanage system and land plots, and on the other hand, in the context of ongoing discussions in court society about the shortcomings of excessive concentration of the expediency of its distribution within the specific system, which became more acute during the board of U-di. In any case, the speaker suggested that the analyzed passage "Shi ji" should be considered as the result of the development of a certain discourse, and not as reliable historical evidence.

In the report by Yu. The article "The First Emperor as a historical link" examines the specifics of the political self-presentation of the first Qin Emperor in its connection with the previous and subsequent traditions. The speaker believes that the image of power created at the Qin imperial court, on the one hand, synthesized the monarchical discourse of the Zhanguo era, on the other hand, it included new features that largely contradicted the previous tradition. The most important provisions of the political theory developed in the Zhanguo era, the speaker considers the idea of the need for monarchical power and the ideal of a "true / perfect king" with a tendency to deify the latter and give him "Messianic" features. Among the fundamental innovations of the Qin imperial ideology, the speaker refers to the political actualization of the image of the perfect ruler: if Zhanguo thinkers considered this image as an unattainable ideal and even a basis for criticizing modern rulers and for their own claims to moral and political authority, then Qin Shi Huang in his inscriptions on stelae proclaimed the advent of the era of "perfect government", accompanied by the actualization of Its attributes are: political unification, social harmony, and universal prosperity. The "Messianic" character of the new self-presentation of power was expressed in a linear vision of history, in which the foundation of the Qin empire was proclaimed as a kind of" end of history " - the end of the era of troubles that began in legendary antiquity, and in the idea of the eternity of the new empire. These provisions also contradicted the fundamentals of Zhanguo's political discourse. Finally, another major innovation of the Qin ideology was the declaration of the supreme position of the ruler in the cosmic sacred hierarchy, which the speaker sees expressed in the absence of references to the help of any deities in the inscriptions of Qin Shi Huang.

The speaker sees these new and largely anti-traditional features of the Qin imperial representation as one of the main reasons for the negative assessment of the Qin Empire in historiography: an attempt to actualize the image of a "perfect ruler" in the person of a particular sovereign was fundamentally unacceptable for traditional Chinese political thought,

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how it developed in the Zhanguo era. In the Han era, the model of power presentation underwent significant changes: with the increase of the sacred status of the emperor as the only intermediary between the human world and the supreme deity - Heaven, the Han rulers abandoned their claims to personify the image of a "perfect ruler" and "Messianic" rhetoric. The new model of self-representation of power became more viable, since it provided for a gap between the image of the ideal ruler and the personalities of real rulers. As for the Qin "Messianic" model, according to the speaker, it was one of the reasons for the uniqueness of Qin in the imperial history of China.

Hans van Ess (Munich Univ. Germany) dedicated the report " The image of Qin in the Han period. The first Emperor of Qin and the Han Emperor of Wu-di in Shi ji, a comparison of Shi ji's accounts of the reigns of the first Emperor of Qin and the Han Emperor of Wu-di. Hans van Ess noted that the authors of the Shi Chi give very similar lists of political and ceremonial events for these two reigns: ideological unification; changing the color symbolism of the dynasty; performing sacrifices to Heaven and Earth (feng shan); military expansion; destruction of the appanage system, and all these actions cause criticism of the historian. The speaker sees these coincidences as a manifestation of the systematic transfer of the realities of Wu Di's rule to the rule of Qin Shi Huang in order to turn the history of the Qin Empire into a kind of warning for Wu Di, a contemporary of Sima Qian. Such historical warnings should be considered in the context of the tradition of the most influential Early Han school of canonology, the Gongyang School of interpretation of the Chunqiu chronicle.

E. Plaks (Princeton University, USA) in his report "Qin Shi Huang: "evil genius" or "vicious last ruler"?" traced how the image of the first Qin emperor is presented in later fiction. He noted that, oddly enough, the image of Qin Shi Huang did not attract much attention: a relatively small number of historical novels, dramatic works and poems are devoted to him. Moreover, even when it comes to the emperor, the focus is not on him, but on the Qin state as a whole. As an example of this approach, the speaker chose the historical novel of the first half of the XIV century BC "Qin bing liu Guo Pinghua" ("The story of how Qin united the six kingdoms"; author unknown). In it, the portrait of Qin Shi Huang is drawn in rather restrained colors, the emperor most often plays a secondary role, calling on his advisers and military leaders to propose stratagems aimed at uniting the Middle Kingdom, or expressing agreement with the plans already put forward. In the novel, Qin Shi Huang does not show even those bright traits of his character that he is endowed with in historical writings: extreme superstition, paranoid fear for his life, etc. On the contrary, the sharp negative features typical of the images of the "vicious last rulers" are given to Shihuang's successor Hu Hai and his closest adviser Zhao Gao. E. Plaks notes that the image of the first Qin emperor in the novel rather corresponds to the standard description of an "evil genius" - a talented political leader who directs his efforts to unwholesome goals. So, Qin Shi Huang could attract capable advisers to his service, listen to their recommendations, which he used for the benefit of his business. The speaker is inclined to explain the dimness of the image of the emperor by the fact that the author of the novel perceived Shi Huang not as a figure of titanic proportions - the initiator of a new era, but as a person who found himself in the focus of great historical events, in which his personality is no longer decisive. This perception, according to the speaker, brings together the author of a historical novel of the XIV century. with modern scholars turning to the history of Qin.

At the final round table, the conference participants summed up its main results. The conference helped to summarize the results of many years of research on various aspects of the material culture, economy, social and administrative organization and ideology of the Qin kingdom and Empire, and also provided an opportunity to formulate for the first time a comprehensive vision of Qin history based on data from archeology, epigraphy, textual studies and anthropology.


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M. V. KOROLKOV, THE BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE: RETURN TO THE KINGDOM OF QIN // Stockholm: Swedish Digital Library (LIBRARY.SE). Updated: 17.07.2024. URL: https://library.se/m/articles/view/THE-BIRTH-OF-AN-EMPIRE-RETURN-TO-THE-KINGDOM-OF-QIN (date of access: 03.11.2024).

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