Qin Shihuang: History as Ideological Discourse

Abstract

The role of History and its narrative discourse have been reevaluated during the last decades. According to Hayden White, a historian does not interpret History; he or she constructs History. This construction is made inside a culture, creating a story to justify ideological and social systems. In China, History has been used in this ideological way for centuries. This article analyses the treatment of the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang, who succeeded in completing the unification of China after the turbulent Warring States Period. He was considered a terrible tyrant by adherents to the Confucianist ideology, but in the twentieth century, there was a new interpretation. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, the First Emperor was considered to have been a progressive character who fought against the exploiters. So a parallel between Qin Shihuang and Mao Zedong was made, showing the fighting between the two directives to emphasize the present lowering the past and use the past to criticize the present. In the time of the anti-Confucius and anti-Lin Biao campaign, the History of Qin Shihuang was used in an ideological and fallacious way. Apparently, after the regime of Deng Xiaoping, the historical discourse became more objective and Qin Shihuang was considered in a more objective way. But the internationally known film Hero (2002, Zhang Yimou) shows that today the First Emperor is still considered, in an ideological way, as a fair and misunderstood ruler.