Scholars › Historian
Chen Yinke
Historian of medieval institutions and literature who taught at the Tsinghua research institute and, blind in later life, dictated his biography of the courtesan-poet Liu Rushi
In an archive hall, tall wooden shelves hold scrolls and bound books with small tags, and one person climbs a ladder with their back turned; a long table in front holds an unrolled river map, a bronze lamp and a copper jug, with a city wall seen through the window.
Also known as Zi Heshou
- Roles
- Historian
Chen Yinke (Chen Yinque) came from Yining, now Xiushui, in Jiangxi, though he was born in Changsha in 1890; his grandfather Chen Baozhen had been governor of Hunan and his father Chen Sanli was a poet. He studied in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France and the United States, working on Sanskrit and other old languages at Harvard and Berlin without taking a degree. In 1925 he joined the research institute of Tsinghua College as one of its tutors, and in 1929 his inscription for Wang Guowei's memorial stone spoke of an independent spirit and free thought. During the war he wrote his studies of the origins of Sui and Tang institutions and of Tang political history; he lost his sight in 1945 and later dictated the long Biography of Liu Rushi (Liu Rushi biezhuan). He taught at Sun Yat-sen University from 1952 and died in Guangzhou in October 1969; his ashes were buried at the Lushan Botanical Garden in 2003.
Life and times
Dates 1890 CE–1969 CE