Sima Qian

First page of Shiji

Sima Qian ( Chinese 司馬遷 / 司马迁 , Pinyin Sīmǎ Qiān , W.-G. Szŭ-ma Ch'ien ), majority name Zichang ( 子長 / 子长 , Zǐcháng , Tzu-ch'ang ; * around 145 BC; † around 90 BC) was a Chinese astrologer, historian, and writer.

Shiji

Sima Qian (family name is Sima ) was the author of Shiji ( 史記 / 史记 ), the first survey of more than two thousand years of Chinese history from the legendary Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wudi from the Han Dynasty, and is considered the founder of Chinese historiography . Like his father Sima Tan, he was court astrologist at the court of Chang'an and thus had access to all imperial archives.

Although the form of historiography had varied widely over the centuries, later historians have oriented themselves to Sima Qian's Shiji . This was also because Ban Gu ( 班固 ) took up the form of Shiji as the standard in his Han Shu ( 漢書 / 汉书 ) . This standard has also impacted Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese historiography.

Sima Qian and his Shiji had such a great influence on Chinese historiography and the Chinese prose style that it can be compared with the effect of the Old Testament in the Bible and Herodotus Historiai .

plant

From the records of the chronicler / Shǐjì xuǎn «史记选», 3 volumes. Foreign Language Literature Publishing House, Beijing 2016, ISBN 978-7-119-09676-6 . Volumes 1 and 2 translated by Gregor Kneussel, volume 3 by Alexander Saechtig.
Records of the Grand Historian of China (= Records of Civilization. Volume 65). Columbia University Press, New York 1961. (2 volumes, translated by Burton Watson ).

literature

Essays

Fritz-Heiner Mutschler : Tacitus and Sima Qian. An approximation. In: Philologus , Volume 150 (2006), ISSN 2196-7008 , pp. 115-135.
Fritz-Heiner Mutschler: Tacitus and Sima Qian. Personal experience and historiographical perspective. In: Philologus , Volume 151 (2007), ISSN 2196-7008 , pp. 127-152.
Fritz-Heiner Mutschler: Sima Qian and his Western Colleagues: On Possible Categories of Description. In: History and Theory , Volume 46 (2007), ISSN 0018-2656 , pp. 194-200.

Monographs

Stephen W. Durant: The cloudy mirror. Tension and conflict in the writing of Sima Qian. State University of New York Press, Albany 1995, ISBN 0-7914-2655-6 .
Grant Hardy: Words of bronze and bamboo. Sima Qian's conquest of history. Columbia University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-231-11304-8 .

Web links

Wikisource: Sima Qian - Sources and full texts (Chinese)

Literature by and about Sima Qian in the catalog of the German National Library
Les Mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien (French partial translation by Édouard Chavannes) in the digital book series Les classiques des sciences sociales
Tomb and Ancestral Temple of Sima Qian

personal data
SURNAME	Sima Qian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Chinese astrologer, historian and writer, author of Shiji
DATE OF BIRTH	around 145 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH	around 90 BC Chr.