Chen Yinke

Chen Yinke (Chinese: 陳寅恪; 3 July 1890 – 7 October 1969) was a Chinese historian, scholar, and fellow of Academia Sinica, considered one of the most original and creative historians in 20th century China. His representative works are Draft essays on the origins of Sui and Tang institutions 隋唐制度淵源略論稿, Draft outline of Tang political history 唐代政治史述論稿, and An Alternative Biography of Liu Rushi 柳如是別傳.

Biography

Early life

Chen Yinke was born in Changsha, Hunan in 1890, and his ancestral home was Yining, Jiangxi (now Xiushui County) (Hakka). Yinke's father Chen Sanli was a famous poet, one of the "Four Gentlemen" of the Hundred Days' Reform.

As a boy, Chen Yinke attended a private school in Nanjing, and was once a student of Wang Bohang, a sinologist. His family had a distinguished tradition in classical learning, so he was exposed from an early age to the Chinese classics, to history, and to philosophy. In 1902 he went to Japan with his elder brother Chen Hengke to study at the Kobun Gakuin (Kobun Institute 東京弘文學院) in Tokyo, where other Chinese students such as Lu Xun were also enrolled. In 1905 he was forced to return to China due to beriberi, and studied at Fudan Public School, Shanghai.