Renowned historian and lifelong professor at Shandong University, Mr. Lu Yao, passed away in Jinan on December 31, 2024, at the age of 97. Mr. Lu Yao was a globally recognized scholar in the history of the Boxer Rebellion and folk religion. Since the 1960s, he led research teams in persistent field research in the field of the Boxer Rebellion and folk religion, gaining international acclaim with his unique research methods and significant academic achievements. Shandong University announced that Lu Yao's body farewell ceremony will be held on January 4 at the Jinan Funeral Home. ● Text: Hong Kong Wen Wei Po reporter Ding Chunli Jinan reports Photo: Hong Kong Wen Wei Po from Shandong
At that time, nearly a hundred faculty and students were divided into 14 groups, spreading across southwestern and northwestern Shandong, southern Hebei, and parts of Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces, covering 30 counties and 669 villages. From this investigation alone, the 14 groups collected more than 750,000 words of oral material and completed 16 special topics on the Shandong Boxer Rebellion, totaling nearly 300,000 words, which became foundational materials for all subsequent research on the Boxer Rebellion domestically and internationally. The field investigation salvaged historical records.
Lu Yao and his colleagues organized a total of six major field investigations in 1960, 1962, 1965, and subsequent years. Lu Yao successively edited works such as "Exploration of the Origins of the Boxer Movement," "Scrutiny of the Boxer Sect," "Secret Religious Sects of Shandong Folk," and "Compilation of Shandong University's Boxer Rebellion Research Materials." From 2004, Lu Yao, as the chief expert, undertook the "Basic Project of National Qing History Compilation" and the "Major Projects in Philosophy and Social Science Tackled by the Ministry of Education." His achievements, "Compilation of Boxer Rebellion Document Materials" (in Chinese, Japanese, English, French, and German, 5 volumes of 8 books, over 5.5 million words) and "Research on Folk Belief and Chinese Society" (7 volumes, over 3 million words), have been highly praised and widely cited by scholars worldwide.
Diligent Work in "Fields" and "Folk"
Historian Li Shiyu believes that Lu Yao's book "Exploration of the Origins of the Boxer Movement" resolved the long-standing, unresolved issues regarding the origins of the Boxer organization, "pioneering a successful path combining field investigations with documentary sources." Professor Sato Tomohiko from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies regards the book as a "landmark work in the history of research." Historian and professor at Renmin University of China, Cheng Wei, considers Lu Yao's "Secret Religious Sects of Shandong Folk" a "summarization of the history of religious sects by Chinese scholars in the twentieth century," attributing its success to decades of field research spanning 70 counties in Shandong and parts of Hebei. Therefore, Lu Yao has been praised as an "authoritative historian" by scholars at home and abroad, including Harvard University's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research's Research Associate, Paul Cohen.
Lu Yao immersed himself in field research in the study of the Boxer Rebellion and folk religion for over 60 years, consistently working diligently in the treasure troves of "fields" and "folk." He particularly emphasized the importance of field materials, believing that research in this field must integrate traditional historical textual analysis methods with sociology and folklore studies, conducting multi-angle and multi-level research, especially reconsidering and re-examining the anti-foreign religion and Boxer movements from a social history perspective. This approach aligns with the methodologies of the Annales School and historical anthropology in the West since the twentieth century.
An Important Representative of New China's Historical Research
Lu Yao was born in 1927 in Fuzhou, Fujian, originally named Wu Songling. During his studies at Shandong University in Qingdao, he joined progressive associations led by the Communist Party. After Qingdao's liberation in 1949, he changed his name to "Lu Yao." He was one of the first lifelong professors at Shandong University, a visiting professor, an advisor to the Chinese Boxer Rebellion Research Association, and the director of Shandong University's Boxer Rebellion and Modern China Research Center. From the 1960s, he led teams in relentless field research and study in the Boxer Rebellion and folk religion domains. He is a globally recognized scholar in the history of the Boxer Rebellion and folk religion, whose pioneering research secured Shandong University's position as an academic hub for Boxer Rebellion research worldwide.
The historian, former president of the Chinese Historical Society, and former director of the Institute of Qing History at Renmin University of China, Dai Yi, placed Shandong University's Boxer Rebellion research on par with the Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, and Song history studies at Peking University, the Yuan history and Taiping Heavenly Kingdom studies at Nanjing University, and the 1911 Revolution history research at Central China Normal University, regarding them as important representatives of New China's historical research with extensive influence.
"Mr. Lu Yao, bridging the past and future, with the status of a humble professor, has borne the rise and fall of this institute's history discipline. The toil of his heart and mind is beyond words," wrote the College of History and Culture of Shandong University in their proposal to the university, "Therefore, engaging Mr. Lu Yao as a lifelong professor at Shandong University is indeed a matter of academic eternity, beyond ephemeral glory."