1, Lu Xun introduced Sima Qian in the book Outline of China Literature History. Lu Xun said: "Liang Wudi is a scholar, endowed with Mo Ruo Sima Xiangru and Wen Ruo Sima Qian."
Sima Qian wrote an article "not limited to historical methods, not limited to words, but from feelings, from the heart", so Historical Records can be regarded as "the historian's swan song, without rhyme." Lu Xun's evaluation has become an immortal famous saying in the commentary of Historical Records.
2. Mao Zedong said in "Serving the People": "People always die, but the meaning of death is different. In ancient China, there was a writer named Sima Qian who said,' People are inherently mortal, which is heavier than Mount Tai and lighter than a feather'.
It is more important to die for the people's interests than Mount Tai, to work hard for fascism, and to die for exploiting and oppressing the people is less than a feather. Mao Zedong admired Sima Qian very much, and thought that "Sima Qian traveled all over Xiaoxiang, Pan-West Lake, calendar Kunlun and famous mountains and rivers in Zhou Lan, but he was broad-minded".
3. Guo Moruo especially appreciates Sima Qian's literary talent. He said: "Sima Qian, a master of history, is really worthy of our boast. His Historical Records is no less than an ancient epic of China, and it can also be a collection of historical novels. "
1958, in his inscription for Sima Temple, Guo Moruo praised Sima Qian for his "outstanding writing" and "pursuing his father's merits". Therefore, Guo Moruo thinks that the literary achievements of Historical Records are extremely high.
4. Jian Bozan thinks that Sima Qian is the founder of China historiography, and Historical Records is a society-centered history. He said: "The history of China has become an independent science since the Western Han Dynasty, and the founder of this science is the great historian Sima Qian. Historical Records is an immortal monument at the starting point of China's history. "
He also said: "Although historical records are biographies, they are social-centered history." Sima Qian "almost noticed the dynamics of every stratum, every corner and every aspect of society in history, and gave a concrete and vivid description." So I think Historical Records is the first large-scale social history in China.
5. Zheng Zhenduo believes that history has been regarded as an encyclopedia of the times since Sima Qian, so Sima Qian has obtained a wide range of information, including politics, economy, war and academia, and his contacts are extremely extensive. The so-called "literary history" is often included in this all-encompassing "encyclopedia of the times" by the Internet.
Extended data:
Commemoration of future generations:
South of hancheng city, Shaanxi Province, there is a building dedicated to Sima Qian at the northern end of Liangshan, overlooking the Yellow River. The Sima Qian Temple built here began in Yongjia four years of the Western Jin Dynasty (3 10). The county magistrate built stone chambers, erected monuments and planted cypress trees. Sima Chi, Emperor Huai of the Western Jin Dynasty, offered sacrifices to Sima Qian with the same surname. In the seventh year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty (1 125), the tomb wall was repaired, and bedrooms, temples and mountain gates were built.
Later, in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was continuously repaired and rebuilt, becoming today's ancestral temple. Behind the bedroom of Sima Qian Temple, there is Sima Qian's tomb. In fact, this is not a tomb buried with him, but was built by later generations and repaired in the Western Jin Dynasty. The existing circular mound is 2.15m in height and13.19m in circumference, and the wall is paved with gossip and patterned bricks. Above the grave is a big cypress tree with five branches.
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia-Sima Qian (historian and essayist of the Western Han Dynasty)