Hu Shih

Hu Shih (h shŭr), 1891–1962, Chinese philosopher and essayist, leading liberal intellectual in the May Fourth Movement (1917–23). He studied under John Dewey at Columbia Univ., becoming a lifelong advocate of pragmatic evolutionary change. While professor of philosophy at Beijing Univ., he wrote for the iconoclastic journal New Youth (see Chen Duxiu). His most important contribution was promotion of vernacular literature to replace writing in the classical style. Hu Shih was also a leading critic and analyst of traditional Chinese culture and thought. He was ambassador to the United States (1938–42), chancellor of Beijing Univ. (1946–48), and after 1958 president of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

Bibliography

See J. B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance (1970).

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Hu Shih

 or Hu Shi

(born Dec. 17, 1891, Shanghai, China—died Feb. 24, 1962, Taiwan) Chinese Nationalist scholar and diplomat who helped establish the vernacular as the official written language. Hu studied under John Dewey at Columbia University and was profoundly influenced by Dewey's philosophy and pragmatic methodology. Back in China, he began writing in vernacular Chinese, the use of which spread rapidly. Because he eschewed dogmas such as Marxism and anarchism as solutions for China's problems, he found himself opposed by the communists but also distrusted by the Nationalists. In 1937, when war broke out with Japan, he and the Nationalists were reconciled, and Hu became ambassador to the U.S. He finished his life as president of Taiwan's Academia Sinica.

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Hu Shih 

(also Hu Shih-chih). Born Dec. 17, 1891, in Shanghai; died Feb. 24, 1962, in Taipei. Chinese writer, scholar, and political figure.

Hu studied in the USA, receiving a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1917; he was an adherent of pragmatism. He taught at Peking National University from 1917 to 1927, from 1931 to 1937, and from 1945 to 1948. From 1938 to 1942 he was China’s ambassador to the USA, and from 1958 to 1962 he served as president of the Academia Sinica.

A champion of a “literary revolution,” Hu worked to establish a new literature in the vernacular (pai-hua); his approach was, however, formalistic and inconsistent. His literary works include the collection of poems A Book of Experiments (1920), the play A Life’s Work (1919), and translations of short stories by such writers as Guy de Maupassant and A. P. Chekhov. In the 1920’s Hu took part in the movement to “put the national past in order” and published A History of Literature in the National Language (1927) and the first volume of A History of Literature in Pai-hua (1928). From 1928 to 1932 he was a member of the literary group known as the New Crescent Society. He published scholarly works on the Chinese classical novel and subsequently ceased his literary activity.

In the mid-1950’s Hu’s methodology and scholarly theories were sharply criticized in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). After the formation of the PRC in 1949, he went to the USA and eventually took up residence in Taiwan. Hu was anticommunist and anti-Soviet.

WORKS

Hu Shih wen-ts’un, series 1–4, vols. 1–14. Taipei, 1953.
The Chinese Renaissance. Chicago [1934].

REFERENCES

Cherkasskii, L. E. Novaia kitaiskaia poesiia (20–30-egody). Moscow, 1972. Pages 25–58.
Hu Shih ssu-hsiang p’i-p’an, fases. 1–8. Peking, 1955–56.
Li Ao, Hu Shi p’ing-chuan. Taipei, 1964.
Grieder, J. B. Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance. Cambridge, Mass., 1970.

V. V. PETROV