The historical context of place names and its protection path

2022-03-21

Place names are "living fossils" of history and culture, which contain rich cultural connotation. Historical place names are the remains of major historical events, the result of human activities in politics, economy, military and culture in various historical periods, and the witness of the changes of natural environment. It not only conveys important geographical information, but also carries the image memory of history and humanities. It is common in all kinds of poems, songs, idioms and allusions. Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai's famous poem "leaving Baidi city early" reads "in the morning, Jiangling County still exists in Hubei today; Liu Yong, a poet of the Song Dynasty, wrote in "looking at the sea tide · Dongnan Xingsheng": "Dongnan Xingsheng in Hangzhou, the capital of the three Wu dynasties, and Qiantang has been prosperous since ancient times". Among them, Hangzhou is still in use as the city name. At the beginning of 2021, Hangzhou set up "Qiantang district" and "Qiantang" has been restored as the name of the administrative region. The historical place names in idioms such as Luoyang Zhigui, groundless worries, learning to walk in Handan, forced to go to Liangshan, Lantian Shengyu, secretly spending Chencang, Hepu Zhuhuan and so on are still used as the proper names of administrative regions. It can be said that historical place names are an important witness to China's 5000 year civilization and the carrier of cultural inheritance. The culture of historical place names is an important carrier for the study of "four histories" *** Historical place names are not only the splendid culture produced in the development of Chinese civilization, but also an important witness to the development process of the Communist Party of China and new China. For example, large place names such as Jinggangshan, Ruijin, Zunyi and Yan'an and small place names such as Anyuan, Sanwan, Huangyangjie, Dabaidi, Gutian village, Yangjialing, Nanniwan and Xibaipo all record the glorious struggle process of the Communist Party of China and witness the vital moment of the Chinese nation. In the 1930s and 1950s, some counties were named after revolutionary martyrs and national heroes. For example, on May 25, 1942, the Japanese army "mopped up" the Taihang Anti Japanese base area. General Zuo Quan died heroically in the Cross Ridge battle in Matian, Liao County, Shanxi Province in order to cover the headquarters of the Eighth Route Army. In memory of general Zuo Quan, Liao county was renamed Zuo Quan county in September of that year. After the September 18th Incident, the Northeast fell to the enemy. Yang Jingyu led the Anti Japanese armed forces to kill the enemy bravely. On February 23, 1940, he died in sandaoweizi, Mengjiang county. In order to commemorate his heroic deeds, Mengjiang county was renamed Jingyu County in 1946. In Feixi County, Anhui Province, there is a road called "Yanqiao road" to commemorate the revolutionary martyrs Chen Yannian and Chen qiaonian. These place names with important historical significance are important carriers for the study of the "four histories" and deserve the attention and protection of the whole society. Historical place name culture is an important part of cultural construction in the overall layout of "five in one". As the common memory of national development, historical place names play an important role in cultural construction. They are the cultural achievements of the Chinese nation in its long-term struggle and reflect the spiritual pursuit of the Chinese nation. Strengthening the protection of historical place names and culture is not only an important way to inherit and carry forward Chinese excellent traditional culture, but also an inevitable requirement for enhancing cultural self-confidence and building a socialist cultural power with Chinese characteristics in the new era. Cultural confidence is inseparable from the cognition and application of the history of the Chinese nation. Place names can reflect local historical and cultural characteristics and are closely related to people's lives. How to retain old place names and protect historical memory is an important issue worthy of attention. The protection and use of place name culture will help to preserve the people's feelings and memories of history and culture, maintain the authenticity of historical and cultural heritage, the integrity of historical features and social life, maintain the historical and cultural heritage, and promote the integration of excellent historical culture and modern life. Some problems existing in the protection of historical place names and culture at present First, the historical place names have been seriously damaged in the transformation of the old city. At present, with the development of modern urban construction, the old city reconstruction projects are carried out in an orderly manner, but some design planners have a weak concept of protecting and inheriting the culture of place names and fail to realize the importance of place names as cultural heritage. Therefore, they ignore the protection and reuse of original place names, resulting in the "abdication" of old place names containing historical and cultural information in some cities. The disappearance of some physical buildings in the transformation of the old city is accompanied by the elimination of closely related place names. This problem is more common in the contradiction between the protection of the ancient city and the promotion of modern urban construction, which is undoubtedly not conducive to the construction of urban history and culture. Second, unreasonable renaming of place names often exists. The replacement of some place names has abandoned the place names with cultural connotation and historical significance, resulting in the interruption of the cultural inheritance of excellent historical place names. For example, Huizhou has been the name of the state since the Song Dynasty, Huizhou road in the Yuan Dynasty and Huizhou government in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The word "Hui" in Anhui province comes from Huizhou. This place name carries the spiritual and cultural connotation of Huizhou merchants, Huizhou architecture and so on. In the 1980s, Huizhou was abolished and a prefecture level Huangshan City was established. After more than 800 years of use, Huizhou withdrew from the market. In addition, it is not uncommon to change the historical place names into the names of scenic spots within the jurisdiction. Among them, Huangshan, as a famous mountain, is located in the boundary of Huizhou and Chizhou in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Taking "Huangshan" as the name of the county-level administrative region, Taiping County was changed to Huangshan District in 1983, but now it is named after the point like landscape, including the prefecture level city of three districts and four counties. Obviously, there are unreasonable factors, and different entities such as Huangshan City, Huangshan District and Huangshan scenic spot all take "Huangshan" as the name, which is easy to cause directional confusion. Similarly, as the boundary mountain between Jiangxi and Fujian, Wuyi Mountain is not entirely located in the original Chong'an county. Based on this reasoning, the counties around Wuyi Mountain can be changed to "Wuyi Mountain City". Therefore, the regulation of "not taking the names of geographical entities beyond the scope of this administrative region as the special names of administrative regions" needs to be introduced urgently. Admittedly, such renaming has improved the local popularity in the short term, but it has cut off the local cultural context and caused a series of social problems caused by the renaming. Place names should be relatively stable to avoid unnecessary waste of resources. In addition, the naming and renaming of some place names are lack of in-depth research and discussion, which can not represent the spiritual culture and historical heritage of this region, or there are ambiguities in the connotation of place names, which needs to be demonstrated and investigated. For example, the original Anxi County in Gansu Province was renamed Guazhou County in 2006. Although Guazhou was once set here in history, the well-known ancient town of Guazhou in Yangzhou is still known by the public, which is prone to ambiguity. At the same time, the names of "Zhangbei", "Qidong", "Dingnan" and "Anxi" distributed all over the country implied the national strategy at that time. Third, place names with words that are difficult to write and read should be renamed. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was stipulated that homophonic or near phonetic words were used to replace the so-called difficult to recognize and write words in many place names. For example, in 1964, Mian County, named after mianshui (the ancient name of Hanjiang River today), was renamed Mian County, Fuyang County, named after Fushui, was renamed Qianyang County, Fuyi county was renamed Xunyi County, Jia County was renamed Jia County, Fuxian county was renamed Hu County, Jiaxian county was renamed Fu County, Fuxian county was renamed Mei County, Fuxian county was renamed Zhouzhi County, Liquan county was renamed Liquan County, and Fuxian county was renamed Bin County. These place names originally had a long history of words, carrying profound cultural connotation and ancestors' geographical cognition and emotion about this place. For example, Li Jifu, a politician and geographer in the Tang Dynasty, explained that "Shanqu is called Shanqu, and Shuiqu is called Shanqu." As one of the oldest county names in Shaanxi Province, the name of Hoang county has been used for more than 2000 years. The name of "Liquan county" originated in the Sui Dynasty and has been used until the 1960s. There is still "Liling City" in Hunan Province, but the "Li" of "Liquan county" in Shaanxi Province was renamed because it was regarded as a rare word. Such changes forced the interruption of the local history and culture. With the popularization and development of education, some of these words are not unfamiliar to the public, let alone "rare words". They are ancient place names that can be maintained or restored. For example, "Boyang county" in Jiangxi Province was changed back to its original name "Poyang County" in 2003. For example, Aihui Town, Heihe City, Heilongjiang Province was restored to its former name "Huihui town" in 2015. Under this name, the unequal Huihui treaty between China and Russia in the late Qing Dynasty retained historical place names, It provides samples for carrying out corresponding patriotic education. Fourth, "county", as the general name of the administrative region, is facing the possibility of disappearing. At present, the phenomenon of "city setting fever" and "district setting fever" makes the number of "counties" as a general name continue to decline. From 1978 to the end of 2020, the number of "counties" in China dropped sharply from 2011 to 1429, with an average annual decrease of 13.8. Of course, after scientific and in-depth demonstration, it is necessary to abolish counties and cities and counties and districts, but in this process, it is also obvious that the loss of cultural connotation of place names has been caused by blindly following the trend and unreasonable renaming. For example, the "Wu county" that has existed for more than 2000 years has been abolished, and Puqi county that has existed for more than 1000 years has been changed into Chibi City, Shangqiu County, which was rated as a famous historical and cultural city in 1986, was also abolished in 1997 (the jurisdiction is divided into Suiyang district and Liangyuan Park). Practical thoughts on strengthening the protection of historical place names and culture First, optimize the top-level design and improve the management mode. The administrative department of place names shall strictly implement the application and approval system, carry out work in strict accordance with the regulations on the administration of place names and its implementation rules, strengthen supervision, rectify the disorder of place names, standardize the management of place names, and maintain the stability and continuity of place names. On the basis of legal management, we should improve the leadership mechanism, strengthen organizational construction, and promote the excavation, research and publicity of place name culture in an all-round way. The civil affairs department can take the lead to gather the forces of cultural tourism, transportation, planning, surveying and mapping and other relevant units to establish a working group for the protection of historical place names with overall situation and clear organization, so as to carry out the normal management of historical place names within the jurisdiction. Place name management institutions should pay attention to the collection and basic research of historical place name materials, strengthen the cooperation with colleges and universities, scientific research institutes, especially intangible cultural heritage research departments, prepare scientific and reasonable laws and regulations on the management of historical place names and the overall plan for the protection of place name culture, publicize the plan and widely solicit the opinions of the masses. We should proceed from the overall situation and improve the overall planning. For the historical and cultural landscape of a place, if historical buildings and historical streets are hardware, then historical place names are software. The "protection of historical place names" should be listed as an indispensable part of the "Regulations on the protection of historical and cultural cities" and "Regulations on the protection of intangible cultural heritage", and the historical place names should be protected together as "intangible cultural heritage" and other historical and cultural protection objects. Secondly, carry out the arrangement of place names and give new life to the old names. For historical place names, the best way to protect them is to use them. Strengthening the planning of geographical names, scientifically and standardized naming and renaming of geographical names on the basis of protecting and inheriting the culture of historical geographical names, and allowing historical geographical names to play a new role today are important ways to protect the culture of geographical names. The administrative department of place names can define the concept scope of historical place names by consulting cultural and historical materials and visiting local people, combined with the actual situation, conduct a comprehensive survey of historical place names, accurately grasp the number of historical place names and special words for place names, summarize and sort them, establish a historical place name database or compile a place directory, and transport them

Edit:Huang Huiqun    Responsible editor:Luo Meihua

Source:gmw.cn

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