Timoteus Pokora | |
|---|---|
| Born | 26 June 1928 |
| Died | 7 November 1985 (aged 57) |
| Nationality | Czech |
| Alma mater | University of Brno Charles University in Prague Peking University |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Chinese history, law |
| Institutions | Czech Academy of Sciences |
Timoteus Pokora (26 June 1928 –11 July 1985) was a Czech sinologist known for his translations and studies of Chinese literature and law, particularly dealing with the Han dynasty.
Timoteus Pokora was born on 26 June 1928 in Brno, which was then part of the First Czechoslovak Republic. He did undergraduate studies at the University of Brno, where he studied law. He then pursued graduate studies in Sinology at Charles University in Prague, where wrote a thesis on Han dynasty philosopher Wang Chong and received a master's degree in 1955. He then spent two years in China at Peking University studying and writing a doctoral dissertation on Han dynasty scholar Huan Tan. [1] [2]
Pokora returned to Czechoslovakia and worked as a researcher in the Oriental Institute (Czech: Orientální Ústav) of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Czechoslovakia was then under the dictatorial control of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and their strict censorship caused Pokora great difficulty in communicating and collaborating with scholars in free Western countries, [ citation needed ] except for the two years when he served as a lecturer at Heidelberg University (1965–66) and as a research fellow at the University of Michigan (1969–70). He was summarily dismissed from his position at the Czech Academy of Sciences in 1969 in the aftermath of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and spent the rest of his life continuing to perform and publish his research as far as he was politically able to do.
Pokora died in 1985 at the age of 57.
Chinese classic texts or canonical texts or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucian tradition, themselves a customary abridgment of the "Thirteen Classics". All of these pre-Qin texts were written in classical Chinese. All three canons are collectively known as the classics.
Moravia is a historical region in the east of the Czech Republic and one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia.
The Han dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China, established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty and a warring interregnum known as the Chu–Han contention, and it was succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period. The dynasty was briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty established by usurping regent Wang Mang, and is thus separated into two periods—the Western Han and the Eastern Han (25–220 AD). Spanning over four centuries, the Han dynasty is considered a golden age in Chinese history, and it has influenced the identity of the Chinese civilization ever since. Modern China's majority ethnic group refers to themselves as the "Han people", the Sinitic language is known as "Han language", and the written Chinese is referred to as "Han characters".
Sinology, or Chinese studies, is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of China primarily through Chinese philosophy, language, literature, culture and history and often refers to Western scholarship. Its origin "may be traced to the examination which Chinese scholars made of their own civilization."
Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny, also known by his Chinese name Zhang Leifu, is an Australian sinologist and historian. He was an adjunct professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. He specialised in the history, geography, and literature of the Han dynasty, particularly the translation and historiography of material concerning the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.
The Antonine Plague of AD 165 to 180, also known as the Plague of Galen, was the first known pandemic impacting the Roman Empire, possibly contracted and spread by soldiers who were returning from campaign in the Near East. Scholars generally believe the plague was smallpox, although measles has also been suggested. In AD 169 the plague may have claimed the life of the Roman emperor Lucius Verus, who was co-regnant with Marcus Aurelius. These two emperors had risen to the throne by virtue of being adopted by the previous emperor, Antoninus Pius, and as a result, their family name, Antoninus, has become associated with the pandemic.
Qi, known as the Northern Qi, Later Qi (後齊) or Gao Qi (高齊) in historiography, was a Chinese imperial dynasty and one of the Northern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties era. It ruled the eastern part of northern China from 550 to 577. The dynasty was founded by Gao Yang, and was eventually conquered by the Northern Zhou dynasty in 577.
John King Fairbank was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of China studies in the United States after World War II with his organizational ability, his mentorship of students, support of fellow scholars, and formulation of basic concepts to be tested.
Huan Tan was a Chinese philosopher, poet, and politician of the Western Han and its short-lived interregnum between AD 9 and 23, known as the Xin Dynasty.
The ZB vz. 26 was a Czechoslovak light machine gun developed in the 1920s, which went on to enter service with several countries. It saw its major use during World War II, and spawned the related ZB vz. 27, vz. 30, and vz. 33. The ZB vz. 26 influenced many other light machine gun designs including the British Bren light machine gun and the Japanese Type 97 heavy tank machine gun. The ZB-26 is famous for its reliability, simple components, quick-change barrel and ease of manufacturing. This light machine gun in the Czechoslovak army was marked as the LK vz. 26. ZB vz. 26 is incorrect nomenclature because "ZB-26" is a factory designation, while "vzor 26" or "vz. 26" is an army designation.
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Homer Hasenpflug Dubs was an American sinologist and polymath. Though best known for his translation of sections of Ban Gu's Book of Han, he published on a wide range of topics in ancient Chinese history, astronomy and philosophy. Raised in China as the son of missionaries, he returned to the United States and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy (1925). He taught at University of Minnesota and Marshall College before undertaking the Han shu translation project at the behest of the American Council of Learned Societies. Subsequently, Dubs taught at Duke University, Columbia University and Hartford Seminary. In 1947, Dubs moved to England to take up the Chair of Chinese at Oxford University, which had been vacant since 1935. He retired in 1959 and remained in Oxford until his death in 1969.
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Hans Henrik August Bielenstein was a Swedish sinologist and Dean Lung Professor Emeritus from Columbia University specialising in the history of the Han Dynasty.
The New Qing History is a historiographical school that gained prominence in the United States in the mid-1990s by offering a wide-ranging revision of history of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty of China. Orthodox historians tend to emphasize the power of the Han people to "sinicize" their conquerors in their thought and institutions. In the 1980s and early 1990s, American scholars began to learn Manchu and took advantage of newly opened Chinese- and Manchu-language archives. This research found that the Manchu rulers were savvy in manipulating their subjects and from the 1630s through at least the 18th century, emperors developed a sense of Manchu identity and used traditional Han Chinese culture and Confucian models to rule, while blending with models from other ethnic groups across the vast empire, including those from northern China, the Eurasian Steppe, Inner Asia, and Central Asia. According to some scholars, at the height of their power, the Qing regarded the Han Chinese as only a part, although a very important part, of a much wider empire that extended into the Inner Asian territories of Mongolia, Tibet, Manchuria and Xinjiang.
Nancy Lee Swann was an American Sinologist and curator of the Gest Memorial Chinese Library at Princeton University from 1931 until her retirement in 1948. Her best known scholarly publication were Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China, published by the American Historical Association in 1932 and Food and Money in Ancient China, an annotated scholarly translation of the economic chapters of the Han Shu, published by Princeton University Press in 1950.
Antonín (Toni) Vězda was a Czech lichenologist. After completing a university education that was postponed by World War II, Vězda taught botany at the Czech University of Life Sciences. In 1958, he was dismissed from his university position as a result of the restrictions placed on academic freedoms by the communist regime in power. He eventually was hired as a lichen researcher by the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, who allowed him to work from his apartment, which served also as an office and herbarium.
Erich Hans Rothe was a German-born American mathematician, who did research in mathematical analysis, differential equations, integral equations, and mathematical physics. He is known for the Rothe method used for solving evolution equations.
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