만주제국인가 청 제국인가 - 최근 미국의 청대사 연구동향을 중심으로 -

Abstract

This paper examines recent English publications regarding Qing history, especially focusing on the works of Mark Elliott and Pamela Crossley, the two leading scholars in the field. “New Qing History” – a name for recent scholarship on Qing history, which has shared common interests in Manchu language materials and Inner Asian tradition in the Qing empire – has been widely discussed and read in Korea. This group of scholars has challenged the theory of sinicization, and instead highlighted important roles of non-Han people who have long been considered as “inferior barbarians,” especially the Manchus and Mongols, in Chinese history. There are also some disagreements found among these scholars, most notably regarding the question of how to understand ethnicity in the Qing history. Mark Elliott argues that Manchu ethnic identity had played a decisive role in the formation of the Qing state, and the distinctive cultural traits of the Manchu people – or the Manchuness in his word – had remained throughout the dynasty. Pamela Crossley refutes Elliott’s idea that many elements of the Manchuness, such as frugality and martial skills, were in fact products of the Qing imperial ideology. She addresses that the Manchu identity were constantly transformed by the Qing court’s interests. If Elliott explains the Qing history as the Manchu empire, Crossley offers the Qing empire, which included not only the Manchus but other imperial constituencies, such as the Mongol, Tibetan, and Uyghur. Understandings of these divergences in “New Qing History” help examine the ways in which the Qing made its relationships with neighboring countries. As long as the Qing had been transformed itself, its foreign policies changed as well. If the Qing court modified the history of the Manchus and the Mongols, so did to the Choson. As such, various questions raised in “New Qing History” can shed new light on the understanding of the Qing and Choson relationship.