Communist China in Retrospect: East European Sinologists Remember the First Fifteen Years of the PRC

In this volume, five reports on the experiences of Central and East European sinologists in Communist China who lived in that country between 1950 and 1966 several years and in different positions are collected, systematized, and evaluated. To present the results of this effort, chronographic criteria are applied. However, this book is certainly not another history of the PRC. Although it may be called a piece of historiography it differs from conventional histories in that the reports included tell what their authors have been witnessing and not what they know about China, and that in that sense they are both highly fragmentary and highly subjective. On the other hand, they provide insights into the daily life of citizens of socialist countries in the PRC as well as into daily life in China in the 1950s and early 1960s. Moreover, China specialists may find a wealth of new footnotes provided by the reports.