Imperial writings: Rereading the autobiography of Aisin Gioro Puyi

Abstract

The focus of this article is on locating the place of the last Qing emperor's autobiography-Wode qianbansheng (literally "The First Half of My Life")-in the tradition of imperial writings in China. China has an unusually rich tradition of writings produced by reigning monarchs, which perhaps reflects the exceptional status accorded to cultural competence within Chinese traditional culture leading to the production of texts being regarded as an important sign of authority. The different genres in which emperors wrote are here classified into five main groups: official, literati, palace poetry, religious, and mandate writings. In his autobiography, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty set out to explain his unique perspective on early twentieth-century Chinese history to his contemporaries and later generations. This text can therefore be classified as a kind of mandate writing, retrospectively explaining the last emperor's actions to his people.