Tags: documents | ink painting | Yang Yun-ping | Yu Da-fu

In 1936, Yu Da-fu (郁達夫) was invited to Taiwan by the Office of Taiwan Daily News (Taiwan Riri Sinpao). TDN and New Taiwanese People's Newspaper later organized workshops and speeches for Yu, which led to a sensation in the literary world. This object is an ink painting given to Yang Yun-ping by Yu Da-fu. The inscribed text is a verse by Gong Zi-zhen (龔自珍), a literatus from the Qing Dynasty. The object belongs to the Yang Yun-ping Collection, archived by the Institute of Taiwan History of the Academia Sinica.

Yang Yun-ping (1906-2000), professor for the Department of History at National Taiwan University, was a pioneering researcher in the history of Taiwan. After his death, Professor Yang's wife Yang Huang Yue-li (楊黃月裡) and his eldest son Yang Gong-wei (楊恭威) donated part of his collections from his lifetime, including letters, manuscripts, and photos, among others, to the archive of the Institute of Taiwan History. The materials were open to the public after filing, creating object information, and digitization.

Dated from 1929 to 1985, the collection consists of 896 documents in total, of which about 6,000 pages have been digitized. It was categorized into four series and 19 volumes, according to the file type. The Personal Manuscript Series contains documents such as manuscripts of essays, poems, ballads, study notes, family letters, rare book transcripts, informal annotations, and brief memos. The Personal Correspondence Series includes correspondences between Yu and his friend between 1929 and 1985. The Official Correspondence Series comprises official letters from institutions such as Koumin-houkou-kai (皇民奉公會), and the intelligence department of the Office of the Taiwan Governor-General. The letters were intended to request local literati to ‘collaborate’ with the Japanese colonial government. Finally, the Personal Collection Series includes the original handwriting of contemporary celebrities such as Lian Ya-tang (連雅堂), Hu Nan-ming (胡南溟), Lin Xian-tang (林獻堂), Kaneseki Takeo (金關丈夫), Tateishi Tetsuomi, and Ikeda Toshio (、池田敏雄), among many others.

Institute of Taiwan History, Academic Sinica