Hi! I’m brainstorming final paper ideas for my archives and record management class and am strongly considering writing about the destruction of cultural artifacts during the cultural revolution and how the destruction of such evidence of culture possibly shapes the broader Chinese collective memory.
I was wondering what would be the best sources that discuss in depth the Four Olds and the sorts of cultural artifacts destroyed during this time period. Also, the discovery of Lady Dai in the late 60s-early 70s (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xin_Zhui) wasn’t met with destruction of the tomb or body, so I guess a follow up is: what seemed to change that the government did not deem the Lady Dai discovery a trace of the old, feudalistic societal structure? Thanks in advance!
These, with the addendum that these books do discuss the destruction of cultural artifacts as well. The Cultural Revolution was indeed very successful in that it changed mainland Chinese culture drastically. Taiwan has become the more traditionally Chinese society (while still be far, far more liberal on social issues and of course being a very healthy democracy) and in fact, as an aside, the Guomindang took many cultural artifacts with them when evacuating to the island.