Yung Yun-ping Papers (楊雲萍文書)

Introduction

Yang Yun-ping, professor of Department of History at National Taiwan University, was a pioneer in the field of research on Taiwan history. After his death, his wife and son reached an agreement with the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica on donation of documents left behind Professor Yang, including his correspondence and manuscripts. In addition, all those documents have been processed and digitized for open access in the future.

Be influenced by elder family members, Yang Yun-ping got a solid foundation in the basics of Sinology. Moreover, he was one of the founders of the first vernacular literary magazine "Everyone" in Taiwan. After finishing education at the Institute of Japanese Culture, Yang Yun-ping returned to Taiwan in 1933 and began to dedicate himself to researches on Taiwan history and culture, and had used to be in charged with editing jobs for several journals, such as the "Arts in Taiwan" and the "Folklore in Taiwan". In addition, he worked for the Institute for Compilation and Translation of Taiwan Province and got a teaching position at Department of History at National Taiwan University. Besides teaching and doing research, he was keen to participate in academic activities and made great contributions to the field of research on Taiwan.

The Yang Yun-ping Papers contains more than 800 items, including his personal manuscripts, correspondence with friends, government agencies and organizations, and manuscripts of other celebrities, spanning from the period of Japanese rule to post-war period. Yang Yun-ping’s personal manuscripts record his daily activities, including literature works and history research results, and the researchers could observe Professor Yang’s study path. The most precious correspondence of his are private letters with friends who were also interested in literary, and we could learn about how literary workers formed their association and the atmosphere of the literary scene during the war. We could also understand the special time background and what kind of situation those literary workers were in through some official records released by government agencies. Therefore, the Yang Yun-ping Papers is important first-hand data for studying Taiwan's literary history or the history of Taiwan during the period of Japanese rule.

Source of Collection

Producer: Yang Yun-ping

Coverage Dates

1929 - 1985