Zheng Zhenduo (1898-1958), whose ancestral home is Changle, Fujian, is a famous Chinese writer, literary historian, archaeologist and bibliophile, as well as a pioneer and founder of the cultural and cultural relics of the People’s Republic of China. During the Anti-Japanese War, Zheng Zhenduo poured money into Shanghai to purchase diasporic ancient books, and together with Zhang Yuanji and other well-known scholars, he organized a “Comrades’ Association for Document Preservation” in Shanghai to snap up rare books such as Zhang’s Shiyuan and Liu’s Jiayetang to avoid the loss and destruction of national treasures. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Zheng Zhenduo was appointed as the first director of the Cultural Relics Bureau of the Ministry of Culture. He comprehensively promoted the investigation of cultural relics and field archaeology, emphasized museum construction and cultural relics exhibition, actively promoted cultural relics legislation, and formulated management provisions such as the Interim Measures for Banning the Export of Precious Cultural Relics and Books, and the Measures for the Protection of Historic Sites and Cultural Relics. Under his personal auspices and participation, he successively promulgated a series of regulations on the protection of cultural relics, put forward the idea of cultural relics protection, and laid an important foundation for the formation of today’s policy of “protection first, rescue first, strengthened management, and rational use” for the protection of cultural relics and ancient books.
At the commemorative symposium held at the Forbidden City, Shan Jixiang, president of the Palace Museum, said that many important artifacts of the country, such as “Mid-Autumn Festival Post”, “Boyuan Post”, “Han Xizai Night Banquet Map” and “Five Ox Map”, as well as the terracotta figurines donated to the country by himself, are now precious collections of the Palace Museum. In 1953, he personally drafted the “Special Report on the Improvement Plan of the Palace Museum”, he believed that the exhibition and research of the Palace Museum should break through the limitations of the old collection of the Qing Palace, face the whole of China, and focus on various art categories. To this day, the Palace Museum still regards this as an important policy for sustainable development.
After Zheng Zhenduo’s death, the family adhered to his legacy and donated all his life books to the country, with a total of 94,441 books, and the National Library specially set up the “Xidi Collection” for centralized preservation. “Xidi” is the pen name used by Zheng Zhenduo, and it is also the only special collection named after a person in the National Library. The commemorative exhibition opened at the National Library on the 19th is divided into four units: “Turning the tide and forging the soul of books”, “Protecting and Collecting Zhang Shuyun”, “Jiahui Learning Lin Zhenshuxiang” and “Turning Private into Public Continuation of Books”, through more than 70 exhibits such as Zheng Zhenduo’s manuscripts, book seals, rare ancient books, officially awarded “martyr” certificates, and “commendation certificates” issued by the former Ministry of Culture, vividly showing the life of this cultural giant who loves books, protects books, and dedicates books.
On the same day, the “National Library Rare Book Catalogue of the Western Di Collection” was first released. The catalogue selects more than 2,300 rare books from the “Xidi Special Collection”, which are divided into volumes according to the subsets of scripture and history, not only the basic information of the books, but also more than 5,000 color book shadows, which is the first time that Zheng Zhenduo’s rare books are more completely and comprehensively organized and published.