The Chinese reform movement of the 1890s in Sergei Tikhvinsky's research

The article analyzes the works of a world-famous orientalist and academician Sergei Leonidovich Tikhvinsky (1918- 2018) on the history of the Chinese reform movement in the late XIX century. The investigation of the reformist opposition of the Qing government in the Soviet historiography helps to understand the difficulties Chinese scholars had to deal with when studying these issues. Tikhvinsky made a great contribution to the study of the reformers’ ideological views and activities between 1895 and 1898 in the context of the international situation. He was the first among Soviet sinologists to present the reform movement as a complex phenomenon comprising distinctive groups and movements. He also revealed the importance of the reform movement in the struggle for new China. It should therefore be concluded that Tikhvinsky’s research was innovative for Soviet sinology and still takes a prominent place in Chinese studies.