晚清时期中国近代慈善事业的兴起

晚清义赈的兴起源于从1876年开始持续四年之久的“丁戊奇荒”,在这次灾荒救助中逐渐形成了一套颇具规模的灾荒救助组织体系和比较科学的灾荒救助运作模式,对于推动中国慈善事业向近代化转变起了非常重要的作用。在戊戌维新运动的影响下,中国传统慈善机构出现了新的转机,进而产生了近代意义上的社会慈善事业,主要表现在具有近代色彩的慈善理念的酝酿萌生和具有公益性质的慈善事业的初步扩展。但维新时期的慈善公益事业犹如昙花一现,没能获得持续的发展,直到清末地方自治运动蓬勃兴起后,曾受顿挫的慈善事业才得以复苏,从而为旧式善堂、善会向近代新型慈善团体的转换提供了重要契机。

The Rise of Chinese Modern Philanthropy in the later Qing Dynasty

The rise of charity relief in the later Qing Dynasty originated from the four-year long 1876 Famine in which a series of famine relief organization system and a relatively scientific operating pattern began to take shape.Under the influence of the Reform Movement of 1898,Chinese traditional philanthropic organizations gradually turned into the social philanthropy in the modern sense manifested by the appearance of philanthropic conception and the preliminary development of public philanthropy.However,the public philanthropy in that period was just a flash in a pan without further development.It was not until the rise of regional autonomy in the later Qing Dynasty that the frustrated philanthropy revived,which provided an important chance for the shift from old-style philanthropic organizations to the modern new-type ones.