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The significance of protecting cultural heritage_how to protect it and its principles

In short, protecting historical and cultural heritage is of great significance. Protecting historical and cultural heritage will benefit future generations. The following is the relevant information that I compiled and shared about the significance of protecting cultural heritage. Welcome to read!

The significance of protecting cultural heritage

In the process of globalization and modernization, cultural heritage has been violently affected by social transformation. Impact, some are facing extinction. Many nation-states have gradually lost their cultural autonomy and identity, and have become "wanderers" in the spiritual world. Only by identifying and analyzing cultural heritage and exploring its cultural information and meaning can we continuously strengthen our identification with our national culture, learn from the past and incorporate the new, create the national spirit of the new era, and support the spiritual pillars of people in modern society. Therefore, the scientific implementation of cultural heritage protection is an inevitable cultural demand for a modern country to promote its national spirit and carry out independent and sustainable development.

The protection of Chinese cultural heritage that keeps pace with the times

Cultural heritage is the sedimentation and crystallization of the creations of our ancestors. It is engraved with the code of the cultural life of a nation and contains the unique spirit of the nation. Mechanisms, ways of thinking, imagination and cultural awareness are the basic basis for safeguarding cultural identity and cultural sovereignty. The nature of human beings and their embodiment lie in building a cultural world through creative practice. Looking at culture at a certain moment is to examine the "cultural heritage" of a certain group formed by past cultures, that is, a certain living cultural model. Cultural heritage is an information database of human activities and a scroll showing human civilization.

Cultural heritage not only has historical value, but also contains some inspiration for future development trends. Protecting cultural heritage embodies human consciousness of subjectivity, intersubjectivity and history in a cultural sense.

After humans entered modern society, the process of social modernization accelerated, which seriously impacted the preservation of cultural heritage. The modern transformation of traditional society has caused sharp conflicts with the protection of cultural heritage, and economic globalization has restricted the survival and prosperity of cultural diversity. However, modernity consciousness also promotes the protection of world cultural heritage.

On November 16, 1972, the 17th General Conference of UNESCO adopted the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, making cultural heritage protection a direct global action. This document divides World Heritage into two categories: natural and cultural. Cultural heritage refers to various cultural relics, architectural groups, and sites that have outstanding universal value from the perspective of history, art, science, or aesthetics, ethnology, and anthropology. Natural heritage refers to various types of natural features, geology and physical geographical structures that have outstanding universal value from the perspectives of aesthetics, science and protection, as well as animal and plant ecological zones and natural scenic spots that are clearly classified as threatened, or clearly classified of natural areas. Natural heritage also has sufficient cultural significance and can be regarded as cultural heritage in a broad sense.

On October 17, 2003, the 32nd General Conference of UNESCO adopted the "Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage", which divided cultural heritage in a narrow sense into two categories: tangible cultural heritage and intangible culture heritage. The former are cultural relics with historical, artistic and scientific value; the latter are various social practices, conceptual expressions, expressions, knowledge and skills that are regarded as part of their cultural heritage by communities, groups, and sometimes individuals. and the tools, objects, artefacts and cultural sites associated with them?.

In 1987, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit in the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang, and the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes were listed as world cultural heritage for the first time. In the same year, Mount Tai Scenic Area was selected as China's first world cultural and natural heritage. In 1992, Jiuzhaigou, Wulingyuan and Huanglong scenic spots were listed as world natural heritage. In 1996, Lushan Mountain was rated as a world cultural landscape; in 2001, Kun Opera was designated as an intangible cultural heritage of mankind by the United Nations for the first time. The value and significance of these cultural heritages in China have been recognized and praised by the world. Among them, the Mogao Grottoes are known as the "Pearl of Oriental Art", Jiuzhaigou Valley is known as the "Fairy Tale World", the Terracotta Warriors and Horses Pit in the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang is known as the "Eighth Wonder of the World", and Kun Opera is considered to be the ancestor of hundreds of Chinese operas. Teacher?. In July 2004, the 28th World Heritage Conference was held in Suzhou, China. At that time, China had 30 world heritage sites, making it the top three countries with the most world cultural heritage after Spain and Italy.

Since China joined the Convention for the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1985, China has 37 world heritage masterpieces. Among them, there are 23 cultural heritage items, 5 natural heritage items, 4 cultural and natural heritage items, 1 cultural landscape item, and 4 intangible cultural heritage items.

The protection of China’s cultural heritage has entered a new stage. First, the country attaches great importance to it. On February 8, 2006, the State Council issued the "Notice on the Protection of Cultural Heritage." Second, the whole people are initially moving toward political consciousness. The second Saturday in June every year becomes "Chinese Cultural Heritage Day". Third, the organizational structure has been established. The China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center was officially established on September 14 this year. Fourth, special laws are being brewed. China's "Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Law" has been included in the 2007 legislative plan. China's cultural heritage protection work has been carried out in depth, and the government has invested a lot of manpower and material resources. With the active efforts of professionals and the public, cultural heritage protection has become a steadily developing cause. Accordingly, strengthening the external publicity of China’s cultural heritage protection is of great significance in many aspects.

Promoting the protection of cultural heritage to the outside world is conducive to displaying the long history and culture of the Chinese nation and inspiring the national spirit

Chinese culture and Chinese civilization are unique landscapes in the history of world civilization. It has lasted for five thousand years, is broad and profound, has tenacious vitality and the ability to renew itself. In the history of civilization development for thousands of years, the Chinese nation has created an extremely splendid culture and made significant contributions to world culture. For example, in terms of sports culture, ancient Greece and Western culture gave birth to the Olympic movement, while traditional Chinese competitive sports and fitness sports such as Tai Chi, martial arts, acrobatics, Cuju, and Bock embody the basic concepts of traditional Chinese culture, such as Tian The world view of the unity of man, the philosophical sports competition and concept, the ethics of valuing harmony, and the life creed of being strong and self-reliant. It is this kind of cultural heritage that strengthens the position of the Chinese nation in the history of world sports. It is precisely with this kind of spiritual wealth that China has the trump card to win in its bid to host the Olympic Games.

China has rich cultural heritage resources. According to figures released by the Ministry of Culture not long ago, mainland China has nearly 400,000 registered immovable cultural relics, more than 20 million movable collections of cultural relics, 2,352 key cultural relics protection units and 103 famous historical and cultural cities across the country. These cultural heritages embody the Chinese nation’s extensive and profound civilization and its great contribution to human culture, and establish the Chinese nation’s striving and promising style from generation to generation.

By protecting our country’s cultural heritage, looking back on the wisdom and creativity of our ancestors, and examining the history and future of Chinese civilization, we can enhance our national self-confidence, pride and sense of urgency to keep pace with the times, and inspire our nation. will and inspire the national spirit. Promoting the protection of national cultural heritage to the outside world is to demonstrate the glorious and long-lasting cultural creation of the Chinese nation in history, to demonstrate our country’s spirit of continuous improvement in the process of modernization, and to hold high the spiritual banner of the Chinese people in the world.

Promoting the protection of cultural heritage to the outside world is conducive to demonstrating the path of socialist modernization with Chinese characteristics

Social modernization and economic globalization are irreversible development trends in today's world. This is a manifestation of human progress under the dual effects of the scientific and technological revolution and the market economic mechanism. However, modernization and globalization do not lead to a perfect world. They initially advocated Western cultural centrism and sought to Westernize the world system. The main theoretical point here is: "Tradition" and "Modern" are unrelated to each other and diametrically opposed; society The overall development trend is to evolve towards modernization along the same, linear path; developing countries can accelerate their progress through interactions with developed societies; Western developed countries are the highest stage in the development sequence, and their historical experience shows that generally The road to modernity. 1

In practice, driven by its economic strength, Western strong culture increasingly expands outwards, intrudes on weak cultures, penetrates values ??into backward countries, spreads theories of racial and cultural superiority, and distorts scientific views of history and concept of development.

Through the preservation, arrangement, inspection, and analysis of world cultural heritage, we can summarize the life-sustaining vitality and methods of different ethnic groups and different cultures, and compare the characteristics, dimensions, and functions of various cultural models, so that we can modernize and globalization, give them a reasonable positioning, promote the peaceful coexistence and mutual learning of various cultures, and advocate a pluralistic, progressive and harmonious development of cultural concepts and civilized relations.

In terms of cultural heritage, the international understanding of cultural heritage has generally gone through three stages. In the first stage, people understand cultural heritage in the sense of nationalism and closely integrate cultural heritage with the nation-state and national identity. Cultural heritage becomes one of the expressions of political identity. In the second stage, people began to transcend the standpoint of nationality and national identity, adjust the relationship between cultural nationalism and cultural globalism, and shift towards a global understanding of the cultural heritage of all mankind. In the third stage, multiculturalism emerged after realizing the academic flaws and practical harms of cultural centrism. People realize that no matter what characteristics a culture has, it must have some elements that are shared by all human beings. The diverse cultures produced in the history of different cultures and social systems are an important source of enlightening people's minds and promoting the development of civilization.

Cultural models determine the different development paths of various nation-states, and different development paths are reflected in cultural diversity. Cultural diversity manifests itself as different modernization models in modern society, so different modernization models have profound historical and cultural basis. This profound historical and cultural basis is reflected in the existing cultural heritage. Protecting cultural heritage is to link the development path of the nation and demonstrate its own characteristic modernization path.

Promoting the protection of cultural heritage to the outside world means explaining to the world the characteristics of China’s modernization path and cultural style. In China, this is based on promoting the protection of cultural heritage to the outside world and demonstrating our modernization path with socialist characteristics and the cultural heritage of peaceful development.

Promoting the protection of cultural heritage to the outside world is conducive to demonstrating China’s scientific outlook on development

Cultural heritage, as a symbolic carrier of human history and civilization, is an objective record of human activities in its original era and is scarce. , uniqueness and non-renewability. Cultural heritage must be effectively protected in order for human civilization to continue. However, cultural heritage is often ignored or even destroyed in order to develop the economy.

Among the five phenomena of "growth without development" listed in the "1996 Human Development Report", rootless growth (rootless growth) is an economy that destroys culture and reduces people's quality of life. growth) and futureless growth (that is, economic growth that causes resource and environmental pollution and ecological destruction) are practices that ignore the protection of cultural heritage and blindly sacrifice the environment (historical and cultural environment) to reduce people's quality of life in exchange for economic growth. criticism. How to protect cultural heritage and coordinate with economic development is becoming a worldwide problem.

China recognized the value of cultural heritage earlier and strengthened its protection and collection work. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the cultural heritage protection system formed a multi-level system that shifted from cultural relic protection as the center (later adding the protection of historical and cultural cities as an important content) to historical and cultural protected areas. At present, China is working hard to build a cultural heritage protection system, including a complete set of measures in technology, legal and other aspects, whose purpose is to properly handle the relationship between history and development.

The most valuable legacy of cultural heritage is that its active subjects and expressions coexist. People can intuitively and uniformly see a cultural life phenomenon? a living culture. People can understand the meaning and value of cultural heritage through dialogue, communication, participation, experience, and learning with inheritors, and gain real feelings, education, and insights from it.

?The essence of the historical spirit does not lie in the restoration of past things, but in the ideological communication with real life. ?2 This is the basic social function of the cultural heritage industry under ideal conditions, and this is why we must protect its authenticity. The purpose of protection is to develop, to make human life happier, and to enable human beings to create more and more advanced civilizations. This is also the proper meaning of China’s current promotion of the scientific outlook on development.

To guide the protection of cultural heritage with the scientific outlook on development is to correctly estimate the degree of natural damage to cultural heritage, correctly calculate the reasonable carrying capacity of the environment, correctly evaluate the technical requirements for excavation of cultural heritage, and conduct planned, scientific and reasonable Protect and utilize cultural heritage so that the protection of cultural heritage can promote economic development. By concretely promoting the protection of Chinese cultural heritage to the outside world, our scientific outlook on development can be intuitively displayed to the world.

Promoting the protection of cultural heritage to the outside world is conducive to demonstrating China's harmonious ethnic and international relations

The relatively stable form of culture is the cultural model, and the subject of the cultural model is a specific ethnic group. China is a multi-ethnic country, and ethnic relations can be reflected as cultural relations. Through the protection and development of cultural heritage, the exchange and integration of Chinese multi-ethnic cultures can be reproduced, thus reflecting China's multi-ethnic cultural origins that are inseparable from the international community.

Among the third batch of "Masterpieces of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" announced by UNESCO, "China's Xinjiang Uyghur Muqam Art" and "Mongolian Long Tune Folk Songs" are on the list. The former is distributed in 19 countries and regions in Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and North Africa. As the crystallization of the exchange of music and dance culture between the East and the West, it records and confirms the history of mutual transmission and integration of music and dance culture among different groups of people. ?Mongolian long-melody folk songs? carry the history of the Mongolian nation and are a symbolic display of the production, life and spiritual character of the Mongolian nation. As an existing cross-border cultural form, it is the first cultural heritage project jointly declared by China and a foreign country. It is the common spiritual wealth of the people of China and Mongolia.

At present, the five Central Asian countries have expressed their willingness to use the Silk Road as a jointly declared cultural heritage protection project. ?The Silk Road? Starting from the ancient Chinese capital of Chang'an (today's Xi'an) in the east, it covers more than 4,000 kilometers in China, and goes directly to Europe through South Asia and Central Asia in the west, with a total length of more than 7,000 kilometers. It was the link between economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West in ancient times. An important bridge connecting ancient Chinese culture, Indian culture, Persian culture, Arabic culture and ancient Greek and Roman culture. Along this passage, Chinese papermaking, printing and gunpowder were introduced to the West, and Western mathematics, medicine and astronomy were introduced to China. For such an important cultural route, protection should be strengthened, and the Silk Road's inclusion in the World Cultural Heritage List is well deserved. Officials from the UNESCO World Heritage Center also said that world heritage sites of universal significance to mankind should transcend national boundaries.

Promoting communication, understanding, cooperation and trust between China and other countries in the world through external cultural exchanges is an important responsibility of external publicity. Promoting cultural heritage protection to the outside world is also a task to promote cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries. In the past few years, the State Council Information Office has carried out the "Perception of China" theme activity, introducing a large number of China's excellent culture, art, and cultural heritage to the public around the world. These include China's most precious cultural relics, such as musical instruments and bells, Qingzhou stone carvings, and bronze art, as well as China's traditional arts such as Peking Opera costumes, national costumes, and arts and crafts, as well as kung fu, drama, music, dance, acrobatics, and social fire. and other performing arts. Famous programs such as "Shaolin Kung Fu", "Image of Yunnan", "Inner Mongolia A Cappella", "Ethnic Costumes of the Past", etc. have all participated in the "Perception of China" themed activities. This not only showcases China's precious cultural heritage and rich traditional culture, but also promotes further international understanding of China and the development of friendly relations between China and foreign countries.

Methods and principles for the protection of historical and cultural heritage

1. Preservation intact (frozen preservation)? Principle of authenticity

Preservation intact, Maintain the authenticity of history and culture. This is a standard advocated by the United Nations. Generally speaking, cultural relics and historic sites should be preserved intact.

2. Repair the old buildings as before and restore them carefully

For the restoration of incomplete buildings (ancient ruins), they should be restored as before to preserve their authenticity. The "Venice Charter" puts forward two restoration principles recognized by countries around the world:

? The repaired and missing parts must form an integral part with the original parts, maintain the harmony of the landscape, and contribute to restoration but not degradation. Its artistic value, historical value, scientific value, and information value;

? The added part must be distinguished from the existing part, so that people can distinguish historical and contemporary additions, so as to maintain the historicity of cultural relics and buildings. [1]

In addition, reinforcement and maintenance should be as little as possible, which is the principle of necessity.

3. Rebuild carefully

Some very important historical buildings were destroyed for some reason. Since they are important features and symbols of the place, it is necessary to rebuild them when conditions permit. Reconstruction is monumental.

However, reconstruction must be cautious and must be verified by experts, because reconstruction will inevitably lose historical authenticity, cost a lot, and destroy the ruins. Preserving remnants is more valuable in more situations.

4. The utilization of historical and cultural heritage is based on the premise of not damaging the heritage.

The utilization of historical and cultural heritage is based on the premise of not damaging the heritage. It is best to continue the original use method, and it can also be Museums, as tourist attractions, must be visited with caution to prevent damage.

5. Maintain the pattern characteristics of historical blocks and ancient cities

Focus on protecting the plane layout, azimuth axis, road skeleton, river network, etc. of historical blocks and ancient cities.

6. Protect the characteristic architectural style

Protect the characteristic architectural style, including the building’s style, height, volume, materials, color, layout, relationship with surrounding buildings, etc. It is very important to control the appropriate building scale, height and volume. Remember that modern and ancient buildings are different. Do not ask for high or big requirements.

7. Protect the historical environment

Things are inseparable from their environment and cannot exist without the environment. The significance of the historical, cultural and genetic environment is even more important. Important, distinctive topography, landforms, wilderness, water bodies, flowers and trees and their characteristics must be protected.

8. Ancient towns, villages, streets and buildings that are uncertain should not be demolished for the time being

In many remote places, especially in mountainous rural areas, ancient towns, villages, streets, Although ancient buildings are not key cultural relics protection units, they are also historical and cultural inheritance and have considerable value. The locals don’t know if they have the financial resources or opportunity to ask experts for appraisal. In this case, it is best not to dismantle it temporarily to avoid regrets, and to deal with it according to the situation after expert evaluation.

9. Make good plans for the protection of historical and cultural ancient cities and historical and cultural areas

Planning is the leader, protection must be based on planning, and planning must come first. Once you have a plan, protect according to the plan.

Six trends in cultural heritage protection

The first is the protection elements.

Cultural relic protection only protects cultural elements, while cultural heritage also protects cultural landscapes where cultural relic elements and natural elements coexist. Our country has advocated the unity of nature and man since ancient times, so there are a lot of cultural and natural elements. , the cultural crystallization created jointly by man and nature.

The second is the protection of cultural heritage.

Cultural relic protection often protects static things. Ancient ruins, ancient temples, including the Great Wall are all static, while cultural heritage also needs to protect dynamic and living things, such as places where people live. . Because cultural heritage does not mean lifeless and static, it can be full of life and make contributions to today. For example, the water towns and ethnic villages in the south of the Yangtze River are all targets of protection today.

The third is the spatial scale of protection.

Cultural relic protection often only protects a bridge, a tower, an ancient building complex, a village, or a city, but cultural heritage protection has a greater scale and ambition, including large heritage sites, cultural routes, etc. For example, the Desert Silk Road, UNESCO hopes that the Chinese government will take the lead in promoting the Silk Road, the world's largest cultural heritage project, to apply for world heritage. It includes the Buddhist Silk Road, the Desert Silk Road, the Oasis Silk Road, and the grassland. The Silk Road, including the Water Silk Road, connected 97 countries.

The fourth is the time scale of protection.

The protection of cultural relics used to attach great importance to ancient cultural relics, and later began to attach importance to modern historical sites. However, cultural heritage also attaches great importance to the protection of contemporary cultural relics, because the changes in this century are more intense than the changes in the past thousand years combined, but The things left over from this century of life and work tend to disappear faster, and people think of them as ordinary, common, and popular. For example, the brand of the Farmers Association in the 1920s and 1930s reflected the cultural phenomenon of the people's communes. Now there are two of them across the country. If anyone has a third one in their home, it is a national treasure.

The fifth is to attach importance to the protection of folk cultural heritage.

In the past, cultural relics protection often focused on protecting palaces, temples, churches, and monumental buildings, but today, cultural heritage protection also requires the protection of folk cultural heritage. For example, Fujian earth buildings have been included in the World Heritage List.

The sixth is to pay attention to protecting non-material elements.

Cultural relics protection protects cultural relics in material form, while cultural heritage also protects intangible elements, especially the cultural landscape where material elements and intangible elements are generated simultaneously.

Traditional tools, techniques and materials are organized by local people to repair them. This has three advantages: first, local people will be very careful in repairing their own production and living facilities, because they have to be used and are not for the purpose of making money; second, through In the form of work-for-work relief, their lives can be improved; third, these traditional craftsmanship can be widely popularized and passed down through these repairs.