What do you call ancient documents?

First, the meaning of official documents

Official documents, that is, official documents, are also called documents. It is a document with legal effect and standard format formed by state organs and other social organizations in the process of exercising their functions and powers and implementing management. It is an important tool to convey government orders, guide, arrange and negotiate work, ask for instructions and answer questions, report and exchange information, contact official business and record work activities.

This basic meaning of official documents can be understood from the following aspects:

1. The main body of official documents is state organs and other social organizations. These organs or organizations are established in accordance with national laws and relevant articles of association and regulations and have legal status. This legal status gives these organs and organizations the power to formulate and process official documents within their scope of functions and powers. 2. The conditions for the formation of official documents are the exercise of authority and the implementation of management. Organs and organizations with legal status have their own organizational system, leadership relations and terms of reference, and have their own affairs and intentions. When they exercise their legal functions and effectively manage their official activities, they will inevitably produce written materials that reflect their will. This is a necessary condition for the formation of official documents.

3. The official document is a document with legal effect and standard format. This is the main point that distinguishes official documents from other articles and books. The legal effect of official documents is determined by the legal status of the document maker. The standardization of official document format not only enhances the authority and effectiveness of official documents, but also facilitates the processing of official documents.

4. Official documents are an important tool for state organs and other social organizations to handle government affairs and affairs. Any organ or organization needs to express its intention, handle official business and implement management through official documents in its daily work activities. For example, to report to the superior, use "report"; Assign work to subordinates with "instruction" or "notice"; Contact the relevant units for official business and use the "official letter"; To record the matters decided at the meeting, use "resolution" or "meeting minutes".

Second, the emergence and development of official documents

Official documents, or documents, are a social phenomenon and a product of human social practice. It comes into being with the emergence of class, country and writing, and develops with the continuous development of production. For thousands of years, people have to rely on documents as a tool to communicate in social and political life and economic activities. This connection is a necessary condition for the development of human society. Engels said in the article "The Origin of Family, Private Ownership and State": "From the smelting of iron ore, and because of the invention of characters and their application in document records, it has transitioned to the civilized era." Here, Engels applied words to document records, that is, regarded the appearance of documents as an important symbol of the era of human civilization, and spoke highly of it. Stalin pointed out in the article "Problems of Marxism and Linguistics": "With the continuous development of production, the emergence of classes, figures and countries, the management of the country needs more organized documents, and the development of business needs more organized correspondence ..." This passage scientifically clarified the social background of the production of documents and the important role of documents in national management and social and economic activities. In a sense, the splendid historical civilization of human society has spread to all parts of the world by virtue of those vast and varied documents and records. China is an ancient civilization in the world with a long history and ancient culture. In ancient times, our ancestors created the method of "tying rope recording". With the continuous progress of society and the needs of more and more complicated production and life, primitive engravings and characters with ideographic and phonological meanings gradually appear. This is recorded in China's classical works. "Human beings have political organizations, that is, laws. If there is a written decree, there will be an announcement. " In China, the appearance of documents can be traced back to Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The Book of Changes says: "In ancient times, tying knots was the rule, and later sages changed it into a book contract, and hundreds of officials ruled it, and the people watched it and covered it." The "book deed" mentioned here refers to the document formed by words as the material carrier. With documents, we can carry out the intention of the rulers, realize the information transmission of society, and write letters about "governance", "inspection" and "jealousy" Documents have become a tool for managing the world.

As early as 3000 years ago, in the late Shang Dynasty, a relatively complete Oracle Bone Inscriptions book appeared. It is a record of the divination activities of the royal family in the late Shang Dynasty and the earliest document treasure discovered by Chinese archaeologists. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were officials who specialized in managing and drafting documents. According to "Zhou Li Tiangong Zai Fu", "On the fifth day, the government and officials agreed to rule Tibet, and on the sixth day, history and official books praised it." Han Zheng declared: "To cure Tibet, we should collect the documents and utensils and praise the cure. If you start writing now, it will be grass. " This shows that in China, official documents, as a national management tool, have been produced for three or four thousand years.

Marxism holds that state organs are tools of the ruling class and violent organs. In order to realize their own rule, the ruling class must formulate and implement laws and regulations. As early as Xia, Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties in China, the rulers attached great importance to the role of official documents. Shangshu, an ancient book, is regarded as a classic book by Confucianism, and many of them are directive documents issued by rulers to subordinates and people, including letters patent, oath and destiny. For example, Tang patent, Da patent, Kang patent and so on. It was a letter from the then rulers Shang Tang, Duke Zhou and Cheng Wang to the people. The Oath of Gan, the Oath of Tang and the Oath of Pastoral were the oaths issued by the then rulers, Shang Tang and the army before going to war. "Life" is an order issued by the ruler, such as "Hou Wen's life". These contents are all related to the political affairs of the country, so Xunzi's "Persuasion of Learning" says: "The author of the book is also the discipline of political affairs." Therefore, Shangshu is the earliest compilation of political documents in China.

The Qin and Han Dynasties was the establishment period of papermaking in China feudal society. Shu and Qin appeared in the Qin Dynasty, and they were the earliest ascending official documents in China. For example, Li Si's "Persuade" is the opinion that Li Si, a guest of Qin State, submitted to the king of Qin before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty. It used a lot of facts and repeated arguments, and finally persuaded the king of Qin to withdraw the order to expel Ke Qing.

Zhang, Biao and Shu appeared in the Han Dynasty. During the Han Dynasty, officials and officials at the same level used the parallel word "immigrant" more and more. There are "orders", "decrees" and "instruction" in the following texts.

After the Qin and Han Dynasties, and even after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, in the feudal society of more than two thousand years, the downward, upward and parallel types of official documents have been constantly evolving and increasing. According to Xu's "General Theory of Official Documents", there are no fewer than sixty or seventy kinds, which shows that feudal rulers in past dynasties attached importance to official documents and also reflected the increasingly refined work of political institutions.

After the Revolution of 1911, in order to meet the needs of its bourgeois regime construction, the Nanjing Provisional Government carried out a comprehensive reform of paperwork along the feudal dynasty with a long history, simplifying the types of paperwork and unifying the procedures for official documents. 19 12 1 month, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the interim government issued five official documents, pointing out: "Now that the interim government has been established, all official documents should be stipulated urgently in order to be unified and easy to implement." It also stipulates that business official documents can be divided into five types: order, consultation, presentation and instruction, and defines the scope of use of these languages. Thus, the names of official documents used by the feudal dynasty for thousands of years were abolished, such as system, imperial edict, patent, troublesome, playing, table and annotation, which showed the revolutionaries' opposition to feudal autocracy. This was also a revolution in official document names. During the rule of the Northern Warlord Government and the Kuomintang Government, in order to meet the needs of their rule, the clerical work was reformed many times and some languages were added. The style has also developed from classical Chinese to semi-writing, stipulating that official documents must use punctuation marks.

It can be seen that the development and evolution of official documents reflects the nature of political power in past dynasties, as well as the needs of rulers and their understanding of the importance of official documents in political power. As mentioned above, official documents are tools for the ruling class to realize its own rule, and clerical work has a distinct class nature, belonging to and serving certain political groups. Before the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), the civilian work under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, from the day it was born, was to serve the great cause of realizing the party's program, overthrowing the three mountains and striving for the complete liberation of the people of China. It is essentially different from previous dynasties and periods in content, form and working methods. Its appearance has brought China's clerical work into a brand-new development period.

Three. Documents, documents and official documents

In the work activities of government agencies, the three concepts of "document", "official document" and "official document" are often used at the same time. Such as documents, documents, documents; Documents, documents to be written and documents to be exchanged; Official document, official document format, official document filing, etc. These concepts can sometimes be used interchangeably. For example, document processing can also be called document processing, document processing; Official document exchange can also be called official document exchange and official document exchange; Official document format can also be called file format, official document format and so on. This shows that the basic meanings of the three concepts, documents, and official documents, are the same in the work of organs, and they all refer to the correspondence, documents and documents used by state organs and other social organizations in their work activities, that is, official documents. According to different situations and different occasions, these three concepts are used respectively. In this sense, documents, documents and official documents can be used universally.

However, in practical work, due to historical evolution and usage habits, as well as other reasons, different aspects are often emphasized on different occasions, and names and usages are not the same.

Word documents are widely used in people's daily life and official activities. It can be regarded as the general name of all documents, which can refer to both official documents and folk documents, and is a whole concept. A document can also refer to a profession, such as a clerical worker, or a professional title, such as a document, a document section chief, a document supervisor, etc.

Documents, like documents, sometimes refer to the general name of documents and materials. For large-scale meetings, the meeting documents should be filed after the meeting. The documents mentioned here refer to the formal documents with standardized format formed by the meeting, such as meeting minutes and resolutions, as well as briefings, leaders' speeches, representatives' speeches, meeting minutes, and even audio, video and photos during the meeting. However, some important documents, such as the Central Committee document and the the State Council document, are often formally called "documents" instead of documents or official documents. As far as a single document is concerned, people also habitually call it a document, not an official document or a document.

As for the concept of official document, its specific scope is very clear, which refers to the documents or documents produced by customs units at all levels for handling official duties. In this sense, it is the abbreviation of official document or official document.

According to some historical records, documents, documents and official documents appeared in different historical periods and had a process of emergence and evolution.

The word "document" first appeared in Jia Yi's new book Under the Qin Dynasty in the Western Han Dynasty: "Prohibit documents, severely punish the law, rape first and then righteousness." Wang Chong's Lun Heng Bietong also recorded "documents": "Xiao He entered the Qin Dynasty and tidied up documents, so the Han Dynasty could control Kyushu, and the power of documents was also." The "documents" mentioned in these places generally refer to ancient books and picture books. In the pre-Qin period in China, it was difficult to separate "literature" from "history". The concept of "document" is broader, and some written materials with historical value can be called documents.

After the Han Dynasty, the meaning of documents as official documents and archives was gradually determined and used. History of Hanshu Publishing Law: "There are a few pavilions for documents, but you can't see all the classics." There is a line in Wang Xiyi, written by Yuan Zhen in Tang Dynasty, which says, "I am covered in documents, but I want to sleep for a while by mistake". The "documents" mentioned in these places all refer to official documents.

The word "official document" appeared in the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. In the Han dynasty, official documents were called much more than official documents. After the Three Kingdoms, it is called official document, which refers to the official document between governments. For example, "The History of the Later Han Dynasty Liu Taochuan": "States and counties are taboo and don't want to hear about it, but they even tell each other and don't want documents." That is to say, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Jiao, the leader of the Yellow turban insurrectionary uprising, and others were powerful and might gather people to revolt, but state and county officials only verbally told them that they refused to play the imperial court in the form of official documents. There is also a record in the Biography of Zhao Yan in the Three Kingdoms of Wei Zhi that "Tso Gong should be white, the official document should be sent to the county, and the silk book should be returned to the people". Since then, official documents have become a general term for official documents.

The word "document" only appeared in the late Qing Dynasty, when diplomatic documents mentioned "ordinary correspondence documents" and "negotiation documents". In May of the third year of Xuantong, the Cabinet System promulgated by the imperial court took "taking charge of the official documents of this cabinet" as one of the duties of the propaganda office. An overview of the history and literature inherited by future generations

I. Meaning

Official documents, referred to as official documents, belong to practical writing. Official documents can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Broadly speaking, official documents refer to written materials formed by party and government organs, social organizations, enterprises and institutions to handle official business. In a narrow sense, official documents refer to the official documents used by party and government organs when handling official duties.

Second, classification

According to its writing direction, official documents can be divided into upper writing, lower writing and parallel prose. The last line refers to the official documents submitted by the lower authorities to the higher authorities, such as requests for instructions and reports. The following words refer to the words given by higher authorities to lower authorities, such as decisions, instructions, announcements, notices, circulars, circulars, etc. Parallel writing refers to the writing between organs at the same level or between different subordinate organs, such as letters. Notices and official documents of meeting minutes can sometimes be used as parallel texts.

Official documents can be divided into emergency official documents, emergency office official documents and ordinary official documents according to their time limit. If the content of a document has a time limit and needs to be delivered quickly, it is called an urgent document. Urgent items can be divided into two types: urgent and urgent. Urgent official documents should be dealt with as soon as possible. The higher the time limit, the faster the delivery and processing, but we must be "quick and accurate." With the development of society, the requirements for the timeliness of official documents are getting higher and higher. Even formal official documents should be handled at any time to improve the efficiency of running documents.

According to the degree of confidentiality, official documents can be divided into top secret official documents, confidential official documents, secret official documents and ordinary official documents. Top secret, confidential and secret official documents, also known as confidential documents, refer to documents whose contents involve party and state secrets and whose scope and objects need to be controlled. The higher the security level of documents, the stricter the requirements for communication, reading and storage.

The three names of official documents and documents have been used to this day.

Respondent: Old Master Q