Who stole the ram? The “New Interpretations” of the “Analects” (13.8) and the most recent discussions on the “effective admonition” by the scholars from the Peoples’ Republic of China

The article offers a historiographic survey followed by an assessment of a big-scale discussion, which deals with the “new interpretations” of the famous fragment − “Stealing a ram” from the “Analects” (Lun Yu, 論語) a large collection of sayings and ideas attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius and his contemporaries (Analects, 13.18). The origin of the Analects dates back over two millennia. Regardless of “advanced age” it does still attract within the Chinese society significant attention and is discussed both by the scholarly and public audience. In general, this discussion remains recurrent. The discussion unfolded in the Peoples Republic of China in 2000–2016 was covered by numerous articles in the American scholarly literature and therefore has found a vivid response among the Sinologists within the English language milieu. The author asks a question whether these recent interpretations as came from the 2000-2016 discussion are innovative indeed or they just “rephrased” old approaches already recorded in the scholarly literature. To answer it, he compares the key approaches by the modern Chinese scholars to those by Russian Sinologists, particularly, the interpretations by Professor Lydia I. Golovacheva (1937–2011). According to her, the famous sentence “a father would [plead guilty to] cover a son, a son would [plead guilty to] cover a father” implies the idea of correction of the wrongdoings (“upright the crooked”) using the internal moral imperative or waking the conscience of the wrong person. The analysis of the debates held by the scholars from the Peoples Republic of China has revealed the need to bring back into circulation this relatively little-known, however, holistic, consistent and adequate interpretation as well as to increase the awareness of it among both Russian and foreign sinologists. According to the author, this interpretation removes all the alleged legal vs. moral contradictions in the fragment (Analects 13.18).

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