Abstract
At the turn of the 20th Century, most of Chinese scholars felt that China was a country in imminent danger. Due to various social and political failures of the Qing government, many scholars turned their attention from influencing officials and government and focused on society and on an individual as a guardian of the country.
Liang Qichao, one of the most influential intellectuals of the age, was amongst these scholars focusing on society. Between 1898 and 1902 during his exile in Japan, Liang was captivated by an idea of a hero, a patriot, who would be able to lead a country to better future and desired changes.
He was primarily interested in Western historical experience, but also paid attention to raising nationalistic tendencies in Japan and Chinese tradition of heroes and loyal servants. All these inspirations contributed to his ideal hero type, which we call a patriotic hero.
The patriotic hero possessed basic moral qualities of a traditional Chinese hero (determination and sacrifice), his loyalty was nevertheless not directed towards concrete political entity, but towards an abstract idea of a nation. Apart from being a guardian able of sacrifices, the patriotic hero was also supposed to create and boost national awareness and support nation's nationalistic spirit.
According to Liang, both was missing in Chinese society. This conference contribution is devoted to Liang's fascination by the patriotic hero as well as Liang's feelings towards nationalism itself and the reasons why, at the end, Liang Qichao turned away from the patriotic hero and focused on duties and obligations of a "common" Chinese citizen.