Édouard Chavannes

Édouard Chavannes
Born(1865-10-05)5 October 1865
Died29 January 1918(1918-01-29) (aged 52)
Spouse
Alice Dor
(m. 18911918)
Scientific career
FieldsChinese history, religion
InstitutionsCollège de France
Academic advisorsHenri Cordier
Marquis d'Hervey-Saint-Denys
Notable studentsPaul Demiéville, Marcel Granet, Henri Maspero, Paul Pelliot
Chinese name
Chinese沙畹
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinShā Wǎn

Émmanuel-Édouard Chavannes (5 October 1865 29 January 1918) was a French sinologist and expert on Chinese history and religion, and is best known for his translations of major segments of Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, the work's first ever translation into a Western language.

Chavannes was a prolific and influential scholar, and was one of the most accomplished Sinologists of the modern era notwithstanding his relatively early death at age 52 in 1918. A successor of 19th century French sinologists Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat and Stanislas Julien, Chavannes was largely responsible for the development of Sinology and Chinese scholarship into a respected field in the realm of French scholarship.