Professor Dang Thai Mai - great cultural figure

Professor Dang Thai Mai was born into a family with a revolutionary tradition and a strong love for the country. In any circumstance, the Professor always studied, practiced, and was knowledgeable about culture. He was a person who made great contributions to our Party in laying the cultural foundation for revolutionary literature. He passed away on September 25, 1984, exactly 30 years ago.

Professor Dang Thai Mai was born on December 25, 1902, in Luong Dien village (now Thanh Xuan commune), Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province. His father was Mr. Pho Bang Dang Nguyen Can, who was a school inspector. Later, he participated in the Duy Tan movement of Mr. Phan Boi Chau and was sentenced to 13 years of hard labor and exiled to Con Dao.

In 1925, Dang Thai Mai entered the Indochina Pedagogical College in Hanoi. During this time, he participated in the movement to "pardon" Phan Boi Chau and hold a memorial service for Phan Chu Trinh. In 1936, he participated in the Popular Front movement, writing and editing Vietnamese and French newspapers of the Indochina Communist Party.

Together with Mr. Vuong Kim Toan, Nguyen Van To founded the Association for the Propagation of the National Language. In 1939, he was introduced by the Indochinese Communist Party to run for the Central Vietnam House of Representatives...

Right after the August Revolution until now, he has held many important positions such as: Minister of Education, Principal and Head of the Literature Department of Hanoi University, Director of the Institute of Literature. He was also a founding member of the Vietnam Writers Association.

Dang Thai Mai was a culturalist, he constantly thought about the issue of artistic cultivation. Right in the magazine Tien Phong of the Association for National Salvation of Culture (No. 11, May 15, 1946) (that is, only nearly 9 months after the success of the August Revolution), he wrote: "Artistic cultivation is an urgent order in the current cultural situation...

In the struggle on the cultural front, a unique, sharp, profound art is a victory... The Vietnamese people are waiting for the writer and artist of the country".

Writer Hoang Van Bon once recalled his teacher Dang Thai Mai when he studied at the Writers' Association Writing School:

"Every morning, the car took him to the school, we gathered and stood up to greet him. He stepped up to the podium, wearing a black blazer, a striped tie, and a Thang Long cigarette in his hand. We waited silently. He smoked a cigarette and walked back and forth along the length of the classroom, his hands in his blazer pockets, watching his steps, and began to read in original French the classic plays of Moliere and Shakespeare such as Andromeda, Oedipus the King, King Lear... his voice was warm and expressive according to the situation in the work, sometimes with gestures..."

"Most of the works he taught us were tragedies, classical tragedies. Sometimes he was silent. The flow of life in the works was frozen... He did not lecture, but he recalled, thought, savored, and admired a great literature of humanity. He lectured from contemplation, personally imparting it to our generation. In that first course, most of us were more or less successful, all had works."

Professor Dang Thai Mai has a whole library of books. In his library, people can meet Party and State leaders coming to discuss national affairs, artists coming to learn more about his experiences, and overseas Vietnamese coming back to the country to admire his name and visit.

Furthermore, there were brothers and sisters who came to ask him to solve the difficult problems in world literature. And this small room filled with books from East and West, ancient and modern, witnessed his moments of excitement after reading the pages and manuscripts of each work.

For him, the greatest and most valuable work was the work of training many successful students. Only then could we fully understand the meaning of his handshake and smile when he saw the books his students sent as gifts. Writer Nguyen Dinh Thi, in the article "The person tending the green beds" given to him, wrote:

"All night long, the book is open…
He takes care of the green beds
For the human age..."

In these "green beds", there are hundreds of manuscripts from publishers sent to him for his opinion on quality. Only those who have seen his comments, suggestions, and the pages he edited in a roundabout way can fully appreciate this priceless, silent creative effort.

Professor Nguyen Luong Ngoc, a colleague, called Professor Dang Thai Mai "a wise man" during his lifetime. Poet Tu Mo summarized about him:

"Literary theory is like steel.
"Spiritual character like bamboo and plum"

Professor Dang Thai Mai left behind many valuable works such as: Research on Vietnamese and world literature, Literature theory, Lu Xun, Popular philosophy, Humanism in the period of cultural renaissance, Brief history of modern Chinese literature, Phan Boi Chau's literature and poetry, Vietnamese revolutionary literature in the early 20th century, On the path of study and research (3 volumes), Dang Thai Mai's works and memoirs, The modern world, History of Western philosophy...

Due to his great contributions in political-social and literary and artistic activities, the Party and State awarded him many noble awards such as: Ho Chi Minh Medal (1982); Ho Chi Minh Prize, Phase I (1996).

Information Center/Vietnam News Agency