Honoring a man of Nghe An

The conference "Phan Boi Chau with Nghe An, Nghe An with Phan Boi Chau" has just taken place in Vinh City with more than 30 scientific reports. These are truly scientific works that have been researched, elaborated and full of enthusiasm. It shows admiration and respect for a famous person from Nghe An, and at the same time opens up new perspectives on a historical figure. We met and discussed with a number of in-depth researchers on Phan Boi Chau.

Professor Phong Le (Former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Literature)

Professor Phong Le

Professor Phong Le: Only when I grew up did I learn and know a lot about Phan Boi Chau with pride and respect. He was an outstanding representative of the people of Nghe An, a "very Nghe" but "very Vietnamese" and progressive person with a mindset of going abroad and integrating. Phan Boi Chau embodied the quintessence of Nghe An qualities: resilient, indomitable, intelligent, hard-working and able to overcome the inherent limitations in the Nghe An character: foolish, stubborn, conservative. Phan Boi Chau was also a person who knew how to look far and wide, knew how to rely on the people, and took the people as the foundation. As Vietnamese people, everyone is proud of and respects such a person.

PV: As the former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Literature, how do you evaluate Phan Boi Chau from the perspective of a writer?

Professor Phong Le: When studying Phan Boi Chau from the perspective of a writer, it must be noted that Phan Boi Chau's literature is associated with patriotic ideology, with the revolutionary cause, with the cause of national salvation. Phan Boi Chau's literary works are proclamations, appeals to the patriotism of the people. Phan's poetry and literature are the person, his character and integrity. Besides, we can see the humanistic spirit imbued in his works. Just like in the speech welcoming Phan back to his hometown of Nghe An people (1926): "Twenty years of extra time abroad, using pen as bell, using inkstone as gong, awakening the people from a sleep of hundreds of years, the enthusiasm, the suffering cannot be described in words and ink..."

Associate Professor Chuong Thau (Vietnam Institute of History)

Associate Professor, Chuong Thau

Associate Professor Truong Thau: Since my youth, I have known Mr. Giai San. During high school, I read and loved many of Mr. Phan's works, typically "Prison Book". After finishing high school and studying abroad in China, I still paid attention to learning about Phan Boi Chau through Chinese newspapers about the Vietnamese patriotic movement. In 1956, I returned to the country and was fortunate to work alongside famous professors, very respectable teachers: Dang Thai Mai, Tran Van Giau... The teachers advised me: As a native of Nghe An, you should research Phan Boi Chau, considering it as a historical mission. From here, I became more deeply aware of my work. It was those teachers who contributed to guiding me to pursue a fateful research career about a character I always respected and admired.

PV: Surely you must have had many happy and sad memories to be able to create "Phan Boi Chau Complete Works" with 13 thousand pages?

Associate Professor Truong Thau: The memories of my research career on Mr. Phan can be recounted over many days and months. There were times when I felt lonely, there were times when people looked at him differently... For nearly half a century, there were times when I had to sell my wedding ring to type documents, there were many times when I sat in a shelter under the sound of American bombs to put my knees on the ground to write thousands of pages of paper. Then, with a pencil and blank sheets of paper, I went to France, to China to copy down everything related to Mr. Phan in their language.

Professor, People's Teacher Nguyen Dinh Chu (Hanoi National University)

Professor Nguyen Dinh Chu

Professor Nguyen Dinh Chu: In my opinion, there are still many points in Phan Boi Chau that need to be further clarified, especially the issues of the policy of violence to save the country in accordance with the reality of his revolutionary activities, which should not be simplified as it is now; secondly, his going to Japan and conducting the Eastern Journey have one-sided views; thirdly, the policy of French-Vietnamese harmony. Besides, it is also necessary to emphasize more on Phan Boi Chau as a culturalist in addition to his revolutionary status because Phan Boi Chau fully converges the qualities and integrity of a Confucian scholar, politician, and writer, a smooth combination of two people: a cultural celebrity and a historical celebrity...

PV: So, according to you, how should we perceive and "behave" with Mr. Phan today?

Professor Nguyen Dinh Chu: As I have presented above, Phan Boi Chau is a great patriot, an outstanding son of Nghe An in particular and of Vietnam in general, so we need to honor him at his right level. First of all, the completion of the Phan Boi Chau memorial site in Nam Dan, the Phan Boi Chau artifacts exhibition house... is not simply for tourism purposes, but more importantly, to educate the ideology and tradition of patriotism, to build national pride and self-respect for today's young generation... Besides, it is necessary to promote the study and research of Phan Boi Chau, contributing to honoring an outstanding person. As a son of Nghe An, and also a person who has spent his life pursuing the study of literature and the revolutionary career of Phan Boi Chau, I hope that after this conference, there will be a change in the way we "behave" towards a senior like him...

Thuy Vinh - Thanh Phuc (Performed)