Phan Đình Phùng

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Manuscript signed by Phan Dinh Phung in a museum in Hanoi

Phan Đình Phùng (* 1847 ; † 1896 ) was a Vietnamese mandarin and guerrilla leader in the monarchist Cần Vương movement, which involved the French colonial power in an armed conflict in the 19th century.

Phan Dinh Phung was a civil servant in the Empire of Vietnam and rose in the hierarchy under Emperor Tự Đức . He followed the call of Emperor Hàm Nghi to revolt against the French and organized a guerrilla against the colonial power in his home region.

Origin and career

Phan Dinh Phung came from a traditional family of officials and scholars from Ha Tinh Province . His family traced their civil service tradition twelve generations back to the Lê dynasty .

As a talented student, he passed the imperial civil service examination at the highest level in 1876/77. In his dissertation he called for the country to be modernized along the lines of the Japanese Meiji Restoration . He was in line with the emperor Tu Duc, who was oriented towards modernization and national self-assertion.

After graduating, he took a position in the censor's office at the imperial court. He made a name for himself there for his integrity and conscientiousness. In 1883 he was briefly arrested because he had not bowed to the political pressure of the regents in the appointment of the successor to Tu Duc.

Guerrilla war against the colonial power

In July 1885, the Emperor Ham Nghi proclaimed an uprising against the colonial power when French troops stormed his palace to depose him. Numerous Vietnamese followed his call and formed loose groups that named themselves after the edict of the emperor Help the monarch ( Can Vuong ). Pham Dinh Phung founded a guerrilla group in his home province and fought against the colonial power for around ten years. He reached the climax of his guerrilla campaign in 1893 with an attack on the governor's seat of Nghe An province , which was however repulsed by colonial troops. The guerrillas led by Phan did not recover from the defeat. Phan's family and his hometown were subject to reprisals from the colonial state, so the graves of his ancestors were desecrated and his family was taken into kin custody. Ten years after the start of the revolt, he was still leading a force of 1,200 to 1,500 militants.

He himself died in 1896 due to illness in the field in the forests of the highlands in the province of Quảng Bình . After his death, his followers dispersed.

reception

In today's Vietnam, Pham Dinh Phung is considered a patriotic folk hero.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Christopher Goscha: Vietnam - A New History. New York, 2016, pp. 93, 94, 98
  2. ↑ a b c d Bruce L. Lockhart, William J. Duiker: Historical Dictionary of Vietnam, Oxford, 2006, p. 309
  3. ↑ a b Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. Berkeley 2009, p. 56, p. 64
personal data
SURNAME Phan Dinh Phung
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vietnamese mandarin and guerrilla
DATE OF BIRTH 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH Ha Tinh Province
DATE OF DEATH 1896