Phan Chau Trinh

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Phan Châu Trinh (born September 9, 1872 , † 1926 in Saigon ; alternative name Tử Cán ) was a prominent representative of Vietnamese nationalism at the beginning of the 20th century. He rejected violence and campaigned for independence from the French colonial state through cooperation and liberal reforms.

Origin and career

Phan Chau Trinh was born in 1872 as the son of an officer in the province of Quảng Nam in the Annamite part of the country. He received a traditional Confucian -oriented upbringing and education. In 1901 he passed the imperial exams in Huế analogous to the doctorate. He began his professional life with a minor post at the Ministry of Rites of the Imperial Court. His father was a supporter of the Cần Vương movement , which had waged an unsuccessful guerrilla war against the colonial power and, as a supposed traitor, was killed by a co-conspirator.

Political activity

Phan Chau Trinh advocated the idea that the colonial state of his home country could be achieved through liberal reforms in education and administration using democratic means. He became prominent through an open letter in 1906, in which he urged Governor General Paul Beau to comply with the French mission civilatrice through more rights for the colonized population. He also worked at a privately financed academy run by nationalists, the aim of which was to spread nationalist ideas along Western lines in Vietnamese society.

One of his central political demands was the abolition of the Nguyen monarchy by the colonial state, which he considered necessary to modernize the country.

Prosecution

Phan Chau Trinh was charged in 1908 for inciting peasant revolts. Although the allegations were inaccurate, he was initially detained on the prison island of Côn Sơn. In the end he was sent into exile in France, where he kept himself afloat as a photo retoucher but was still able to remain present as an author in nationalist circles. In 1925 he was allowed to return to Vietnam.

Despite the prosecution by the colonial state, he campaigned for the service of Vietnamese in the French armed forces and as workers in Europe during the First World War , because he hoped this would give him an opportunity to emancipate the colonized population.

Reception and souvenirs

He died in Saigon a year after his return in 1926 . At his funeral, there were solidarity demonstrations from the population. In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam he was often viewed critically by historians because of his idea of ​​cooperation with the colonial state. Nevertheless, he is considered an important representative of the early Vietnamese national movement. His efforts led to a constitutionalist wing within the national movement with the Vietnamese newspaper La tribune indigène as the leading medium.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bruce L. Lockhart, William J. Duiker: Historical Dictionary of Vietnam. Oxford 2006, pp. 307f
  2. ↑ Ben Kiernan: Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present. Oxford 2017, p. 333
  3. ^ KW Taylor: A History of the Vietnamese. Cambridge 2013, p. 512
  4. ↑ Christopher Goscha: Vietnam - A New History. New York 2016, p. 111
  5. ↑ Pierre Brocheux, Daniel Hémery: Indochina. An ambiguous colonization, 1858-1954. Berkeley 2009, p. 304
personal data
SURNAME Phan, Chau Trinh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tử, Cán
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vietnamese intellectual and nationalist
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Quảng Nam Province
DATE OF DEATH 1926
Place of death Saigon