Thành Thái

Thành Thái ( 成 泰 )
Prince name	Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Lân ( 阮福宝 嶙 )
Personal name	Nguyễn Phúc Chiêu ( 阮福昭 )
Born	March 14, 1879
Died	March 24, 1955
Term of office	February 1, 1889 to September 3, 1907 (abdication)
Ara designation	Thành Thái ( 成 泰 )
Temple name	-
Posthumous name	-
Resting place	Lăng Dục Đức , Huế
Era period	February 1, 1889 to September 5, 1907

Emperor Thành Thái ( Hán tự : 成 泰 ; born March 14, 1879 in Huế ; † March 24, 1955 in Saigon ) was the tenth emperor of the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty . On February 1, 1889, he was enthroned as emperor and held this office until his abdication on September 3, 1907. His real name was Nguyễn Phúc Bửu Lân, also Nguyễn Phúc Chiêu, he chose "Thành Thái" as the era designation . His era under this motto began on February 1st, 1889 and ended on September 5th, 1907.

biography

The future emperor was the seventh son of Dục Đức , the fifth emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty.

After Emperor Đồng Khánh ascended the throne in 1885, Prince Bửu Lân was placed under house arrest, along with his mother Từ Minh Hoàng Hậu (1855-1906). After Đồng Khanh's death on January 28, 1889, however, the French colonial officials and the high-ranking mandarins decided in favor of Bửu Lân, who was just under ten years old. He was brought into the palace and enthroned as the new "Son of Heaven".

The young but intelligent Thành Thái quickly realized that he was being controlled by French spies in the palace. He did not want to go Đồng Khanh's path of collaboration, the path of rebellion seemed blocked, so he chose that of passive resistance, symbolic gestures, and biting remarks. Throughout his reign, as well as after, he rejected French control of the country.

This did not prevent him from being open to the achievements and fashions of Western civilization. He was the first Vietnamese monarch to cut his hair along the western lines. He also learned to drive a car. He advocated an upbringing based on the French model, instead of the Confucian tradition, which made conservative mandarins unsettling.

During the reign of Thành Tháis, a number of buildings were built, projects that he supported as much as possible. These include the Central Hospital in Huế (1894), the Đông Ba market (1899) and the Trường Tiền Bridge or Tràng Tiền Bridge (1899) over the Perfume River , which was constructed by Gustave Eiffel , and in Hanoi the Long Biên Bridge from 1903.

Contrary to tradition, Thành Thái sought contact with the people. So he often left the forbidden purple city (Huế) in civil clothes to talk directly to the people, to see how they lived and how they were affected by government policy. In doing so, he often succeeded in remaining undetected.

That was one side of his behavior - but there was another.

After a short time, as a boy, Emperor Thành Thái showed symptoms of mental illness. His behavior was often extremely erratic, occasionally he became violent, even cruel. There are reports of rape in the palace, of a servant being flogged for drunkenness - after the emperor had forced her to drink. A eunuch is said to have been whipped almost to death for not giving the emperor any marbles. After spending a night with him, young women are said to have been strangled.

This peculiar behavior of the “Son of Heaven” (which over time became a tourist attraction), which had become public, was embarrassing for the French administration, but even more so for the court and the mandarins. A first attempt to counter this was to send the emperor on “vacation”. In spite of her age, government power was taken over by the still sprightly Nghi Thiên Chương Hoàng Hậu (June 20, 1810 to May 22, 1901), better known as Từ Dũ , the widow of Emperor Thiệu Trị . However, the vacation did not bring the hoped-for improvements.

Emperor Thành Thái as a cyclist

There is the theory that Thành Thái was just playing his mental disorder. It was just a deception - it was supposed to make him seem harmless so that he could work more undisturbed for the liberation of Vietnam. However, this is not compatible with the often shown cruelty of his behavior, nor with the fact that it later changed neither in Vũng Tau nor on Réunion.

Nevertheless, Thành Thái never gave up the opposition to French rule - he refused to give his seal to French decrees. This culminated in 1907 in an attempt to go to China and to join a group around Prince Cường Để (1882–1951) who tried to build a resistance movement against the colonial rule of Vietnam. Thành Thái, however , was stopped in Thanh Hóa Province en route to China . The French declared him insane and forced him to abdicate on September 3, 1907 . This procedure replaced the original plan of setting up a Regency Council instead of a change of emperor, which should have governed instead of the emperor declared incapable of governing.

As his successor, Thành Thái's son was installed as Emperor Duy Tân . Thành Thái was initially exiled to Vũng Tàu in southern Vietnam together with women and children, now with the title “Duke” ; when Duy Tân later rebelled against the French, both father and son were brought to the island of Réunion with their families in 1916 . Thành Thái's more than strange behavior was also evident in his exile.

The former emperor never gave up hope of the liberation of his country. In 1945 he was allowed to return and in 1947 he returned. However, he was held under house arrest in Vũng Tau .

Web links

Commons : Emperor Thành Thái  - collection of images, videos and audio files