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From Moral Exemplar to National Hero: The transformations of Trần Hưng Đạo and the emergence of Vietnamese nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2015

LIAM C. KELLEY
LIAM C. KELLEY*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, United States of America Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Trần Hưng Đạo (1228–1300), the Vietnamese general who led troops to hold off Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century, is honoured across Vietnam today as a hero of the nation (anh hùng dân tộc). This ubiquitous representation has, however, come about only recently, having been crafted in the twentieth century. Prior to that time, Trần Hưng Đạo was honoured in other ways. This article will examine precisely how it is that Trần Hưng Đạo was represented and remembered in various works—from official histories to spirit writing texts—between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. It will trace the transformations in these representations over time and argue that it was only in the early twentieth century that Trần Hưng Đạo began to be represented as a national hero. In its coverage of the transformations in Trần Hưng Đạo's representation, this article will demonstrate how modern nationalist ideas emerged in Vietnam in the early twentieth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 6 , November 2015 , pp. 1963 - 1993
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 This body of scholarship is far too vast to cite here, but two essential studies are: Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983)Google Scholar; and Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (eds), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

2 Some scholars, however, have sought to deconstruct the idea of the nation in Vietnam. For a review of some representative works, see Vũ, Tường, ‘Vietnamese Political Studies and Debates on Vietnamese Nationalism’, Journal of Vietnamese Studies 2.2 (2007), pp. 203–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Phương, Phạm Quỳnh, Hero and Deity: Trần Hưng Đạo and the Resurgence of Popular Religion in Vietnam (Chiang Mai: Mekong Press, 2009), p. 26Google Scholar.

4 Ibid, p. 35.

5 Ibid, pp. 34–35. McHale, Shawn's ideas on the changing position of Confucianism in Vietnamese society are presented in his Print and Power: Confucianism, Communism, and Buddhism in the Making of Modern Vietnam (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2004), pp. 66–95Google Scholar. The information below on morality books, on the other hand, strongly suggests that Confucian ideas had long been part of a commonly shared idiom for intellectual life.

6 Ibid, p. 39.

7 Duara, Prasenjit, ‘Superscribing Symbols: The Myth of Guandi, Chinese God of War’, Journal of Asian Studies 47.4 (1988), pp. 778–795CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 Ngô Sĩ Liên, Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư [Complete book of the historical records of Đại Việt] (1697 edition, orig. comp. 1479), A. 3, Bản Kỷ 5/17a–17b. Trần Hưng Đạo's given name was Quốc Tuấn. He was granted the title of the ‘Hưng Đạo Prince/King’ (Hưng Đạo Vương), and today he is most commonly known as Trần Hưng Đạo, which is how I will refer to him in this article.

10 Ibid, Bản Kỷ 5/17b–18a.

11 Ngô Thì Sĩ, Việt sử tiêu án [Model cases from Việt history] (eighteenth century), A. 11, 2/10a.

12 Phan Thanh Giản et al., Khâm định Việt sử thong giám cương mục, Chính Biên 6/33b.

13 Ngô Sĩ Liên, Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, Bản Kỷ 6/9b–10a.

14 Ibid, Bản Kỷ 6/10a.

15 Ibid, Bản Kỷ 6/10b and 6/11b. It is not clear if this was a book or a single document. A single document associated with this title is quoted in the Complete Book of the Historical Records of Đại Việt (Bản Kỷ 6/11b–6/14a) and has been translated by Lâm, Trương Bửu in his Patterns of Vietnamese Response to Foreign Intervention: 1858–1900 (New Haven: Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, 1967), pp. 49–54Google Scholar.

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19 Yijing [Classic of changes], Xici xia 5.

20 This comment is quoted in Kiếp Bắc Vạn Linh từ điển tích [Documentary traces of Vạn Linh shrine in Kiếp Bắc] (1863), in Sở Văn Hoá – Thông Tin Tỉnh Hải Dương, Di sản Hán Nôm Côn Sơn - Kiếp Bắc - Phượng Sơn [The heritage in Classical Chinese and Nôm from Côn Sơn - Kiếp Bắc - Phượng Sơn] (Hanoi: Nhà Xuất Bản Chính Trị Quốc Gia, 2006), p. 360.

21 Ibid, p. 361. Chu Văn Trinh is more commonly known by the name Chu Văn An.

22 Phan Thanh Giản et al., Khâm định Việt sử thong giám cương mục, Chính Biên 38/34a.

23 Quốc Sử Quán Triều Nguyễn, Minh Mệnh chính yếu [Essential administration of the Minh Mạng reign], Tập 3 (Saigon: Bộ Giáo Dục Và Thanh Niên, 1974), 8/13b–14a.

24 Nội Các Triều Nguyễn, Khâm định Đại Nam hội điển sự lệ [Imperially commissioned collected statues and precedents of Đại Nam] (1851), A. 54, 92/4a.

25 Phan Thanh Giản et al., Khâm định Việt sử thong giám cương mục, Chính Biên 38/34a.

26 Nội Các Triều Nguyễn, Khâm định Đại Nam hội điển sự lệ, 90/14a.

27 Quốc Sử Quán Triều Nguyễn, Minh Mệnh chính yếu, 8/14a.

28 Ibid, 11/23b–24a; Nội Các Triều Nguyễn, Khâm định Đại Nam hội điển sự lệ, 90/1a–3a.

29 Ngô Thì Sĩ, Việt sử tiêu án, 2/42a.

30 Ibid, 2/42a–b.

31 Trần Quý Nha, Công dư tiệp ký tục biên [Supplementary compilation of notes made at leisure] (eighteenth century), A. 44, 37a–36b.

32 Ibid, 36a–36b.

33 See, for example, Nguyễn Phổ Chính, Việt dư phong vật tổng ca chú giải toàn tập [Complete collection of the anthology of songs about the local customs and products in the Việt territory, annotated and explained] (1811), A. 1041.

34 Việt điện u linh tập lục toàn biên [Complete compilation of the collected records of the departed spirits of the Việt realm] (nineteenth century), in Qinghao, Chen (ed.), Yuenan Hanwen xiaoshuo congkan [Compilation of Vietnamese literary accounts written in Chinese], Series II (Paris and Taibei: École Française d’Extrême-Orient and Student Book Co., 1992), p. 220Google Scholar. This is a nineteenth-century version of a text that was originally compiled in the fourteenth century. Trần Hưng Đạo was not discussed in the original text.

35 Phạm Đình Hổ, Vũ trung tùy bút [Random writings amidst the rains], (early nineteenth century), A. 145, 50a.

36 Kiếp Bắc Vạn Linh từ điển tích, p. 370.

37 Ibid, pp. 370–371.

38 Ibid, p. 371.

39 Spirit writing in Taiwan has received the most scholarly attention. See Jordan, David K. and Overmyer, Daniel L., The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Shangshu [Classic of documents], Yixun.

41 For the origins of morality books, see Brokaw, Cynthia, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 The same transformation from reading morality books to creating new texts through spirit writing occurred at the same time in Taiwan. See Philip Clart, ‘The Ritual Context of Morality Books: A Case-Study of a Taiwanese Spirit-Writing Cult’ (PhD thesis, University of British Columbia, 1986).

43 This scripture is contained in Trần gia điển tích thống biên [Complete compilation of the documentary traces of the Trần family] (1899), A. 324, 25a. Phạm Ngũ Lão was a general who served under Trần Hưng Đạo in some of the battles against the Mongols in the thirteenth century and who was married to Trần Hưng Đạo's adopted daughter.

44 Ibid, 25b–26a.

45 See, for example, ibid, 119a–120b.

46 For an example of the use of these terms in a work produced by a Vietnamese reformer, see Hoàng Đạo Thành (comp.), Việt sử tân ước toàn biên [Complete compilation of a new summary of Việt history] (1906), A. 1507, 1a–1b. For a detailed discussion about the creation of neologisms in Japan in the nineteenth century that were then adopted into Chinese, see Liu, Lydia He, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity: China, 1900–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar. The same terms that Liu discusses in this work entered into the Vietnamese world as well; however, that process has yet to be clearly documented.

47 Cải lương mông học quốc sử giáo khoa thư [National history textbook for reformed elementary studies] (early twentieth century), R. 1946, nguyên tự 1a and 1b. Chi Nà is the Vietnamese pronunciation for a term, Shina, which the Japanese began to use in the second half of the nineteenth century to refer to China. It had derogatory connotations.

48 Nam quốc giai sự [The Southern Kingdom's great matters] (early twentieth century), A. 3207, tự 1b.

49 Hoàng Cao Khải, Việt sử yếu [Summary of Việt history] (1914), R. 173, tự 4a–4b. ‘Race’ was, of course, a new concept at the time in East Asia.

50 Nam quốc giai sự, tự 1b.

51 Hoàng Cao Khải, Việt sử yếu, tự 4b–5a.

52 Hoàng Đạo Thành (comp.), Việt sử tân ước toàn biên, A. 1507, 1a. For another example of this use of the expression ‘imprint the word “nation” in people's brains’, see Ngô Giáp Dậu, Trung học Việt sử toát yếu [Summary of Việt history for middle school] (1911), A. 770, 2b.

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57 Tang, Global Space, pp. 82–114.

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59 Nam Quốc vĩ nhân truyện [Biographies of great people of the Southern Kingdom] (early twentieth century), A. 3207, tự 1a and 1b.

60 Nam quốc giai sự, tự 1a and 1b.

61 Nam Quốc vĩ nhân truyện, 6b–7a.

62 Ngô Sĩ Liên, Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, Bản Kỷ 5/51a–b. Li Heng and Li Guan were two Yuan officers who were killed in the first invasion.

63 Cải lương mông học quốc sử giáo khoa thư, 26b–27a.

64 Ngô Sĩ Liên, Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, Bản Kỷ 5/44a.

65 Ibid, 44a–44b.

66 For the reference to ‘taking care of the elderly and seeking [their] words’, see Liji [Record of rites], Wenwang shizi. For the taking care of the elderly ritual, see the Wangzhi chapter.

67 Lê Văn Phúc, Phan Kế Bính, and Phạm Văn Thụ, Hưng Đạo vương [The Hưng Đạo king] (Hà Nội: Đông Kinh Ấn Quán, 2nd edition, 1935; 1st edition, 1914), pp. iii–iv.

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78 For examples of spirit writing texts produced by the deities in the Cult of the Mothers, see Minh thiện quốc âm chân kinh [True scripture in the kingdom's sounds for illuminating goodness] (1900) Paris SA. PD. 2343; Tăng quảng minh thiện quốc âm chân kinh [Expanded true scripture in the kingdom's sounds for illuminating goodness] (1904), AB. 143; Lạc thiện quốc âm chân kinh [True scripture in the sounds of the kingdom for taking joy in goodness] (1905), R. 1787; Tam vị Thánh Mẫu cảnh thế chân kinh [True scripture of the three Holy Mothers’ warning to the world] (1906), A. 2585; and Trạch thiện chân kinh [True scripture for choosing goodness] (1909), AB. 529.