The Shift in historical perception from tradition to modern in Viet Nam in the early twentieth century

istorical writing as a sharp weapon 
for the struggle against French colonialism was also not out of his purpose. Phan Boi 
 99 
Vu Thi Thu Thanh - Volume 3 - Issue 1-2021, p. 94-104 
Chau wrote The History of the Loss of the Country (1905) as a denunciation of the 
crimes of the French colonialists to the people in his country and the international 
communities and he wrote A Study of Vietnam’s National History (1909) as a proposal 
for modern solutions to Vietnam. Trying to rewrite nation history according to a new 
perspective, Phan Boi Chau got rid of the chronology narrative following the rise and 
fall of dynasties, the personages and good and evil advice to give on important topics 
for a new perception of a modern nation-state such as the history of national-territorial 
formation; the natural resources of the nation; the maintenance and expansion of 
borders-territories over time; diplomatic relations. Especially, he presents a state in 
terms of the citizenry, territory, and sovereignty in which citizenry was most important. 
These headings convince and support the presentation of a Darwinian social 
evolutionary of linear development that he was influenced by Chinese neo-writers 
(Milner, 2011, p.553). Vietnam's timeline of that linear progress was divided into six 
periods: animals, animal-primitive, primitive, primitive-developing, developing, and 
civilized. civilized, from civilizing trends to civilization. Finally, Phan Boi Chau 
predicts that Vietnam will enter a period of civilization after regaining sovereignty. 
Phan Boi Chau's modern cognitive framework differs from the Confucian traditional 
framework one in that he does not emphasize the relationship between ruler and subject 
in the Confucian state as previous historians, but instead changes to a nation-state 
category. He tried to emphasize citizenry to motivate the Vietnamese people to self-
sense their rights, to self-educated, to self-consciously embrace the destiny of their 
family as well as the destiny of the nation and the nation and dignify patriotism rather 
than personal fidelity to a ruling family (David Marr, 1981, pp. 255-257). Broking the 
Confucian connection between politics and morality, Phan Boi Chau also redistributes 
the difference between national history and the annals-biographic dynastic histories; 
between hero/hostile when he said that "how can national history follow the principles 
of the ruling dynasties" (Phan Boi Chau, 1962, p. 33). For him, a person is hostile to a 
ruling family, it is called the hostility of each family, but if that person brings benefits to 
the nation, the Vietnamese, he is a hero. 
Besides, in the traditional perception, the king was considered as a son of heaven, the 
theocracy, and the entire people as servants of the ruling, and they are obliged to subdue 
the authority. Phan Boi Chau argued that is a mutual relationship rather than a 
subordinate relationship for the common good not only of the nation but also for each 
member of that state. Phan Boi Chau tried to identify the power structure and found that 
the traditional historical writing strengthened that power for the ruling families. 
Historical events and personages were chosen for moral teaching, of protecting the 
ruler. He restructured that power in the direction of clearly defining the role - the 
function of a modern state in domestic and foreign affairs. The government needs to pay 
 100 
 Thu Dau Mot University Journal of Science - Volume 3 - Issue 1-2021 
attention to develop education to intellectual standards, move on the way of civilization 
to avoid falling into backward conditions, corruption, closed self-interest. Phan Boi 
Chau clarified the responsibilities and duties of each agency in the protection of national 
sovereignty, how to balance the harmonious common and private interests. He said the 
king-mandarin is just the representatives of the people in a country, the government 
along with the cabinet must action how to bring many benefits to the nation and its 
citizen; to maintain national independence; have specific socio-economic agenda 
declared and discussed with the citizen; has a plan to allocate human and financial 
resources for each agenda goal (Phan Boi Chau, 1962, p. 53; 71-72; 76-78; 87-90). For 
example, when discussing the exploitation of natural resources for the national 
economic development, the interests of the whole government, the people, and 
investors, he writes “for every mine is exploited, the engineers, miners and the 
bureaucrats were chosen by the government to pick up well-educated staff and agreed 
by the people...the profits from mining must be reasonably divided between them" 
(Phan Boi Chau, 1962, pp.53). 
Discussion 
In Asia's idea context, Phan Boi Chau's historical view generally followed the 
perception shift from traditional to modernity in common historical interpretation at that 
time. First, the basic social evolutionary model of Darwinian's interpretation, in which 
time is no longer understood as the "stagnant" "circumvolution" "past is the better time 
than now" but rather is the evolution time that evolves with the history of human social 
progress. Second, history describes as the process toward civilization in which a culture 
is symbolized like the physical form of the human being's spirit. The spirit of a culture 
or a nation is understood as the characteristics of civilization or national identity. It is 
the character of a people are crystallized from ideology, religion, art, and lifestyle, 
where each individual's self-awareness of reason and will and their capacities is the 
driving force for the development of society and as result, through the accumulation of 
each individual that constitutes social progress (Guizot, 1842, Lecture I, III; Hourani, 
1983, p. 115; Bowden, 2004). Third, taking the West's achievement as a ladder toward 
civilization, the articles of the intellectual's outside West on social evolution used the 
"escape from Asia" "out of the East" as a criterion for diverging universal social 
progress. This idea turned out in the early twentieth century, but later it was criticized 
because of just an extension of the Western vision away from regional countries outside 
the West. Phan Boi Chau also based on those common civilization standards to diverge 
his country's past 
However, in Vietnamese historiography, Phan Boi Chau not only raises new conceptual 
frameworks about the nation-state, truly patriotic sentiment but also gives the possible 
solutions for Vietnam's political independence and social progress. Phan Boi Chau tried 
 101 
Vu Thi Thu Thanh - Volume 3 - Issue 1-2021, p. 94-104 
to apply the progressive linear time but integrating the status of the nation's sovereignty, 
for him, must be the full and complete sovereignty. He said that only the periods of 548-
571, 939-945, 968-970, and 1428-1429 were the Vietnamese had complete and full 
sovereignty. Because the Vietnamese heads of state were gained sovereignty from 
China, they refused to be ordained, did not identify themselves as a court of China and 
considered themselves king of their country. That means other stages were the period 
that Vietnamese sovereignty was incomplete and dependent. Besides, Phan Boi Chau 
realized that "traditional historiography did not record anything to the ordinary people, 
because they did not have anything worth reminded of" (Phan Boi Chau, 1962, p.77). 
Phan Boi Chau did not discuss the rise and fall of dynasties instead that discusses the 
rise of the citizenry and the importance of education for the intellectual standards of a 
nation. Tran Van Giau supposed that Phan Boi Chau's new perspective only have just 
appeared after World War I (Tran Van Giau, 1997, p.164). 
4. Conclusion 
In the nineteenth century, the Nguyen Kings compiled a huge amount of historical 
records according to the traditional historiography that containing much information 
about the history and culture of the Vietnamese nation. However, with the collision 
between East and West ideological currents during the expansion of colonialism, Asian 
intellectuals began to re-perceive their country's history and they thought that their 
nation might be escaped the domination of Western colonialism by reaching the 
common ladder of the western civilization. Since the second half of the nineteenth 
century, Vietnam has become a colonial country of French colonialism. Realizing the 
strength and a higher level of civilization of French colonialism, the Vietnamese 
intellectuals thought that it was necessary to improve people's intellectual standards 
through education and disseminate Western ideas through poetry and printed materials 
and Phan Boi Chau is a pioneer in that propaganda work. Through two historical works, 
Phan Boi Chau has contributed to changing old historical thinking, although the purpose 
of writing history was mainly to serve his political - revolutionary way. Unlike the later 
generations of historians such as Pham Quynh, Nguyen Van To, Hoang Thuc Tram who 
received the knowledge directly from the French scholars, Phan Boi Chau was the 
recipient of new western historical views indirectly from the intellectuals from China 
and Japan, most clearly in the idea of Luong Khai Sieu, but those are also common 
ideas in the early twentieth century in Asia (see also Iggers, Wang..eds, 2008; 
Macintype, S, Maiguashca, J, and Pók, A. 2011; Xu, 2008). 
n Vietnamese history, Phan Boi Chau was not a person that creates a historical school 
on which based on historical methods and interpretation patterns, but he is considered to 
 102 
 Thu Dau Mot University Journal of Science - Volume 3 - Issue 1-2021 
be one of the modern historians of Vietnam by using the political and social functions of 
history to express patriotism for his nation and taking history to carry out political 
agendas for his political path. Through that, he gives modern language to his writings to 
make a change in the spirit of Vietnamese toward modernity. Compared with other 
historical works in Vietnam, the book A Study of Vietnam’s National History written by 
Phan Boi Chau has many new insights contributing to the turning point in changing 
Vietnamese historiography in terms of historical interpretation. Though at that time, 
Leopold von Ranke's positivist methods make him became a modern historian and 
history became a science. The positivist method for historical sources includes many 
different technical stages to criticize historical data in order to find out historical facts as 
"what really happened". When compiling history writings, Phan Boi Chau still knew 
that strict requirement, but clearly, he emphasized the political function rather than the 
intellectual function of history. However, for Vietnamese historiography, his new 
historical views along with the nation-state cognitive framework based on the citizenry-
territorial relationship were included in the rewriting of Vietnamese history, Phan Boi 
Chau deserves to be considered the first modern historian of Vietnam. 
Referrences 
Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined Communities : Reflections on the Orgins and Speard of 
 Nationalism. London: Verso. 
Bowden, B. (2004). In the Name of Progress and Peace: the “Standard of Civilization” and the 
 Iniversalizing Project. Alternatives, Vol. 29, pp. 43-68. 
Chau Long, Le Kim Ngan (1970). Su hoc nhap mon. S i G n: Nxb. V n H o 
Dang Duc Thi (2000). Lich su su hoc Viet Nam tu giua the ky XI den giua the ky XIX. TPHCM: 
 Nxb. Tre. 
Guizot, F. (1842). The History of Civilization from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French 
 Revolution (translated by William Fazlitt). New York: University of New York. 
Hoang Hong, Tran Kim Dinh (2020). Lich su su hoc Viet Nam. Ha Noi: Nxb. Dai hoc Quoc gia 
 Ha Noi. 
Hourani, A. (1983). Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939.Cambridge: Cambridge 
 University Press. 
Kmar, Ann. (1997). Java: A Self-Critical Examination of the Nation and Its History. In 
 Anthony Reid (eds), The Last Stand of Asian Autonomies: Responses to Modernity in the 
 Diversity States of Southeast Asian and Korean, 1750-1990, (pp. 321-344). New York: 
 S.T. Martin’s Press. Inc. 
Iggers, G.G, Wang, Q.E, eds. (2008). A Global History of Modern Historiography. London and 
 New York: Routledge. 
Lin, Zeng. (2013). Encouter between Languages Liang Qichao’s Translation and Translingual 
 Practice. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, Vol.15, No. 1, pp. 77-91. 
 103 
Vu Thi Thu Thanh - Volume 3 - Issue 1-2021, p. 94-104 
Nguyen Huu Tam (2008). Qua trinh hinh thanh quoc su quan trieu Nguyen. Nghien cuu Lich su, 
 no. 3, tr. 38-46. 
Macintype, S, Maiguashca, J, and Pók, A. (2011). The Oxford History of Historical Writing, 
 vol.4 (1800-1945). Oxford: Oxford University Press 
Marr, David. (1981). Vietnamese Tradition on Trial, 1920-1945. Berkeley: University of 
 California Press. 
Milner, Anthony. (1995). The Invention of Politics in Colonial Malaya: Contesting Nationalism 
 and the Expansion of the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
Milner, Anthony. (2011). Southeast Asia Historical Writing. In A. Milner (eds) The Oxford 
 History of Historical Writing, vol.4 (1800-1945) pp .537-558. Oxford: Oxford University 
 Press,. 
Phan Boi Chau (1962 [1909]). Viet Nam quoc su khao [A Study of Vietnam’s National History] 
 (Chuong Thau translate). Ha Noi: Nxb. Giao duc. 
Phan Boi Chau (1969 [1905]). Viet Nam vong quoc su [The History of the Loss of the Country] 
 (Nguyen Quang To translated). Sai Gon: Nxb. Tao Dan. 
Phan Thuan An (1998). Quoc su quan trieu Nguyen va gia tri cua no trong nen hoc thuat Viet 
 Nam [ ]. Trong Viet nam hoc – Ky yeu hoi thao lan thu nhat (tr. 463-473). Ha Noi: Dai 
 hoc Quoc gia Ha Noi. 
Rappa, A.L, Wee, L. (2006). Language Policy and Modernity in Southeast Asia: Malaysia, the 
 Philippines, and Thailand. USA: Springer. 
Ta Ngoc Lien (2007). Su hoc Viet Nam nua dau the ky XX va nhung dac diem cua no. Nghien 
 cuu Lich Su, số 8, tr. 11-20. 
Tai, Hue-Tam Ho (1992). Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution. USA: 
 Harvard University Press. 
Tran Van Giau (1997). Su phat trien cua tu tuong Viet Nam tu the ky XIX den cach mang thang 
 Tam (vol. 2). Ha Noi: Nxb. Chinh tri Quoc gia. 
Wang, Q.E. (2001). Inverting China through History: the May Fouth Approach to 
 Historiography. USA: State University of New York Press. 
Xu. Xiaoqun. (2008). Trial of Modernity: Judicial Reform in Early Twentieth-Century China 
 1901-1937. Standford: Standford University Press. 
Zeng, Dahua. (2019). Modern Chinese Nationalism and the Awakening of Self-Consiousness of 
 Chinaese Nation. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethology, Vol. 31, No. 3, 
 pp. 1-25. 
 104