Phan Chu Trinh
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Phan Châu Trinh (
Chữ Hán Chữ Hán (𡨸漢, literally "Chinese characters", ), Chữ Nho (𡨸儒, literally "Confucian characters", ) or Hán tự (漢字, ), is the Vietnamese term for Chinese characters, used to write Văn ngôn (which is a form of Classical Chinese ...
: 潘周楨, 9 September 1872 – 24 March 1926),
courtesy name A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich Theobald ...
Tử Cán (梓幹),
pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...
Tây Hồ (西湖) or Hi Mã (希馬), was an early 20th-century
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
ese
nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...
. He sought to end France's colonial occupation of
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
. He opposed both violence and turning to other countries for support, and instead believed in attaining Vietnamese liberation by educating the population and by appealing to French democratic principles.


Early years

Phan Châu Trinh was born in Tây Lộc village, Hà Đông district, Thăng Bình fu, Quảng Nam province, Đại Nam (now is Tam Lộc commune, Phú Ninh district, Quảng Nam province) on 9 September 1872. He was the son of a rich landowner and scholar. His father was a fighter in the Scholars' Revolt, but in 1885 he was killed by the other leaders in the revolt who suspected him of being a traitor. This left Trinh an orphan at the age of 13. His older brother educated him in classics. In 1900, he obtained a Cử nhân (舉人 senior bachelor) degree in the regional exam. One year later, he got (second rank, under doctorate) title in the national examination. In 1905, Phan resigned from his post in the mandarin bureaucracy. He had become strongly opposed to the monarchy, traditional Chinese Confucian-influenced Vietnamese court and mandarin system. He called for an end to the monarchy and its replacement with a democratic republic. Having earlier met
Phan Bội Châu Phan Bội Châu (; 26 December 1867 – 29 October 1940), born Phan Văn San, courtesy name Hải Thụ (later changed to Sào Nam), was a pioneer of Vietnamese 20th century nationalism. In 1903, he formed a revolutionary organization called ' ...
(Sào Nam) in 1903, in early March 1906, he went to
Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
then
Kwangtung Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
to meet with him again at
Liu Yongfu Liu Yongfu () (1837–1917) was a Chinese warlord and commander of the celebrated Black Flag Army. Liu won fame as a Chinese patriot fighting against the French Empire in northern Vietnam ( Tonkin) in the 1870s and early 1880s. During the Sin ...
(ông Lưu)'s house. He made his way there disguised as a disheveled common laborer. He then went to Japan with Sào Nam as part of the Đông-Du movement. They stayed in
Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...
, where they had set up a two-story Japanese house to teach students, which they called Bính-Ngọ-Hiên ( Fire Horse Lodge). In early May 1906, they went to Tokyo to inspect the Japanese education and political system. Phan disagreed with Sào Nam's early ideas of asking for military assistance from Japan, as he didn't trust Japan's militarism. He also had other disagreements with Sào Nam's philosophy. Therefore, they had a friendly argument for a few weeks before he returned to Vietnam. Back in Vietnam he continued to receive letters from Sào Nam arguing about his opposition to the monarchy and his belief that the French could be used. Phan continued to campaign with slogans like "Up with Democracy, Out with Monarchy", and "Making Use of the French in the Quest for Progress". This made Sào Nam quite upset and worried that the movement was fragmenting and that fundraising efforts would fail.


Modernization Movement

In the summer of 1906, Phan Châu Trinh returned Vietnam, along with
Huỳnh Thúc Kháng Huỳnh Thúc Kháng ( chữ Hán: ; 1 October 1876 – 21 April 1947), also known as Cụ Huỳnh (lit: 'Great-grandfather' Huỳnh), was a Vietnamese anti-colonial activist, statesman and journalist, most notably serving as Acting President of ...
,
Trần Quý Cáp Trần Quý Cáp (chữ Hán: 陳季恰, 1870–1908), born Trần Nghị, courtesy name Dã Hàng, Thích Phu, pen name Thai Xuyên, was a Vietnamese notable poet and anti-colonialist. He was one among several leading scholars in the including ...
continued renovation campaign, not only in Quảng Nam but also in neighboring provinces, made it a whole with slogan "Broaden the People’s Mind, Invigorate the People’s Spirit, then Enrich the People’s Well-being" (Vietnamese: ''Khai dân trí, chấn dân khí, hậu dân sinh''). By the end of the year 1906, he wrote a letter titled '' Đầu Pháp Chính phủ thư'' to the governors-general of French Indochina Paul Beau. He asked the French to live up to their civilising mission. He blamed them for the exploitation of the countryside by Vietnamese collaborators. He called on France to develop modern legal, educational, and economic institutions in Vietnam and industrialise the country, and to remove the remnants of the mandarin system. The letter was originally written in Chinese, then translated to French and published on the bulletin of
French School of the Far East The French School of the Far East (french: École française d'Extrême-Orient, ), abbreviated EFEO, is an associated college of PSL University dedicated to the study of Asian societies. It was founded in 1900 with headquarters in Hanoi in wh ...
. In 1907, he and associates
Lương Văn Can Lương Văn Can (梁文玕, 1854–1927) was a Vietnamese mandarin, school administrator, independence activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environme ...
,
Nguyễn Quyền Nguyễn Quyền (1869–1941) was a Vietnamese scholar-gentry anti-colonial revolutionary activist who advocated independence from French colonial rule. He was a contemporary of Phan Bội Châu and Phan Chu Trinh, and one of Tonkin Free S ...
opened a patriotic modern school for young Vietnamese men and women. The school was called
Tonkin Free School Tonkin, also spelled ''Tongkin'', ''Tonquin'' or ''Tongking'', is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain ''Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, includi ...
(Vietnamese: ''Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục''), used new translated books like
Kang Youwei Kang Youwei (; Cantonese: ''Hōng Yáuh-wàih''; 19March 185831March 1927) was a prominent political thinker and reformer in China of the late Qing dynasty. His increasing closeness to and influence over the young Guangxu Emperor spar ...
's ''Datong Shu'' and
Liang Qichao Liang Qichao (Chinese: 梁啓超 ; Wade-Giles: ''Liang2 Chʻi3-chʻao1''; Yale: ''Lèuhng Kái-chīu'') (February 23, 1873 – January 19, 1929) was a Chinese politician, social and political activist, journalist, and intellectual. His thou ...
's ''Ice-Drinker's studio Collection'' (Vietnamese: ''Lương Khải Siêu – Đại đồng Thư, Khang Hữu Vi – Ẩm Băng thất Tùng thư'') . He was a lecturer at the school, and Sào Nam's writings were also used. Lương Văn Can was the headteacher, Nguyễn Quyền was the school supervisor.
Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh Nguyễn Văn Vĩnh (1882–1936) was a Vietnamese journalist and translator of Western literature in the early 20th-century during the Nguyễn dynasty. Together with François-Henri Schneider he founded the '' Đông Dương tạp chí'' (1912) ...
,
Phạm Duy Tốn Phạm Duy Tốn (1881 – 25 February 1924) was a Vietnamese writer. He was father of the songwriter Phạm Duy Phạm Duy (5 October 1921 – 27 January 2013) was one of Vietnam's most prolific songwriters with a musical career that spanned ...
were responsible for applying for the open license of school. The purpose of ''Đông Kinh Nghĩa Thục'' is "broaden the people’s mind without taking money". Its ideas attacked the brutality of the French occupation of Vietnam, but also wanted to learn modernisation from the French. The school required scholars to renounce their elitist traditions and learn from the masses. It also offered the peasants a modern education. After peasant tax revolts erupted in 1908, Phan was arrested, and his school was closed. He was sentenced to death, but it was commuted to life imprisonment after his progressive admirers in France intervened. He was sent to Côn Đảo island. In 1911, after three years, he was pardoned and sentenced to house arrest. He said he would rather return to prison than have partial freedom. So instead he was deported to France, where the French continued to monitor him. He went to Paris in 1915 to get the support of progressive French politicians and Vietnamese exiles. There he worked with Nguyễn Tất Thành, Phan Văn Trường, Nguyễn Thế Truyền, and Nguyễn An Ninh in "The Group of Vietnamese Patriots". The group was based at 6 Villa des Gobelins. There they wrote patriotic articles signed with the name ''Nguyễn Ái Quốc'' which Hồ Chí Minh later used, "on behalf of the Group of Vietnamese Patriots". He worked as a photograph retoucher to support himself while he was in France. He returned to
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in 1925, where he died on 24 March 1926, aged 53. His funeral was attended by over 60,000 people and caused big protests across the country demanding the end of French colonial occupation.


Debates with other nationalists

In Tokyo, Phan told Sào Nam: "The level of their people is so high, and the level of our people is so low! How could we not become slaves? That some students now can enter Japanese schools has been your great achievement. Please stay on in Tokyo to take a quiet rest and devote yourself to writing, and not to making appeals for combat against the French. You should only call for 'popular rights and popular enlightenment.' Once popular rights have been achieved, then we can think about other things." Sào Nam commented: "Thereafter over more than ten days, he and I debated time and again, and our opinions were diametrically opposed. That is to say, he wished to overthrow the monarchy in order to create a basis for the promotion of popular rights; I, on the contrary, maintained that first the foreign enemy should be driven out, and after our nation's independence was restored we could talk about other things. My plan was to make use of the monarchy, which he opposed absolutely. His plan was to raise up the people to abolish the monarchy, with which I absolutely disagreed. In other words, he and I were pursuing one and the same goal, but our means were considerably different. He wished to start by relying on the French to abolish the monarchy, but I wished to start by driving out the French to restore Vietnam – That was the difference. However, even though his political view was the opposite of mine, he liked me personally a great deal and we roomed together for several weeks. Then all of a sudden he decided to return to our country."


Legacy and memory

In 2006, Madame Bình – a granddaughter of Phan Châu Trinh – and her associates, formed a Cultural Foundation named after him to "Import, Revive, Initiate, Preserve & Spread of quintessential cultural values to contribute to the renewal of Vietnamese culture in the 21st century". Most cities in Vietnam have named major streets after him.


References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Phan, Châu Trinh 1872 births 1926 deaths People from Quảng Nam province Vietnamese Confucianists Vietnamese nationalists Vietnamese revolutionaries Vietnamese democracy activists Vietnamese independence activists