The teacher of two doctorates

Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong (1909-1997)

I was not fortunate enough to be a student, nor have I ever met Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong, but since I officially became a member of the Foreign Literature Department (I remember around September 1976, at that time the three literary groups of Russia, China and the West were still working together in one department), his name and anecdotes have always been one of the most attractive and impressive memories for me. The impression I have of him, a "latecomer" in the field of teaching and researching foreign literature, is perhaps first of all his remarkable talent: at the age of 23, Nguyen Manh Tuong had already received two French doctorates (which were national doctorates - docteur d'État, not the new doctorates - docteur nouveau today, which many people can achieve); his achievements were so "brilliant" that they surprised even the French at that time. Clement Vautel, a prominent conservative and nationalist commentator of the time, had some “warnings” in a French newspaper aboutphenomenaNguyen Manh Tuong said: "The French should be careful: if the Vietnamese can study and study well like that, will they sit still when they return home??”. The second impression of Mr. Nguyen Manh Tuong, to many others, may be without a doubt, is “arrogance”, but to me, it is confidence, courage, self-awareness, “I think so I exist”, as a 17th century French philosopher affirmed. Professor Tran Thanh Dam, a former student of the University of Literature, told about his teacher – Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong as follows: “When he taught us in Thieu Hoa, Thanh Hoa, he sometimes said: I am really a freak. Do you think I am a freak? The students were bewildered, the teacher said: Who is like me, at 23 years old, I got two doctorates? The teacher proudly said that, the students said: He is arrogant in an honest, innocent way.”. That is how it is, the stories about Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong, as well as many other famous professors of the Hanoi University of Letters, have made many generations of us students proud for many years to come. Indeed, it will be a long time, even if science advances by “spaceship”, I still believe that we will hardly find a team of talented and impressive scientists like that again. Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong is one of those impressive professors.

Nguyen Manh Tuong was born on September 16, 1909, into a civil servant family on Hang Dao Street, Hanoi City. In fact, his hometown was in Co Nhue Village, Tu Liem District. Briefly, we can know his brief biography as follows: As a child, he studied at Paul Bert School, then continued to study at Albert Sarraul School, at the age of 26 he passed the philosophy baccalaureate with honors, thus receiving a scholarship to study in France. From 1927 to 1933, with his brilliant intelligence, Nguyen Manh Tuong had a miraculous advancement: he successively passed the bachelor's programs in law and literature, and then received two doctorates in these two fields. Of course, Nguyen Manh Tuong's "miraculous advancement" besides his innate intelligence also had a real hard work. He said: "From 6th grade until Baccalaureate, I had the habit of reading 2 Western novels every week […]; and especially because of hard work: for 5 long years, every morning I woke up at 4am, studied and wrote until 8am then went to class, in the afternoon I studied until late at night.”. In May 1932, he returned to Vietnam, but then returned to France, traveled and studied in several European countries (Spain, Italy, Egypt, Turkey, Greece). In 1936, he officially returned to Vietnam and participated in many different jobs: he was assigned to teach Western Literature, right after the University of Literature was established (1945); in 1946, he was appointed by President Ho Chi Minh to the delegation of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to attend the Dalat Preparatory Conference. In the same year, while attending a trial in Hai Phong, the national resistance war broke out, he immediately joined the resistance army: went to the Viet Bac resistance zone, entered the III and IV inter-zones, was appointed as a lawyer at the Military Courts, the Criminal Court and a member of the Board of Directors of the Preparatory University, at that time in Thanh Hoa and Nghe An. However, the unfortunate thing for Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong was probably due to the circumstances of the country's resistance war. With all the difficulties, the work for a well-trained intellectual like him, so that he could contribute, was really not much. Furthermore, his career path at the University at that time was very short, only about 3 years, from 1954 to 1957 as director of the law faculty and deputy director of the Pedagogy faculty. Around October 1957, due to a professional "accident", he permanently left the university lecture platform. It was not until 1994, after a long "interruption", that Nguyen Manh Tuong had the opportunity to return to his familiar professional work: participating in the compilation and publication of a number of documents in both the fields of literature and education. Three worksEuropean educational theory in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, from Erasme to Rousseau(Education Publishing House, 1994),Eschylus and ancient Greek tragedy(Education Publishing House, 1994),Virgil and the Latin Epic(Social Sciences Publishing House, 1996) can be considered his representative. More fully, Nguyen Manh Tuong's career includes 18 books, including translations, research, and compositions in both Vietnamese and French in the fields of literature, law, and education. The majority of books written in French have not been printed, even in France. Among those unprinted books, as far as I know, there is also a mimeographed lecture seriesWestern Renaissance culture and literature(currently kept at the Department of Literature's Documentation Room). Unfortunately, up to now it still only exists in internal circulation. From such a somewhat "discontinued" biography and career, along with comments about him that are still not completely unanimous, to reconstruct a complete and accurate portrait of him, for a "later generation" like me, is really difficult. However, I would like to boldly sketch a few strokes of the incomplete portrait of Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong as above. Hopefully, in the coming time, the shortcomings of the portrait will be fully filled in.

Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong in his youth. He received two doctorates: Literature and Law at the age of 23.

How to objectively and fairly evaluate the portrait of Nguyen Manh Tuong - "the professor with two doctorates"? First of all, I would like to affirm that, no matter how different the comments about him are,human, he was completely sincere, honest, and enthusiastic. On the other hand, as a citizen, Nguyen Manh Tuong was also a person who always worked for the development and progress of the nation and country. French historian George Boudarel in an article about him affirmed that: “Although he admired Paris and France (it was difficult to do more), but at the decisive moment, Nguyen Manh Tuong, deep in his soul, was still Vietnamese. It seemed that he thought he was only loyal to the ideals forged in Paris: independence, freedom, human rights and civil rights. In 1945, along with the entire elite of the nation, he followed the Ho Chi Minh government”.

Regarding his scientific career, unfortunately, since returning to the country, due to the war, his career was often interrupted, most of Nguyen Manh Tuong's works and compositions in French were not able to be published; what we, the Vietnamese people of the time and the future generations, have had the opportunity to access are only 4 books published in Vietnam (in Vietnamese) from around 1994 to 1996, which is not enough to fully evaluate the contributions of Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong to the country's science. Furthermore, the "intellectual treasure" of the professor with two doctorates is "dispersed", expanding into too many fields: literature and law, philosophy and education, research and composition, compilation and translation... so it is difficult to reach a level of depth and comprehensiveness in any field. I think that the evaluation of him in both the two tendencies of exalting him to the level of "supernatural" and "complete denial" is not convincing. It is true that at a time when Vietnamese universities had few achievements and lacked experience (the 1940s), it was a great pity that a well-trained talent like Nguyen Manh Tuong was not "fully exploited". But even knowing that, we still have to admit that this "great pity" was partly the fault of history. And history sometimes has its own "reasons". At this point, we should not argue too much and "deeply" about "right - wrong". We can only affirm one thing for sure: after 70 years of the establishment of the University of General Literature, the professor with two PhDs, Nguyen Manh Tuong, as well as many generations of talented professors who once contributed to creating the reputation of the school, are still the pride of many generations of teachers and students of General Literature, including me.