Phan Dai Doan - scientist, teacher

Professor Phan Dai Doan was born on November 18, 1936, in Dien Quang commune, Dien Chau district, Nghe An province. According to him, his family was not poor, but his village - or his entire hometown - was very poor. He lived his entire childhood with friends of the same age, most of whom were from poor families, so his soul soon sympathized and shared, and perhaps deep down, later, when he became a university lecturer, sharing the same poverty and hardship during the subsidy period, he was still willing to share with his students until the last rice and butter, the last coin. Childhood memories of a poor hometown kept haunting him, so later he wrote these touching lines in the introduction to the bookVietnamese Villages Some Socio-Economic Issues.

In 1956, after finishing high school, he became a student of the first class of the History Department, Hanoi University of Science. In 1959, after graduating with honors, he was retained as a lecturer at the Department of Ancient and Medieval Vietnamese History. From here, he began his tireless efforts until his retirement: to become a scientist, to become a teacher - to become a teacher for more than forty years (1959-2003). For nearly half a century, he seemed to have experienced all the bitterness and sweetness, all the gains and losses of life. In this world, each person has his own appearance, each person has his own concept. All we know is that he devoted himself to that world, to be worthy of the very simple name: scientist - teacher Phan Dai Doan.

Professor, People's Teacher Phan Dai Doan at his home in 2012/Photo: Thanh Long

He is a scientist who has contributed to promoting and creating remarkable development of the subject of Vietnamese village studies in the country and many countries around the world, since the early 90s of the last century until now.

In the sixties and early seventies of the last century, the first stage of his scientific career, was when the country had to carry out a resistance war against the invasion of American imperialism. Contributing directly to this war, historians focused their research on issues of national traditions, in which the tradition of fighting against foreign invaders was given special priority to encourage and motivate patriotism, pride and determination to defeat the American invaders. Many works on the history of resistance against foreign invaders in the ancient and medieval period were published one after another during this time. He and Professor Phan Huy Le wroteLam Son Uprising(first printed in 1965, reprinted many times), along withThe resistance against the Yuan Mongol invasion in the 13th centuryby Ha Van Tan and Pham Thi Tam, are considered typical books of modern Vietnamese history written on this topic. He then co-wroteSome strategic battles in national history(first printed 1976, reprinted 2004), writtenBach Dang victory in 1288(first printed in 1976, reprinted in 1979). In the late 1980s, he and the Department "plowed" Nghia Binh land to survey the Tay Son uprising, and then became the author and co-author of the four-volume book seriesDocuments about Tay Son Nguyen Hue. In addition to his monographs, he also has a series of theses on the history of resistance against foreign invaders published in specialized journals. Among the achievements of the Faculty of History, the Department of Ancient and Medieval Vietnamese History, the topic of resistance against foreign invaders can be considered a typical achievement, in which Professor Phan Dai Doan made a great contribution.

After the country's reunification, he began to pay more attention to economic - social and ideological - cultural issues. His writing ability also began to increase continuously from here (by 2006, when the Faculty of History completed half a century, he had published 151 works, of which 140 were published after 1975). He wrote widely, covering all fields. In addition to the topic of resistance against foreign invaders that continued, the topic that he focused on the most, making Phan Dai Doan's name domestically and internationally, was villages. Not limited to traditional research, he linked tradition with modernity - from tradition to reflect on modernity, decoding modernity. Therefore, his works have profound scientific and practical value.

From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, he devoted himself to learning, searching, swimming, and determining his own direction in the vast sea of ​​villages in the Eastern, Western, Southern, Northern, Thanh, and Nghe regions. His series of articles in 1977 and 1978 were only about villages fighting in the resistance war against the Ming, pottery villages in the North, and reclamation villages in Kim Son and Tien Hai. It was not until the early 1980s that he began to emerge as a true expert on Vietnamese villages. He devoted himself to experimenting, thinking, and finding his own path, truly rustic, simple, yet surprisingly profound and unique. These were also the years when he perfected his theoretical models with scientific concepts and terms, some of which have become common property of Vietnamese and international village research circles, and still retain the style of Phan Dai Doan. From the late eighties and nineties of the 20th century, he wrote hurriedly, writing as if racing against time to express himself fully. He covered everything from general theoretical issues, generalizations of traditional Vietnamese village models to specific issues. He was passionate about the organizational structure, management, economy, and culture of villages, but did not ignore even a corner of his own field. At first, he intended to limit his research scope to traditional Vietnamese villages in the North, then he expanded it to the areas of ethnic minorities in the mountains, villages in the pre-modern and modern periods, villages in the Central and Southern regions. He is concerned with the most pressing issues of rural areas and agriculture such as labor, employment, rich-poor polarization, social justice, democratic institutions, etc. He is particularly interested in the economic and social institutions of rural areas, village level, communal power apparatus, rural management in ethnic minority areas, etc.

Project "Vietnamese Villages: Some Economic - Cultural - Social Issues" Professor Phan Dai Doan was awarded the State Prize for Science and Technology in 2005.

Since the 1990s, many works of Professor Phan Dai Doan not only have high scientific summary but also have the ability to lead applied research to serve the needs of practical life... He is the one who initiated, promoted and contributed to the remarkable development of the subject of Vietnamese villages in the country and many countries around the world, from the early 90s of the last century until now.

He also wrote a lot about ideology - issues of Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and folk beliefs, but whether near or far, they were all related to the village. And it was because he started from the village that his explanations of the above ideological issues got to the core of the problem better.

The number of those works, those valuable contributions are enough to make a name for Phan Dai Doan - a scientist.Vietnamese villages: Some economic - cultural - social issuesHe was awarded the State Prize for Science and Technology.

But the scientist Phan Dai Doan is inseparable from the teacher Phan Dai Doan. As many years as a scientist, he was also a teacher - that is, until his death, even though his health has weakened a lot. As a teacher, he did not belong to the group of people with eloquence. He "said what he had to say" as simple as a farmer from Nghe An, but he still attracted listeners and students, because of the depth of his knowledge and especially the aspects of the problem that he always pondered and dissected. Therefore, many students followed him, from first and second year students who were just starting to write scientific reports and annual theses, to final year students writing graduation theses, to those who had master's degrees and doctorates. By the time he became seriously ill, he had guided (mostly as the main and independent guide) 20 graduate students to successfully defend their doctoral theses. Not only are they students of Vietnamese History or Ancient and Medieval Vietnamese History, but they are also in many fields of social sciences and humanities. Many of them have now become famous scientists, holding important positions in scientific research institutions. He has trained over 20 PhDs, with such quality, few people in their lifetime as scientists or teachers can have it. That is the result of intellectual attraction - but equally important - is the attraction of Phan Dai Doan's personality. He was awarded the title of People's Teacher and he deserves every meaning of this title.

The Department of Ancient and Medieval Vietnamese History, where he worked from the day he graduated from university until his retirement, was one of the departments that was established right after the establishment of the Faculty of History and the establishment of Hanoi National University. As a lecturer, he was diligent and responsible for all tasks, including "mass" work - such as the trade union. Even at the age of 60 (in 1996), he did not hesitate to accept the position of Head of the Department when his "predecessor" - a student of his - was promoted to a higher "position". He gave his all. He - with his entire working life - devoted himself completely to the cause of building and developing the Department, the Faculty of History and the University.