On the occasion of the late Professor Tran Quoc Vuong being posthumously awarded the Ho Chi Minh Prize by the State on February 18, 2012, USSH respectfully introduces an article by Professor Phan Huy Le about the man and his research on Hanoi. The article is also an introduction to the book On the sacred land of a thousand years of cultural relics - a selection of articles on the culture of Thang Long - Hanoi by Professor Tran Quoc Vuong, Hanoi Publishing House, 2010.
Since his youth and when he was enthusiastically exploring and discovering Hanoi, Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong often joked with our group "Lam, Le, Tan, Vuong" and close friends in the same class, in the History Department: Hanoians are mostly "people from all over the country", including you guys, and I am a "native Hanoian" because I have at least three generations of roots in this land of Hanoi. He is originally from Ha Nam, but according to him, at least since his grandfather's generation he has lived in Hanoi, and according to the old custom, after three years of "residence" one is considered "main resident", everything he says has books and evidence. I don't know if it is because of that attachment to his roots, but the truth is that everyone can see that Professor Tran Quoc Vuong has spent a lot of time, effort, and intelligence on research, contemplation to understand Hanoi and write about Hanoi.
Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong had a habit formed very early, which was to like to travel everywhere, not just to go for fun but to play and research, to collect documents, to improve knowledge, to use scientific terminology as a field investigation and survey. Perhaps his footprints have been left in almost every part of the country from Lung Cu to Ca Mau, from Truong Son to some islands of the East Sea, some places he visited many times. There is a funny story. Once he visited my hometown in Thach Chau commune, Thach Ha district, Ha Tinh province, went to Phan Huy's family temple and introduced himself as a student of "Teacher Le", asking to burn incense to commemorate the ancestors of the family. He “acted” so well that the elders in the family believed him, although some were a bit skeptical, wondering why Mr. Le’s students had such white hair, were so old and wise, asking all sorts of questions from the ancestors Phan Huy Can, Phan Huy Ich, Phan Huy Chu… to the branches in Nghi Xuan, Sai Son, to the Ca Tru singing tradition of the family… When I returned to my hometown, I heard that it was my dear friend Tran Quoc Vuong, and no one else, and then Mr. Vuong also told me the story.
Professor Tran Quoc Vuong is a well-traveled, sociable, and erudite scientist. He travels everywhere, socializing with everyone from scientists in all fields, history, archaeology, ethnology, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and even some natural sciences such as geology, geography, environment, ecology, biology, mathematics, physics... to poets, writers, journalists, artists, and everyone he meets, farmers, craftsmen, fishermen, workers, cyclo drivers, motorbike taxi drivers... When I say "socializing" here, I do not mean just meeting, saying a few polite greetings... but exchanging, exploiting information, and sociologically learning about the issues he is interested in. His knowledge is not only accumulated from looking up ancient and modern books, all kinds of newspapers and magazines, from seminars, discussions, scientific meetings, etc., but also from many sources, many subjects through many diverse collection methods, in which practical knowledge and folk culture play a very important role. During those trips, he also took students on internships or called on former students working locally to participate and thereby imparted many useful things to the younger generation, transferring many good experiences. For him, even when "drinking", "having beer", "having tea and wine", while actually having fun is still an opportunity to understand people, understand life, understand the times. That is a very typical research style of Tran Quoc Vuong.
Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong, like our class, studied in the History - Geography Department, the first and only interdisciplinary training department of an independent Vietnamese university. During the years 1952-1956, the training program was still simple, but the greatest fortune of our generation was to be directly taught by teachers who were great scientists of the country, some of whom were trained abroad and had high degrees such as Professor Tran Duc Thao, Professor Nguyen Manh Tuong, Professor Pham Huy Thong, Professor Dao Ba Cuong, and some who were self-taught and self-researched such as Professor Dao Duy Anh, Professor Tran Van Giau, Professor Dang Thai Mai, Professor Cao Xuan Huy, Professor Nguyen Duc Chinh, Professor Le Xuan Phuong, Professor Hoang Thieu Son... Although the historical - geographical foundation trained was not much, it was a very basic knowledge base with research methods. Indeed, studying “history” without “geography” is very flawed. History, after all, is all human activities taking place in space and time, and historical space is geographical conditions, environmental characteristics, and ecology. From that training method, many people in our class when studying history often pay much attention to geography. As for Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong, in addition to his expertise in history and geography, he also has expertise in archaeology. He is one of the first archaeologists who contributed to the establishment of modern Vietnamese archaeology. From those three fundamental expertises, Mr. Vuong also expanded his knowledge to related specialties such as ethnology, linguistics, folklore, sociology, cultural studies, feng shui, physiognomy, etc. A second prominent research style of Tran Quoc Vuong is to always use an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary approach, contemplating and perceiving history from many different professional perspectives, linking them together in a comprehensive, integrated view.
In addition, Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong is a person with a very unique personality, expressed in all aspects, in dressing, speaking, behaving, in teaching, talking, in writing, voice... Anyone, domestic or foreign, who meets Tran Quoc Vuong just once will immediately recognize that personality. But behind the personality that some people consider "reckless", "arrogant", "reckless" is a warm heart, very affectionate with friends and students, an intelligent, sharp, sensitive mind, a scientist full of determination in research, never satisfied with what he and everyone else already knows, always reaching out for new discoveries in the world of cognition.
I talk a bit about Professor Tran Quoc Vuong to understand his research on Hanoi.
Professor Tran Quoc Vuong, September 15, 2004.
Young people of the generation of students of Professor Tran Quoc Vuong at the Faculty of History, Hanoi University of Social Sciences and Humanities, want to create a complete bibliography of the Professor's works and articles, but then occasionally discover new articles and have to constantly add them. Mr. Vuong wrote a lot, published in many places, published in many magazines and newspapers, daily, weekly, monthly, Hanoi newspapers, newspapers of many provinces and cities in the three regions of the North, Central, South... As for the research results on Hanoi, the bibliography so far has reached hundreds of articles and books. In addition to a number of published books such as “Hanoi of a Thousand Years” (1975) co-written with Tao Trang Vu Tuan San, “Hanoi, the Capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam” (1984) edited by him, “Hanoi as I understand it” (2005), “Thang Long – Hanoi – Exploration and Reflection” (2006)…, he also has many articles of different lengths, in many genres from reports, scientific theses to scientific announcements, storytelling, memoirs… just “random”, “miscellaneous”, “mini-records” of all kinds as he himself said. Therefore, the Head of the History Department, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hai Ke and his colleagues in the Department of Cultural Studies, had a lot of difficulty selecting 35 articles, editing them into a book titled “The Sacred Land of a Thousand Years of Cultural Relics” to publish in the Thang Long-Hanoi Thousand Years Bookcase on the occasion of the anniversary of Thang Long’s thousand years.
The book is divided into three parts:
Part I.Sacred land of Thang Long-Hanoi
Part II.Thang Long - Hanoi commits itself to the country
Part III.Cultural quintessence of Thang Long - Hanoi
This is only a part of many works and articles by Professor Tran Quoc Vuong about Thang Long - Hanoi. But through the selection and arrangement, I feel that Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Hai Ke and Master Do Huong Thao understand their teacher Vuong very well, knowing how to choose articles that represent the research results, thoughts about Thang Long - Hanoi in all aspects and also approaches from different professional perspectives.
In the book we find scholarly scientific works as well as descriptive, comparative, exchange, and thoughtful articles of all genres.
We also find in the book the whole history and culture of Thang Long - Hanoi from the ancient capital Co Loa in the Au Lac period, the headquarters of Tong Binh, Dai La citadel in the pre-Thang Long period, to the landmark of Thang Long capital by King Ly Thai To, then Thang Long - Dong Do - Dong Kinh - Ke Cho in the Ly, Tran, Ho, Le So, Mac, Le Trung Hung periods to Hanoi in the Nguyen period, the French colonial period, to Hanoi in Doi Moi, intertwining tradition and modernity today.
The book also shows us a Hanoi on the ground with rivers and lakes, citadel relics, temples, pagodas, shrines, streets and an underground Hanoi that archaeologists have made many discoveries.
Hanoi people are also reflected in some famous faces and especially in community life through craft streets, craft villages, market systems, lifestyle, culinary arts, festivals and folk cultural treasures.
A writing style of Tran Quoc Vuong is to combine documents quoted from ancient books, steles, and legends with field survey documents and especially likes to embellish with ancient poems and many folk songs and proverbs.
What I enjoy and appreciate most in Tran Quoc Vuong’s research on Thang Long – Hanoi is that he has very sharp discoveries and proposals. He was the first person to generalize the “River – Lake Landscape”, to propose the “Water Quadrilateral” model of Thang Long – Hanoi, to discover the “Water Junction” of the La Thanh gates, to propose the characteristics of “Convergence – Exchange – Crystallization – Spread” and the rule of “Triangularity: Tradition – Interference – Innovation” in the development of Thang Long – Hanoi culture… He was also the first person to introduce the concept of “Hanoi Studies” to honor scientists who have made many contributions to the study of Hanoi and to propose the establishment of the Hanoi Studies Center.
Historical awareness, as well as science in general, is always a process of gradual improvement through the tireless and creative scientific work of historians, through successive generations of historians. The research results of any historian, no matter how talented, through the test of time, have values that are affirmed and stand firm, have things that are supplemented and adjusted, have hypotheses and proposals that are proven and inevitably have things that are surpassed. That is the law of awareness that no historian can stand outside. Professor Tran Quoc Vuong's contribution in the research on Thang Long - Hanoi is very great, very valuable, many results still have value until today, but of course, it is also within the law of historical awareness and all are recorded in the process of research and awareness of Thang Long - Hanoi.
For Professor Tran Quoc Vuong, covering all the specific research results is a scientist who has spent almost his entire life closely attached to the land of Thang Long - Hanoi, a thousand years of culture and heroism. He often visits and surveys all the relics and landscapes of Thang Long - Hanoi, which he often says is "wandering around every corner of Hanoi", is present in all archaeological excavations in Hanoi, and is rarely absent from festivals, cultural, religious and belief activities in Hanoi. He goes - looks - listens - knows to try to understand correctly the history, culture, people, and land of Hanoi, and from there he thinks, perceives and writes to help people understand more about Thang Long - Hanoi. Professor Tran Quoc Vuong often said, Thang Long - Hanoi retains the sacred atmosphere of the country's mountains and rivers, then I can also add, Thang Long - Hanoi always remains in the mind of Tran Quoc Vuong, a son of Hanoi who has devoted his whole life to the career of searching, discovering, and decoding Thang Long - Hanoi.