The article by author Nguyen Van Hoan (printed in “100 portraits of a century of National University” - 2006) introduces the portrait of Professor Dang Thai Mai - the person who contributed to building the initial foundation of Hanoi University of Letters (now the University of Social Sciences and Humanities - Vietnam National University, Hanoi).
A brief biography of Professor Dang Thai Mai
From 1945 to 1954, Professor Dang Thai Mai was the Director of Hanoi University of Literature. From 1954 to 1956, he held the position of Principal of Hanoi University of Literature. From 1956 to 1959, he was the Head of the Faculty of Literature, Hanoi University of Science and Hanoi University of Education. The professor participated in training many generations of students majoring in Literature. The main scientific research direction of Professor Dang Thai Mai was Vietnamese literature and Chinese literature. The main works are: "Introduction to Literature" (1944), "Phan Boi Chau's Literature and Poetry" (1958), "Vietnamese Revolutionary Literature and Poetry in the Early 20th Century" (1961). His great contributions to the education cause have been recognized and rewarded by the Party and the State: First Class Resistance Medal, Ho Chi Minh Medal (1982), Ho Chi Minh Prize (1996).
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Professor Dang Thai Mai was born on December 24, 1902 in Luong Dien village (now Thanh Xuan commune), Thanh Chuong district, Nghe An province and died on September 25, 1984 in Hanoi. Born into a family of patriotic Confucian scholars, classified by the colonial government as "enemy children", Dang Thai Mai soon experienced many harsh challenges of fate: when he was only 6 years old, he had to follow his grandmother and mother to Ha Tinh prison to visit his father; this shabby prison was not far from the familiar Inspectorate where he had previously lived with his father, Vice-Minister Dang Nguyen Can, acting Inspectorate of Ha Tinh, then Inspectorate of Binh Thuan, who was falsely arrested in Ha Tinh, awaiting a life sentence for "treason by spreading new learning". Taking this opportunity to suppress the anti-tax movement in Central Vietnam, the colonial government exiled him to Con Dao for 13 years (1908 - 1921), and died after returning home for a year. Also exiled to Con Dao at that time were many other famous scholars such as Phan Chu Trinh, Huynh Thuc Khang, Ngo Duc Ke, Le Van Huan... When Dang Thai Mai was 12 years old, her grandfather was 75 years old, because of supporting the Vietnam Restoration Association, he had to go to prison for 3 years, and returned home for 10 days before he died. That was the bachelor Dang Thai Giai, when he was the district chief of Yen Dinh, the Thanh Hoa provincial officials opened the city gates to surrender to the French, he immediately left his position and returned home. His uncle was Dang Thuc Hua, who went abroad to Siam to work, joined the Vietnam Revolutionary Youth Association and died in Siam in 1931. His aunt, Dang Quynh Anh, also escaped to Siam, and only returned to the country in 1953. Throughout her life, nearly 100 years old, she only did one thing: raise her grandchildren so that her comrades could participate in the national salvation movement. In that situation of separation from home and country, fortunately, there was still her grandmother, a resilient woman, who tried her best to fight back. In his memoirs, Dang Thai Mai wrote: “If my grandmother were not here, I don’t know how terribly lonely my childhood would have been.” For Dang Thai Mai, her grandmother was both a mother and a teacher. She organized classes at home, found teachers to teach her grandchildren according to the modern education program of Dong Kinh Nghia Thuc, and especially she always educated her children and grandchildren to be courageous and strong in life. She herself set an example for her children and grandchildren in calmly “arguing” with “uninvited guests” such as the local chiefs, the governors, the Westerners… who often came to the house to question, harass, and threaten. Perhaps due to the special circumstances of her family, combined with the tradition of studiousness of her hometown Nghe - Tinh, and her intelligence and extraordinary memory, Dang Thai Mai showed excellence in her studies from her youth. After having “devoured” all the national language books in the rather rich family library that his grandfather named “Tam Thai Son Phong Tang Thu”, Dang Thai Mai crept into the Chinese bookshelf and was surprised to find that after 5 years of studying Analects, Mencius… he could read fluently Chinese novels such as Tam Quoc, Thuy Hu, Thuyet Duong… and then slowly read new books by famous new names in our country at that time such as Khang Huu Vi, Luong Khai Sieu, Dam Tu Dong, Nghiem Phuc…. From 1915 to 1928, Dang Thai Mai left home school in his remote hometown to attend public schools in the city: Vinh Primary School, Vinh Primary College, and Hanoi Indochina Pedagogical College. A wide horizon was before Dang Thai Mai’s eyes; a new horizon of cultural knowledge and life experience. Fortunately, he met exemplary teachers such as Le Thuoc, Le Am, Bui Ki..., who instilled in him a love for national literature, as well as a passion for Western literature, first of all French literature. Later, when he grew up, he often criticized the Franco-Vietnamese school for only training passive followers, but he still expressed deep gratitude to a number of French professors at the Hanoi Pedagogical College such as Professor Milon. Professor Houlié taught him the method of analyzing a literary work and inspired him with new directions of research and exploration. He also met many good friends such as Nguyen Si Sach, Tran Phu, Tran Mong Bach, Ngo Duc Dien, To Quang Phiet, Ho Tung Mau, Dao Duy Anh, Pham Thieu, Cao Van Thinh, Pham Van Dong, Vo Nguyen Giap... He also had contact with a number of revolutionary predecessors of his father's generation such as Ngo Duc Ke and Le Van Huan. During the years he studied at the Pedagogical College (1925-1928), Hanoi was bustling with movements demanding amnesty for Phan Boi Chau and mourning Phan Chu Trinh. He participated in the founding of the Phuc Viet Association, later renamed Hung Nam, and finally named Tan Viet Cach Mang. Tan Viet fell apart, and he was sentenced to one year in prison with a suspended sentence. This fall led to political division within Tan Viet, but most members switched to socialist ideology. In 1928, Dang Thai Mai graduated from the Hanoi Pedagogical College. The colonial government seemed to want to show generosity towards the descendants of the "enemy family", even those with "criminal records", and appointed Dang Thai Mai as a professor at a famous high school at that time: Hue National School. But then in his homeland, the Nghe - Tinh Soviet broke out. The French colonialists carried out white terror, bombing all the peasant demonstrations. In Hue, Dang Thai Mai was in charge of the Red Relief work and was immediately arrested. A student, later Professor Tran Dinh Gian, recounted: Teacher Mai left a deep memory in me forever. One morning at the Hue National School, he was lecturing when the secret police suddenly came to arrest him. He just nodded to greet us, then with his usual serious demeanor, he got into the secret police car. Another student, Vu Thuan Nho, who later became Deputy Minister of Education, recalled: “In the 1930-1931 school year, I studied Vietnamese literature with Mr. Mai at the Hue National School. I will never forget his essay for the rest of my life. The topic was: “Gourd, please love the squash, although they are different species, they are on the same vine.” Those of us in the class, those who joined the Red Student Association, understood that he wanted to inspire us to think about our compatriots and patriotism. But the essay was not graded and returned by him. Because we were arrested. Suddenly one morning, standing behind the bars of the prison cell at Phu Doan (Hue), looking out into the yard, I saw him standing there. He was also arrested a week after us. We felt sorry for him when he was exiled, so through some common criminals, we asked him to convey our regards to his health and expressed our wish to continue studying with him. Only about 15-20 days later, we received a tightly tied package of documents: a collection of Victor Hugo's poems published by Hachette. We recited and memorized one poem after another. We remembered and recited the sentence: "Ceux qui vivent ce sont ceux qui lutten". (Roughly translated: Those who live are those who fight). Dang Thai Mai had to serve a year in prison and was dismissed from his professorship. In 1932, he went to Hanoi to teach at Gia Long Private School. In 1935, he, Phan Thanh, and Hoang Minh Giam founded Thang Long School. This famous private school was the cradle that kindled patriotism in students and prepared future cadres for an independent Vietnam. In 1937, after the Popular Front won in France, the Indochinese Democratic Front was established in Vietnam. Many leading cadres of the Party escaped from imperialist prisons to work openly. Comrade Truong Chinh came to Hanoi to directly direct the Party's press activities.
Dang Thai Mai had studied hard since childhood, so he had a solid foundation of knowledge, but deep down he still cherished a wish: If there was no freedom of thought, there would be no writing! Then, to meet the requirements of the revolution, at nearly 40 years old, he began to write; the first articles were written in French, published in the newspapers of the Indochinese Communist Party, published in Hanoi, such as Lao Dong (Le Travail), Tap Tap (Rassemnlement), Tien Len (Eu avant), Tieng Noi Cua Chung Ta (Notre voix). He translated the reportage collection Kontum Prison by Le Van Hien and wrote a number of short stories and essays published in two columns, “Nhung mui tren nho” (Little Arrows), which Phan Thanh was in charge of. Some of these articles were translated into Vietnamese and published in the “General Anthology of Vietnamese Literature”, volume 35 (1983). In 1938, he participated in the founding of the National Language Propagation Association, working alongside famous figures such as Vuong Kiem Toan, scholar Nguyen Van To, a scientific collaborator of the French Far East Academy, and Associate Professor Bui Ki, his former teacher at the Hanoi Pedagogical College. In 1939, a close friend of his, Phan Thanh, a representative of the Indochinese Communist Party running for the Central Region House of Representatives, unfortunately passed away suddenly, and the Party immediately introduced Dang Thai Mai as his replacement, although he was not yet a Party member; it was not until September 1949 that he was admitted to the Party and the person who introduced him was his hometown friend Ho Tung Mau. This demonstrated the Party's trust in him. On this occasion, the weekly Voice of Our Party of Indochina, No. 24, dated July 28, 1939, introduced him as follows: “Dang Thai Mai likes to repeat a saying of Thomas Mann: I was born for leisure rather than martyrdom. Not that he dares to compare himself with the author of “European Warning” whose greatness surpasses all the greatest minds of our time, but perhaps, even though he has taken into account the difference in proportion, he still sees the fate of Thomas Mann and his more or less similar, he was born for studying, for his students and children, but the situation of the country pushed him into the political arena”… “That seemingly gentle, fragile man knows nothing of fear, at least for him. With that, he is truly a son of Nghe An, but fortunately he is conditioned by Western humanism”. The years of the Popular Front and then the years of World War II were a period of intense activity for Dang Thai Mai: meetings, writing articles, editing articles and proofreading, but he still ensured all the daily work of a teacher with a high sense of responsibility. A student - Dao Thien Thi - who later became the Minister of Labor recalled: The teacher often stayed up very late, marking papers, and preparing papers very carefully. Ho Truc, one of the students who lived in the teacher's house, later the Deputy Minister of Education, remembered a saying of the teacher: "I don't mind marking papers no matter how late at night, just being able to read a few good sentences of you guys in the quiet of the night is like someone walking in the desert finding a cool, delicious puddle of water". In the years 1944 - 1945, Dang Thai Mai was seriously ill, had to stop teaching and recuperate in Sam Son (Thanh Hoa). The Party's National Salvation Cultural Association secretly transferred to him the Cultural Outline drafted by comrade Truong Chinh. Based on the spirit of this document, he wrote the book “Introduction to Literature”, published in 1944. This was the first book of literary theory in our country to address some basic issues of literature and art under the light of Marxism-Leninism such as the relationship between politics and literature, between content and form, typicality and personality, between the nation and the internationality of literature… Also during this time, he translated the works of Lu Xun, Cao Ngu and introduced Chinese literature to our country. From a young age, Dang Thai Mai was familiar with Chinese literature but it was the Chinese literature of Han Phu, Duong Thi. For the first time, he heard names like Tran Doc Tu, Mao Thuan, Quach Moruo, Lu Xun… Dang Thai Mai felt a huge gap in his knowledge of Chinese literature. Dang Thai Mai also learned Chinese characters from the beginning, but those were the Chinese characters of the Four Books and Five Classics; In order to understand and translate Lu Xun's satirical and profound sentences, Dang Thai Mai had to learn vernacular from a Chinese artist who "fled to our country". Dang Thai Mai's introduction of modern Chinese literature to our country, as Professor Truong Van Chinh has stated, was a "path-opening" event into a land that no one had yet explored. In 1945, the August Revolution succeeded. On September 2, 1945, President Ho Chi Minh read the declaration of independence, giving birth to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Immediately after that, reactionary imperialist forces, under the name of the Allied forces to disarm Japanese fascists, flooded into our country: in the North, Chiang Kai-shek's army, followed by a group of Vietnamese reactionaries of all kinds; in the South, the French Expeditionary Force, hiding behind the British army, landed in Saigon and without delay opened fire to start the war. Faced with that critical situation, the Provisional Government, on the one hand, prepared for a general election to elect a National Assembly to pass the Constitution and establish a constitutional government, while on the other hand, it was concerned with fighting famine, fighting illiteracy and perfecting the newly established young state apparatus. With the policy of resistance must go hand in hand with nation building, and nation building requires talented people, on October 10, 1945, President Ho signed Decree 45 to establish a new board, the University of Literature Board, alongside the Boards of Medicine, Science, Social Politics and Fine Arts. The task of this board was to train secondary school professors and research specialists in social sciences and humanities such as Philosophy, Sociology, Literature, History and Geography. Decree 7/11/1945 of the Ministry of National Education appointed Dang Thai Mai, who was holding the position of Inspector General of Secondary Education and Director of the University's Literature Board. The Council of Professors included: Nguyen Duc Nguyen (aka Hoai Thanh) of the Faculty of Vietnamese Literature; Dang Thai Mai, Faculty of Chinese Literature; Nguyen Manh Tuong, Faculty of Western Literature; Cao Xuan Huy, Faculty of Oriental Philosophy; Nguyen Van Huyen, Faculty of History. In addition, the following people were invited to lecture on special issues in the Literature program: Dao Duy Anh, Nguyen Huy Bao, Cu Huy Can, Ngo Xuan Dieu, Tran Van Giap, Tran Khanh Giu (aka Khai Hung), Pham Duy Khiem, Bui Ki, Nguyen Dinh Thi, Doan Phu Tu. Also during this time, Dang Thai Mai was appointed to the Constitutional Drafting Committee chaired by Ho Chi Minh and was elected to the National Assembly in the general election on January 6, 1946. At the first session on March 2, 1946 of the first National Assembly (1946 - 1960), President Ho nominated him to hold the position of Minister of Education of the coalition government of resistance with the following introduction: Dang Thai Mai is "a person who has been working for many years in the national education cause and is a person that the people can trust that if they entrust education to him, he will fulfill his duty". After the resistance war broke out, Dang Thai Mai was appointed chairman of the Thanh Hoa Provincial Resistance Committee (1947 - 1948), professor of the Literary University of Inter-Zone IV (1950), Director of the Department of Education and Director of the Literary University Preparatory School of Inter-Zone IV (1951 - 1953). In 1954, after recovering from illness in Nanning (China), Dang Thai Mai was appointed principal of the Literary University (1954 - 1956) headquartered on Le Thanh Tong Street, Hanoi. In 1956, the two universities of Literature and Science were merged into the General University. Dang Thai Mai was appointed as the Head of the Literature Department for both the General University and the Pedagogical University until 1959, when he transferred to become the Director of the Institute of Literature under the Vietnam Social Sciences Committee and President of the Vietnam Literature and Arts Association. In his life, Dang Thai Mai has experienced many fields of activity, but the job he has worked on the longest and most specialized is that of a teacher. He taught from public schools to private schools under the French colonial period. After the August Revolution in 1945, he specialized in teaching literature at the university level. But in any position and despite the times when his health was not good, he always devoted himself to fulfilling his duty as a teacher, even when only one or a few students came to him for guidance on a specific issue. Dang Thai Mai taught with his profound knowledge and an example of life and work, first of all, he was an example of studiousness, thirst for new things, and always striving to collect information to keep up with new things. In his farewell eulogy, poet Huy Can said: Dang Thai Mai taught with the passion of "a missionary". Writer Nguyen Dinh Thi called him "the one who takes care of the green beds", perhaps in the writer's deep meaning he wanted to talk about his contribution to training young writers, from the Resistance Culture class in Quan Tin (Thanh Hoa) to the Nguyen Du Writing School in Hanoi. Dang Thai Mai was very passionate about foreign literature, especially the Renaissance movement, Shakespeare, Don Quixote, Lu Xun... but it can be said that his passion was still in Vietnamese literature. He told his students: I study foreign literature to return to Vietnam, to understand our national literature correctly. He studied the literature of Ly - Tran, Nguyen Trai "Chinh phu ngam", Nguyen Dinh Chieu, "Nguc trung nhat ky", To Huu's poetry and especially it can be said that he sent into the two research works "Phan Boi Chau's Literature and Poetry" and "Vietnamese Revolutionary Literature and Poetry in the Early 20th Century (1900 - 1925)" not only his intelligence but also his heart, not only from sad memories but also from faith and hope related to a tragic period of his homeland, country and family. We can also mention his "Memoirs" completed in the last period of his life. The attentive readers of this “Memoir” may still regret that he did not have time to complete Volume II of the “Memoir”, when he had become a special witness of a period of increasingly resounding victories of our nation in the world, but anyway, Volume I of “Dang Thai Mai’s Memoir” could reach a large number of readers, because its author had intended: if he was not satisfied, before leaving this world, he would burn it, instead of “printing it alive” to bother readers! In the scope of research and writing, he was also very “difficult” with himself, as well as always demanding and strict with his students. He truly deserved the noble awards named after the person he admired all his life: the Ho Chi Minh Medal and the Ho Chi Minh Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities.
