Launching ceremony of the work "Legend of Luc Van Tien" in color

Attending the ceremony were Prof. Micheal Zink - Lifetime Secretary of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters, Prof. Phan Huy Le - Honorary President of the Vietnam Historical Science Association, Chief Representative of EFEO in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. On the school's side, the ceremony was attended by Prof. Dr. Pham Quang Minh - Principal of the school; Prof. Dr. Tran Ngoc Vuong - Head of the Department of Medieval Literature, Faculty of Literature. The ceremony was also attended by a large number of staff and students of the school.

At the beginning of the ceremony, Prof. Dr. Pham Quang Minh - Rector of the school, on behalf of the school's leaders, expressed his honor when the University of Social Sciences and Humanities was chosen to welcome Prof. Michael Zink - Lifetime Secretary of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters when he first visited Vietnam and attended the launch of the work "The Legend of Luc Van Tien in Color Painting". This is an opportunity for students in the school to interact and approach major literary research works with core values.

Following the Principal, Professor Phan Huy Le - Honorary President of the Vietnam History Association shared about the process of discovering the manuscript of this work. Accordingly, the manuscript of the Luc Van Tien story was born from the idea of ​​a French Navy artillery captain named Eugène Gibert from the end of the 11th century, when he was in Vietnam. Fascinated by the famous work of the great poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu, he organized the implementation of a manuscript of the famous poem in Nom and French with illustrations by a Vietnamese named Le Duc Trach from 1895 to 1897. When returning to France in 1899, Mr. Gibert donated this work to the French Institute Library.

In 2011, during a visit to the French Institute Library, History Professor Phan Huy Le (University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University, Hanoi) was introduced to some valuable documents, including a copy with extremely fresh, unique, and sophisticated illustrations, although it was made more than 100 years ago. Professor Phan Huy Le was extremely surprised to discover that this was the famous Vietnamese work Luc Van Tien that had been kept in this library for more than a century without anyone knowing about it.

On the occasion of Professor Michel Zink - Lifetime Secretary of the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters visiting Vietnam and awarding the Medal to Professor Phan Huy Le, the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (Vietnam National University, Hanoi) and the French School of the Far East in Hanoi decided to organize a ceremony to introduce the long-standing origin, the discovery process as well as the special historical, cultural and linguistic values ​​of the Luc Van Tien work.

At the reception, Prof. Michel Zink also shared about the difficulties in translating and publishing the work. According to him, the biggest difficulty the research team encountered when turning this work into a book was financial and technical difficulties. He would also like to thank the sponsors who helped the team in the process of making this printed work. He also emphasized that "The Legend of Luc Van Tien in Color Paintings" is a unique work, containing many core values. The work is about ethics, the core of human morality with the concept of "literature to convey morality". The text provides many scientific annotations that researchers can conduct research on many issues such as art history, painting history, etc. This is also a source for Vietnamese scholars to refer to. In this publication, the work is proposed to be translated into English from French.

Immediately after the ceremony, the delegation will move to the French Embassy. Here, Prof. Michel Zink - lifetime secretary of the French Institute of Literature and Fine Arts will present a medal to honor Prof. People's Teacher Phan Huy Le for his valuable contributions to the preservation of Vietnam's historical and cultural heritage.