For me personally, every time I pass by this historic house, I still seem to hear the crisp sound of the old Mobylette motorbike engine and see the tall figure of Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi.
Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi's name has become the name of a street in two major cities. Professor Nhi has passed away. But after his passing, with time, his life and scientific and educational career have become clearer and brighter each day, shining like a small, quiet star, long established somewhere on the horizon.
There was a time when mischievous literature students at Hanoi University spread a story that when lecturing on President Ho Chi Minh's poetry, Professor Nhi would often burst into tears, wiping away his tears with a handkerchief, because in the textbook he compiled, every few pages there was a parenthesis: "This is where we cry!" Therefore, every year, for each course, he would cry precisely at the designated spot in his lesson plan.
That bizarre anecdote spread from one graduating class to the next, leading many to believe it was true. Some even doubted it, arguing that it wasn't the cry of opportunity, but the cry of reason, that the professor's tears were professional tears, flowing from his mind, from his profession. Only the most accomplished and skilled university lecturers could be such actors. Only recently, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi's birth, did we former students realize that his tears contained the salty taste of national history and the salty taste of our blood.
In 1936, while studying Law at the University of Indochina, Professor received a scholarship from the French Protectorate government. Unfortunately, he was competing with another student who, though not as highly graded, was the son of an official. Professor, on the other hand, was an orphan from a family with a tradition of scholarly pursuits, not from a privileged background. Professor discussed with the university that both students should go to France to study, each receiving half the scholarship. This would prevent a waste of talent. To avoid legal trouble, the university agreed to this proposal.
In France, due to the scarcity of half-scholarship funds, he threw himself into studying and translating Vietnamese literature into French. Many classic Vietnamese literary works such as Lưu Bình Dương Lễ, Chinh Phụ Ngâm, Truyện Kiều, etc., translated by the young translator Hoàng Xuân Nhị, helped French readers better understand Vietnamese culture and literature, and most importantly, provided the translator with money. In just four years, from 1936 to 1939, he graduated in three fields, earning three bachelor's degrees and one master's degree. From 1940 to 1942, he went to Germany for further studies. In 1946, responding to President Ho Chi Minh's call, he returned to Vietnam to participate in the resistance war. The ship carrying him was supposed to dock in Hai Phong port, and he would go to the Viet Bac resistance zone, but due to conflicts at sea, the ship had to dock in Saigon. Immediately, he was taken to the swampy area and assigned to cultural work in Southern Vietnam. In 1947, the Southern Resistance Administrative Committee assigned him to be in charge of La Voix Du Maquis (The Voice of the Resistance), the first foreign-language newspaper in the revolutionary zone. Along with La Voix Du Maquis, he also worked in enemy propaganda for the resistance government, persuading European and African soldiers in the French army to desert and join the resistance in the zone. Because of his proficiency in English, French, German, and Russian, the Committee assigned him the role of political commissar of the International Combined Arms Corps. In 1947, the resistance government transferred him, temporarily suspending his military duties, and appointed him director of the Institute of Resistance Culture. When the cultural sector was unified with the education sector, he was appointed director of the Southern Education Department. In 1949, Hoang Xuan Nhi participated in opening a special teacher training class named after Phan Chu Trinh to provide cultural training for the resistance forces.
After the Geneva Accords, he relocated to North Vietnam, was appointed professor, and taught at the Hanoi University of Education and the Hanoi University of General Studies from 1956 to 1982. He served as head of the Faculty of Literature at the University of General Studies and was also a founding member of the Vietnam Writers Association and the Vietnam Association of Arts and Literature.
Many believe that Professor Nhi belonged to the group of intellectuals "born in the wrong era." These were Vietnamese scientists who had to live and work in a time when science was not yet in demand. It is said that when President Ho Chi Minh saw the young philosopher Tran Duc Thao returning from France to the resistance zone, enthusiastically taking on the task of the resistance, he jokingly remarked: "Thao, the famous philosopher, will have 'no place to put his foot…'" Tran Duc Thao ended up working as a secretary and scrap paper. Tran Dai Nghia was assigned to manufacture weapons and ammunition, a task perfectly suited to his skills. Nguy Nhu Kontum, skilled in nuclear physics, temporarily took on educational management roles to avoid wasting resources. The resistance did not yet need philosophy or nuclear weapons. Each intellectual had to sacrifice their strengths for the benefit of the resistance, working in areas where they were not. Professor Hoang Xuan Nhi also found himself in this situation, during the years of the resistance and throughout his life. Talented in literature and philosophy, he had to organize the training of cultural cadres and serve as a political commissar in the army. Although he disliked leadership roles, Professor Nhi was specially appointed to "stabilize" the dilapidated state of the Faculty of Literature after the "Humanities - Literary Works" affair, with the important responsibility of Head of the Faculty. In this position, during the war years, he lived and worked intensely, with the efforts of a scientist, a teacher, and an artist... Fluent in French, German, and Chinese, he could wield his pen in the fields of Sino-Vietnamese studies and Western literature, but due to the need to build a foundation of cultural and ideological thought, he had to teach Russian to open a department of Soviet Russian literature and lecture on Ho Chi Minh's literary works. During the years when Hanoi University was evacuated to the Viet Bac war zone, the people there became familiar with the image of Professor Nhi, who, without waiting for the floodwaters to recede, rode a buffalo across the stream alone to arrive at the camp on time for his lectures. They were also familiar with the image of the oil lamp in his house flickering, sometimes almost extinguished, during the long nights. The teacher had a very valuable experience using American-made lamps, which he often passed on to his colleagues and students: to avoid detection by American planes and to save kerosene, he would keep the lamp on whenever he put pen to paper, and if he needed to ponder something unclear, he would turn the lamp down to a small, greenish-brown flame.
Recently, after a seminar commemorating the 100th anniversary of Hoang Xuan Nhi's birth, everyone finally understood why Professor Nhi cried when commenting on President Ho Chi Minh's poems: Once, Dr. Hoang Xuan Quoc (the second son) expressed his displeasure with Professor Nhi because of the aforementioned rumors. Professor Nhi, trusting him, confided a true feeling: "I cannot understand what 'slavery to a lost nation' means. The most important thing that President Ho Chi Minh gave my father and other intellectuals was to be citizens of a country with a name and a proper nationality, no longer Indochinese or Anamit..." And our Hoang Xuan family belongs to President Ho Chi Minh's maternal lineage, the same family as Hoang Xuan Duong – President Ho Chi Minh's maternal grandfather, who gave birth to Mrs. Hoang Thi Loan in the family tree of the second branch. But that's all we know; let's not talk nonsense lest we be accused of "claiming kinship with someone of high status."
So today, we mischievous students of Hanoi University have deciphered Professor Nhi's tears when he commented on President Ho Chi Minh's poetry: those tears contained three elements: compassion for a time when literature and poetry had to transform themselves into weapons of struggle, the salty taste of sorrow and gratitude for the leader, and the salty taste of… “a drop of precious blood”.
