A friend recently pointed out to me that there is an article that North Vietnamese historian Trần Huy Liệu wrote in 1956 that more or less set the guidelines by which later scholars in the North examined the early history of the Red River Delta.
In reading this article I was fascinated to see how clearly it reflected a sense of romantic nationalism.
Romantic nationalism is a way of viewing the world that emerged in Eastern Europe in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. At that time, there were German-language speakers who resided in various polities, and some intellectuals (like Johann Gottfried von Herder) started to argue that all of those German-language speakers actually made up a single group of peoples (a nation), even though in reality they were divided by many cultural and religious differences and had never been politically unified.
To tie together these diverse peoples, some scholars looked to “the folk” (or common people) and argued that “the folk” maintained a cultural tradition that defined the nation. This was the emergence of “folklore.”
In reality there wasn’t any common cultural tradition that unified the people, but the production of “folklore” and “folk tales” by intellectuals helped create the sense that such a tradition actually existed.
Finally, intellectuals like Herder talked about the existence of “a spirit” that was shared by “the folk” as a result of their having shared a common historical experience.
Therefore, romantic nationalism, like other forms of nationalism, was used by intellectuals to invent/imagine/create nations.
The same process is clearly evident in Trần Huy Liệu’s essay. He begins by talking about some of the texts that record information about the early history of the Red River Delta (texts that were written down centuries after the time they record information about), and makes the following (not clearly written) comment:
“In mentioning those early days of the nation’s establishment, we all know that there were no written records. But the myths and legends that remain for us today, reflecting from a social reality, can still help us see the essence of a story that sheds light on some aspect of reality.”
[Nhắc đến những ngày đầu lập quốc, chúng ta đều biết rằng lúc ấy chưa có sử sách. Nhung những truyện thần thọai và truyền thuyết còn để lại cho chúng ta ngày nay, phản ánh từ một hiện thực xã hội, vẫn có thể giúp cho chúng ta tìm thấy thực chất của câu chuyện để rọi ra một phần nào của thực tế.]
I wish Trần Huy Liệu had written those sentences more clearly, but what he seems to have wanted to say is that the stories that we have about the early history of the Red River Delta show us at least some aspects of the reality of life at the time of the nation’s foundation, more than 2,000 years earlier, and that therefore, the nation and its “folk/dân” had existed for that long as well.
Trần Huy Liệu goes on to talk about various things that we find in these texts that he argues symbolize the shared practices and efforts that have united the people in the nation since the time of the nation’s founding, such as struggling against nature and fighting off foreign invaders.
In other words, just as romantic nationalism imagined a common history for “the folk,” Trần Huy Liệu here likewise argued that from the time of the Hùng kings to the present there had been a common history for all of the people of Vietnam that had given all of the people a common purpose. That common purpose was to protect the fatherland.
What is interesting here is that Trần Huy Liệu made these comments at a time when Vietnam was divided, and he makes specific reference to that fact at the end of his essay. Romantic nationalism was perfect for this, as it was created in order to unite people who were not united. And in both the German and Vietnamese cases it largely succeeded in doing so.
In the end, Germans and Vietnamese were united in the same way, by being told by intellectuals that they were part of a “folk/dân” who shared a common language, common traditions, a common history, and a common spirit or sense of purpose.
LMK: “Romantic nationalism was perfect for this, as it was created in order to unite people who were not united. And in both the German and Vietnamese cases it largely succeeded in doing so. In the end, Germans and Vietnamese were united in the same way, by being told by intellectuals that they were part of a “folk/dân” who shared a common language, common traditions, a common history, and a common spirit or sense of purpose.”
I find this a rather puzzling claim. I thought Germans were actually united by the wars Otto von Bismarck had conducted, first against German-speaking Austrians, then against France… Herder may have prepared the intellectual groundwork for German unity, but it was the Iron Chancellor who finished the job. As for the Vietnamese, I wonder whether they would have been united in one single polity today, had it not been for the ruthless determination of Lê Duẩn to conquer South Vietnam whatever the costs. If recent scholarship is to be believed, Trần Huy Liệu’s words would have remained just words without Lê Duẩn’s protracted war of conquest.
Or perhaps haven’t I understood you correctly?
Your incorporation of Manifest Destiny guiding American settlers to the West also suggests to me that in the case of the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln may have united Herder and Bismarck, Trần Huy Liệu and Lê Duẩn, the romantic intellectual and the merciless warrior in one single person… “Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.””
Great points!!!
Yes, warfare is often how “a people” become “united,” but ideas are what are used to try to keep them united.
As for Tran Hieu Lieu’s words, another way to look at it would be to imagine what the ideas that tie the people together would have been if Vietnam had continued on the path that was started by Tran Trong Kim in March 1945. That government promoted nationalism, but it was a different type of nationalism than what Tran Huy Lieu talked about.
That line of nationalism continued in the South, but my sense is that it also changed to some extent starting in the 1950s as well. That said, I definitely need to learn more about nationalism in the South.
Finally – “Abraham Lincoln may have united Herder and Bismarck, Trần Huy Liệu and Lê Duẩn, the romantic intellectual and the merciless warrior in one single person” – that’s great!!