Phan Boi Chau

Phan Boi Chau (born 1867, Nghe An province, northern Vietnam—died Sept. 29, 1940, Hue) was a dominant personality of early Vietnamese resistance movements, whose impassioned writings and tireless schemes for independence earned him the reverence of his people as one of Vietnam’s greatest patriots.

Phan Boi Chau was the son of a poor scholar, who stressed education and preparation for the mandarin examinations, the only means to success in the traditional bureaucracy. By the time he received his doctorate in 1900 Chau had become a firm nationalist.

In 1903 he wrote Luu cau huyet le tan thu (“Ryukyu’s Bitter Tears”), an allegory equating Japan’s bitterness at the loss of the Ryukyu Islands with the Vietnamese loss of independence. With fellow revolutionaries he formed the Duy Tan Hoi (“Reformation Society”; see Duy Tan) in 1904 and secured the active support of Prince Cuong De, thus presenting to the people an alliance of royalty and resistance.

In 1905 Chau moved his resistance movement to Japan, and in 1906 he met the Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen. His plans to place Cuong De on the throne of Vietnam resulted in a meeting in 1906 with the prince and the Vietnamese reformer Phan Chau Trinh. A Franco-Japanese understanding forced Chau, the Vietnamese students he had brought to Japan, and Cuong De to leave Japan in 1908–09. By 1912 Chau had reluctantly given up his monarchist scheme. He reorganized the resistance movement in Canton, China, under the name Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi (“Vietnam Restoration Society”). The organization launched a plan to assassinate the French governor-general of Indochina, but the plan failed. Chau was imprisoned in Canton from 1914 to 1917; during his confinement he wrote Nguc trung thu (“Prison Notes”), a short autobiography.

Upon his release, Chau studied Marxist doctrine and resumed his resistance to the French. In June 1925 he was seized and taken to Hanoi, but hundreds of Vietnamese protested against his arrest. The French pardoned him and offered him a civil service position that he refused.

Chau lived out his later years in quiet retirement at Hue, under French surveillance. He wrote a second autobiography, replete with directives for future revolutionaries, and several volumes of poetry. Among his notable works are Viet Nam vong quoc su (1906; “History of the Loss of Vietnam”), renowned as Vietnam’s first revolutionary history book, and Hau Tran dat su (“Strange Story of the Latter Tran”), a historical novel with political implications.