Pursuing Văn Minh: A Study of Civilizational Discourse in the Historical Narratives in Colonial Vietnam (1900–1915)

Scholars in Vietnamese history usually link the rise of Vietnamese nationalism to anti-colonial activism at the turn of the twentieth century. This chapter, however, considers how the discourses of pro-French colonization are integrated into the nationalist historiography in colonial Vietnam. It places particular emphasis on the interactions of Vietnamese intellectuals with their counterparts in China and Japan in their formation of pro-French nationalist discourses. Through close readings of the writings that pro-French-Vietnamese literati-officials, such as Hoàng Cao Khải and Ngô Giáp Đậu, composed during the Duy Tân Reform Movement (Phong trào Duy Tân) in the early 1900s, this chapter demonstrates how the key elements in the notion of modern civilization (văn minh) were translated, interpreted, appropriated, and internalized by the Vietnamese pro-French reformists in their conception of a new Vietnam. This chapter argues that the tropes of modernity that these Vietnamese intellectuals used in constructing their pro-French nationalist historiography were not derived directly from the Western concepts but generated in a complex process of cultural interaction and knowledge production that began in late-nineteenth century East Asia.