Vietnam Academy Of Social Sciences

International Conference Commemorating The 250th Birth Anniversary of Nguyen Du - Great National Poet and World’s Cultural Personality: Legacy and Historical Importance

14/08/2015

On August 8th, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences has worked with Ha Tinh Community of People to hold a conference commemorating the 250th birth anniversary of Nguyen Du on Legacy and Historical Importance. This is an activity to memorizing 108 world’s cultural personalities including Nguyen Du based on the approval of the Resolution No. 37C/15 in the 37th meetings of UNESCO in Paris in October 25th 2013. It is also the implementation of the documentary no. 8467-CV/VPTW in August 15th 2014 on commemorating the 250th birth anniversary of Nguyen Du – Great National Poet and World’s Cultural Personality at national level as a statement for the meanings of his legacy and historical importance.

Mr. Dinh The Huynh – A Member of Politburo,<br>Head of the Commission for Popularization and Education,<br>having speech at the opening ceremony

The conference has the participation of Mr. Dinh The Huynh - a member of Politburo, Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Head of the Commission for Popularization and Education; Mr. Phan Xuan Dung – a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam,  Head of Science, Technology, and Environment Committee of National Assembly; and Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh – a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Vice Chairman of the Commission for Organization.

Joining in the conference as a co – organizer, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS) has Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang – a member of Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, President of VASS; Associate Prof. Dr. Pham Van Duc – Vice President of VASS; Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dang Diep - Director of Institute of Literature. On the Ha Tinh People’s Committee has Mr. Vo Kim Cu – Provincial Party Committee Secretary, President of People’s Council, team lead of provincial assembly’s representatives; Mr. Le Dinh Son – Provincial Party Committee Vice Secretary, Chairman of People’s Committee; Mr. Le Thanh Long – Province’s Vice Secretary; Mr. Nguyen Thien – a member of province, vice president of Ha Tinh province as well as representatives of Provincial Department, provincial People’s Council, provincial management including department of culture, sports and tourism of Ha Tinh, Nghi Xuan province where is Nguyen Du’s hometown and representative of the Nguyen Tien Dien.

    Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang – A member of Central Communist Party <br>of  Vietnam, President of VASS, having speech<br>at the opening ceremony

Central government offices have the participation of representatives from the Commission for Popularization and Education; Science, Technology and Environment of Committee of National Assembly;  National Assembly Committee for External Affairs; Government Office, Ministry of Sciences and Technology, Ministry  of Culture, Sport and Tourism; Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Justice, , Hochiminh National Academy of Politics, UNESCO Vietnam, Central Council for Theory and Criticism on Literature and Arts, Vietnam Writers’ Association, and Hanoi Writers’ Association. Also, local offices have representatives of People’s Committee and provincial departments of Bac Ninh where is hometown of Nguyen Du’s mother as well as representatives of Hanoi

Representatives of embassies including Iran, Korea, Russia, Laos, China and some other international organizations have also joined in the conference.

Reporters and journalists of television stations, radios and newspapers at local and central level have taken part in and written articles about the conference.

The conference has received 108 writing papers of writers, poets, translators, researchers of various fields including social sciences and humanities. Especially, there are 16 writings are from Korea, Japan, Russia, Laos, Thailand, France and China together with 92 writing works of local scientists from Institute of Literature, Institutes of HanNom Studies, Institute of History, Alliances of Arts and Literature Associations of Vietnam, Vietnam Writers’ Association, Association of Kieu Studies, Hanoi National University of Education, Hanoi National University of Educaiton 2, Vietnam National University - Hanoi, Hanoi University of Culture, Hochiminh University of Education,  Hochiminh University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hue University, Vinh University, Thai Nguyen University, Hochiminh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration, Culture and Arts Magazines and Ha Tinh researchers.  

Overview of the Conference

Nguyen Du is the great poet of Vietnam who composed poems reflecting the profoundly humanity through his master of art. Nguyen Du’s poems have touched the emotion, feelings, conscience and compassion of all Vietnamese people, and this has made him as the national symbol of culture. Nguyen Du is also well – known all over the world. He was awarded as world’s cultural personality by UNESCO. With time, Nguyen Du’s poets have continuously influenced people as a treasure through generations. Over the years, many activities related to Nguyen Du’s works such as research, translation, teaching and promotion have received many interest and new results, especially on the celebration the birth of great poet.

The writing papers were presented in 2 sessions which the first one is about Nguyen Du’s life and heritage under the local and international aspects, and the second one is about the Tale of Kieu – Methods of Interpretation and Transformation. Basically, writings and opinions focused on the following new topics, for example: 1) To continuously interpret and  decode the contents, languages and expressing art of Tale of Kieu as a way to state Nguyen Du as not only a poet but also an ideologue and a representative of culture; 2) To analyze the pathway of great poet expressed in the Bắc hành tạp lục (Miscellaneous Writings in Trip to the North). The works pointed out his multi – divisional knowledge about China, especially the reality of ideas and society at that time as well as the illusion about China due to the collusion of  Confucianism in region and Vietnam; 3) To compare the Tale of Kieu and Nguyen Du with regional and international poets so that the similarities of greatest works would be figured out together with the unique of Nguyen Du and characteristics of Vietnamese culture; 4) To read and review Tale of Kieu through historic periods and timeless relevance of Nguyen Du’s works; 5) To evaluate the translated versions of Tale of Kieu in near 30 languages all over the world ( French, English, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Arab, Deutsch, Bulgarian, Romanian, Spanish, Mongolian, Laos and Thai so on). Also, to present the translating projects for Tale of Kieu which are in process so that the work of art will be accessed and promoted in different cultures as a cultural statue of Vietnam; 6) The Tale of Kieu in daily life of oversea Vietnamese; 7) The relations between talent and creation of Nguyen Du in a geo – cultural environment as Ha Tinh and how to maintain, promote the culture of Nguyen Tien Dien family today.

By collecting the writing papers and the participation of researchers who are working on Nguyen Du topics, the conference is a proof for the effort and power of the local and foreign teams who are doing studies and researches on Nguyen Du and Kieu. The conference has delivered the high appreciation to Associate Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Hoan, a Ha Tinh person who also did researches on Kieu and was the first president of the Association of Kieu Studies. He has written the last piece of work and sent to the conference before passing away.  There are also young researchers together with elder generations joined in the conference. The new directions of research were discussed, especially focusing on the comparison between Nguyen Du and great poets of other countries, between Vietnamese culture and literatures with others nations. The success of conference has had the great contribution to create a new period of studying, translating and doing researches on Nguyen Du and his careers. This is how to promote the immortal humanities of Nguyen Du and even Vietnam to worldwide.

Associate Prof. Dr. Tran Thi An



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