The National Narrative And Nationalist Construction Of Vietnam In The Early 20th Century

In the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries,national liberation movements surged in Asia,and the colonial countries were influenced to varying degrees by nationalism and nation-state construction,and Vietnam was no exception.The reason for this is,on the one hand,the growing sense of national independence in the course of the long-term struggle against colonial rule;On the other hand,the new Western education brought about by colonial rule prompted a group of intellectuals to rethink Vietnam and the status of the Vietnamese nation in the Indochina Peninsula and even Asia.In this context,in the early 20 th century,a number of new historical and geographical books written in the Western intellectual discourse system emerged in Vietnam,trying to convey nationalism and nation-state construction ideas to the people with new spatial understanding and national narrative models.The article is divided into four parts.The first part focuses on the French colonial rule and colonial education policy in Vietnam during this period,and describes the self-help movement launched by the Vietnamese elite in this situation.At the beginning of the French colonial rule in Vietnam,the focus was still on the military aspect,so there was a certain "vacuum" in the field of education.This gave the elite a certain opportunity to save themselves,and they actively sought ways to save the country and the people under the influence of new learning and colonial rule.Some elites and intellectuals became early Vietnamese nationalists,who tried to rewrite Vietnamese history with a nationalist discourse system to convey nationalist ideas to the people.The second part focuses on the changes in the Vietnamese national narrative model in the early 20 th century.It is elaborated from three aspects: the Vietnamese national narrative mode in the context of the dynastic state,the introduction of new learning and the spread of Vietnamese nationalist ideas,and the change of the narrative structure of new historical and geographical reading materials.The history of the Vietnamese dynasty has a strong Confucian cultural color.With the continuous introduction of new Western learning,some Vietnamese intellectuals have embraced the nationalist discourse model in the hope of rewriting Vietnam in this way.In this context,a number of new historical and geographical books have emerged in Vietnam with new spatial understanding and national discourse.The third part focuses on the expression of nationalism in the national narratives of these new historical and geological books.It is mainly explained from five aspects:its interpretation and application of the concept of nation,the construction of Vietnam’s "geo-body",the shaping of national symbols,the nationalist image of heroic figures and the national and political connotations in geographical elements.Through the investigation of this part,it can be seen that there is a clear difference between this batch of new historical and geographical reading materials and traditional historical and geographical readings.To a certain extent,the former reconstructs the national narrative structure of Vietnam under the nationalist discourse system,and makes a certain attempt to construct the early nationalism of Vietnam in the dual dimension of time and space.The fourth part mainly deals with the temporal and spatial characteristics of the Vietnamese national narrative structure in the early 20 th century.The national narrative structure expressed in this batch of new historical and geographical readings has the dual characteristics of time and space.The two are intertwined and inseparable,and the continuous interaction between historical memory and geographical statements drives nationalist construction.This batch of new historical books in Vietnam at the beginning of the 20 th century conveyed nationalist ideas to the people to a certain extent.However,due to the limitations of the times,some of the descriptions in this batch of new-style historical books are just a mixture of new-style nationalist discourse terms and traditional Confucian culture,reflecting the conflict between Western new learning and traditional old knowledge.The construction of nationalism is a long and complex process,and the new historical readings of the early 20 th century reflect the awakening of Vietnamese nationalist consciousness and have enlightening significance in the process of building a nationalist state in Vietnam in the later period.