Phan Bội Châu
Forerunner of the national movement who launched the "Dong Du Movement" and founded the Vietnam Restoration League.
Life
Top graduate of the provincial exam
Phan Bội Châu came from a scholarly family in Nghe An and became top graduate of the provincial exam in 1900. Deeply pained that his country had become a French colony, he threw himself into the movement to save the nation.
Dong Du Movement
In 1905 he traveled to Japan, where he associated with Liang Qichao, Sun Yat-sen and others, wrote the "History of the Fall of the State of Vietnam," and launched the "Dong Du Movement," organizing young Vietnamese to study in Japan. In 1908 the Dong Du Movement was suppressed through Japanese-French cooperation. Influenced by the Xinhai Revolution, in 1912 he founded the Vietnam Restoration League in Guangzhou, advocating the establishment of a republic.
Restoration Society
In 1925 he was kidnapped by French agents in Shanghai, taken back to Vietnam and sentenced to life imprisonment, later commuted to house arrest in Huế. He died in 1940.
Legacy
Phan Bội Châu was a forerunner of Vietnam's modern national movement, and his ties with Chinese and Japanese revolutionaries epitomize the interconnections among anti-colonial movements in modern Asia.
Major works & achievements
- History of the Fall of the State of Vietnam
Did you know? His History of the Fall of the State of Vietnam was published in Japan by Liang Qichao and had a great influence on Chinese readers.
Key dates
- 1900Became top graduate of the provincial exam
- 1904Organized the Modernization Society
- 1905Traveled to Japan and wrote the "History of the Fall of the State of Vietnam"
- 1912Founded the Vietnam Restoration League in Guangzhou
- 1925Arrested in Shanghai
- 1940Died in Huế