Nation, leaders mark 100th birthday of 2 revolutionaries
HCM City — Led by Party and Government leaders, the nation celebrated the 100th birthday of two revolutionaries, paying rich tributes to their courage and invaluable contributions to the causes of independence and nation-building.
The Ministry of Education and Training yesterday celebrated the 100th birth anniversary of Vu Dinh Hoe, Viet Nam's first Education Minister, and historian Tran Van Giau received flowers and a congratulatory message from President Nguyen Minh Triet on Monday.
First Education Minister
Hoe, a native of Hai Duong Province, graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Indochina University (Universite de l'Indochine) and taught at Thang Long and Gia Long high schools in Ha Noi.
During his tenure as the Minister of Education between August 1945 and March 1946, the Education Ministry declared the goal of the new educational system: "To respect human dignity, to cultivate people's strong will and to best develop individuals' talents so that they can contribute to the human evolution."
Hoe re-opened the Indochina University (Universite de l'Indochine), renaming it the Viet Nam National University, and made Vietnamese the teaching medium at the school (instead of French).
Together with General Vo Nguyen Giap, Hoe was a lecturer of economics at the university.
Thanks to his contributions, 2 million Vietnamese escaped illiteracy, 5,654 primary and 29 high schools were opened across the country, and 300,000 more students enrolled for classes in one year, between September 1945 and September 1946
The current minister of Education and Training, Pham Vu Luan, expressed gratitude for Hoe's contribution to the country's education system.
Hoe's birthday coincided with the celebrations of the 65th anniversary of the launch of Viet Nam's Revolutionary Education system (1945-2010), which also took place at the same school.
Pioneers of this education system include President Ho Chi Minh, former ministers Nguyen Van Huyen, Hoang Minh Giam, Ta Quang Buu and Nguyen Dinh Tu.
The historian
Tran Van Giau received the President's flowers and congratulations on the veteran revolutionary's 100th birthday which fell on September 6.
A ceremony was held last Saturday to mark the event at the Thong Nhat Hospital, where the professor is hospitalised, with city leaders, colleagues and students paying rich tributes.
Born in Long An Province in 1911, Giau is not only a famed revolutionary but also a leading historian whose works have won various State awards.
In 1928, Giau went to France to pursue doctoral studies in Toulouse.
But two years later, the 19-year-old student was expelled after he took part in a demonstration there to protest death sentences imposed upon Vietnamese revolutionaries arrested after the Yen Bai Uprising in 1930.
Famed for his oratory prowess and deep knowledge of history, Giau organised several public meetings that attracted thousands of people in the then French-occupied Sai Gon to invoke public shame and anger for losing the country to foreign powers.
The French arrested him in 1933, 1935 and 1939, but failed to break his revolutionary spirit.
Giau led the uprising to overthrow the Sai Gon administration in August 1945 and was in the forefront of the resistance war in the south against French colonialists
After 1954, he became more prominent as a leading historian of the Vietnamese Communist movement. He published Communist Road to Power in Viet Nam on the Vietnamese working class (three volumes for 1930-45) in the early sixties, and an intellectual study of Viet Nam (from the early 19th century to the August Revolution, in three volumes) in the seventies.
He is the author of studies on the importance and use of guerrilla warfare during the Vietnamese Revolution and wars. One of his most important essays is "People's War against Special War," published in Vietnamese Studies, Number 11 (1967).
With Le Van Chat, Giau wrote The southern Viet Nam Liberation Front (1962) a definitive work on the struggle for national independence. — VNS