Nguyễn Hữu Đang from the Nhân Văn Giai Phẫm affair of 1956 still off-limits

Shawn McHale mchale at gwu.edu

Thu Sep 24 19:03:57 PDT 2015

Dear list,

I missed this story in August, when it came out, but it is very

interesting: the BBC's Vietnamese service mentioned that a story on Nguyễn

Hữu Đang was published in Vietnam in August, then retracted. This is very

very interesting news. See:

http://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam/2015/08/150812_vo_ba_cuong_nguyenhuudang_dansinh

So what? Some of you may ask. Nguyễn Hữu Đang was a leading intellectual

who took part in the August Revolution of 1945. He played a key role in the

Nhân Văn Giai Phẩm affair of 1956, in which reformist communist called,

among other things, for a democratization of the DRV and opening up of the

arts. For his role in this affair, Nguyễn Hữu Đang was sentenced to 15

years in prison and was then completely effaced from public life. Unlike,

for example, the philosopher Trần Đức Thảo or the writer Hoàng Cầm, Đang

was never rehabilitated in any way, presumably because of his key

organizational role in the "affair." He died in 2007.

It is now 2015, 59 years after the Nhân Văn Giai phẩm affair. One would

think that by now, after the cautious rehabilitation of other participants

in this affair, that an article could be published on Nguyễn Hữu Đang. But

clearly, the party is very very sensitive about this affair.

(This is not the same thing, but during his life, the major revolutionary

Trần Văn Giàu died, leader of the August Revolution in the south in 1945,

was not allowed to tell his uncensored account of events either. His

account was published on the web abroad after his death.)

The author of the story on Nguyễn Hữu Đang, Võ Bá Cường, was quoted,

after the story was withdrawn from the Dân Sinh website, that "Tôi cũng

nghĩ ngợi nhiều và nhận ra có thể bây giờ là thời điểm chưa thích hợp để

công bố một dạng tư liệu như vậy. Nhà văn ở đất nước này cần tuân theo

đường lối" ("I have thought a lot about this, and recognize that perhaps

this is not the appropriate time to publish such material. Writers in this

country must follow guidelines") The editor of Dân sinh, the journal that

published his article, may have been "disciplined" for his faux pas. The

essay is no longer on the website of the newspaper, but has been reprinted

elsewhere. See, for example,

http://bshohai.blogspot.com/2015/08/nguyen-huu-ang-bi-thuong-va-cay-ang-mua.html

Shawn McHale

Associate Professor of History

George Washington University

Washington, DC 20052 USA

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Dien Nguyen nguyendien519 at gmail.com

Sat Sep 26 03:35:01 PDT 2015

Dear Shawn and list,

You may be interested in an article written in 1992 by the poet Phùng Quán

about his meeting with Nguyễn Hữu Đang.

Nguyễn Điền

Independent Researcher

Canberra

*Phùng Quán tìm thăm Nguyễn Hữu Đang*

http://www.diendan.org/tai-lieu/bao-cu/so-025/phung-quan-nguyen-huu-dang

Shawn McHale mchale at gwu.edu

Sat Sep 26 13:17:09 PDT 2015

Điền,

That's a fascinating article!

Dien Nguyen nguyendien519 at gmail.com

Mon Sep 28 05:02:04 PDT 2015

This is an obit written in Feb 2007, a couple of weeks after Nguyễn Hữu

Đang's death.

Nguyễn Điền

Nguyễn Hữu Đang và Nhân văn Giai phẩm

Đặng Tiến

Viết cho BBC từ Orleans, Pháp

*Viết ngày 20/02/2007*

http://www.bbc.com/vietnamese/vietnam/story/2007/02/070223_nguyenhuudang.shtml