Tạ Chí Đại Trường, also Trần Trường Thanh (21 June 1938 – 24 March 2016), was a Vietnamese historian.[1][2] Tạ Chí Đại Trường graduated from the University of Saigon with an MA in history in 1964 then taught history in Vietnam and published Lịch Sử Nội Chiến Việt Nam 1771-1802 (Saigon 1973), before being enrolled in the South Vietnamese Army. He remained in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975, and was sent to a re-education camp. He emigrated to the United States in 1994.[3][4]
Together with Liam C. Kelley he criticised the authenticity of the Hùng kings claiming that they were later invented and that their supposed historicity had no basis in reality.[5][6] Tạ Chí Đại Trường claimed that the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam was unwilling to challenge the current narrative of the Hùng kings because of the adulation that the country had received in light of the Vietnam War by foreigners that admired the Communists' struggle that caused it to promote the previously vague myth of the Hùng kings to become a national legend taught unquestionably to the Vietnamese people as it's a powerful origin myth, making any critical discussion about the Hồng Bàng dynasty tense.[5]
References
edit- ^ Keith Weller Taylor, John K. Whitmore Essays Into Vietnamese Pasts1995 p27 "Tạ Chí Đại Trường (another name for Trần Trường Thanh), in one of his publications, discusses in detail the influences of Cham culture on Dai Viet, ..." "
- ^ Tạ Chí Đại Trường: Người viết sử Việt từ đất Mỹ
- ^ John C. Schafer Võ Phiến and the sadness of exile Southeast Asia Publications, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, 2006 - 367 pages2006 - Page 350 "Tạ Chí Đại Trường earned an MA in history from the University of Saigon in 1964 and taught history in Vietnam before joining the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. After spending some time in a reeducation camp following the fall of the Saigon regime in 1975, he came to the United States in 1994 and lived in California with his relatives."
- ^ "Nhà sử học Tạ Chí Đại Trường qua đời". 24 March 2016.
- ^ a b Tạ Chí Đại Trường and Trần Hạnh (1 July 2012). "Comments on Liam Kelley's "The Biography of the Hồng Bàng Clan as a Medieval Invented Tradition"". Journal of Vietnamese Studies. 7 (2). University of California Press: 139–162. doi:10.1525/vs.2012.7.2.139. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
- ^ Đinh Từ Bích Thúy (January 2021). "Good Scholarship, Bold Scholarship and Bad Scholarship: A Conversation with Professor Liam Kelley". Da Mau Magazine (Tạp chí Da Màu). Retrieved 13 September 2021.