INTRODUCTION By Professor in History PHAN HUY LE – President of the Historical Association of Vietnam – Section 1

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by Le, Phan Huy 1

    HENRY OGER (1885-1936?) achieved his work entitled “Technique of the Annamese People” around the years 1908-1909, when he was only 23-24 years old and as a private performing his two years military service in Hanoi (1907-1909). The Higher Studies and Practical School and the lectures of well-known Orientalists such as LOUIS FINOT and SYLVAIN LÉVY, have equipped him with basic knowledge on the history and culture of Asia, along with a passion for Science. Endowed with an angle of view and feelings, bearing a comparative nature vis-à-vis the Western civilization, H. OGER had soon perceived that the life and the handicrafts in Hanoi and its periphery contain mysteries that needed to be discovered. The searching mind and zeal of youth had soon brought the French private into scientific actitivities with quite a great deal of daring and creative ideas. At that period of time, the Indochinese Review (Đông dương tạp chí) had published in the years 1907-1908 the researching work entitled Essays on the Tonkinese (Tiểu luận về người Bắc Kỳ) of the well-known French scholar GUSTAVE DUMOUTIER (1850-1904). This is a researching work on the social structures, from villages to families, along with customs and habits, as well as the cultural life and religious life in Tonkin. H. OGER didn’t want to research through that general tendency, instead he wanted to define for himself another approaching way, starting from investigations bearing social and ethnographic nature, and noting down concretely and in details the material life of people in Hanoi and its periphery. Everyday, accompanied by an indigenous draftsman, he went around all the streets of Hanoi and the villages in its periphery, striving to find out and discover the diversified life of the traders, the handicraftsmen, the farmers, and noting down, not only with a notebook, but essentially with sketches. These are not drawings filled with artistic nature, instead they are concrete sketches showing economical, cultural, and social activities, as well as the various handicrafts, the ordinary daily life of people through their eating, drinking, their amusements, their festivals, their religions… With regards to the handicrafts, the author went deep into various types of materials, instruments, as well as the manipulations and the work stages in the process of manufacturing. In the general introduction of the work entitled Technique of the Annamese, the author divides it into four categories:
(1) Craft resulting from natural materials,
(2) Craft processing natural materials,
(3) Craft using processed materials,
(4) Private and communal life of the Annamese.

  These are almost the fundamental drafts classifying the various handicrafts as well as the communal life of the inhabitants which the author was examining and investigating. The book was published around the year 1910, however the layout and presentation wasn’t exactly as it should be, as it still depends on the arrangement of sketches on the woodcuts, while the author himself has perceived that: “The materialization of gathered documents, through sketches has a great advantage, while it simply cannot avoid all inconveniences”. (H. Oger’s foreword).

   H. OGER has carried out his researching works in very difficult conditions, as he almost doesn’t receive any assistance from governmental and french scientific organizations. A certain number of kind-hearted people have helped him with the sum of 200 piastres which he could use as a fund to realize his researching work. He has hired 30 engravers and opened a wood-engraving and sketch printing factory at the Hang Gai village communal house, that later one, was moved to the Vu Thach pagoda (which is, at the present time, on Ba Trieu st. Hoan Kiem district, Hanoi). During more than two months, more than 4000 sketches have been engraved into wood-blocks, from which, through the traditional printing way, they were printed into woodblock prints on the special type of Rhamnoneuron paper of Buoi village (Tay Ho district, Hanoi). This is a project presided over and managed, with the participation of a certain number of Vietnamese draftsmen and wood-engravers.

   This project was achieved during the two years 1908-1909 and its publication was done in 1910 in Hanoi by two publishing houses: Geuthner and Jouve & Cie in Paris, but the work published bears no publishing date. That’s the reason why there was no copyright deposit in Paris, while the libraries in France don’t conserve this published work. In Vietnam, only two copies of H. OGER’s work are conserved at the Hanoi National Library and at the General Sciences Library in the HoChiMinh city. After being published, the printed work was forgotten for a long period of time, just like the hard life of its author. After finishing his military service, H. OGER returned to France in 1909 and attended the Colonial College. In 1910, he was appointed as an administrative official in Indochina, then in 1914 he went back to France due to his bad health. The World War broke out, he joined the Army. Following his demobilization, in 1916, he was again sent to Indochina to serve as the assistant administrator of the town of Quang Yen. However, his cultural thoughts and social conceptions didn’t match with the ones of a colonial official, and this fact caused him to be suspected, investigated and, in 1919, he was obliged to return to France, and started his retirement in 1920. Then, it seems that he was reported missing in 1936? A great deal of his cultural and social ideas, as well as so many of his researching projects were all interrupted. The work was published with the sub-title: “Essays on the material life, the arts and industries of the people of Annam” (Essais sur la vie matérielle, les arts et industries du peuple d’Annam), while in reality, it bears the value of an Encyclopedia about the total life of the inhabitants of Hanoi and its periphery towards the beginning of the 20th century. This is a collection of woodblock prints, bearing a folk painting style, but the only difference is that it doesn’t follow exactly the pattern and is only printed in black and white, accompanied by annotations in Nôm (Demotic characters), in Chinese and in French. Through the woodblock prints, the viewer can figure out in a fairly complete manner the whole life of the inhabitants of Hanoi, from the dealers, traders, handicraftsmen, farmers, and from the production installations, shops, markets, streets, transportation means, to houses, ways of dressing and eating of all social classes, cultural activities, spiritual life, religions etc… All such elements appear in a lively manner through the rich, diversified, expressive woodblock prints, accompanied by short and tidy annotations. One can also consider this collection of woodblock prints as a book of history in images noting down the traditional cultural life of the inhabitants of Hanoi and its periphery towards the beginning of the 20th century. With regards to the Nôm (Demotic characters) in particular, besides the various diffused forms, one can find in this work many Nôm characters that have been composed in the author’s own manner relative to Chinese.

   It was only until 1970, that the real value of the collection of H. OGER’s woodblock prints was recognized and re-evaluated , by an article entitled The pioneer of Vietnamese technology: HENRI OGER (1885-1936?) – (Le pionnier de la technologie vietnamienne: HENRI OGER (1885-1936?) of the French Orientalist PIERRE HUARD, published on the Bulletin of the French School of Extrême-Orient, 1970 (Bulletin de l’Ecole française d’ Extrême-Orient, 1970).

   In Vietnam, the collection of woodblock prints preserved in the Hanoi National Library isn’t complete, and since the years 60’s, it has been, for the first time, introduced by artist painter NGUYEN DO CUNG in a number of workshops on Arts. Following that information, a certain number of scientific organizations and scientists began to reach it and introduce it on a number of magazines and workshops. The one preserved in Saigon prior to 1975, was introduced by some scholars since 1970. After 1975, this collection of woodblock prints has been preserved at the General Sciences Library in HochiMinh city, and has been attracting more and more the attention of researching circles and researchers who introduce it on scientific magazines.

    In days past, it was quite difficult for scholars to have conditions to get in touch with the whole collection of woodblock prints preserved in Hanoi and HochiMinh city, so they had to use microfilms or microphotographs furnished by the two aforesaid organizations. The greatest value of this set of books, that can be considered as a reprint with foreword, phonetic transcription, translations and annotations, resides in the fact that it provides the scholars inland and abroad. as well as all other people, with H. OGER’s whole work, thus helping them to easily get in touch with it, study it, and appreciate it.

… continue in section 2 …

BAN TU THU
06 /2020

SEE MORE:
◊  INTRODUCTION By Professor in History PHAN HUY LE – President of the Historical Association of Vietnam – Section 2.

NOTES:
1 : PHAN HUY LÊ (Thach Chau, Loc Ha district, Ha Tinh province, 23 February 1934 – 23 June 2018) was a Vietnamese historian and professor of history at the Hanoi National University. He authored of many studies on village society, landholding patterns and peasant revolution in particular, and in Vietnamese history in general. Phan was director of the Center for Vietnamese and Intercultural Studies at Vietnam National University, HanoiPhan belonged to the school of historians, including also TRAN QUOC VUONG distinguishing ‘Vietnamese-ness‘ without relation to Chinese influences. (Source: Wikipedia Encyclopedia)
2 : Associate Professor, Doctor of Phylosophie in History HUNG NGUYEN MANH, former Rector of Hong Bang International University, is the founder of these websites: “Thanh dia Viet Nam Studies” – thanhdiavietnamhoc.com, “Holyland Vietnam Studies” – holylandvietnamstudies. com in 104 languages, “Việt Nam Học” – vietnamhoc.net, etc …
◊  Translated by Asso. Prof. Hung, Nguyen Manh, PhD.
◊ Header title and Featured sepia image has been set by Ban Tu Thu – thanhdiavietnamhoc.com

SEE ALSO:
◊  INTRODUCTION By Professor in History PHAN HUY LE – President of the Historical Association of Vietnam – Section 3.
◊  vi-VersiGoo (Vietnamese version): Giáo sư PHAN HUY LÊ giới thiệu về KỸ THUẬT CỦA NGƯỜI AN NAM.
◊ TECHNIQUE of the ANNAMESE PEOPLE – Part 3: Who is HENRI OGER (1885 – 1936)?

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