Universalisme asiatique : la réception de l’humanisme oriental de Rabindranath Tagore au Việt Nam entre 1920 et 1930

Abstract

This article analyzes the reception and appropriation by Vietnamese of the ideas of pan-Asianism and oriental humanism presented by Rabindranath Tagore between 1920 and 1930. This connected history of an encounter between colonized peoples proposes that these political concepts used by Tagore became, for these colonized, tools that could help them reform their own society so that it can regain its political autonomy. The qualities required for obtaining a nation-state being established on criteria, among others, of civilities defined by the Western colonizers, newspaper articles in Việt Nam representing the Vietnamese as part of a fundamentally humanist civilization wanted to elevate their culture to the same level as Western culture. Thus, the discussions about these concepts placed Vietnamese society as a stakeholder in a civilization with its own universal humanism, as the depositary of an alternative universalism, and as a participant in the creation of a greater harmony between all humans. The texts written by the Vietnamese presented humanistic universalism with the objective of giving their civilization the attributes necessary to be considered civilized and able to manage their own nation-state.

Keywords

• connected history
• cultural transfers
• Vietnam
• Indochina
• Vietnamese nationalism
• anti-colonialism