Tố Hữu


Tố Hữu was a Vietnamese revolutionary poet and politician. Tố Hữu is considered one of the most important Vietnamese poets of the 20th century. His poems are known for their lyrical beauty, their political engagement, and their insights into the Vietnamese people. Tố Hữu's poetry is a valuable record of the Vietnamese revolution and the Vietnamese people's struggle for independence. His poems are also a testament to the power of poetry to inspire and to give voice to the oppressed. He published seven collections of poems, the first of which was the 1946 collection entitled Từ ấy, which included many of his most popular and influential works that were written between 1937 and 1946. Following the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, he became a prominent figure in the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam.

Biography

Tố Hữu, whose real name is Nguyễn Kim Thành, was born 4 October 1920 in Hội An, Quảng Nam province, as the youngest son of the family. At the age of 9, Thành and his father returned home and lived in Phu Lai village, now in Quảng Thọ commune, Quảng Điền district, Huế. Thành's father was a poor scholar, could not earn a living and struggled to earn a living, but he liked poetry, liked collecting proverbs and folk songs. He taught Thành to write old poems. Thành's mother was also the daughter of a scholar, knew many folk songs of Hue and loved him very much. His parents helped to nourish the soul of Thành's poetry. Thành's mother died when he was 12 years old. At the age of 13, Thành entered Hue National University, where he was directly exposed to the ideas of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Maxim Gorky. Thành approached these ideas through books, combined with the mobilisation of members of the Communist Party of Vietnam soon communist ideals. In 1936, Thành joined the Indochina Democratic Youth Union, and then in 1938, he was admitted to the Indochina Communist Party.
In 1938 Thành met a teacher, who gave him the pseudonym "Tố Hữu" 素有, taken from a remark by Lady Du that her son – Zhao Kuangyin, the future Emperor Taizu of Song – "always had great aspirations" ; Thành accepted this pseudonym and interpreted it as "pure friend", written with the homophonous characters 素友. In April 1939, Tố Hữu was arrested, tortured and exiled to Thua Phu Prison and transferred to Lao Bảo Prison and many other prisons in the Central Highlands. In March 1942, he escaped from the prison Đắc Glêi, went to Thanh Hóa and contacted the party. In 1945, when the August Revolution broke out, he was elected Chairman of the Rebellion Committee of Thua Thien-Hue.
Tố Hữu moved quickly and successfully through what became the Communist Party of Vietnam. During the pre-unification period Tố Hữu was most influential in setting cultural policy in North Vietnam, especially in deciding the bounds of what was permissible for intellectuals and artists to publish and perform during this tightly controlled period. His control of intellectual and artistic production was matched only by Trường Chinh and Hồ Chí Minh himself. Intellectual discontent with this control was expressed by the poet Lê Đạt who, during the Nhân Văn affair, declared that Tố Hữu considered writers and artists petty bourgeois elements, and regarded literature as a mere tool of politics. As an example, he mentioned the case of Nam Cao whom Tố Hữu compelled to write a work on the rural taxation system, a topic with which the writer was by no means familiar.
He continued to hold many important party and government posts, including member of the Politburo of the [Communist Party of Vietnam|Politburo], Secretary of the Central Committee, Deputy [Prime Minister of Vietnam|Deputy chairman] of the Council of Ministers , and the same post that was later renamed Deputy Prime Minister.
As the leader of the cultural section, he was named as the chief instigator of the persecution of intellectuals during the Nhân Văn affair. However, according to the musician Văn Cao, one of the prominent victims, the main author of this policy was Trường Chinh, the general secretary of the communist party at that time. According to Văn Cao, Tố Hữu, as a poet, was not sufficiently hard-hearted to pursue such a policy on his own..
During his career Tố Hữu was awarded the Gold Star Order, the 60-year membership badge, and the Hồ Chí Minh Award, the highest award for literary and artistic accomplishments conferred by the Vietnamese state.
Tố Hữu enjoyed a steep rise in the party and government culminating in an equally steep and precipitous decline. He was blamed for the disastrous 1985 attempt at monetary reform and the ruinous inflation that resulted from its unsuccessful implementation. Inflation had risen 700% by 1986. Tố Hữu had to step down from his position as deputy prime minister and played no further political role in Vietnam. Despite his political fall from grace, Tố Hữu remained the Communist Party's poet laureate. He died in 2002, at the age of 80.

List of main works

  • Từ ấy , 72 poems
  • Việt Bắc , 26 poems
  • Gió lộng , 25 poems
  • Ra trận , 35 poems
  • Máu và Hoa , 13 poems
  • Một tiếng đờn , 74 poems
  • Ta với ta

    List of popular poems

  • Bác ơi
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