The Ottoman History Studies in Vietnam

Abstract

Based on available archival sources, the first contact between the Vietnamese and the Turks started at the end of the 19th century. Then, during the Vietnam War, the diplomatic relations between South Vietnam (Saigon Government) and Turkey were established in 1955. Nevertheless, because of the collapse of the Saigon Government in 1975, 20 years of relationships between Turkey and South Vietnam came to an end. Just three years later, the diplomatic relation between Turkey and the new Vietnamese Government was officially re-established in 1978. Because of the impacts of some external factors such as French colonialism, the Vietnam War, and the changing of politics and policy differences, the relations between Vietnam and Turkey in history have not obtained sufficient development. Therefore, the Turkish perception in Vietnam and the understanding of Vietnamese people about Turkey remains very limited. The Ottoman History Studies in Vietnam is still a new research area that has not attracted wide attention to study by the Vietnamese researchers yet. However, because the Ottoman Empire was one of the longest-lived state that played a key role in world history, the Ottoman history and Ottoman perception certainly have been mentioned in the world history, region history textbooks, and academic articles published in Vietnam. In this scope, the researches on Ottoman history in Vietnam started in the 1960s. Besides, due to the influences of the Marxist historiography in Vietnam, Vietnamese historians reviewed issues of Ottoman history from the perspective of Marxist historiography, and they were particularly interested in the socio-economic type of the Ottoman Empire. Although the number of the research works on Ottoman Studies and the references used in these researches have remained limited, in the context of the cooperation between Turkey and Vietnam is being progressed in recent years, the development of Ottoman Studies in Vietnam is gradually becoming an inevitable research trend.