The
EUROVIET conferences, organised as biennial events since 1993, have made important contributions to the coordination
and development of this “small subject” in Germany, Europe, and beyond. The
First EUROVIET colloquium met in Copenhagen
in 1993, organised by the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) and the University of Copenhagen.
EUROVIET II convened
in Aix-en-Provence in 1995, organised by the University of Provence and the Institute of Southeast Asian Research (IRSEA)
of the CNRS.
EUROVIET III was organised by the University of Amsterdam in 1997,
EUROVIET IV by the University of Passau in
1999. More than 100 participants took part in each of these conferences, coming mostly from Europe, but also from North
America, Japan and of course from Vietnam.
EUROVIET V, convened by the Oriental Faculty of St. Petersburg State University,
was the latest of these successful conferences.
As a discipline, Vietnamese Studies deals mainly with the language and culture of Vietnam, and in comparison with other
Asia-related disciplines, it is still comparatively young. Important European centres of teaching and research about Vietnam
are currently in Paris, Hamburg and Russia, where Vietnamese Studies can be studied as an MA course. At other universities,
Vietnamese language is taught within the framework of Southeast Asian or Asian Studies. There is a considerable number of
specialists working on Vietnam or in the field of Vietnamese Studies at other European universities, but often they work far
from one another, either according to their disciplines, linguistics, history, politics, economics, geography, and sociology,
or integrated into interdisciplinary research and teaching programmes about the whole region of Southeast Asia or even Asia
in general. In Europe, where Vietnamese studies as an academic subject originated in the 19th century and flourished in the 20th,
the study of Vietnamese language and culture is today underdeveloped in comparison for example to the situation of Chinese,
Japanese, and Korean Studies. This certainly does not reflect the importance of this rapidly developing country of 82 million
inhabitants with a thousand-year-old culture.
The conference theme
“Vietnam Takes Off” (Vietnam im Aufbruch) reflects the contemporary situation of the country – a situation
that is characterised in general by undeniable and widely acclaimed successes achieved during the ongoing reform process in the
fields of economy, society, and culture. Yet this dynamic picture also displays problems, temporary setbacks, relics of old ways as
well as new challenges.
This nation always considered history to be crucial in its self-appraisal. Furthermore, the role of culture is currently being
questioned again, while doubts are being raised about the Vietnamese or global character of this culture, about how it shapes the
country’s history and its current and future development.
Utilizing the methodological approach of area studies,
EUROVIET conferences have always facilitated multi- and interdisciplinary
exchanges, especially between humanities and social sciences. Proven effective, this approach has resulted in fruitful exchanges
and successful inter- and multi-disciplinary cooperation. Vietnamese Studies as seen from a philological perspective (language,
literature, tradition, religion, and history) has always been the core of
EUROVIET and will continue to do so at this
Sixth EUROVIET
conference. Thus it corresponds with the way Vietnamese Studies is studied and taught at the
Asien-Afrika-Institut
(AAI) of the University of Hamburg.
