Prince Damrong

Prince Damrong was one of 82 children of King Mongkut, Rama IV (1851–1868), and also one of the most celebrated statesmen of Siam. He grew up in a period of great change in Thai society, when it faced modernisation and Western colonialism. Damrong was educated in both Western and classical Thai scholarship, thus he was able to bridge these two cultures for the development of a modern Thailand. During the reign of his brother King Chulalongkorn, Damrong rose to prominence in the Thai government, holding many important positions including minister of education (1888–1892) and minister of interior (1892–1915). In spite of his heavy responsibilities of governing the country, Damrong devoted much of his time – almost 30 years from the 1910s to 1943 – to the writing of history, particularly when he was free from administrative works and living overseas. Though maintaining his ministerial post for a few years under his nephew, King Vajiravudh, Damrong was released to pursue his writing habit. After a democratic coup in 1932, the prince was forced into exile in Penang. He left an extensive collection of writings, around 100 books and articles, to which very few scholars could lay claim.

As mentioned before, the works of Prince Damrong revealed a change in the writing of Thai history. The most notable is the usage and selection of sources. It is said that he was very much influenced by the method used by the great German historian Ranke. ⁶ For example, his account of the foundation of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya introduced a new technique in examining Thai history. Formerly, the tamnan and phongsawadan schools of thought described the “birth” of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya by associating it with myths and external forces beyond human control. Ayutthaya came into existence, as the old schools see it, as a result of the Buddha’s prophecy and/or miraculous acts of certain individuals. However, Damrong explained it by presenting a tangible historical fact. According to him, Ayutthaya was a result of a long period of Thai settlement in the Menam Basin. It became the centre of the Thai when the Khmer began to lose control of the area. Various sources were taken into consideration and a hypothesis was set up to explicate the origin of Ayutthaya. Thus, he rejected the old methods of the tamnan and phongsawadan. ⁷

In 1914 Prince Damrong wrote and established a new concept of historical periodisation in which “the history of Siam is divided into three periods, namely, (1) When Sukhothai was the capital, (2) When Ayutthaya was the capital, and (3) Since Bangkok (Chakri’s Ratanakosin) has been the capital”. ⁸ This periodisation became known as sam krung, or “three capitals” (Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, Ratanakosin-Chakri-Bangkok). It focuses on the periods when each capital and its kings were considered the centre of what had happened. It was possible that this sequence was influenced by European periodisation of “classical-medieval-modern”. Therefore, Sukhothai was “classical”, Ayutthaya “medieval” and Ratanakosin/Chakri/Bangkok “modern”. Interestingly enough, Damrong even went back beyond classical Sukhothai and added a lengthy elaboration on periods prior to the two ancient capitals (Sukhothai-Ayutthaya). He explained by way of focusing on territories (space) and races (ethnicities). Accordingly, “the territory of which Siam is now made up was originally occupied by people of two races, the Khmers (Khom) and the Lao (not the people of present day country of Laos but of an ethnic called Lawa)”. ⁹ Since the Thais were not the original people of Siam, the prince had to look elsewhere further north in China. In short, the historian prince developed a new hypothesis of the “Thai southward migration” back some thousand years ago. And in their migration movement, the Thais made one major stop. They were able to establish the mighty Kingdom of Nanzhao in Yunnan. Here, from the 6th to the mid-13th centuries, the kingdom lasted for 700 years. Damrong labelled Nanzhao as muang Thai doem, literally the original country of the Thais. ¹⁰ Nanzhao was defeated by Kublai Khan in 1253, but the link to present-day Thailand continued. Prince Damrong argued that while the Thais were still powerful in their “original home”, a great number had already migrated to settle in the valleys of the Salween and the Mekong, south of the present-day Golden Triangle. ¹¹ Sukhothai, Ayutthaya, and Bangkok/Rattanakosin followed, respectively.

In short, the concept of new historiography, as seen from Damrong’s works, commenced with the impact of Western penetration. It was influenced by the West, which contributed new methods of using sources and “scientific” analyses. However, many of the old themes of the phongsawadan tradition still remained. Thus, although using new methods, Damrong still wrote history in which the monarchy remained the prime driving force in the new nation-state. Thai history became the history of a particular nation, a secular linear forward moving from the past to the present, surrounded by many other powerful countries, especially the Western ones, no longer in isolation.

King Vajiravudh

Besides Damrong, it is imperative to stress the impact of King Vajiravudh and his official nationalist policy. As suggested earlier, the latter part of King Chulalongkorn’s reign was crucial for the understanding of the changes within Thai society in connection with the emergence of the new “royal nation-state”. Vajiravudh, born in 1881, is one of Chulalongkorn’s 97 children. In 1893, at the age of 12, he was one of the first royal children to be sent to schools in Europe. He spent nine years in Great Britain, and through 1902 he went to various schools including the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Oxford’s Christ Church College (law and history). In this light, being English educated, he was therefore different from his predecessors on the throne. As a prince and later as king, Vajiravudh was known to be rather aloof. He isolated himself from the large and active palace family of his father, his relatives, and from the bureaucracy. In the early years of his reign he often stayed at the newly built Sanam Chan Palace in Nakhon Pathom, some 50 km outside Bangkok. He also surrounded himself with a male entourage, the royal-national paramilitary “Wild Tiger Corps”, and kept himself busy in his own peculiar ways.

The 15 years he spent on the throne were caught between the very successful and long rule of his father, whose absolutist reign had lasted for 42 years. As the most prolific writer of all time in Siam, Vajiravudh is now officially remembered as Phra Maha Dhiraratchao, or the “Great Scholar King”. Under more than 100 pen names, he wrote travelogues, plays, poetry, songs, articles and sermons, totalling around 200 titles. The king is particularly known for his official nationalistic policy and is often labelled “The Father of Thai Nationalism”. ¹² The reign of Vajiravudh was a time of change. The first strikes by Bangkok’s Chinese merchants and workers took place just before his first coronation on 11 November 1910. The following year, the Celestial Monarchy in Peking came to an abrupt end. ¹³ The year 1912, in February, witnessed an attempted coup, known as “Kabot R.S. 130”, or the 1912 Rebellion, to overthrow Vajiravudh. It happened only a few months after the 13-day extravaganza of his second coronation in November 1911.

Indeed, the 1900s and the 1910s were a very different time. First, with domestic changes, a new, though rather small educated middle class had emerged, a good number of whom were Sino-Thai, who became critical of Siam’s absolute monarchy. To them, it had become anachronistic. The time was also marked by the spread of the free press, which claimed to represent paksiang (mouth and voice) of the common people. In addition, “print-capitalism” also allowed people to think and imagine their own place in society differently. ¹⁴ Second, the rise of nationalism, along with the fall of monarchies in Asia and Europe (the Qing, the Ottomans, the Romanovs, and the Habsburgs), was a reason why Vajiravudh had to consolidate his rule and felt compelled to embark on his own nationalist policy.

Soon after his first coronation, the new king established two organisations: the Wild Tigers Corps (sue pa) and the Boy Scouts (luk sua, meaning cubs or male child of a tiger), on 1 May and 1 July 1911, respectively. Both were inspired by the British Volunteer Force and Lord Baden-Powell’s Boy Scouts. Both were aimed at “instilling the love of the nation among the Thai”. Of the two, the Wild Tigers Corps was criticised as khong len (“plaything” or “toy”) and as an extension of the king’s personal bodyguards. It did not fit well with the existing military. The Wild Tigers, not the Boy Scouts, ceased to exist soon after the end of his reign. However, it was within the circle of the Wild Tigers that the king launched his nationalist programmes. He personally lectured them about chat (nation), satsana (religion), and phra maha kasat (great king), which became the three pillars of the Siamese modern state ideology. ¹⁵ Since then, this “Holy Trinity” has frequently been exploited by right-wingers and military regimes.

In terms of historiography and the construction of historical narratives, Vajiravudh employed various strategies to achieve his policy of pluk chat-pluk chai (“Waking up the Nation”). Interestingly, it was Vajiravudh who actually coined the new Thai word prawatisat (possibly from Pali-Sanskrit: puravuttanta = history + sastra = scientific treatise) for “history”. He may have found it unfitting to use the established Thai word phongsawadan in a global context because of its direct translation, such as the reincarnation of a royal family which did not fit with the modern time. The new term prawatisat caught on, and by 1917 the word was frequently used for titles of history texts. ¹⁶

Luang Wichitwathakan

Among the post Damrong-Vajiravudh generation of the 1930s commoners, Luang Wichiwathakan was the most outstanding. Wichit was born of a very humble origin, possibly that of a Sino-Thai outside the Bangkok elite circle. He moved his way up by joining the sangha. For 12 years from 1906 to 1918, he was ordained, first as a novice and then as a monk. His main education came through this experience, studying Buddhist temple classics and self-educating with modern science and the English language. In 1918, at the age of 20, Wichit left the monkhood and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was sent as an assistant secretary to the Thai Legation in Paris, from 1920–1926; he was also assigned to the League of Nations in Geneva and served briefly in London. Upon his return, his first major writing in the Thai language was published in 1931. It is a magnum opus called prawatsat sakon (“world history”, 12 volumes). A year later, right after the 1932 anti-royalist coup, Wichit acted as a spokesman for the new regime and became intimate with Premier Field Marshal Phibun Songkhram. During his long service in the government, from 1934 until his death in 1962, Wichit held many extremely important posts including director of the Fine Arts Department, cabinet minister and ambassador to various countries. However, his most notable position was as advisor-administrator to the Phibun and Sarit military regimes. He displayed an ability of manipulating, writing and organising cultural activities which were directed towards arousing nationalistic feeling within the country. Similar to Prince Damrong, Luang Wichit was a prolific writer.

Since 1932, successive governments have been trying to create a new kind of legitimacy to replace the absolute monarchy. Military-bureaucratic-oriented nationalism became a means of rallying popular support. The period between 1932 to World War II witnessed the rise of military nationalism in Thailand. Wichit became a prime instigator of these movements. In 1942, he wrote a nationalistic account (in English) condemning the French imperialism, titled Thailand’s Case. This short essay explained how Thailand unjustly lost its territory in Indochina to France and urged the public to support the Phibun government’s irredentist policies. ¹⁷ At the heart of Wichit’s history, there were strong leaders leading the Thai race. He put aside the role of the monarchs (except Ramkhamhaeng, Naresuan, and Taksin), once predominant in the writings of the phongsawadan and of Prince Damrong. Thus Thai history was interpreted according to the purity and glory of the Thai race. Everything was aimed at creating a new nation in which the military and strong leaders took the roles of former kings. His interpretation of Thai history showed uncomfortable similarities to Nazi and fascist writings of the period.

Wichit’s history was very popular. It became an ideological weapon of the new ruling elite who sought justifications to rule the country. Furthermore, Wichit had the advantage of exploiting the mass media to disseminate his interpretation of history. As director of the Fine Arts Department, he used this position to propagate his concepts of history through music, plays and songs. These were presented on stage and broadcast on the official Radio of Thailand. His skills in writing and sense of public sentiment contributed to the spread and popularisation of his version of Thai history, no matter how politically biased. ¹⁸

In short, therefore, as far as the prawatisat type of official historiography is concerned, one can say that from 1900 to the 1920s, the royal nationalistic version of Damrong-Vajiravudh was vigorously promoted, and by the 1930s the military-bureaucratic version of Wichit and the new commoner elite had become dominant. However, by the 1960s these two were blended together to give birth to a hybrid nationalistic historiography. This outcome was a product of the very long 70-year reign of King Bhumibol, Rama IX (1946–2016), in which the king himself and his special new style of monarchy had become a hegemonic balancing force for Thai society and politics. It can be said that this hybrid version is a product of bureaucrats at various government offices, namely the Ministries of Education and Culture and the Departments of Fine Arts and Public Relations. The new agreeable version of Thai historiography seems to work out successfully.

However, in 1995, Thongchai Winichakul, one of the most prominent historians of Southeast Asia, wrote:

Historical studies in Thailand have been closely related to the formation of the nation …, and until recently the pattern of the past in this elitist craft changed but little. It presented a royal/national chronicle, a historiography modern in character but based upon traditional perceptions of the past and traditional materials. It was a collection of stories by and for the national elite celebrating their successful mission of building and protecting the country despite great difficulties, and promising a prosperous future.

Therefore, it would be misleading to say that development of official Thai historiography, seen from above, has been smooth and uninterrupted from (1) the times of the religious tamnan, (2) the royal phongsawadan, (3) the ruling elite prawatisat and (4) the hybrid royal-official nationalistic historiography constructed under the long, hegemonic reign of King Bhumibol. It would also be misleading to say that there was no need for a new past. But a closer look will tell a different story. Exactly two decades before the “intellectual revolution” in the 1970s, as mentioned above, it is worth looking back to the 1950s historical writings. This was the period of the Cold War when the “free world” clashed with the “Communist bloc” in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. This brings us to what is known as a period of Thai “radical discourse”. There were numerous left-Socialist-Marxist history writings, historical novels and translations by well-known (and some less well-known) authors like Sri Burapha (1906–1974), Supha Sirimanond (1914–1986), Seni Saowaphong (1918–2014), Assani Pholachan (1918–1987), Udom Sisuwan (1920–1993), Plueng Wannasri (1922–1996) and Thaweep Woradilok (1928–2005). But the most outstanding of all was a young man named Jit Phumisak (1930–1966).

Jit Phumisak

Jit Phumisak is probably one of the few most original, immensely gifted, brave and committed Thai intellectuals of the 20th century. Although his father was merely a low-level official and his mother a school teacher, Jit’s brilliant mind got him an entry to the conservative Chulalongkorn University. His writing career started when he was studying at the Faculty of Arts. In the middle of the 1950s, the Phibun semi-authoritative government began to lose its popularity; to compensate, the government allowed a certain degree of freedom of speech. A large number of Jit’s writings came out during this time, including Chomna Khong Sakdina Thai Nai Patchuban (“The Real Face of Thai Feudalism Today”), which is a Marxist analysis of Thai history. Jit, together with other writers, were arrested and put in jail when Field Marshal Sarit staged two successive coups in 1957 and 1958. Jit spent six years (1958–1964) in prison for his iconoclastic writing. Despite being strictly banned, his most important writings passed illegally from hand to hand. Most of the time, he was able to smuggle out his articles and have them published under various pen names. At the end of 1964, Jit was released but was threatened and spied on by the regime until he decided to join the guerrilla forces of the Communist Party of Thailand. On 5 May 1966, at the age of 36, he was killed by agents of the military dictatorship.

Jit’s creative legacy covered many subjects ranging from history, politics, literature and culture. His writings were very expressive and provocative. As in the cases of Damrong and Wichit, he had good command of the Thai language. However, his Thai was more forceful because he worked from a different social viewpoint. Moreover, he was a poet who had mastered classical Thai and used it accordingly – a quality which Damrong and Wichit did not possess. Jit composed poems and songs for the masses, which are now sung and cited by the Thai left wing and radical students. It should be pointed out that Jit’s writings became very popular after the 1973 student uprising. Since then, a period of freedom of speech has flourished in Thailand. His books have been undergone several reprints, and his songs and poems continue to be sung and read. In fact, his name is controversial in Thailand even today.

Jit’s approach to Thai history, employing Marxist theory, may not appear radical today. However, in Thailand, where communism was outlawed and Marxist ideas socially ostracised, Jit’s writings represent the forbidden fruit and an alternative interpretation of Thai society. Most Thai historians either reject or ignore the question of class structures in Thailand. But Jit backed up his analysis by historical evidence. His knowledge of Thai history and his linguistic command added up the credibility of his interpretation. Thus it is not so much a question of a Marxist approach, which shows in his history, but rather the issues of class exploitation in the form of class differentiation, landownership, corvée labour and oppressive taxation. ²⁰

In short, the masses were the main interest of Jit in describing history. His books speak out their misery and various means which the ruling class employed for its self-interest. It can be said that Jit’s history is a political weapon against the ruling class in Thailand.