Phan Dinh Phung - Legacy

Legacy

Phan's remains were disturbed after his death. Ngo Dinh Kha, a Catholic mandarin and father of Ngo Dinh Diem—the first President of South Vietnam—was a member of the French colonial administration. Kha had Phan's tomb exhumed and used the remains in gunpowder used for executing revolutionaries.

Phan is widely regarded by Vietnamese people as a revolutionary hero. Phan Boi Chau, regarded as the leading Vietnamese anti-colonial figure of the early 20th century, strongly praised Phan in his writing, with particular emphasis on his defiance of Khai. During Phan Boi Chau's career as a teacher, he strongly emphasised Phan's deeds to his students. In 1941, after returning to Vietnam after decades in exile, the Marxist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh, then using the name Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), invoked the memory of Phan in appealing to the public for support for his independence movement. Like Phan, Ho was a native of Nghe An and Ha Tinh. In the 1940s, Ho's Vietminh named their self-produced style of grenades in honour of Phan. Since then, Ho's communists have portrayed themselves as the modern day incarnations of revered nationalist leaders such as Phan, Truong Dinh and Emperors Le Loi and Quang Trung, who expelled Chinese forces from Vietnam. Both North and South Vietnam had prominent thoroughfares in their capital cities (Hanoi and Saigon, respectively) named in Phan's honour.