Chronicle
History of Laos
Phongsavadan Lao
Maha Sila Viravong · 1957
Synopsis
A history of the country from its origins to 1889, composed from the royal annals, in which the succession of reigns is mixed with the legendary tales that the court scribes had gathered. Its author had modernised the alphabet of his language and campaigned for independence: it is a school book as much as a history book.
Context
The book appeared in Vientiane under the auspices of the Ministry of National Education. Its author gathered in it several versions of the chronicles of the country; the word in the title designates less a chronicle in the Western sense than a royal genealogy, and is formed from two Sanskrit words. Pierre-Bernard Lafont reviewed it in the Bulletin de l'École française d'Extrême-Orient in 1962: he praised the author's knowledge of the national letters, but objected that he had used only the Lao annals, never comparing them with those of the neighbouring countries, although they contradict one another, bear dates that are generally wrong and mix history with legend. An English translation appeared in New York as early as 1959, reissued in 1964, under the title History of Laos.
Who it is for
Three hundred and one pages, in Lao; translated into English, never into French. The reader must accept a material in which legend is not separated from established fact.
Prizes and reception
The first history book written in Lao by a Lao. Its author intended it for secondary schools, and it long served as a gateway to the country's past.