Arousing the desire to contribute and the creative capacity of Lai Chau artists in the new era

Following Uncle Ho's advice: "Art is not for personal enjoyment, but first of all for the Fatherland, for the people" (1), generations of Lai Chau artists and writers have continuously studied, practiced, and strived to create works of high artistic and ideological value. In the process of innovation, integration, and development, the country has undergone many great changes in appearance, and extensive cultural exchange activities have brought positive values as well as dark aspects. At this time, the great values in the ideology, morality, and style of President Ho Chi Minh are like "torches lighting the way", pushing back the darkness, awakening the desire to contribute, promoting the creative capacity of Lai Chau artists and writers, contributing to the economic, political , cultural, and social development of Lai Chau and the country...

Culture and art in the thought of President Ho Chi Minh

During his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh always emphasized the importance of culture and art for the development of society. He always considered culture and art as the spiritual foundation of society, which can contribute to changing people's awareness and behavior. Therefore, he always paid attention to and oriented all aspects of culture and art, from content, form to expression and target audience. He was the pioneer in sowing the seeds of art to contribute to building a diverse, rich but deeply humane literature and art. In 1951, when the resistance war against French colonialism was entering a fierce phase, President Ho Chi Minh sent an important letter to artists on the occasion of an art exhibition. He wrote: “Culture and art are also a front. You are soldiers on that front” (2). Near the end of the letter, he further affirmed: “Culture and art, like all other activities, cannot stand outside, but must be within economics and politics” (3). This is an important theoretical foundation for generations of artists, so that they can correctly perceive their position, role and responsibility in each revolutionary stage. As “soldiers” in wartime, their mission is to use their innate artistic talent to reflect heroic examples, courage and indomitable will to spread feelings of pride and arouse patriotism in every citizen.

The Organizing Committee awarded the A prize to the winning authors and groups of authors, including author Le Minh Cu, Lai Chau province with the work "The Mong people miss Uncle Ho".

In the process of developing the country and building a new revolution, Uncle Ho pointed out that literature must truly and eloquently reflect life and revolutionary reality, pay attention to following the example of good people and good deeds and correcting and criticizing bad things. Writers must also pay attention to the form of expression, avoid elaborate, unfamiliar, and heavy writing styles, the form of the work must be attractive, the language must be selective, ensuring the purity of the Vietnamese language, and must be "closely linked to labor, production, culture is far from life, far from labor is empty culture", "to serve the cause of socialist revolution, culture must be socialist in content and national in form" (4). Uncle Ho pointed out that the People and their daily lives are endless topics for artists to create art, they are "an endless source of raw materials for published works" and "Only the People can nourish the work of writers with lifeblood" (5). Culture and art play an important role in educating, nurturing human qualities, ethics, and personality, enhancing national spirit and consciousness, and preserving national identity. Uncle Ho reminded, “To fulfill their duties, artistic soldiers need to have a firm stance and correct ideology” (6). At the same time, he emphasized: “Culture must light the way for the nation” - that is, he emphasized the role of culture and art in orienting the development of the country and the team of artists are those who are responsible not only for beautifying life but also for contributing to building new people, building a fair, democratic, and civilized society. His thoughts not only represent the thinking of the new era, the embodiment of new culture, the exemplary model of the new socialist man, but also act as a light to light the way, supporting each artist to take his steps.

Learning and following Uncle Ho, Lai Chau artists strive to create and contribute to building and developing Lai Chau literature and art.

Imbued with Uncle Ho's thoughts; thoroughly grasping the Party and State's guidelines and the province's leadership and direction on culture, literature and arts, along with diverse artistic activities, Lai Chau's artists have made many important contributions in the 20-year journey of building and developing the province. The Association's work always closely follows the province's political tasks, regularly cares about, trains and fosters young creative forces and focuses on developing members, especially ethnic minority members and young members. Up to now, the whole province has 174 members, including 1 Meritorious Artist, participating in activities at 8 district-level branches and 6 specialized branches including: Photography, Fine Arts, Music, Dance, Literature and Arts of Vietnam's Ethnic Minorities, Folk Arts; The members are dedicated, creative people, the core force, directly developing the literature and art of the province and always constantly learning, creating many works of diverse genres and with unique ideological and artistic values, imbued with the cultural identity of the ethnic groups in the border land of the Fatherland.

Over the past 20 years, competitions organized by all levels and sectors in the field of literature and art have attracted a large number of Lai Chau artists to participate with many quality works, increasingly affirming the position and creativity of the province's artists in the Vietnamese literature and art scene. Many names, many writers, many works have been listed on the Vietnam literature and art forum. Notable examples include: author Do Thi Tac with the works "Kin Pang Then of the White Thai in Lai Chau" won the C Prize of the Vietnam Association of Literature and Arts of Ethnic Minorities (2010); "Words to send the dead soul to heaven" won the A Prize of the Vietnam Folk Literature and Arts Association (2011); the fine art work "Hidden Corner" by painter Nguyen Hung Cuong won the Third Prize at the Fine Arts Exhibition of Region III Northwest - Viet Bac (2016); The photographic work "Making a new shirt" by author Nguyen Van Quang won the Gold Medal at the Northern Mountainous Region Art Photography Festival (2022); the poetic work "The brocade embroiderer" by author Phung Thi Hai Yen won the First Prize at the Contest "Learning the positive values of beliefs and religions in family life and promoting gender equality" organized by the Vietnam Women's Union (2023) and the short story "Deep border" won the A Prize at the Short Story and Journalism Writing Campaign organized by the Ministry of Public Security (2024); author Dang Thuy Tien received the Young Author Award for the short story collection "The Winds Blow Against" presented by the Vietnam Union of Literature and Arts Associations; The work "Embroidery Class" by author Dao Tien Dung won the Encouragement Prize in the "Beauty of Vietnam" photo contest of Nhan Dan Newspaper (2023)... Regarding the Award for composing and promoting literary, artistic and journalistic works on the theme "Studying and following Ho Chi Minh's ideology, morality and style" organized by the Central Propaganda Department, in addition to the provincial awards, Lai Chau had 2 works: the novel "Mountain Eagle" by writer Huynh Nguyen won prize B (2018) and the song "The Mong people miss Uncle Ho" by Meritorious Artist Minh Cu won prize A (2023).

Since the separation and establishment of the province, Lai Chau has maintained and successfully organized 3 periods of "Lai Chau Provincial Literature and Arts Awards" with 104 outstanding and outstanding works in the fields of fine arts, music, literature, photography, etc. participating and many works won awards. The works demonstrate the creative talents of the artists and writers, contributing to nurturing the souls and emotions of cadres, party members, soldiers and people of Lai Chau ethnic groups, exploiting in depth and contributing to raising awareness of preserving the good traditional cultural values of ethnic groups in the province, but also being a sharp tool in the ideological front, fighting against bad and evil in social life. With rich genres and topics, the works have made positive contributions to the task of building a cultural environment, building people, creating a healthy atmosphere in society; very effectively promote and introduce the image of Lai Chau people to friends at home and abroad.

Continue to arouse the desire to contribute and affirm the creative capacity of Lai Chau artists in the new period.

Identify literature and art as a very important and especially delicate field of culture; an essential need, expressing the human aspiration for truth, goodness and beauty; one of the great driving forces directly contributing to building the spiritual foundation of society and the comprehensive development of the Vietnamese people. In the coming time, Party committees and authorities at all levels and sectors need to strongly innovate their thinking and leadership and direction methods, raise awareness and responsibility for literary and artistic work. Cultural and ideological agencies need to continue to promote coordination, direction and orientation for literary and artistic work, focusing on the specificity, sensitivity and delicacy of literature and art, both ensuring development in accordance with the Party's political and ideological orientation and ensuring freedom and democracy in creation; strongly arousing and promoting the desire to contribute and the creative capacity of artists. Cultural agencies, Literature and Arts Associations at all levels, and specialized branches must play a good role in gathering, managing, uniting, promoting proactiveness, social activism and creative talents, orienting ideology, cultivating political qualities, discovering, training, fostering and using staff to meet the requirements of the new period; strengthening management of cultural and artistic activities, especially the appraisal of works before publication and exhibition at home and abroad, promoting valuable literary and artistic works, especially literature and art for children, literature and art of ethnic minorities... to raise awareness, responsibility and prestige of artists in artistic activities. Continue to review and innovate the remuneration policy for artists and cultural workers; promptly honor their talents and contributions to the cultural development of the province.

The province's artists need to continue to immerse themselves in vivid reality, proactively renew their thinking, preserve and promote positive and healthy elements. Continue to create works of ideological value, with content on building the morality, personality and lifestyle of Vietnamese people in the direction that our Party has oriented in the process of building and developing the country. Continuously cultivate and innovate to form new cultural values, both absorbing the quintessence of world culture and imbued with national identity, having the power to spread and positively impact the socio-economic development of the locality. Implement well the Code of Conduct for people working in the field of art...

With the joint efforts of all levels and sectors and the creative efforts of the artists on the path of orientation of the Party, the State and the ideology of the great President Ho Chi Minh, we can completely believe in the strong development of Lai Chau's literature and art in general and the unlimited creativity and dedication of Lai Chau's artists in particular to contribute and build Lai Chau to develop more and more.

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(1). Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2011, vol. 7, p. 246
(2). Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2011, vol.7, p.246
(3). Ho Chi Minh - Complete Works, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 1995, vol. 6, pp. 368 - 369
(4) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2011. vol. 12.
(5) Uncle Ho with artists and writers, New Works Publishing House, Hanoi, 1985, p.348
(6) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, National Political Publishing House Truth, Hanoi, 2011, vol.7, p.246

Source: https://baolaichau.vn/ch%C3%ADnh-tr%E1%BB%8B/kh%C6%A1i-d%E1%BA%ADy-kh%C3%A1t-v%C4%8Dng-c%E1%BB%91ng-hi%E1%BA%BFn-n%C4%83ng-l%E1%BB%B1c-s%C3%A1ng-t%E1%BA%A1o-c%E1%BB%A7a-%C4%91%E1%BB%99i-ng%C5%A9-v%C4%83n-ngh%E1%BB%87-s%C4%A9-lai-ch%C3%A2u-trong-th%E1%BB%9Di-k%E1%BB%B3-m%E1%BB%9Bi