Postage, anonymous letters and political power in early 19th-century Vietnam

Abstract

This is a story about postage, anonymous letters and how the administrative system operated in early 19th-century Vietnam. The legitimacy of administrative documents is one of the bases for the practice of state power. It is an entity that, as Max Weber defines it, “a human community that (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence within a given territory” (Weber 1991: 78). One of the core aspects of practising this legitimacy is the operation of the system of administrative documents. The inviolability of the system is a sign of state power, and this paper demonstrates how the Vietnamese state deals with communication-related violations, namely confidential and anonymous letters to protect its integrity, its authority, and its institutions. By examining the case of anonymous letters in Thanh Hoa (1833-1834), this research helps better understand the large, diverse, and complex picture of the operation of the Nguyen Dynasty's administration. This is an effort to promote the microhistory approach during a period of great organizational changes in the administration and political culture of Vietnam. Analyzing a case of communication violation helps increase our knowledge of how politics worked in Hue, of which very little specific understanding is available. This study provides some unique perspectives as it involves the interaction between different administrative agencies, which is hardly mentioned in other dynastic documents.