Publication
Nagara Vatta
Nagara Vatta (also written Nagaravatta) was a weekly Khmer-language newspaper launched in Phnom Penh in December 1936.[1] Its title means Angkor Wat (អង្គរវត្ត).[2] It was the first paper in Khmer to take up politics and sensitive subjects,[1] and two sources call it the first Khmer-language newspaper in Cambodia.[2][3]
Founding
The first issue is dated December 19, 1936, in some lists and December 26 in others.[1] Accounts of its founding differ too. By one, Son Ngoc Thanh, who was at the time deputy director of the Buddhist Institute (វិទ្យាស្ថានពុទ្ធសាសនបណ្ឌិត្យ), founded it in 1936 with Pach Chhoeun.[3] By another, Pach Chhoeun was its publisher, and the Buddhist monk Hem Cheav also helped to set it up.[1] Cambodian intellectuals and nationalists did most of its creating and writing, Pach Chhoeun, Sim Var and Son Ngoc Thanh among them.[1] The historian Sorn Samnang writes that Pach Chhoeun believed in democracy for Cambodia.[1]
Content and readers
The paper printed mainly opinion pieces, and its writers saw themselves as opinionists, not journalists.[1] Writers of the period usually used pen names; Bishop Kang and Bishop Koy are two examples.[1] Government officials read it, while ordinary Cambodians usually heard it read aloud by Buddhist monks at pagodas.[1] One surviving front page is dated Saturday, February 6, 1937.[3]
Stance
Nagara Vatta is generally seen as having opposed French control of the country; research by Heng Oudom finds its position more flexible and open than that.[1] At first it pressed Cambodians to work and trade harder, so that Chinese and Vietnamese businessmen would not look down on them.[1] It took a clearly nationalist line, pressing Khmers to build their own businesses and end the hold of foreign traders on commerce.[3] Early in the war, with Japanese backing, the paper could push for political change by criticizing the French openly.[1]
Place in the Khmer press
Two Khmer-language periodicals came before it, the magazine Kampu Sorya (the Sun of Cambodia) in 1926 and Srok Khmer, and neither covered politics as Nagara Vatta did.[1] A 1993 article on Cambodia's archives says that no newspaper or journal was published in Khmer until after 1927, and a passage it quotes names Kambuja Surya (Cambodian Sun) as the only earlier Khmer-language periodical.[2] The newspaper Kampuchea followed in 1946, ten years after Nagara Vatta.[1]
References 3
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Ky Soklim, What Was the Editorial Line of the First Major Khmer Newspaper in 1936?, Cambodianess (May 3, 2024)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Peter Arfanis and Helen Jarvis, Archives in Cambodia: Neglected Institutions, Archives and Manuscripts (1993)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Cambodge Mag, Son Ngoc Thanh, the Nationalist Who Ran Cambodia Twice and Never Quite Convinced Anyone (undated)
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