The Golden Book of Bangkok [antikvár]

The Wat Phra Keo seen from the outer courtyard with the golden chedi in the foreground. THE HISTORY OF THE CITY Bangkok, the last capital of the Kingdom of Thailand, has a very recent history; it was in fact founded on the 20th April 1782. But in order to reach this dale, one has to start much further back, at least one thousand years beforehand. In fact, in 751, the Chinese empire was defeated by the state of Nan-Chao, situated in a region poetically called Yunnan, meaning "south of the clouds": the inhabitants of this were of Thai origin and even though they were similar to the Chinese, their languages and physical charactristics differed. Their culture developed as from the first thousand year A.D.; during the Xlth century, the Khmer epigraph quoted the Syam people for the first time. "Syam" means prisoners of war giving rise to the term Siam which was the traditional name for Thailand until recently. The first capital of the country was Sukhothai, replaced by Ayutthaya which was devastated and destroyed by the Burmese fury in !767. Two valiant generals then arrived: the first, Phya Taksin, reconquered the kingdom and had himself crowned king in Thonburi Taksin then went mad and was assassinated; his place was taken by the other general, Chao Phya Chakri, who had conquered the Cambodians. He considered it an ill omen to remain in Thonburi; therefore he moved the capital to the other bank of the river to a village inhabited by numerous Chinese merchants known as "village of the olives" or Ban Kok in the Thai language. 1782 was the foundation date of the new capital but also of the new dynasty of the Chakri which still reigns today. The first sovereign took the title of Rama I. Nine sovereigns in turn came to the Thai throne. The most significant for the country's history are Rama IV and Rama V, known by their first names of Mongkut and Chulalongkorn. Mongkut was also helped by literature and by cinematographic events in Hollywood; in fact he was the leading character in the memories of his children's English governess, Anne Leonowens, which were then filmed in "The King and /". but, apart from these fortunes, Rama IV was the first Thai sovereign to establish the first, vague contacts with Western culture and technology. After the Second World War, Bangkok was ever increasingly westernized, favoured in this aspect also by the American presence. In the vicinity of Vietnam, it encour-