Chulalongkorn, King (Rama V)
(1853–1910), Siamese monarch. King Chulalongkorn, also known as Rama V, was the fifth king of the Chakri dynasty and ruled from 1868 until his death in 1910. He succeeded his father, King Mongkut, who had begun to modernize Siam in an attempt to stave off European colonial aggression. Educated in part by Anna Leonowens (featured with King Mongkut in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I ), Chulalongkorn was the first Siamese monarch to study abroad and, like his father, he surrounded himself with European advisers. An advocate of Western education, science, and technology, he sent all of his sons abroad to study. At home, Chulalongkorn implemented a Western-style educational system and founded the country's first university (later named Chulalongkorn University) in order to train a modern governmental bureaucracy.
Chulalongkorn implemented sweeping political and economic reforms that radically transformed Siamese society. In 1874 he abolished slavery. Beginning in 1885, he began reforming the government, establishing ministries structured on functional lines. He stripped power from the old nobility, provincial elites, and hereditary court officials. He established a professional military armed with modern weaponry. Chulalongkorn reformed the tax system and established the country's first modern bank, the Siam Commercial Bank. Despite his reforms and attempts to modernize Siam, he resisted establishing a Europeanstyle constitutional monarchy, arguing that the people were not ready for it. Chulalongkorn was known for adroit diplomacy that preserved Siam's independence, though he had to accommodate most European demands.
Chulalongkorn died at the age of fifty-seven, having reigned for forty-two years, a period of dramatic change that saw Siam emerge as a modern state. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Vajiravudh (Rama VI), one of his seventy-six children from ninety-two wives.
Zachary Abuza
Further Reading
Chomchai, Prachoom. (1965) Chulalongkorn the Great. Tokyo: The Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies.
Wyatt, David K. (1969) Politics and Reform in Thailand: Education in the Reign of King Chulalongkorn. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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