I am most grateful to Merle Ricklefs for helping me with the difficult translation of the letters into English. All flaws are of course my responsibility. Moreover, I thank Leiden University Libraries for granting me permission to publish these letters.
- 1 Vrolijk and van Leeuwen, Arabic Studies in the Netherlands, pp. 103-113.
1M. J. de Goeje (1836-1909) was Professor of Arabic at Leiden University from 1869 until 1906 and, in his capacity of Interpres Legati Warneriani or curator of the manuscripts of Leiden University Library, was also responsible for the Oriental collections at Leiden University. He is mainly known as a philologist and editor of Arabic texts.1 De Goeje had an extensive international network of colleagues, former pupils and others, and with many of them he was in touch through correspondence. This network was not confined to specialists in Arabic philology, but also included persons who have played a role in the administration and study of the Netherlands East Indies. Among those persons were his most famous pupil C. Snouck Hurgronje, and others, like P.J. Veth, L.W.C. van den Berg, Ph. S. van Ronkel, G.P. Rouffaer, J. Brandes, and N. Adriani.
- 2 Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904) is regarded as the first Indonesian feminist and as such enjoys an (...)
- 3 The rest of his very interesting biography falls outside the scope of this paper. Kartono died in 1 (...)
2In the Leiden University Libraries many letters addressed to de Goeje from a wide variety of persons have been preserved, including those just mentioned (BPL 2389). Among these letters, I came across two, coming from the Javanese aristocratic family of Kartini2; one from Sosro Kartono, the older brother of Kartini and one from Roekmini, one of the sisters of Kartini. These two unknown letters which shed some more light on Kartono’s study days in Leiden, form the focus of this brief article.3
- 4 Ngasira was not the Raden Ayu, the principal wife, but a concubine (selir) of less noble birth. See (...)
3Raden Mas Panji Sosro Kartono was born in Majong 1877 as the third son of the later Regent of Jepara, Raden Mas Adipati Ario Sosroningrat, who held the position of wedono in Majong at the time. All in all, Sosroningrat was married in a polygamous marriage with two wives and would father eleven children, among whom Kartini, who was born two years after Kartono from the same mother Ibu Ngasira.4
- 5 Poeze, “Indonesians at Leiden University,” p. 252, mentions a Moluccan student, who should be regar (...)
4After the European Elementary School (E.L.S., Europese Lagere School) in Jepara, Kartono continued his secondary education at the Higher Civil School (H.B.S., Hogere Burger School) in Semarang, where he graduated in 1897, which was an exceptional achievement for a Javanese at that time. He was a talented pupil and, in line with his progressive ideas on education, his father Sosroningrat decided to send his son for his tertiary education to the Netherlands. At the time, this was an extraordinary decision, because Kartono would become the first Javanese university student in the Netherlands.5
- 6 Purbopranoto, “Nagedachtenis,” pp. 287-291; Poeze, In het land van de overheerser, pp 29‑32.
5In the Netherlands he initially enrolled in the Polytechnical School in Delft, but the courses at this institute did not appeal to Kartono and before long he contacted the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Leiden to study “Languages and Literatures of the East Indian Archipelago”. In order to be admitted to the Faculty he had to pass the compulsory preparatory exam, the so-called Staatsexamen, which included Latin and Greek. In this initial preparatory phase of his university study Kartono was active in intellectual life and thanks to the well-known professor of Sanskrit H. Kern he became a member of the Royal Institute (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde). In this period he also assisted Rouffaer and H.H. Juynboll with the research for their much later published book about batik art in the Netherlands East Indies. In September 1899 he received a prestigious invitation to give a lecture on the state of the Dutch language in the Netherlands East Indies at a congress on the Dutch language in the Belgian city of Gent, and thus became the first Indonesian to speak in Dutch in Europe in a public event.6 However, study results were not forthcoming.
- 7 Jacquet, Brieven, pp. 32- 36; 216-218.
- 8 Idem, p. 78.
- 9 Idem, pp. 139; 285; 287; 293; 302.
- 10 Poeze, “Indonesians at Leiden University,” 253.
6This lack of study results was a great burden on the family in Jepara; Sosroningrat had difficulty to fund the study of his son and was also under much pressure for his liberal ideas on the education of his children. Judging from the letters of Kartini to the wife of the “Ethical” colonial official J.H. Abendanon, this led to a real crisis in the family.7 Eventually, in August 1901 Kartono passed his Staatsexamen8 and from this time onwards he seems to have focused more on his study and the family occasionally received encouraging letters on the progress of Kartono from persons from the Netherlands, like his teacher Professor Kern.9 Finally, in June 1903, Kartono did his BA (kandidaats) exam.10
7The first letter to deal with in this paper stems from the period in which Kartono was a student in East Indian languages at Leiden University, preparing for his MA (doctorandus) degree. In this period Kartono’s family in the Netherlands East Indies suffered a severe blow, namely the untimely and unexpected death of Kartini on 17 September 1904.
- 11 Jacquet, Brieven, p. 302.
- 12 The letter is kept in Leiden University Libraries, Special Collections, BPL 2389, sub Kartono.
8As part of the curriculum in East Indian languages, Kartono also had to follow the courses in Arabic given by M.J. de Goeje, who counted him as one of his best pupils.11 Shortly after the death of his beloved sister, on 3 October 1904 Kartono wrote his professor a short message. The original letter is written in impeccable Dutch, which is transcribed in the Appendix.12 This letter reads in my English translation as follows:
Highly Learned Sir,
- 13 Baarn is a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands, some 65 kilometres from Leiden. Perhaps Kar (...)
To my regret, I have been forced to stay a few days longer in Baarn.13 I hope that you are willing to forgive my absence. I have constant fear of Father who has lost so much in my sister. He is not so strong any longer. May God give him the strength to bear this sorrow.
With the highest respect, I call myself
Very Learned Sir,
Your obliging servant and pupil
Sosro Kartono
Baarn,
3 October 1904
9The letter is not more than a hasty scribble, but shows the good relationship between de Goeje and his student, as well the state of shock in which Kartono and his family were after the death of Kartini.
10The second letter to de Goeje was written by a sister of Kartono, called Roekmini (1880-1951). This letter was written on 5 April 1905, a few months after yet another disaster had fallen on the family, namely the death of Sosroningrat, Roekmini’s and Kartono’s father on 16 January 1905.
- 14 Coté, Realizing the Dream, pp. 50-56.
11Roekmini was a daughter of Sosroningrat and Raden Ayu Muryam, the other of his two wives; she was not the mother of Kartono and Kartini, and Roekmini was therefore actually a half-sister of Kartini and Kartono. Roekmini is less famous than her sister Kartini, but she is likewise a person who greatly contributed to the improvement of the position of Indonesian women and the promotion of social justice.14
- 15 Idem, pp. 156-183.
- 16 Idem, p. 108.
12Like her illustrious sister, Roekmini was a keen letter writer and many letters from her have been preserved. From these letters it appears that, like Kartini, she was much concerned about her brother Kartono in the Netherlands.15 In a letter from 16 February 1905 to Mr. and Mrs. Abendanon, it appears that she was deeply worried that Kartono was not able to cope with the death of his father, and that she felt great pity for him that he could not attend the funeral.16
- 17 The letter is not catalogued, but is kept together with Kartono’s letter to de Goeje in Leiden Univ (...)
13Roekmini’s letter was also written in Dutch in a flowery style and is presented in the Appendix.17 In translation it reads as follows:
Japara 5 April 1905
To the Highly Learned Sir
Professor M.J. de Goeje
Leiden
Highly Learned Sir!
It is but an inner necessity that emboldens me, a sister of Kartono, to present this writing to you, to inform You of our deeply felt gratitude for what You are to him in particular in his days of most bitter sorrow and struggle.
Kartono wrote to us of the great and fatherly friendship and sympathy he receives from You, who have given him such indescribably splendid support to wish living worthily henceforth. Words nearly failed him in explaining all of this to us truthfully.
O, how deeply, deeply do we not feel, especially our mother, how You care for him. What sorrow have we not had for him in his bitter, bitter experiences, where, with all our love for him, we felt powerless to give him the necessary solace. How we have been consumed by the secret fear that fate’s blows would break him irretrievably. But now he is before us, indeed with great anger in his heart, but on the other hand with such proud courage for life, in which he impressed upon us no longer to be concerned about him.
O, could we ever be grateful enough to You and Your esteemed friends, his noble protectors, for all the good that you do not only for him, but also for all of us here?
O, how could it not often become a deep desire to actually express our gratitude to You, to be able to press Your hands?
Our deeply beloved Father departed with the greatest inner peace. His deathbed was so strangely calm, as if His heart could have held no sorrow, even as he must leave behind all his family. Could perhaps a premonition have contributed to that, that even for him who would miss Him most bitterly, there would be no lack of “blessing”, as it now appears? God bless You for having held Your hand in so fatherly a way over the head of our poor, poor Kartono.
This is our prayer that ascends to the Highest whenever we think of him.
May we entrust him further in the favour of Your esteemed Fatherly friendship and sympathy.
After offering our polite respects, I call myself
Respectfully Your grateful servant
Roekmini
14Like the previous letter, this one underscores the excellent relationship which existed between de Goeje and his student Kartono, as well as the state of shock in which the entire family was after the death of Kartini, and slightly later the head of the family Sosroningrat.
15The two letters presented here capture a short period of time in the student days of Raden Mas Panji Sosro Kartono, when he was working towards his MA degree in East Indian languages at Leiden University. After a rather slow start with his studies, amongst other things caused by the obligatory preparatory university exam he had to take, Kartono’s studies finally ran smoothly. However, in this period he lost both his sister Kartini and his father Sosroningrat at the other side of the globe, and the two letters presented here underline that the loss of two beloved members of his family would not have been very conducive in concentrating on his studies.
- 18 Coté, Realizing the Dream, pp. 144-145.
- 19 Idem, pp. 224-5.
16After the death of his sister and father, Kartono continued his study at Leiden University, but notwithstanding the “fatherly” care of de Goeje and others, in addition to coping with the loss of his beloved, he encountered many problems. The precise nature of those is not clear, and it took him until 8 March 1908 to obtain the MA degree. In a letter from 28 March of that year to Mr. and Mrs. Abendanon, Roekmini expressed her gratitude for helping her brother with the obtaining of this degree.18 In another letter, dated 10 May 1909, another member of the family, the younger sister of Roekmini, Kartinah (1883-1963?) repeated this gratitude to Mr. Abendanon, and mentioned that after all Kartono’s misery his graduation had brought much joy to the family. However, this joy had sad undertones, as Kartinah continued: “Father and our dear sister Kartini should have been alive to witness this - how overjoyed they too would have been”.19
- 20 Idem, p. 232.
- 21 Purbopranoto, “Nagedachtenis”, p. 291.
- 22 Poeze, In het land van de overheerser, p. 127. The first Indonesian ever to get a PhD degree from L (...)
- 23 Poeze, “Indonesians at Leiden University”, p. 253.
17In a later letter to Mrs. Abendanon in 1911, Kartinah optimistically made inquiries about the incumbent submission of Kartono’s PhD dissertation.20 This PhD thesis would deal with Middle Javanese21, but Kartono was not able to meet the high expectations and his thesis never saw the light.22 The reasons for this are not clear yet and should be the object of further research.23 In this research the position of C. Snouck Hurgronje should certainly be taken into account, because after his return from the Netherlands East Indies in 1906 he succeeded de Goeje as Professor of Arabic at Leiden University and in this capacity will surely have been involved in the education of Kartono.