Kartini en De Hollandsche Lelie; emancipatie-idealen in Nederlands-Indië

Samenvatting

One of the foremost precusors of the Indonesian movement for social emancipation was R. A. Kartini, the daughter of an enlightened regent of Japara in Central Java. At the end of the nineteenth century, this young girl corresponded with representatives of the Dutch feminist movement with whom she came in contact through the feminist Dutch magazine De Hollandsche Lelie [The Dutch Lily]. One of the first Javanese girls allowed to attend the Dutch primary school in Java, this highborn girl was kept home from her twelfth year on, in order to be taught the 'ladies' accomplishments' of her set, in view of her inevitable marriage. The life of such Uc Javanese, who opened their doors to western culture while keeping to their ancestral customs is vividly portrayed by Kartini in her Letters written in Dutch, the language of the colonial masters (Door Duisternis to Licht; gedachten over en voor het Javanesche volk [From Darkness to Light; Thoughts about and for the Javanese People] Abendanon, J. H. [Ed], 1911). Eager to learn from her correspondents in Holland about the sufragettes' struggle for emancipation, she was also aware of the fact that her own ideals reached farther: the emancipation of a whole people. Modified HA.