Eduard Douwes Dekker (2 March 1820 – 19 February 1887), better known by his pen name Multatuli, was a Dutch writer famous for his satirical novel, Max Havelaar (1860) in which he denounced the abuses of colonialism in the colony of the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia). Events 986 - Louis V becomes King of the Franks. 1127 - Assassination of Charles the Good Year 1820 ( MDCCCXX) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Events 197 - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus defeats usurper Clodius Albinus in the Battle of Lugdunum Year 1887 ( MDCCCLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a Pseudonym adopted by an Author or their publishers to conceal their identity The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands For the Fairtrade certification initiative see the Max Havelaar Foundation. See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism See http//enwikipediaorg/wiki/WikipediaFootnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the tags and the template below The Republic of Indonesia ( (Republik Indonesia is a Country in Southeast Asia.
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Biography
Dekker was born in Amsterdam. Amsterdam (pronounced) is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands, located in the province of North Holland in the west His father, a ship's captain, intended his son for trade, but this humdrum prospect disgusted him, and in 1838 he went out to Java and obtained a post as a civil servant. Java (Jawa is an Island of Indonesia and the site of its Capital city Jakarta. He moved from one posting to another, until, in 1851, he became assistant-resident at Ambon, in the Moluccas. Ambon Island is part of the Maluku Islands of Indonesia. The Island has an area of 775 km² (300 sq mi The Maluku Islands (also known as the Moluccas, Moluccan Islands, the Spice Islands or simply Maluku) are an Archipelago In 1857 he was transferred to Lebak, in the Bantam residency of Java. Lebak Regency is a regency of Banten province Indonesia. It has an area of 3120 km² and a population of 1132899 (in 2005 By this time, however, all the secrets of Dutch administration were known to him, and he had begun to openly protest about the abuses of the colonial system. Consequently he was threatened with dismissal from his office for his openness of speech. Dekker resigned his appointment and returned to the Netherlands in a state of fierce indignation.
He was determined to expose in detail the scandals he had witnessed, and he began to do so in newspaper articles and pamphlets. Little notice, however, was taken of his protestations until, in 1860, he published his novel Max Havelaar under the pseudonym of Multatuli. For the Fairtrade certification initiative see the Max Havelaar Foundation. Dekker's new pseudonym, which is derived from Latin, means, "I have suffered much", or, more literally "I have borne much" referring to himself, as well as, it is thought, to the victims of the injustices he saw. An attempt was made to ignore this irregular (for the 1860s) book, but in vain; it was read all over Europe. The exposure of the abuse of free labour in the Dutch Indies was thorough, although colonialist apologists accused Dekker's terrible picture of being overdrawn. Multatuli now began his literary career, and published Love Letters (1861), which, in spite of their mild title, were mordant, unsparing satires. Satire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and Performing arts In satire human
Although the literary merit of Multatuli's work was widely criticised, he received an unexpected and most valuable ally in Carel Vosmaer who published a book (The Sower 1874) praising him[1]. Carel Vosmaer ( March 20 1826 - June 12 1888) was a Dutch Poet and art-critic born at The Hague. He continued to write much, and to publish his miscellanies in uniform volumes called Ideas, of which seven appeared between 1862 and 1877 and also contain his novel Woutertje Pieterse.
Dekker left Holland, and went to live in Wiesbaden, where he made several attempts to write for the stage. Wiesbaden, a city in southwest Germany, is the capital of the state of Hesse. One of his pieces, The School for Princes (published in 1875 in the fourth volume of Ideas), expresses his non-conformist views on politics, society and religion. He moved his residence to Nieder Ingelheim, on the Rhine, where he died in 1887. Ingelheim am Rhein is the capital of the Mainz-Bingen district situated on the left bank of the Rhine within the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, The Rhine (Rhein Rijn Rhin Reno Rain Rhenus is one of the longest and most important Rivers in Europe at 1320 kilometres (820 mi with an average discharge
In June 2002, the Dutch Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde (Society for Dutch Literature) proclaimed Multatuli the greatest Dutch writer of all time[2].
Multatuli's brother, Jan Douwes Dekker, is a grandfather of Ernest Douwes Dekker (also known as Danudirja Setiabudi, an Indonesian National hero). Ernest François Eugène Douwes Dekker ( October 8, 1879 in Pasuruan, East Java, – August 28, 1950 in Bandung
References
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911 is a 29-volume reference work that marked the beginning of the Encyclopædia Britannica The public domain is a range of abstract materials &ndash commonly referred to as Intellectual property &ndash which are not owned or controlled by anyone
- ^ Een Zaaier: studiën over Multatuli's werken Carel Vosmaer, Amsterdam : G. L. Funke, 1874
- ^ [1] accessed on November 30, 2005
Further reading
- Max Havelaar ISBN 0-14-044516-1
External links
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