Letters of a Javanese Princess Part 1

Letters of a Javanese Princess.

by Raden Adjeng Kartini.

NOTE

_The letters of Raden Adjeng Kartini were first published at the Hague in 1911 under the t.i.tle, "Door Duisternis tot Licht," (from Darkness into Light). They were collected and edited by Dr. J.H. Abendanon, former Minister of Education and Industry for Netherland-India. Many of the letters were written to him and to his wife "Moedertje." Dr.

Abendanon has given me permission to publish this English version, which is a selection comprising about two-thirds of the original book.

I also wish to acknowledge my debt to Dr. Leonard Van Noppen, who, when Queen Wilhelmina Professor of Dutch Literature at Columbia University, first called my attention to the book and told me something of Kartini's story_.

_A.L.S._

_FOREWORD_

_When the letters of Raden Adjeng Kartini were published in Holland, they aroused much interest and awakened a warm sympathy for the writer.

She was the young daughter of a Javanese Regent, one of the "princesses"

who grow up and blossom in sombre obscurity and seclusion, leading their monotonous and often melancholy lives within the confines of the Kaboepaten, as the high walled Regent's palaces are called._

_The thought of India, or as we now say, perhaps more happily, Java, had a strange fascination for me even as a child. I was charmed by the weird mystery of its stories, which frightened even while they charmed me.

Although I was born in Holland, our family traditions had been rooted in Java. My father began his official career there as a Judge, and my mother was the daughter of a Governor General, while my older brothers had followed their father's example and were officials under the Colonial Government._

_At nine years of age I was taken to the inscrutable and far off land round which my early fancy had played; and I pa.s.sed five of my school years in Batavia. At the end of those five years, I felt the same charm and the same mystery. The thought of Java became almost an obsession. I felt that while we Netherlanders might rule and exploit the country, we should never be able to penetrate its mystery. It seemed to me that it would always be covered by a thick veil, which guarded its Eastern soul from the strange eyes of the Western conqueror. There was a quiet strength, "Een Stille Kracht"[1] unperceived by our cold, business-like gaze. It was something intangible, and almost hostile, with a silent, secret hostility that lurked in the atmosphere, in nature and above all, in the soul of the natives. It menaced from the slumbering volcanoes, and lay hidden in the mysterious shadows of the rustling bamboos. It was in the bright, silver moonlight when the drooping palm trees trembled in the wind until they seemed to play a symphony so gentle and so complaining that it moved me to my soul. I do not know whether this was poetic imagination ever p.r.o.ne to be supersensitive, or in reality the "Quiet Strength," hidden in the heart of the East and eternally at war with the spirit of the West. It is certainly true that the Javanese has never been an open book to the Netherlander. The difference of race forms an abyss so deep that though they may stand face to face and look into each other's eyes, it is as though they saw nothing._

_The Javanese woman of n.o.ble birth is even more impenetrable. The life of a Raden Adjeng or a Raden Ajoe, is a thing apart. Even the Dutch officials and rulers of the country know nothing of the lives of these secluded "princesses," as we like to call the wives and daughters of the Regents, though they themselves lay no claim to a t.i.tle which in Europe ranks so high._

_Suddenly a voice was heard from the depths of this unknown land. It rose from behind the high protecting wall that had done its work of subjection and concealment through the ages. It was gentle, like the melodious song of a little bird in a cage--in a costly cage it is true, and surrounded by the tenderest care, but still in a cage that was also a prison. It was the voice of Raden Adjeng Kartini, which sounded above the walls of the close-barred Kaboepaten. It was like the cry of a little bird that wanted to spread its wings free in the air, and fly towards life. And the sound grew fuller and clearer, till it became the rich voice of a woman._

_She was shut in by aristocratic traditions and living virtually imprisoned as became a young "princess" of Java; but she sang of her longing for life and work and her voice rose clearer and stronger. It penetrated to the distant Netherlands, and was heard there with wonder and with delight. She was singing a new song, the first complaint that had ever gone forth from the mysterious hidden life of the Javanese woman. With all the energy of her body and soul she wanted to be free, to work and to live and to love._

_Then the complaint became a song of rejoicing. For she not only longed to lead the new life of the modern woman, but she had the strength to accomplish it, and more than that, to win the sympathy of her family and of her friends for her ideals. This little "princess" lifted the concealing veil from her daily life and not only her life, her thoughts were revealed. An Oriental woman had dared to fight for feminism, even against her tenderly loved parents. For although her father and mother were enlightened for n.o.ble Javanese, they had at first strongly opposed her ideas as unheard of innovations._

_She wanted to study and later to become a teacher--to open a school for the daughters of Regents, and to bring the new spirit into their lives.

She battled bravely, she would not give up; in the end, she won._

_Raden Adjeng Kartini freed herself from the narrow oppression of tradition, and the simple language of these letters chants a paean "From Darkness into Light."[2] The mist of obscurity is cleared away from her land and her people. The Javanese soul is shown as simple, gentle, and less hostile than we Westerners had ever dared to hope. For the soul of this girl was one with the soul of her people, and it is through her that a new confidence has grown up between the West and the East, between the Netherlands and Java. The mysterious "Quiet Strength" is brought into the light, it is tender, human and full of love, and Holland may well be grateful to the hand that revealed it._

_This n.o.ble and pure soul was not destined to remain long upon earth.

Had she lived, who knows what Raden Adjeng Kartini might not have accomplished for the well being of her country and her people; above all, for the Javanese woman and the Javanese child. She was the first Regent's daughter to break the fixed tradition in regard to marriage; it was customary to give the bride to a strange bridegroom, whom she had never seen, perhaps never even heard of, until her wedding day. Kartini chose her own husband, a man whom she loved, but her happy life with him was cut short by her early death._

_It is sometimes granted to those whom the G.o.ds love to bring their work to fruition in all the splendour of youth, in the springtime or the summer of their lives. To have worked and to have completed a great task, when one is young, so that the world is left richer for all time--is not that the most beautiful of all the gifts of the G.o.ds?_

LOUIS COUPERUS.

[1] See Couperus' novel "Een Stille Kracht."

[2] "Door Duisternis tot Licht"--t.i.tle under which Kartini's Letters were first published in Holland.

INTRODUCTION

These letters which breathe the modern spirit, in all of its restless intensity, were written by a girl of the Orient, reared in an ancient and outworn civilization. They unfold the story of the writer with unconscious simplicity and present a vivid picture of Javanese life and manners.

But perhaps their chief interest lies in their value as a human doc.u.ment.

In them the old truth of the oneness of humanity is once more made manifest and we see that the magnificent altruism, the spirit of inquiry, and the almost morbid desire for self-searching and a.n.a.lysis that characterize the opening years of the Twentieth Century were not peculiar to Europe or to America, but were universal and belonged to the world, to the East as well as to the West.

Kartini, that was her only name--Raden Adjeng is a t.i.tle--wrote to her Dutch friends in the language of the Netherlands. In her home circle she spoke always Javanese, and she was Javanese in her intense love for her land and people, as well as in dress and manners.

She did not live to see the work that has been accomplished in her name during the last ten years. Today there are "Kartini Schools" in all parts of Java. The influence of her life and teachings is perhaps greater than that of any other woman of modern times because it reaches all of the thirty-eight millions of Javanese and extends to some extent throughout the entire East.

She did not desire to make of her people pseudo-Europeans but better Javanese. Not the material freedom for which during the three hundred years of Dutch rule the Javanese of the past had sometimes waged a b.l.o.o.d.y warfare, but the greater freedom of the mind and of the spirit.

The Dutch rule had become enlightened. In local affairs the Javanese had self-government under their own officials. But they were bowed down by superst.i.tion and under the sway of tradition. The "adat," or law which cannot be changed, was fostered by religion. They were imbued with all the fatalism of the Mohammedan, the future belonged to "Tekdir" or Fate and it was vain to rebel against its decrees. But Kartini rebelled against "Tekdir." She refused to believe in the righteousness of the ancient law that a girl must marry, or breaking that law, bring everlasting disgrace upon her family.

She realized that the freedom of woman could only come through economic independence. And personally she said that she had rather be a kitchen maid, than be forced to marry a strange and unknown man. For in well-bred Javanese circles girls were brought up according to the most rigid Mohammedan canons and closely guarded from the eyes of men.

Dr. Abendanon, the compiler of Kartini's letters, says that although he had lived for twenty-five years in Java, she and her sisters were the first young girls of n.o.ble birth that he had ever seen.

Kartini wanted to go to Holland to study, to return home when she had gained a broader knowledge and experience, equipped for teaching the daughters of her own people. She wished to help them through education, to break with the stultifying traditions of the past. Although always a Mohammedan, marriage with more than one wife was abhorrent to her. True progress seemed impossible in a polygamous society for men or for women.

Furthermore polygamy was not commanded or even approved of by Mohammed himself; it had been merely permitted.

After years of conflict between her affection for her family and the principles in which she believed, Kartini won the entire confidence both of her father and of her mother. Her mother was an exponent of the best ideals of Oriental womanhood, excelling in care of the home and filled with love and sympathy for her husband and children.

Kartini was an innovator who sought to break new paths for her people, but in reaching out for the new and untried she gained rather than lost in respect for the old fashioned virtues of her kind. Her interests were human, and not merely feministic--which cannot always be said of our own feminism.

Kartini's biography is brief, and her life almost uneventful so far as outward happenings go.

She was born on the 21st of April, 1879, the daughter of Raden Mas Adipati Sosroningrat, Regent of j.a.para. His father, the Regent of Demak, Pangeran Ario Tjondronegoro, was an enlightened man who had given European educations to all of his sons and who is described by his grand-daughter Kartini as--"the first regent of middle Java to unlatch his door to that guest from over the sea--Western civilization."

The Regent of j.a.para went still further as became the next generation.

He sent his daughters to the free grammar school for Europeans at Semarang so that they might learn Dutch.

Kartini's best friend at school was a little Hollander, Letsy, the daughter of the head master. A question of Letsy's, "What are you going to be when you grow up?" both puzzled and interested her. When she went home after school was over, she repeated the question anxiously, "What am I going to be when I grow up?" Her father, who loved her very dearly, did not answer but smiled and pinched her cheek. An older brother overheard her and said, "What should a girl become, why a Raden Ajoe of course." Raden Ajoe is the t.i.tle of a Javanese married woman of high rank, while the unmarried daughter of a regent is Raden Adjeng.

In Kartini a spirit of rebellion was awakened which grew with the years.

Even as a child she vowed that she would not become merely a Raden Ajoe, she would be strong, combat all prejudice and shape her own destiny. But she was soon to feel the weight of convention pressing upon her with inexorable force. When she reached the age of twelve and a half she was considered by her parents old enough to leave school and remain at home in seclusion according to the established usage. Some day there would have to be a wedding and a Javanese bridegroom was chosen by the girl's parents and often never seen by his bride until after the ceremony, as her presence was not required at that solemnity.

Kartini implored her father, on her knees, to be allowed to go on with her studies. But he felt bound by the hitherto unbroken conventions of his race and she went into the "box" as it was called, pa.s.sing four long years without ever once going beyond the boundaries of the Kaboepaten.