Feba Sukmana & Lara Nuberg
2023

The Javanese regent’s daughter Kartini corresponded with various Dutch pen pals in the early twentieth century about the injustices suffered by Javanese women. She advocated against polygamous marriage and arranged marriages, and also aimed for education for Javanese women from the noble class.

After her sudden death, a selection of this correspondence was published in the collection Door duisternis tot licht (1911), compiled by J.A. Abendanon, head of the Dutch Department of Education. The publication led to the establishment of Kartini schools as part of Dutch Ethical politics. As of 2023, the letter collection is increasingly difficult to obtain, making Kartini’s ideas less accessible to a wide audience.

With the new publication of Kartini’s letters, Lara Nuberg and Feba Sukmana reevaluate Kartini’s letters through a postcolonial lens. Did Kartini solely focus on the unequal treatment of Javanese women, viewing the Netherlands as a shining example of women’s rights? Or was she more critical, holding a mirror to the Netherlands as a colonial ruler? To answer these questions, Sukmana and Nuberg will retrieve all of Kartini’s letters from the archives, inventory and compare them with the collection Door duisternis tot licht. They will then make a new selection and write two introductory essays. This new publication is scheduled to be published in March 2025 by De Geus Publishing.

Feba Sukmana is a journalist, writer and moderator. She was born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia. She completed her master’s degree in Dutch Studies at Leiden University in 2008, specialising in Dutch-Indies literature and postcolonial literary studies. Feba’s work is at the intersection of language, journalism, gender and literature. She currently works as an editor at Erasmus Magazine, the journalistic platform of Erasmus University.

Lara Nuberg studied history at the University of Amsterdam and has since worked as a writer, speaker, organizer, and moderator. She publishes on colonial history, identity, and memory culture. Additionally, she is a teacher and coordinator for the educational program Koloniale Sporen in mijn buurt and co-hosts De Indische Boekenpodcast with Ricci Scheldwacht.