Indonesia: Multatuli returns to Lebak

In Rangkasbitung (Lebak, in western Java) a new Multatuli Museum will open by the end of 2016. The National Archives of the Netherlands supports this initiative and is providing scans of archival material and information on Eduard Douwes Dekker and Lebak.

Last May, the team of the Shared Cultural Heritage Programme of the National Archives of the Netherlands welcomed Ms. Iti Octavia Jayabaya, the regent of Lebak. The aim of her visit was to find documents about Multatuli (the pseudonym of Dutch writer Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-1887) and the history of Lebak. She and her delegation were given a number of scans, including reproductions of Multatuli’s letters to the Dutch King William III, old maps of Lebak and a print of the ‘Register of Colonial Service’ of Eduard Douwes Dekker. These reproductions will be on display in the new museum. Ms. Jayabaya expressed her hope that the new Multatuli Museum will become a centre of knowledge that will attract visitors from home and abroad.

Take a look at Dekker’s registration: Eduard Douwes Dekker in the “Stamboek Oost-Indische ambtenaren”.