Multatuli

(pseudonym of Edward Douwes Dekker; the pseudonym was taken from the Latin multa tuli, “I have endured much”). Born Mar. 2, 1820, in Amsterdam; died Feb. 19, 1887, in Nieder-Ingelheim, now Ingelheim, Federal Republic of Germany. Dutch writer.

The son of a barge skipper, Multatuli studied commerce. In 1838 he went to the Netherlands East Indies, where he served in the colonial government. In 1856 he became assistent-resident (assistant commissioner) of Lebak, Java, in which capacity he sought to alleviate the oppression of the Indonesians. Encountering the resistance of colonial officials and local feudal lords, he was compelled to resign.

For many years, Multatuli lived in poverty, wandering through cities of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. He began his literary career in the 1840’s. Multatuli gained recognition for his autobiographical novel Max Havelaar (1859, published 1860; Russian translation, 1959), in which he denounced colonialism and spoke out in defense of the oppressed. Autobiographical in content and imbued with public-spirited fervor, the novel resembles a political satire.

In his autobiographical epistolary novel Love Letters (1861; Russian translation, 1911) and the publicistic pamphlet “On Free Labor in the Netherlands East Indies” (1862), Multatuli criticized capitalist society as a whole. He condemned bourgeois morality, government, and religion in A Conversation With Japanese (1862), in Discussions (1869, published 1870) and, especially, in his monumental work Ideas (vols. 1–7, 1862–77). Ideas most fully reveals Multatuli’s views on literature and art, which he considered all-important in the moral education of a people. Multatuli’s drama School of Princes (1872) was written in the spirit of Enlightenment ideals. Multatuli’s world view was influenced by the enlighteners and Utopian socialism; however, the impossibility of realizing democratic ideals in the 19th-century Netherlands led to contradictions in his sociopolitical views.

Multatuli’s prose is characterized by aphorism, a fragmentary style (unified, however, by a single idea), and unadorned, direct language. His critical realism influenced H. Heijermans and H. Gorter. Multatuli’s works played a significant role in the exposure of the colonial system; they influenced European public opinion and helped form the world view of the first Indonesian enlighteners and leaders of the national movement.