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• Niet alleen om de rubber: Over Baťa, Tsjechen en Slowaken in Nederlands-Indië en het beeld van Nederlands-Indië in Tsjechoslowakije

  173-206

  Sylva Sklenářová

  Wilken Engelbrecht

  Views:

  42

  Czechoslovakia was a new state that emerged in 1918. It combined the former Kingdom of the Bohemian Crown and former Felvidék – Upper-Hungary. In the period between the two World Wars, and especially after 1930 when the Czechoslovak shoe concern Baťa started its presence in Dutch East-Indies, a couple of novels by Dutch writers has been translated into Czech. Most of them were written by Madelon Székely-Lulofs and Johan Fabricius, the latter even visited Czechoslovakia in 1934. These novels and practical travel stories mainly by Czech entrepreneurs formed the picture of Dutch EastIndies in the mind of Czechoslovak people. Because of a lack of Dutch technic graduates, Dutch authorities recruited engineers from elsewhere, especially from Central Europe. Thus, between the beginning of the 20th century and the end of Dutch East-Indies (1949) some 80 to 100 Czechoslovaks were living in the colony in 1949. Most of them didn’t receive Dutch nationality. In 1939, they were considered to be citizens of the so-called Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia. When the Japanese occupied the colony in 1941, the Protectorate government tried to repatriate its citizens and asked Japanese authorities to spare Czechs. The Japanese treated them then as “non-belligerent enemies”. Most Czechs didn’t accept the offer to stay outside the concentration camps and either entered the camps as did their Dutch colleagues, or even participated in the very little and weak resistance against the Japanese. A very special Czech presence was the factory PT Sepatu Bata built by the Czechoslovak concern Baťa in 1939 that was interested in Indonesian rubber and saw also possibilities to enter the East-Indian market.

• Economisch belang en persoonlijk voorkeur: De rol van het vertalersechtpaar Székely-Lulofs in het cultureel transfer

  75-94

  Gábor Pusztai

  Views:

  82

  The Dutch writer Madelon Székely-Lulofs and her husband László Székely played a very
  important role in the cultural transfer between the Netherlands and Hungary in the thirties
  of the 20th century. They have translated several works of Dutch and Hungarian writers
  and wrote novels about the Dutch-East Indies. They chose writers who were successful
  and well-known for their translations. Commercial success and personal interests also
  played a role in their choice of works to translate. As a results the works of Lajos Kassák,
  Sándor Márai, Ferenc Molnár, Lajos Zilahy, Jolán Földes, Mihály Földi, Zsolt Harsányi,
  Ferenc Körmendi and Gábor Vaszary were translated in Dutch. Books of Piet Bakker, Jan
  de Hartog, Ary den Hertog, Klaas Nore and Anton Coolen were translated in Hungarian.

• De bedrieglijke verlokking van de tropen: Het vreemde in het dagboek van István Radnai

  185-197

  Gábor Pusztai

  Views:

  138

  István Radnai left his home country in 1914, hoping to achieve a brighter and richer future life. With his cousin, László Székely, he traveled to the then Dutch Indies, to Sumatra in order to become rich as a planter. After five weeks, however, he returned disappointed to Hungary, where he saw the beginning of the First World War. On the basis of his diary it is possible to reconstruct the reasons why he found it necessary to escape from the “self” and why he chose the tempting, unknown world. The binary opposition formed in this way undergoes a change in a different context; it becomes shifted and turned around. The interesting “other” becomes frightful and threatening which makes the “self” more valuable at the same time.

• De krokodil en de verdronken dienstmaagd: Székely-Lulofs in Deli en Boedapest

  123-132

  Frank Okker

  Views:

  41

  Between the first own household of Madelon Székely-Lulofs – the well-known writer from the Dutch East Indies – in the arable region of Deli (on the east coast of Sumatra) and her home, later on, in the centre of Budapest one can notice a number of striking parallels. In both places the grinding lack of money, the care for the right food, her contact with the servants and a huge crocodile played a prominent role.

• H.C. Zentgraaff contra het echtpaar Székely-Lulofs: Wie was die man?

  133-143

  Gerard Termorshuizen

  Views:

  37

  In 1931 and 1932, Madelon Lulofs published her novels Rubber and Koelie; in 1935 Van oerwoud tot plantage appeared, a translation of the novel Őserdőktől az ültetvényekig by her spouse, László Székely, that came out in the same year. The novels give a realistic and revealing look into the harsh life on the plantations of Deli at the East Coast of Sumatra. Although the books were generally well received in the Netherlands and were considered by progressive critics to be accusations against the colonial administration, the Dutch East Indian press responded with indignation: the colony, as they concluded, was put in a bad light, which created a wrong impression amongst the general public abroad. Besides, equally importantly, these novels served as an evidence of colonial oppression for Indian nationalists, they argued. The Székely-Lulofs couple was heavily rebuked for it. The hate campaign against them was led by journalist H.C. Zentgraaff.

• In het land van de koppensnellers* : De representatie van Borneo in de reisliteratuur van de 19de eeuw

  49-67

  Gábor Pusztai

  Views:

  162

  Borneo was regarded as a terra incognita for the European travelers in the 19th century. Only few of them could reach the island covered with jungle and even fewer of them wrote about their experiences. In the following study, I am trying to find an answer in travelogues written by 19th -century travelers to the question how Bornean natives were seen and presented by Europeans who ended up on the island. In other words, how the Other was represented in these works. I will compare this image of the Other with the representation of the Bornean natives as shown in the diary of a lesser-known Hungarian traveler, Xavér Ferenc Witti.

• Onze man in Nagasaki: De gefantaseerde diplomatieke dienst van András Jelky in Japan

  49-82

  Gábor Pusztai

  Views:

  221

  The history of András Jelky was published in German in 1779 in Vienna and in Prague. Jelky was employed by the VOC and had sailed to the Dutch East Indies, had had adventures there and built a career. According to the book from 1779, he also worked as an emissary in Japan. In this article I will discuss the topic of the Dutch-Japanese relations in the 16th to 19th century and the potential role of Jelky.