Kartini

Raden Adjeng Kartini, also known as Raden Ayu Kartini (21 April 1879 – 17 September 1904), was a prominent Indonesian advocate of women's rights and female education.

She was born into an aristocratic Javanese family in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia). After attending a Dutch-language primary school, she wanted to pursue further education, but Javanese women at the time were barred from higher education. Instead, Kartini entered a period of seclusion mandated for teenage girls until they married. She acquired knowledge by reading books and by corresponding with Indonesian and Dutch people. Her father allowed her to go into the community beginning in 1896, although she remained an unmarried single woman. She opposed the Purdah-like seclusion of teenage girls and polygamy.

She met various officials and influential people, including J.H. Abendanon. She began the tradition amongst three of her sisters to found and operate schools. After she died, schools were established by a foundation founded in the Netherlands. Some of her Indonesian friends also established Kartini Schools.

After her death, her sisters continued her advocacy of educating girls and women. Kartini's letters were published in a Dutch magazine and eventually, in 1911, as the works: Door Duisternis tot Licht (From Dark Comes Light) and an English version, Letters of a Javanese Princess.

In 1964, Kartini was declared as a National Hero of Indonesia, The English book focused on Symmers' view of an Oriental woman in love, focusing on her personal life, and excluding letters that showed her as an intelligent forward-thinking woman. Books were published for Indonesians, a version in Malay in 1922 and another Malay version in 1951 by Armijn Pane, excluding some Kartini's most important letters. In 1960, UNESCO published 19 of Kartini's letters in French. The letters are available at Leiden University Libraries and can also be consulted digitally. A complete English translation of all of Kartini's letters was published in 2014 by Joost Coté in Kartini: The Complete Writings 1898-1904 along with articles and other writings by her.

On 11 April 2025, UNESCO inscribed the Kartini letters and archive, held at Leiden University Libraries, Nationaal Archief and National Archives of Indonesia, in its Memory of the World Register affirming their world significance and outstanding universal value.

East and West Teak wood carvings were a typical feature in wealthy homes, including furniture and doors. A group of woodcarvers from Jepara at work, between 1900 and 1920. Kartini coordinated efforts between a group of Indonesian artists and Europeans in the East and West association. Europeans provided funding for an art shop to create carved wood pieces. Kartini operated a school.

Schools Kartini believed that women were paramount in the process of improving the lives of Indonesian men and women, and because of that, she developed an education plan for girls that had the same academics and character-building instruction as for boys but also included hygiene, first aid, and money management. Kartini was particularly concerned about the lack of medical care for Indonesians, and female Indonesians in particular. So much so that she considered attending medical school.

Kartini was introduced to Henri van Kol, a member of parliament, in August 1902, who offered to help her realize her plan to study teaching and first aid in the Netherlands. The goal was to have the knowledge to open a school, teach, and be the school's headmistress. He contacted the States General on her behalf. Kartini received a scholarship, but many people in her life were concerned about her leaving Java.

Kartini, with her husband's support, opened up a school for women in Rembang's Regency Office complex.

Sukarno's Old Order state declared 21 April as Kartini Day in 1963 to remind women that they should participate in "the hegemonic state discourse of pembangunan (development)". After 1965, however, Suharto's New Order state reconfigured the image of Kartini from that of radical women's emancipator to one that portrayed her as a dutiful wife and obedient daughter, "as only a woman dressed in a kebaya who can cook." On that occasion, popularly known as Hari Ibu Kartini or Mother Kartini Day, "young girls were to wear tight, fitted jackets, batik shirts, elaborate hairstyles, and ornate jewelry to school, supposedly replicating Kartini's attire but in reality, wearing an invented and more constricting ensemble than she ever did."

The melody of "Ibu Kita Kartini" (Our Mother Kartini) by W. R. Supratman:

On 21 April 2016, Google celebrated her 137th birthday with a Google Doodle.