Mahyuddin Datuk Sutan Maharadja

Mahyuddin Datuk Sutan Maharaja, date unknown (19th. century) Mahyuddin Datuk Sutan Maharadja ( – 1921, Van Ophuijsen Spelling System: Mahjoeddin Datoek Soetan Maharadja, ) was a Minangkabau journalist, intellectual, activist and newspaper editor active in the Dutch East Indies. He is considered to be one of the fathers of modern Indonesian journalism and was a key figure in West Sumatran politics from the 1890s to 1921. Biography Early life Mahyuddin was born into an aristocratic Minangkabau family in Sulit Air, Solok Regency, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in around 1860. (Various sources gives his birth year as 27 November in either 1858, 1860, or 1862.) His grandfather had fought in the Padri War against the Padri side and eventually their family came to be incorporated into the Dutch political system as they conquered Sumatra. While living there, he was greatly influenced by Sufism and began to participate in their lodges.

In 1895 he resigned from and became editor of another paper in Padang, (news report). He also became a regular correspondent in Insulinde, a Padang intellectual magazine.

In 1904 he became an editor at (light of Sumatra), a Dutch-funded Malay newspaper. That same year he left and founded his own newspaper, Oetoesan Melajoe. It was originally printed by a Chinese printer while he raised the capital to found his own Minangkabau-owned print shop. In 1912 he had raised enough to purchase his own printing press, and from then on used it to print , (an Islamic modernist publication led by his son-in-law), and later Soenting Melajoe, a paper aimed at a female readership edited by Ruhana Kuddus.

He spent his final years from 1918 to 1921 researching and writing about Minangkabau history in an attempt to steer the progressive movement towards embracing local tradition and rejecting European, Middle Eastern, or Javanese influence.

He died in Kasang, just north of Padang, of a heart ailment in June 1921.