The Dutch in the Nineteenth Century

The Netherlands

Victor A. van Bijlert

The Dutch in the nineteenth century When in 1913 Tagore took the world by storm, the Netherlands was swept away as well. In the context of Western colonialism in Asia, it was considered almost a miracle that the prestigious Nobel Prize went to an Indian, a representative of a subject nation. For the Dutch reading public an Indian poet was probably more exotic than for the British public. The Dutch had given up the last remnants of their trade settlements in India at the beginning of the 19th century. Since then they concentrated all their colonizing energies on the Indonesian Archipelago, the Dutch Indies. In the wake of the minor storm caused by the rise of Theosophy in the late nineteenth century, some Dutch religious seekers were aware of India as a wonderland inhabited by mystics and mahatmas. There was also academic interest in India’s rich cultural heritage, for in 1865 the famous Dutch orientalist Hendrik Kern (1833- 1917) was appointed the first professor of Sanskrit in the Netherlands, on a chair created at Leiden University. This appointment aroused comments in the press to the effect that money should not be wasted on such useless eccentricities as Indian languages. Since the 1880s Dutch literature and in particular poetry had experienced a revolution. Gone was the sanctimonious Calvinist utilitarianism in literature. ‘The most individualist expression of the most private emotion’ became the new literary creed of the loosely-knit group of young poets and writers. The sonnets of Jacques Perk (1859-1881, the ‘Keats’ of this group) and of Willem Kloos (1859-1938); the lyrical epic Mei, ‘May’ (1889) by Herman Gorter (1864-1927, the ‘Shelley’ of the group); and the lyrical Bildungsroman (1885) De Kleine Johannes, ‘Little Johannes’ by Frederik van Eeden (1860-1932); these works set a new high standard for Dutch literature. These young Dutch authors did not conceal their admiration for Shelley, Keats, Heine and Wagner. In a belated way (‘in the Netherlands everything happens fifty years later’ according to Heinrich Heine) the Dutch movement of the 1880s was a late offspring of English and German Romanticism.

Frederik van Eeden The influence of this late-Romantic movement of the 1880s on Dutch literary tastes lingered on well into the third decade of the 20th century. Frederik van Eeden had been one of its most important protagonists. It fell on van Eeden to be the first Dutchman to get acquainted with and inspired by the English poetry of Tagore. This happened in early 1913, that is before the Nobel Prize was declared, in London when the Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1858-1924) suggested to van Eeden to read Gitanjali, Song Offerings. Van Eeden began reading these poems and was totally shaken by them. In his diary van Eeden noted on 11 May 1913: ‘Yesterday I’ve read the songs of Tagore, the Bengali poet. This is beautiful. It moved me like no other contemporary has moved me so far. Could I ever meet this man? This is better than Omar Khayam’.1 For van Eeden Tagore represented the ideal he thought he himself could not fully realise: ‘I know very well what I lack. Tagore has it. He feels the proximity, he feels Him, he is sure of it and he is full of it. I have to make do with mere fancy, and mediation and momentary annunciation … to me Tagore seems to be the profoundest to which we can aspire in our days’.2 Van Eeden’s Dutch translation of the English Gitanjali came out in November 1913, under the title Wij-zangen, ‘Song of devotion’, and ran into eight reprints in 1914 alone. Until 1933 Wij-zangen was reprinted 17 times, testifying to the volume’s immense popularity with the Dutch public. The fact that the popular author and poet van Eeden made the translation, may have contributed to the popularity of the book. Van Eeden saw himself as Tagore’s herald in the Netherlands. The editions of Wij-zangen as well as all subsenquent Tagore translations by van Eeden were bought up by the Amsterdam publishing house Versluys (which also published writings by other 1880s poets such as Gorter and Kloos). The hard covers of all these Tagore translations (10x15 cm) were printed in green, orange and white and showed Jugendstil floral motives typical of the early 20th century. Stylistically van Eeden tried to remain faithful to the English original of Gitanjali, using a slightly affected sentimental prose style. As the English originals were in prose, van Eeden never attempted to turn his translation into rhymed verse. Perhaps it never occurred to van Eeden that the English itself was a prose recreation of rhymed Bengali verses. The Dutch text of van Eeden captures quite well the atmosphere and the diction of the English, including the somewhat archaic expressions (which Tagore’s English seems to have borrowed to some extent from Keats). Van Eeden applied this style of translating also to De Hoovenier, (‘The Gardener’; 1916); Kabir (1916) and De Wassende Maan, (‘The Crescent Moon’; 1917). Other translations like Sadhana (1918), Chitra (1918), Hongerige Steenen, (‘Hungry Stones’; 1920), Huis en de Waereld, (‘The Home and the World’; 1921), De Vluchtelinge, (‘The Fugitive’; 1923) were all done in cooperation with assistants whose names do not appear on the title page.3 If the printing history of all these translations gives an indication of the public reception of these writings, it is clear that only Wij-zangen survived in the Dutch public esteem. The latest reprint of Wij-zangen dates from 1994. Also De Hoovenier has been reprinted several times in the 1970s.

Wij-zangen After Wij-zangen appeared in November 1913, the Sunday 7 December edition of the quality newspaper Algemeen Handelsblad carried a lengthy review. The reviewer enjoyed the beauty of many of the verses but could not help detect some ‘hollow rhetoric’ in poems 43, 69 and 76. The reviewer regarded the poems as intending to announce the coming of a future religion. ‘It is a volume to leaf through, late in the evening, when one is sitting alone under a lamp. Then a ‘Song of devotion’ could turn into one’s private prayer … and yet it does not give any solid hold, which is what these times demand’. The first impressions of this earliest reviewer were repeated time and again almost for a century. For Dutch readers Tagore was primarily a wise man from the ‘East’, a mystical poet and a kind of religious prophet and preacher. It is perhaps telling that all the post-war reprints of Wij-zangen were brought out not by literary publishing houses but publishers of books on esotericism and New Age cults. This religio-mystical impression of Tagore’s work can be traced to van Eeden himself who in his diary painted Tagore in mystical colours. Ultimately the responsibility for creating the imago of a mystical thinker from the East lies squarely with Tagore himself. It is difficult to picture the author of Song Offerings as anything else but an Eastern seer and mystic. In his travels to Europe Tagore cultivated this public persona of oriental prophet, also when he visited the Netherlands. It must have been an act of foresight on the part of van Eeden to feel attracted to Song Offerings and begin translating the poems into Dutch in the summer of 1913. When Wij- zangen reached the bookshops in November 1913 this happily coincided with the announcement that Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize on the basis of the same volume. For Dutch readers Wij-zangen was the product of two cult figures: Tagore the internationally acclaimed Asian and van Eeden the Dutch poet with a world-view that many thought was similar to Tagore’s.

Tagore’s visit in 1920 In fact, van Eeden himself thought Tagore shared his own idealistic, socialistic and utopian outlook. Van Eeden wrote letters to Tagore already in the summer of 1913 (well before the Nobel Prize award), expressing his desire to meet Tagore. The exchange of thought remained epistolary until Tagore finally visited the Netherlands from 19 September until 1 October 1920. But contrary to van Eeden’s expectations to quietly meet Tagore and discuss great issues of culture, international politics and religion with him, Tagore hardly spent time with van Eeden. Instead, Tagore met Theosophists and Rotterdam bankers. After all, he was then looking for sponsors for his school and university at Santiniketan. Within the short time span of his visit, Tagore gave lectures almost every day, usually one in the afternoon and another one in the evening, and always at different locations in the Netherlands. He was given an official welcome reception at Leiden University (25 September), at Amsterdam University (27 September) and at Utrecht University (28 September). Tagore spoke mostly on his educational ideals, the meeting of East and West, and on ‘Bengal village mystics’.4 Van Eeden wrote a report of Tagore’s visit, which appeared in the Groene Amsterdammer magazine of 22 September 1920. In it van Eeden wrote that even Tagore, ‘a high-minded and free spirit’, had succumbed to economics.5

Other early translators Van Eeden was not the only translator of Tagore in the early period. The Post Office was translated by the well-known novelist and journalist, Henri Borel (1869-1933). He gave his translation the title De Brief van den Koning, (‘The letter of the King’;1916). A year later this play in Borel’s translation was staged in Amsterdam with the most eminent Dutch actors of that time. Borel translated The King of the Dark Chamber in 1919. The Javanese prince Raden Mas Noto Soeroto (1888-1951), like Borel a journalist and a writer, translated some lectures by Tagore and a short story (all from English) in a single volume under the title De Leerschool van de Papegaai (‘The School of the Parrot’; 1922). In 1916, Soeroto had published a ‘Biographical Sketch’ on the life and writings of Tagore with Versluys in Amsterdam.

Tagore set to music It is noteworthy that in the period 1914-1926 Dutch composers set texts of the Dutch Wij- zangen to music. In most cases these compositions contain only two to four texts from Wij- zangen, and usually set for a single voice with piano accompaniment. Although at least a dozen composers set pieces from Wij-zangen to music, the following are among the more well-known: Hendrik Andriessen (1892-1981), Jan van Gilse (1881-1944), Karel Mengelberg (1902-1984), and Bernard Zweers (1854-1924). Bernhard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer (1888- 1953) composed a Prelude and an Interlude for orchestra which were meant for the Dutch stage production of The Post Office. Also Jan van Gilse’s composition, based on German translations of the English Gitanjali poems, requires a full orchestra.6

Interest in Tagore from the 1930s to the 1960s In the 1930s the interest in Tagore’s writings was rapidly waning. Interesting exceptions (from a musical point of view) are Arnold Bake and Peter van Hoboken. Arnold Bake (1899- 1963) was a Dutch Indologist and musicologist who, invited by Tagore, stayed at Santiniketan from 1925 until 1932. He was initially drawn to Tagore when he heard the latter speak at Leiden University in 1920.7 Arnold Bake published the first staff notation of the melodies of 26 Bengali poems of the original Gitanjali together with a transliteration of the Bengali texts.8 Peter van Hoboken (1901-1994) was a Dutch journalist for the Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, ‘Radio Netherlands Worldwide’, as well as a musicologist and an enthusiastic promoter of Indian music in the Netherlands. Van Hoboken had stayed in India from 1935 until 1939 and spent some months at Santiniketan. As far as translations from Tagore’s English works were concerned one can note Johan de Molenaar who published a Dutch translation of ‘Stray Birds’ under the title Zwervende Vogels in 1941. This translation has remained a favourite and was reprinted until 2001. The years after World War II witnessed a clean break with the political, cultural, and religious traditions of the pre-war period. Dutch society was severely shocked by the Nazi occupation. For the first time since Napoleon the country had been overrun by a foreign power. After 1945 ‘beauty had lost its visage’ as the Dutch experimental poet Lucebert (1924-1994) wrote. In this atmosphere there was hardly any deep interest in Tagore. Yet it was not entirely extinct. As the birth centenary of Tagore was approaching, a committee was formed, the ‘Nederlands Tagore Comité 1961’, to prepare the celebrations. Members of this committee belonged to the academic, political and cultural élite of the Netherlands. The then ambassador of India, R.K. Tandon, was also involved in the committee’s work. The committee had a prominent patroness in the person of the Queen of the Netherlands, Juliana. Queen Juliana had always shown a keen interest in things Indian, like her mother, Queen Wilhelmina. The programme included a performance of Jan van Gilse’s Gitanjali composition for orchestra, exhibitions and staging of plays. The early 1960s witnessed a small controversy regarding van Eeden’s Tagore translations. In 1961, a number of articles appeared in the press about van Eeden. Relatives of some of his assistants or co-translators claimed that van Eeden had not acknowledged their work. Van Tricht produced a book documenting this controversy and providing a full analysis of the facts known about these collaborators of van Eeden.9 On the basis of original letters by van Eeden, van Tricht provided a list of van Eeden’s attested own translations and the ones done by his assistants.10

Tagore from the 1960s to the 1990s The late 1960s, the period of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, were a ‘roaring’ period in the Netherlands. A Dutch version of the hippie, the ‘provo’, demanded that ‘the imagination should rule’. The Provo Movement was inspired among others by the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921). The centre of this cultural revolution was Amsterdam, the city in which the provos even held a seat in the municipal council. Young people questioned what they regarded as the old-fashioned and authoritarian politics and culture of the ‘bourgeois’ 1950s (which was the post-war period of rebuilding the country). Artists, poets, pop- musicians demanded the free availability of soft drugs like marihuana, and advocated free sexual relationships. Western culture itself was questioned and criticised for being materialistic and one-sidedly rationalistic. Many young people turned East (especially to India) to find new spiritual awakening. A decade earlier, Dutch experimental poets had already shaken off the shackles of the literary past. The ensuing literary movement of the generation of the 1950s paralleled the movement of the 1880s. In both cases young poets and writers wished to break away from worn-out literary traditions and venture into unknown territory. Were the poets of 1880s inspired by English and German Romanticism, the 1950s movement harked back to Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), European Dadaism and Surrealism, and looked up to American Beat Poets. In the 1960s these 1950-poets were regarded as the vanguard of a large cultural, political and social upheaval, also known in European history as the Revolution of 1968. One of the most colourful protagonists of the 1950s movement was the poet, journalist and novelist Simon Vinkenoog (1928-2009). He evolved into a Dutch hippie guru in the 1960s and 1970s, emulating to some extent America’s best-known Beat Poet, Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). With Ginsberg Vinkenoog (who knew Ginsberg personally) shared the interest in Indian mysticism. For Vinkenoog breaking away from the past entailed the expansion of everyone’s consciousness. For this reason Vinkenoog advocated the use of marihuana but also espoused Indian forms of meditation. Within this search for Indian wisdom Tagore’s work presented itself once more. Vinkenoog – familiar with Indian mysticism and devotional poets like Mira Bai – regarded Tagore as a kind of ally. Vinkenoog translated into Dutch (and extremely well) Tagore’s The Religion of Man. This translation was published in 1977 and once reprinted in 1989. The 1980s saw the publication again of some Dutch translations of a few English books of Tagore. Wilfried Gepts translated the English Gitanjali into Dutch once again. He wished to create a more contemporary version than Eeden’s translation whose style had come to be regarded as outdated. Gepts called his translation: Een fluitje in het riet: De Psalmen van Tagore (‘A little flute among the reeds: The Psalms of Tagore’; 1984). Aleid Swierenga and Mark de Sorgher translated into Dutch the English compilation done by Indu Dutt in 1969 A Tagore Testament. The Dutch translation was published in 1989 and reprinted in 1993 and 2006. In 1991 Swierenga published a Dutch translation of Martin Kämpchen’s poetic German renderings directly from Bengali of Sphulinga, Lekhan, and Kanika. Swierenga’s translation was reprinted in 1998. In both editions the title page and the introduction omit to mention Martin Kämpchen as the author of the German texts which formed the basis of Swierenga’s translation. Furthermore the 1991 edition looks identical – including all the photographs – to the German original.

Translating from Bengali into Dutch: 1990s and onwards It is no exaggeration to maintain that William Radice’s Rabindranath Tagore: Selected Poems, first published with Penguin in 1985, sparked off a totally new approach to Tagore’s work. Hitherto all translations into Western languages including Dutch had always been made from Tagore’s English writings. Radice was among the first serious translators to go back to Tagore’s Bengali texts. There are some translations directly from Bengali into English before Radice published his epochal work. But it was Radice who had set pertinent criteria for translating Tagore from Bengali: faithfulness to the Bengali original, philological exactitude, no poetic liberties on the part of the translator. And equally important: the results in the target language should read like original poetry and prose in that language. To explicitly set such high standards seems almost superfluous. No one expects English translations from Rimbaud or Kavafis to be below the mark, so why should Tagore translations from Bengali be any different? Radice’s work has shown – and the excellent work by Ketaki Kushari Dyson from 1993 – how Tagore translation ought to be done in English. Could the same be done in Dutch as well? To Victor van Bijlert Radice’s work was an eye-opener and a major source of inspiration. Radice became van Bijlert’s role-model for translating Tagore from Bengali into Dutch. Until van Bijlert’s translation of the complete Bengali Gitali into Dutch in 1996, no work of Tagore was translated into Dutch directly from Bengali. This is due to the sparseness of Dutch translators of Bengali. Although van Bijlert was trained as an Indologist (like William Radice) and studied Hindi and Sanskrit, he learned Bengali from his wife, Bhaswati Bhattacharya. Van Bijlert’s first preference for translating Tagore, as apparently with many non-Bengalis, was for the Bengali Gitanjali. The reason for this is that the Bengali Gitanjali – like its English counterpart – reads like a unity and not an anthology with different poems and a title-poem stuck somewhere in the middle, such as is the case with Manasi, Sonar Tari, and Chitra. Yet he chose Gitali because (a) it is a unitary book of poetry, (b) it is less obviously devotional than Gitanjali.11 Also of the Bengali Gitanjali a complete Dutch translation was published. This was prepared by the Belgian writer Jan Gysen and published in Belgium (Gysen 1999). It cannot be said that Gysen’s translation is very faithful, nor is it very accurate. Many essential details are left out, while new ones are added. Gysen seems to have emulated what he thought was Tagore’s own ‘technique’ of translating his own Bengali texts into English. But in Tagore’s case it could be argued that the English texts are not translations at all, but English transcreations. Some of Gysen’s Gitanjali translations were done before 1999 because they had been selected for the Dutch anthology of Tagore poems: De mooiste van Tagore (‘The best of Tagore’) edited by Koen Stassijns and Ivo Strijtem published in 1997 and reprinted in 2007. The two editors – themselves Dutch language poets – brought together the work of various Dutch translators of Tagore’s poetry, mostly done from English but in the case of Gysen done from Bengali. This anthology also contains two of van Bijlert’s Gitali translations.

Promoting general interest in Tagore In 2007 Liesbeth Meyer published a book on Tagore’s reception in the Netherlands around the time of the Nobel Prize award in 1913. In her documentary study Liesbeth Meyer also reprinted a number of characteristic reviews and articles on Tagore in the newspapers in the 1920s. Tagore is not only a lasting icon of Indian wisdom to a small group of indigenous Dutch admirers. Since 1975 a large group of immigrants from Surinam (a former Dutch colony in South America) has settled in the Netherlands. A large section of these migrants are of Indian origin (at present probably over 100,000). These Surinamese Hindustanis (as they prefer to call themselves) evince a growing interest in Tagore, not so much because of Indian spirituality but because Tagore was a famous Indian and Nobel Laureate. The Surinamese Hindustani poetess and writer of short stories, Chitra Gajadin adapted the story of The Post Office in Dutch to the format of a children’s story book with original illustrations by noted artist Helen Ong.12 Surinamese Hindustani musicians and actors/playwrights have tried to establish a Tagore festival on the 7th of May as a yearly cultural event. One such festival was organised in The Hague in 2001. Some short stories of Tagore were adapted for theatre. The initiative did not see much follow-up. The Surinamese Hindu broadcasting corporation OHM, with airing time on the Dutch national TV and Radio networks, produced a one hour documentary film on Tagore. Film crews had even visited Calcutta and Santiniketan to interview Tagore experts. This outstanding production was aired in 1995. Another documentary was made by the same corporation OHM in 2007. This one focussed on the way Tagore inspired Indians, Surinamese and Dutch living in the Netherlands. The name Tagore is used by at least one Surinamese Hindustani cultural organisation in the Netherlands: Stichting Tagore Sociëteit (‘Foundation Tagore Society’). It was founded in 1997 and promotes Surinamese music. Like 1961, 2011 was a crucial year for cultural and scholarly activities relating to Tagore. The Indian embassy was engaged in co-organising a 150th anniversary of Tagore. The resulting programme included the revelation of two bronze Tagore busts; one in the public library in The Hague and one at Leiden University. The municipalities of The Hague and Amsterdam were hosting cultural events in May 2011, including performances of Tagore’s dance dramas and plays. The Society of Friends of the Kern Institute organised in September 2011 at Leiden a two- day scholarly and cultural event on Tagore. Bhaswati Bhattacharya acted as academic convener and prepared the cultural programme. The academic seminar comprised public lectures by international Tagore scholars. The cultural programme consisted of dance performances based on Tagore songs. The songs were performed live by professional Bengali musicians. In 2013 a Surinamese Hindustani theatre group in Amsterdam will stage the play version of Chandalika (in van Bijlert’s Dutch translation from Bengali). The future It is difficult to predict how Tagore will be perceived and studied in the Netherlands in the coming years. If the past gives any indication, it is likely that Tagore continues to be regarded as an Indian teacher of wisdom. This will be especially the case in the Netherlands. The Dutch speaking part of Belgium seems more interested in Tagore as an Indian artist and poet. After all, Gepts, Stassijns, Strijtem and Gysen are themselves Belgian poets. Interest in Tagore’s music, however limited, is shared by both Dutch and Belgians. The musicologist Rokus de Groot who spoke at the Tagore celebrations in 2011, is after all, a Dutchman. Surinamese Hindustanis look up to Tagore as an eminent Indian, and thus by proxy he is considered to be one of them. The Dutch film-maker Tomas Stolk who produced the OHM documentary of 2007 was attracted to Tagore’s religious thought. This variety of interests and attractions reflects Tagore’s multi-dimensional genius. Bibliography

Bake, Arnold A. et Philippe Stern. 1935. Chansons de Rabindranath Tagore : vingt-six chants transcrits par Arnold A. Bake. Paris: Geuthner.

Bijlert, van V.A.(trsl.). 1996. Toen Jij de Snaren spande: De Gitali van Rabindranath Tagore, uit het Bengaals vertaald en ingeleid door Victor A. van Bijlert. Kern Institute miscellanea. 9. Leiden: Kern Institute.

Bijlert, van V.A. 1999. ‘Frederik van Eeden en Tagore: Onvolkomen Ontmoeting’, in: Frederik van Eeden-Genootschap, Mededelingen 36, p 9-19.

Gajadin, Chitra. 1992. Amal en de brief van de koning: naar het toneelstuk The Post Office van Rabindranath Tagore. Rotterdam: Lemniscaat.

Gepts, Wilfried (trsl.). 1984. Een fluitje in het riet: De Psalmen van Tagore. Sint-Baafs- Vijve: Oranje / De Eenhoorn.

Gysen, Jan. 1999. Gitanjali: Naar een nieuwe dageraad. Tielt: Lannoo.

Hoboken, van P.C. 1961. ‘Tagore in Nederland’, in: Tagore 1861-1961. The Hague: Information Service of India, Embassy of India, p 30-38.

Meijer, Liesbeth. 2007. Rabindranath Tagore: Een berichtgeving. Leesmijnboek.nl

Stassijns, Koen and Ivo Strijtem (eds.). 1997. De mooiste van Tagore. Tielt: Lannoo, Amsterdam: Atlas.

Swierenga, Aleid and Mark De Sorgher (trsls.). 1989. Tagore: Een Testament. Uitgeverij Altamira.

Swierenga, Aleid (trsl.). 1991. Rabindranath Tagore: Op de stralen van het licht, Levenswijsheden. Heemstede: Altamira.

Tagore 1861-1961. The Hague: Information Service of India, Embassy of India.

Tricht, van H.W. (ed). 1963. Over de Tagore-vertalingen van Frederik van Eeden. Den Haag: Nederlands Letterkundig Museum en Documentatiecentrum.

Vinkenoog, Simon (trsl). 1977. Rabindranath Tagore: De religie van de mens. Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek. 1 van Bijlert 1999:9 2 van Eeden diary: van Bijlert 1999:9 3 van Tricht 1963: 10-16 4 van Hoboken 1961: 30-31 5 van Bijlert 1999: 17-18 6 for more details, cf.: Tagore 1861-1961: 50-51 7 cf. Tagore 1861-1961: 24a 8 Bake 1935 9 van Tricht 1963 10 van Tricht 1963: 16 11 Van Bijlert’s translation was published by the Society of Friends of the Kern Institute, a society promoting Indology in the Netherlands, and linked to Leiden University. William Radice was invited to speak at the official book launch on 2 December 1996 at Leiden University. Radice had taken the trouble to learn enough Dutch to comment on the Dutch translations which he thought ‘were able to capture the strong emotions of the Bengali original’. The book launch and Radice’s lecture are still fondly remembered as an important cultural event of the Kern Institute. 12 Gajadin 1992