Johann Friedrich Carl Gericke (1798–1857) as a pioneer of academic Javanology: the second period of his activities (1837–1848)

Abstract

The article centres upon the second period of life of Johann Gericke, the pioneer of Dutch Javanology. His works influenced a lot on development of this branch of Dutch Oriental studies. He was not the only specialist in this area, but it was he who laid the foundation stone of it. By force of circumstances (which are observed in this article) he became the key figure conditioning its progress. From the point of view of his authorities at the Netherlands Bible Society he should have concentrated mainly on finishing the Javanese translation of the New Testament. But Gericke himself thought it more to the point first to complete two tasks. The first task, a literary one, was to prepare the publication of Sěrat Wiwaha Jarwa (1778), a modern Javanese version of Arjuna Wiwaha (c. 1030 AD), a literary classic paving the way for studying the Javanese literary classics. The second task, a linguistic one, was to finish compiling the Great Javanese-Dutch Dictionary. These goals met resulted in shaping of the corpus of academic Javanology.