Mark Yu. Ulyanov

The article examines the place and significance of Javanese studies within Indonesian studies.

The present article is a sequel of a series of articles on history of Javanology based on biographies of its most prominent personalities. The article dwells on J.F.C. Gericke, who being a scholar, teacher and administrator played an exceptionally important role at an early stage of Java academic studies. If we name Baptist pastor Gottlob Brückner (1783–1857) (who is the first translator of the New Testament into Javanese and author of the first Javanese grammar book) a founding father of Java studies, then J. Gericke may be considered as belonging to the second generation of scholars engaged in the Java studies: he was fifteen years younger than G. Brückner, he arrived at Java later than G. Brückner, his works were also published later. While G. Brückner, being a priest, had no ties with academic environment, J. Gericke did a lot for its establishment, both as a scholar and as an administrator. J. Gericke contributed a lot to the development of Javanology in its infancy. Starting from the very beginning J. Gericke proved to be a practicing Orientalist (he established contacts with the Java nobility while performing a task entrusted by the government), an administrator in the academic field (he was one of the founders of the Institute for the Javanese Language), a teacher, a linguist (he compiled a practical grammar book and the first Great Javanese-Netherlands Dictionary) and also an illuminator of the Javanese people (he translated the Bible and adapted the Bible stories).

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.

The article is dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Dega V. Deopik, Professor, PhD in History, whose brilliant research and educational work is closely related to the Institute for Asian and African Studies of the Moscow State University. The article dwells upon major fields of his research activity in oriental studies. Nevertheless, the scope of his academic interests is much wider, it embraces archaeology, ancient history and culture, origin of writing in the Eastern Asia, etc. In the article a special attention is given to the Vietnamese studies, his first and for long major special field, and also to his works on countries and peoples of the South-East Asia as well as ancient history of the Eastern Asia, so called Old China. Mentioned are his achievements in studying epigraphic artifacts and medieval chronicles and also development and implementation of quantitative methods in oriental studies. It is emphasised that Dega V. Deopik is also a distinguished teacher, research advisor and lecturer.

The article centers upon the final, third, period of biography of outstanding Dutch Javanist Johann Gericke. It summarizes the results of his scientific and social activity, influencing a lot on the formation of Javanese studies as an academic discipline in the Netherlands in the first half of the 19th century. This subject is yet to be studied in our country being an extremely important matter for understanding the specifics of the development of Indonesian studies within Oriental studies in Russia and abroad.