"Panggil Akoe Kartini Sadja" - Kartini Day Appreciation Post

"Kartini's hart sloeg warm de toekomst tegen,

Aan't garen van blemen, haar zielgewijd,

Reikhalzend uit teedere droomen ontwakend,

Tot heil van heel haar zachte volk,

In lijden en strijden met velen verbonden,

Na duisternis wijzend naar 'schemerend licht,

In blij ontluikenden morgenstond."

(Courtesy of "Kartini dari Sisi Lain")

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Today is the 21st of April, in which Indonesians celebrate one of our most famous national heroines in history; Raden Ajeng Kartini.

To start this, let us all go back to the time where Indonesia was still a part of the Dutch colony, in the 19th century Dutch East Indies.


At that time, inlanders (another term for the native Indonesians in Dutch East Indies) were very much limited from the chance to be well-educated. While some children struggled to work in order to fulfill their family's needs, some inlander children who were recognized as a part of higher society families at least got a bit of chance to be educated. Lady Kartini was one of them.

Kartini, born in Jepara (a region in Central Java) to a noble Javanese family on 21 April 1879, managed to go to a Dutch school. But when she was 12, she was prohibited to continue her education because of her tradition commonly practiced by the Javanese (Indonesian would call this as 'pingit'), in which young girls are to be 'isolated' in order to prepare for their marriage in the future.


In her isolation period, because of her ability to speak Dutch, she then gained several Dutch pen pals. One of them was named Rosa Abendanon. She wrote letters to her regularly and then in the future, someone collected her letters and compiled them into a book called "Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang" (Out of Dark Comes Light).

Not only that, after her marriage with a Javanese nobleman, Kartini managed to build school for women. It was a kind of school which taught women simple things like how to read, count, and sewing clothes, but it brought great change to a lot of people.

Kartini then was starting to be recognized as the woman who lifted Indonesian women status and taught people that anyone can have education, no matter what gender, race, religion, or even cultural background they have.

It was a sad thing though that Kartini didn't manage to live a long life. She died in the age of 25 after giving birth to her son. After Indonesia independent, Soekarno declared her national day to be set up on 21 April. So that people would never forget how a certain woman could fight to raise her people's status.

***

Talk about Kartini, the Dutch actually also gave some little appreciations for her

(courtesy of www.rnw.nl)

They said that there are several streets that are named after her in several different cities in the Netherlands. What thrilled me is that not only Kartini, but there are several Indonesian heroes names too that are being set up as street names in the Netherlands.

This is beyond amazing.

Dadah

Privjet Anastasia~

I was merely curious about the Romanov mystery, I did do some research but I thought it would be even more fun if I watched a movie that actually referred to the story itself.

da da da da dam~ #faildrumsounds

Anastasia~

Although it's a bit... inaccurate. But meh.

So I downloaded Anastasia (1997), I did find several inaccurate points in the movie but I can really understand it since, after all, the real event was quiet bloody and brutal. Plus this movie supposedly meant for kids and... brutality does not belong to children movies at all.

I bought a matryoshka doll once from some souvenir shop in the airport (no I haven't been to Russia), then my mama suddenly referred that matryoshka doll to the story of the 'missing' Princess Anastasia. 

My mama suddenly told me stories like: "That matryoshka doll is the only thing that kept Anastasia's memories of the royal family." I have no idea why mum kept telling about this matryoshka doll story  and its connection with Anastasia (I guess she believes with the rumor about Anastasia surviving, I don't really know though) but what I know is that Anastasia along with the rest of her family died about 90 years ago, all of them were shot to death and buried deep in Yekaterinburg. But I heard that the Romanovs' skeletons were later found and they are now buried in St. Petersburg. 

It's a movie that brings back my childhood but at the same time trying its best to keep my love for history, and it's just amazing. How my childhood was mainly filled with movies about the good vs the bad, and I think Anastasia seems to have done a pretty good job in bringing my childhood days back to me again, plus I shivered throughout the whole movie.

I don't know, I guess recalling for the fact that in reality, I must say the story of the bloody murder of the Romanovs is pretty... mysterious in some way. Since after the news about the murder there are rumors spreading too, especially about how their youngest daughter, Anastasia, managed to survive

Somehow with Anastasia, it's no longer about the story of bloody murder of an imperial family anymore. It's already about something else, in a whole new level of storytelling. I felt that the movie is so magical, I even forget about the whole murder thing.

The songs are incredibly amazing too, my most favourites are of course, Once Upon a December and Journey to the Past. 

Then I discovered that some people actually have Anastasia's music box and when you open it, it started to play Once Upon a December. Ugh how I want it oh so badly now.

I also knew Rasputin from this movie, at first I didn't really get who his name was and I even thought the protagonists were calling him "Lenin" since he's the principle figure in the Russian Revolution and all. So I think it's pretty much normal if he's the villain in the movie, but then I did  some browsing in the internet about it and I was wrong ahaha..

 I think his character here in the movie isn't so scary (of course it's because it's a cartoon) as his counterpart... physically (I literally shivered just by seeing the real Rasputin image, somehow) Rasputin was said to be one of the many people that caused the fall of the imperial family, but his relationship with the imperial family in reality was entirely the opposite from his character in this movie. In fact, I heard that he was actually rather close with the children, especially Alexei. When it comes to his death, Rasputin was said to be quiet hard to be killed, and I guess that's why they pictured Rasputin as some living corpse whose anatomies constantly got separated everywhere. Eh.

But I still don't get how Lenin doesn't make any appearance in the movie.

As usual, gifs and pictures belong to their rightful owners.

до свидания (Do Svidaniya) ~

Dadah

-Nibras Sakkir