Prince from Java

THE nobility in The Netherlands dubbed him the Prince from Java. Raden Mas Panji Sosrokartono, elder brother of RA Kartini, traveled across Europe for 29 years from 1897. He associated with intellectuals and the nobility over there. Then this Leiden University student became Indonesias first war correspondent during World War I.

In Indonesia, Sosrokartono built a school and a library. He also opened Darussalam Clinic in Bandung. Tempo traces the footsteps of the intellectual-cum-spiritualist through the people who rubbed shoulders with him as well as from his various books, including the letters of Kartini and his other younger siblings, and from his speech which is still kept in Leiden.

May 2, 2006

THE black and white postcard-sized photograph is still kept by her. In it, Kartini Pudjiarto was 8 years old, with her mother RA Siti Hadiwati and her grandfather PAA Sosro Boesono together with RM Panji Sosrokartono at the Darussalam Clinic on Jalan Pungkur 7, Bandung, which belonged to Sosrokartono.

Sosrokartono (1877-1952) was Boesonos younger brother. Both were the elder brothers of RA Kartini, the heroine of womens emancipation who on every A

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