H.J. de Graaf

Hermanus Johannes de Graaf (2 December 1899 – 24 August 1984) was a Dutch historian specialising in the history of Java, Indonesia, the world's most populous island.

Trained as historian at Leiden University, he moved to Batavia (today's Jakarta) to take a government job, and later became a teacher for various schools in Indonesia.

His dissertation was on the murder of Captain François Tack in the Mataram court in 1686,[2] In 1935, he returned to the Indies and resumed teaching in Surakarta.

During school vacations he continued his research in Batavia, publishing articles on the Trunajaya rebellion and the fall of Mataram.

De Graaf's wife was interned separately in a women's camp, and in 1944 their nine-year-old daughter Elisabeth Anna died in captivity.

[4] World War II was followed by the Indonesian National Revolution (1945–49) which pitted the newly independent Indonesia against the Dutch trying to regain its colony.

He also made a research trip to the Netherlands in 1947–48, during which he worked through Dutch East India Company archives sent to him in Arnhem from The Hague.

However, not all issues were resolved, and the continuing debate soured de Graaf's relation with Berg on both academic and personal level.

In 1976, Pigeaud published an English summary of eight of de Graaf's most important works, making them available to the non-Dutch-reading audience.

[9] In May 1982 he attended the annual meeting of Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies and suffered a stroke on the way home.

[10] De Graaf's doctoral dissertation, on the murder of Captain François Tack in the Mataram court in 1686, was "a landmark in the study of Javanese history",[2] according to M. C. Ricklefs.

While historians had studied the history of Java before him, his work combined both Javanese and European sources and made use of the historical method.

Ricklefs praised these works, pointing out the diverse sources being used and de Graaf's ability to locate references, "however fleeting," for this period.

This work became an authority on the spread of Islam in Java during the 15th and the 16th century, despite its lack of certainty given the unreliability of sources from that period.

[13][14] In 1974, de Graaf was made an Honorary Member of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies.

[1] According to Theodoor Gautier Thomas Pigeaud, his works "form a substantial contribution to the study of the national history of Indonesia.