THE VERNACULAR PRESS
IN THE NETHERLANDS INDIES, c. 1855-1925
UNIT 2: BINTANG SOERABAIA [THE SURABAYA STAR]
Years available: 1887-1890, 1899-1905, 1913-1919
(in cooperation with KITLV/Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands)
on microfiche
This business newspaper in (overseas) Chinese hands was published in the Malay language (Indonesian) in Surabaya, the commercial capital of the Netherlands Indies, between July 1887 and 1924. It is exceedingly rare. The above years have survived and are available from Moran.
Background
In 1862 the Eurasian-owned printing firm Gimbergen Brothers & Co., which in time became the biggest printer in the colony, launched the business newspaper “Bientang Timoor”, later “Bintang Timor” [= Bintang Timur in modern Indonesian = Eastern Star] (BT) in Surabaya, East Java, the commercial capital of the Netherlands Indies (the years 1865-1868 are available from Moran). This at first biweekly and from 1882 daily paper was to survive until 1886 when the economic crisis prevailing in the Indies forced it into bankruptcy. The sharp fall in the price of important commodities such as sugar and coffee adversely affected advertising revenues and subscriptions and in December 1886 an issue announced the auction of the parent company with its presses and the right to use the name Gimbergen and continue publishing BT. A relatively unknown ethnic Chinese (peranakan) businessman named Tjoa Tjoan Lok won the bidding with family backing at 24,600 guilders. He was not the first Chinese to own a press, but was the first to take over a well-known and long-established newspaper. This “symbolically significant” event for the Chinese community “marked the beginning of Chinese participation in newspaper publication and ushered in a new era of development in the vernacular press”.
The paper changed its name to “Bintang Soerabaia” (BS) in July 1887, starting as a daily with number 160 as its first issue (continuing the numbering of BT). The new editor claimed that readers had not approved of the old name. Under its new owner BS “emerged as the forerunner of Chinese-oriented newspapers in the Dutch East Indies”. It started a trend in publishing of focusing on particular communities; about three-quarters of its news and articles had to do with the Chinese. It stressed its Chinese character by using fancy colored newsprint on Chinese holidays. The September 1, 1887 edition, for example, was on yellow paper, but maroon, green and blue were also used. The paper justified this choice by claiming a majority of Chinese readers and the tactic helped increase sales from that public. But by the early twentieth century growing socio-economic consciousness among the Indies Chinese brought forth rivals to BS. The paper appears to have ceased publication in 1924.
Source: The Vernacular Press and the Emergence of Modern Indonesian Consciousness (1855-1913) by Ahmat B. Adam (Ithaca, 1995), passim.
Installments
1. 14/7/1887 – 20/11/1889
2. 20/11/1889 – 31/12/1890;
3/1/1899 – 30/9/1899
3. 30/9/1899 – 4/4/1901
4. 4/4/1901 – 23/8/1902
5. 23/8/1902 – 6/1/1904
6. 6/1/1904 – 16/5/1905
7. 16/5/1905 – 30/12/1905;
2/1/1913 – 8/9/1914
8. 8/9/1914 – 8/6/1916
9. 8/6/1916 – 13/3/1918
10. 13/3/1918 – 30/12/1919
Technical note on the microfiches
The microfiches published here were made for Moran Micropublications by reformatting 35mm microfilms, originally made in Indonesia, lent to us by the Library of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden, the Netherlands. The films were made under technically less than optimal conditions and were of substandard quality. Among the problems encountered were both over- and underexposure leading respectively to images that were too light or too dark. The effects are particularly noticeable in the corners and along the edges of pages. Some images also displayed a sort of staining or shading that probably originated when the films were developed and some are slightly out of focus. Occasionally there are scratches visible in the film. The poor filming serves to compound problems with the original materials themselves such as tears in the paper, stains from humidity or mildew, poor quality and faded newsprint, newsprint that has left a faint impression in mirror image on the next page in the binder in which the issues were kept, broken type, the use at times of exotic typefaces, the use of colored paper on special occasions (see above) and the general deterioration caused by inadequate storage conditions in a tropical environment.
During the process of reformatting the films to microfiches in a specialized laboratory in the Netherlands an effort was made to achieve better quality images by making adjustments in the exposures. By and large the results of the conversion were satisfactory and it is no problem to read most of the text. Some instances of text that is too light or too dark to be read easily do, however, remain, but even in such cases the text can be recovered and read with the use of a good microfiche reader with higher magnification. There are only a handful of pages (or parts of pages) that proved completely intractable and could not be enhanced. These are listed as “illegible” or “partly illegible” in the guide & concordance that can be downloaded from this page.
Given the rarity of this important title, the publisher felt justified in making use of these old microfilms in spite of their imperfections to create the current microfiche publication, thus making Bintang Soerabaia more widely available for research.
Under consideration for future units:
Bintang Hindia = Ster van Indië
Ster van Indië [Star of the Indies]
Year: 1903-1907
Bintang Betawi
Bintang Batavia [Star of Batavia]
Year: 1900-...
Pewarta boemi:chabar beharoe dari negeri Wolanda dan benoewa jang lain
Pewarta-boemi [World news]
Year: 1891-192X?
Other titles in research.
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