A Brill Calendar: February 18

Hugo de Groot: Adam of International Law

Few surnames are as common in Dutch registers as ‘de Groot’; lists of students and teachers at Leyden not excepted.

But then again, the same goes for ‘Klein’; translation of these two words into English results in ‘tall’ (or ‘great’) and ‘small’ (or ‘little’) respectively. And there is no question who is the Greatest of these ‘greats’: namely, Hugo de Groot (1583 – 1645), European Adam of International Law.

However, because of the ubiquity of the surname in Low Countries, Hugo has many academic namesakes in Leyden, most of them obviously not related to him by blood-ties. Accordingly, it would be surprising if Jan Jacob Maria de Groot (Schiedam, February 18 1854 – Berlin, Germany, September 24 1921) would be a descendant of Grotius himself. When this ‘smaller’ de Groot started in 1891 teaching – first ethnography of ‘Nederlandsch Indië’, (the main colonial domain of The Netherlands of those days), and later Chinese– he lacked academic experience; but he had served as an excellent interpreter of Chinese to the government. At the first arrival of the Dutch in South-Eastern Asia early in the 17th century, Chinese communities were already at living in the archipelago.

De Groot didn’t limit his interests to language; Chinese religion, historical developments and intellectual traditions received his attention as well. Earlier, in 1875, the Leyden Bookseller & Printer E. J. Brill had bought the matrix for a superb Chinese/Japanese character-set, which enjoyed promptly enormous prestige in the Western world; two Anglo-Chinese ‘Opium Wars’ had quickened interest in everything Chinese in Europe.

It is seldom that a Faculty member leaves Leyden at the age of 50 after a tenure of thirteen years; Jan de Groot, abandoning his position in 1904, is an exception. Early in the 20th century Berlin was recognized world-wide as a Mecca for scholars of all kinds.