Pieter Wiedijk

Pieter Wiedijk (born February 27, 1867 in Grootschermer near Alkmaar , † September 26, 1938 in Amsterdam ), known under the pseudonym J. Saks , but also used the author names Bacterius , Otto Bardt , V. Bruin , was a Dutch historian , Journalist and writer . Politically, he was a staunch Marxist .

Origin and youth

Wiedijk was the only son of the carpenter of the same name and his wife Elisabeth Bruin. On his father's side, the family was of German descent, the grandfather's name was Johann Fridrich Wedig and had come from Prussia to North Holland at the end of the 18th century, where he changed his name and called himself Wiedijk. The father died of tuberculosis when his son Piet was two years old, the mother only survived him by a few years and also died of the lung disease.

Wiedijk was taken in by foster parents who ran a farm in Beemster , where he grew up as an outsider because of his weak stature and sickness. First he attended the local village school and from 1881 the Haarlemse kweekschool (a horticultural school in Haarlem ), which he had to drop out shortly afterwards because he too fell ill with tuberculosis.

The foster parents sent him to Davos , where he lived in a sanatorium for almost three years. He was able to finance his stay and his later studies with an inheritance that had meanwhile been paid out. In the sanatorium he discovered writers like Multatuli and Heinrich Heine and began to write himself.

After his chronic illness improved, Wiedijk returned to the Netherlands, where he studied pharmacy . However, he only practiced the profession of pharmacist for a short time. He continued to be drawn to writing and tried to gain a foothold as a journalist and in politics.

Socialism and marxism

In 1892 he joined the SDB , the Dutch Social Democratic Federation, and became a member of the SDAP (Sociaal Democratische Arbeiders Partij), where he joined the left wing. In 1904 he became a member of the Colonial Commission and in 1907 a member of the Program Commission. From 1902 to 1913 he was the editorial secretary of De Nieuwe Tijd . From 1902 he was able to place various articles in other socialist publications. In 1918 his book Socialist Opstellen and 1927 Critical Herinneringen was published .

From 1909 to 1915 he was a member of the Sociaal-Democratische Partij (SDP), a forerunner of the Dutch communist party Communist Partij van Nederland , but returned to the SDAP and switched to the OSP in 1932 . Since 1930, numerous publications have appeared in De Nieuwe Weg . In 1937 he presented a biography by Eduard Douwes Dekker about his youth and his time as a civil servant in colonial Indonesia .

literature

• Marcel van der Linden (ed.): The reception of Marx's theory in the Netherlands. Friedrich Ebert Foundation 1992. ISBN 3926132183 .

Web links

• Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis: Archief Pieter Wiedijk (Dutch)