Archipel Études interdisciplinaires sur le monde insulindien | 2018 Varia The perils of hybridity in 19th-century Java: Ronggawarsita's reputation, animated debates in Bramartani, and the probable origins of Javanese acrostics; with a postscript on Purwalĕlana Les périls de l'hybridité au XIX e siècle à Java : la réputation de Ronggawarsita, les débats animés de Bramartani et l'authenticité des origines des acrostiches javanais ; avec un post-scriptum sur Purwalĕlana 12 In mid-1866 a sequence

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... events led to an extraordinary exchange of correspondence in the Javanese weekly newspaper Bramartani. The death of his son left the paper's editor, the Indo-European F.W. Winter, in such despair that he evidently lost interest in, and gave up personal control of his paper. A friend contributed material to ill its pages, from which lowed a heated controversy that occupied much of the space in the publication for many weeks. Only in early February 1867 did Winter reassert control and bring the controversy to an end. In the meantime, it had revealed not only divisions about what, in the new colonial age in Java, constituted good literature, but also about what, in the pages of the new medium of a newspaper, constituted proper manners. The Surakarta poet Ronggawarsita (1802-73), now commonly regarded as the last of the great Javanese poets (pujongga), was not so regarded in 1866-7 and became a target of withering criticisms in Bramartani. Reading this correspondence probably also suggests, en passant, how the Javanese use of acrostics may have found its origins in a popular Dutch song. In 19th-century Java, the elite, literate priyayis -a tiny proportion of the whole Javanese population -faced a rapidly changing cultural environment 3 .