Abraham Kuyper

"ABRAHAM KUYPER (1837-190), Dutch theologian am politician, was born 0t. 29 1837 atVlaassluis, and was educate, at the university of Leiden. He becme Doctor of Divinity an pastor of the Dutch Reformed Chuch at Beesd in 186 3, and i 1870 moved to Amsterdam, where te became in 1876 leader the anti-Revolutiorary party whiclnimed at the restoration strictly Calvinistic doctrine in the uidance of State affairs. 1879 he detailed lolly the principlf and wishes of his party Ons Program (Ou Programme). few years later a Calvinis university was firmed through hi:instrumentality at Amst dam, and he himself became professor of theology. Under his leadership a considerable section of the old Netherland Reformed Church seceded in 1886 and founded the strictly orthodox Calvinistic Reformed Church Community. Until 1894 he devoted himself to religious teaching, and subsequently to politics, literature and journalism, having founded the Standaard and the Heraut in 1872, and contributing to it a daily front-page column of notes on current politics and theology. From 1874-7 he had sat in the Second Chamber, but in the latter year a serious illness forced him to resign his seat. In 1894 he was returned to the Second Chamber. In 1895 he defended the workers' right to strike, but in 1903, as head of the Government (1901-5), he crushed a railway strike by rushing a bill through Parliament making illegal a stoppage of work by those engaged in the public and semi-public services. This won him the enmity of the Dutch Socialists. As minister he conferred upon his Calvinistic univer sity the Jus Promovendi. He deserves great credit for having converted the somewhat old-fashioned polytechnical school at Delft into a technical university which rivals the very best. During the South African War he took a prominent part in the attempts to get Holland to mediate between Great Britain and the Boers. In the World War he sided openly with Germany, but his influence had already greatly diminished. He was the author of numerous publications dealing mostly with religious subjects and held honorary degrees from various universities.

A popular edition of his works appeared in 1896-8, and his parliamentary speeches were published in four volumes (190810). He also published a book describing the Dutch community in London in 1570-1. He died at The Hague Nov. 8 1920.

See W. F. A. Winckel, Leven Arbeid van Dr. Kuyper (1921); Dr. A. Kuyper, Gedenkboek (1921) and A. S. S. and J. H. Kuyper, De Levensavond van Dr. A. Kuyper (1921).

evidence conclusively proves that, though there were cases of Kurdish participation, the greater portion of the nation not only held aloof, but, as in the case of the Dersim Kurds (who actually saved 25,000 Armenians), displayed their repugnance to the Turkish orders in a practical manner. Throughout central and northern Kurdistan there were in 1919 numbers of Armenians who had lived as refugees among the Kurds.

About this time Russia began to formulate a policy to encourage the Kurdish national movement, for she hoped to use Kurdistan as a counterpoise to Armenia, and when in 1916 Russian forces were in possession of Erzerum and Bitlis, members of the Badr Khan Bey family were appointed as provincial governors in pursuance of the policy. In this year events happened which complicated political matters in Kurdistan. Ismail Agha Shekak, better known as Simko, living between Van and Urmia, murdered the patriarch of the Nestorians, who fled to Persian territory and called upon the Russians to avenge the murder. In the same year a Russian force moved towards and occupied Rawanduz in central Kurdistan. This force was largely composed of Armenians and other Christian volunteers, calling themselves" the army of revenge,"and the atrocities committed by them in the destruction of Rawanduz upon Kurds who had till then known nothing of them were in every way equal to anything attributed to Kurds in former massacres of Armenians. Further apprehension and unrest were caused in central and northern Kurdistan by the Sykes-Picot agreement, which provisionally assigned the Mosul vilayet to France, a Power regarded by the Kurds as violently pro-Christian.

Early in 1917 the Russians further alienated Kurdish sympathy by brutal treatment of the population of Khaniqin and the Shilyar valley in southern Kurdistan. The British forces, beyond a reconnaissance in April 1917, did not enter Kurdistan till Dec. 1917, when Khaniqin was occupied without opposition from the Kurds. In the early part of 1918 the desire for autonomy and the favourable attitude of Kurdistan to Great Britain was becoming apparent; at Sairt, in central Kurdistan, the Kurds actually expelled the Kurdish garrison, while leaders throughout the country contrived to get into touch with the British and assure them of their friendly sentiments and desire for autonomy and final independence of Turkey.

In Nov. 1918 an officer of the political department of the Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force was sent to Sulaimani, where he received a welcome from all classes. He appointed as governor Sheikh Mahmud Barzinja, and instituted a form of government designed to be acceptable to southern Kurdistan.

A few other officers were sent at Sheikh Mahmud's request to assist in organizing the local Government under British protection. No troops entered the country. Meanwhile in the north, the Turks, alarmed at the rapid spread of pro-British and nationalist expression, busied themselves with propaganda which bore fruit to some extent on the northern borders of the Mosul vilayet, which was occupied by British troops in Nov. and Dec. 1918. The tribes in that neighbourhood are violently anti-Christian and have frequently been in armed opposition to British forces.

While propaganda and counter-propaganda were busy throughout northern and central Kurdistan, in May 1919 Sheikh Mahmud, who conceived that he had received ill-treatment at British hands in his capacity of governor of southern Kurdistan, effected a coup de main by which he filled Sulaimani town with Persian Kurd freebooters. He then entered upon a campaign, and, after defeating a small British force at Tasluja on May 26 1919, was himself defeated and captured wounded at Bazian Pass on June 20 1919.

Since the future status of Kurdistan had not been determined at that time by the League of Nations, those portions of it which fell south of the northern boundary of the Mosul vilayet were directed from Bagdad. The expedition of Major Noel in 1919 to northern Kurdistan had revealed a very general and genuine desire for separation from Turkey and independence.

The Treaty of Sevres, signed on Aug. 10 1920, provided for these aspirations as follows (Section III.): (Article 62.)" A Commission sitting at Constantinople and corn posed of three members appointed by the British, French and Italian Governments respectively shall draft within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas lying east of the Euphrates, south of the southern boundary of Armenia as it may be hereafter determined, and north of the frontier of Turkey with Syria and Mesopotamia, as defined in Article 27, II. (2) and (3). If unanimity cannot be secured on any question, it will be referred by the members of the Commission to their respective Governments. The scheme shall contain in full safeguards for the protection of the Assyro-Chaldeans and other racial or religious minorities within these areas, and with this object a Commission composed of British, French, Italian, Persian and Kurdish representatives shall visit the spot to examine and decide what rectifications, if any, should be made in the Turkish frontier where, under the provisions of the present Treaty, that frontier coincides with that of Persia."(Article 63.)" The Turkish Government hereby agrees to accept and execute the decisions of both the Commissions mentioned in Article 62 within three months from their communication to the said Government."(Article 64.)" If within one year from the coming into force of the present Treaty the Kurdish peoples within the areas defined in Article 62 shall address themselves to the Council of the League of Nations in such a manner as to show that a majority of the population of these areas desires independence from Turkey, and if the Council then considers that these peoples are capable of such independence and recommends that it should be granted to them, Turkey hereby agrees to execute such a recommendation, and to renounce all rights and title over these areas.

"The detailed provisions of such renunciation will form the subject of a separate agreement between the Principal Allied Powers and Turkey. When such renunciation takes place, no objection will be raised by the Principal Allied Powers to the voluntary adhesion to such an independent Kurdish State of the Kurds inhabiting that part of Kurdistan which has hitherto been included in the Mosul vilayet." Some suitable temporary status for the Kurds of the Mosul vilayet and the south, which are included in the British mandate, was under consideration in 1921. (E. B. S.) Kuropatkin, Alexei (1848-), Russian general (see 1 5.95 2). After the Russo-Japanese War Kuropatkin retired to his estate in the Government of Novgorod, but during the World War, after repeated request, in 1916 he was appointed a corps commander. Once more he distinguished himself as a leader of troops, and he was again promoted to the position of army commander. Later he became commander of the Northern "front" (group of armies), but his operations in the spring offensive of 1916 did not restore his prestige as a higher commander, and he was shortly afterwards sent to Turkestan as governor-general. Here his wide and deep knowledge of conditions in that province proved very useful in maintaining order in an atmosphere of discontent. In 1917 Kuropatkin once more retired into private life.

The best known of his published works is Plevna, Lovtchen and Sheinovo. His memoirs were published after the Japanese War in four volumes, the fourth of which was forbidden in Russia and had to be published in Berlin. They were translated into English.

Kusmanek Von Burgneustatten, Hermann (1860), Austro-Hungarian general, was born at Hermannstadt. He was in command of the fortress of Przemsyl when it was attacked in the first Russian campaign of the World War. It was only after a six months' investment and the repulse of powerful Russian onslaughts, and when the food supply was completely exhausted, that he surrendered on March 22 1915. Kusmanek and the garrison became prisoners of war. As a member of the War Archives Department he cooperated in the compilation of the History of the War of the Austrian Succession, and together with Maj. von Hoen wrote a manual on the sanitary service.

Kuyper, Abraham (1837-1920), Dutch theologian and politician, was born Oct. 29 1837 at Maassluis, and was educated at the university of Leiden. He became Doctor of Divinity and pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church at Beesd in 1863, and in 1870 moved to Amsterdam, where he became in 1876 leader of the anti-Revolutionary party which aimed at the restoration of strictly Calvinistic doctrine in the guidance of State affairs. In 1879 he detailed fully the principles and wishes of his party in Ons Program (Our Programme). A few years later a Calvinistic university was formed through his instrumentality at Amster dam, and he himself became professor of theology. Under his leadership a considerable section of the old Netherland Reformed Church seceded in 1886 and founded the strictly orthodox Calvinistic Reformed Church Community. Until 1894 he devoted himself to religious teaching, and subsequently to politics, literature and journalism, having founded the Standaard and the Heraut in 1872, and contributing to it a daily front-page column of notes on current politics and theology. From 1874-7 he had sat in the Second Chamber, but in the latter year a serious illness forced him to resign his seat. In 1894 he was returned to the Second Chamber. In 1895 he defended the workers' right to strike, but in 1903, as head of the Government (1901-5), he crushed a railway strike by rushing a bill through Parliament making illegal a stoppage of work by those engaged in the public and semi-public services. This won him the enmity of the Dutch Socialists. As minister he conferred upon his Calvinistic univer sity the Jus Promovendi. He deserves great credit for having converted the somewhat old-fashioned polytechnical school at Delft into a technical university which rivals the very best. During the South African War he took a prominent part in the attempts to get Holland to mediate between Great Britain and the Boers. In the World War he sided openly with Germany, but his influence had already greatly diminished. He was the author of numerous publications dealing mostly with religious subjects and held honorary degrees from various universities.

A popular edition of his works appeared in 1896-8, and his parliamentary speeches were published in four volumes (190810). He also published a book describing the Dutch community in London in 1570-1. He died at The Hague Nov. 8 1920.

See W. F. A. Winckel, Leven Arbeid van Dr. Kuyper (1921); Dr. A. Kuyper, Gedenkboek (1921) and A. S. S. and J. H. Kuyper, De Levensavond van Dr. A. Kuyper (1921). 'Abori, Fernand' (1860-1917), French lawyer, was born at Reims April 18 1860. He was educated at Reims and Paris, and spent several years in England and Ger many. He was called to the bar in 1884, and rapidly made a reputation as a brilliant lawyer and advocate, being counsel for the defence in most of the important political trials of the day during a period of nearly thirty years. It was his conduct of the Dreyfus case, however, which placed him at the top of his profession and earned him his unique reputation. He fought with unremitting energy for his client during both the first and second revisions of the trial, in 1898 and 1899, a task attended with considerable danger, as political passions were so strongly excited at the time that Labori was shot at and wounded at Rennes on the eve of his cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution. Dreyfus was not finally declared innocent until 1906, and Labori never once relaxed his efforts on behalf of the unfortunate officer. Other notable trials in which he was concerned were the prosecution of Emile Zola for libel (1898), which arose out of the Dreyfus case; the Humbert affair (1902); and the trial of Madame Caillaux for the murder of M. Calmette, editor of the Figaro (1914), when he secured her acquittal. He died in Paris March 14 1917.

Categories: KRE-KYS | Biography | Christian religious objects | History of the Low Countries | Theologians