In memoriam G.W.J. Drewes, 28 November 1899 - 7 June 1992

[...]he majored in Javanese for his Master's degree. [...]Drewes always effectively resisted the pressure exercised by particular circles to turn Balai Poestaka into a more explicit propaganda instrument of colonial government. [...]he published many books in the last twenty years of his life, and literally remained active in the academie field till the day of his death. Only a few isolated publications on Islamic subjects outside the Indonesian area have seen the light, such as, for example, the articles on the Egyptian feminist Qasim Amin (1958), on the Arabic novel (1960), and on the religious theatre in Iran (1970). [...]Drewes never explicitly concerned himself in his publications with the theories and theoretic discussions which arose during his lifetime in the fields in which he was specialized - first linguistics and then the sociology of religion and literary science.