Portrait of Ki Hajar Dewantara

Ki Hajar Dewantara

Indonesian educator, activist

Lived
1889–1959
Country
Indonesia

Updated September 2026

About Ki Hajar Dewantara

Raden Mas Soewardi Soerjaningrat, better known by the name Ki Hajar Dewantara since 1922, was a leading Indonesian independence movement activist, writer, columnist, politician, and pioneer of education for native Indonesians in Dutch colonial times. He founded the Taman Siswa school, an institution that provided education for indigenous commoners, which otherwise was limited to the Javanese aristocracy and the Dutch colonials.

Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers. Last updated September 2026.