Obituary Tristan Haan

Tristan studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Amsterdam. From 1960 onwards, he was on the editorial board of De Nieuwe Stem. Maandblad voor Cultuur en Politiek [The New Voice: Monthly Magazine for Culture and Politics]. This left-wing magazine was initiated during the occupation by Oene Noordenbos, Jan Romein and Nico Donkersloot. Tristan regularly contributed to the 'Kort Bestek' [Short Take] section, mainly writing about literary and historical subjects, and sometimes adopting a rather polemical stance. In his role as editorial secretary, he conducted extensive correspondence, which is preserved in the magazine's archives. By the time De Nieuwe Stem ceased publication at the end of 1967, Tristan had been head of the French department of the IISG for two years. He succeeded Bernard van Tijn, whose Latin department had been split in two in 1965. Since that year, Rudolf de Jong had been in charge of the Ibero-American and anarchist department.

In 1969, an exhibition was held at the Fodor Museum about the student uprising in Paris and the subsequent social unrest in France, known as the 'May Movement of 1968'. Tristan, with his characteristic meticulousness, provided most of the text for the exhibition catalogue, including a bibliographical overview of the May Movement.

As a research assistant at the Institute, he was a member of the editorial committee of the International Review of Social History. In this role, he contributed to the preparation of a special issue of the Review dedicated to the Paris Commune, titled '1871. Jalons pour une histoire de la Commune de Paris', published to mark the centenary of the Commune. He was tasked with overseeing the preparations on behalf of the Institute and was assisted by Netty Mulder, a member of the Review's staff who helped him decipher manuscripts. Organizing editorial meetings with all the contributors and checking their contributions was such a laborious task that the anniversary issue was delayed by a year.

Tristan was an expert on the Dutch Freethinkers' Movement. He was part of the editorial team of the Woordenboek van Belgische en Nederlandse Vrijdenkers [Dictionary of Belgian and Dutch Freethinkers], in which he published an entry on Rudolf Carel d'Ablaing van Giessenburg, a publisher, bookseller and freethinker. The latter published Meslier's Testament under the pseudonym R. C. Meijer. Meslier (1668/1674–1729/1733) was an atheist and a communist who was a fierce critic of religion as the foundation of an unjust society. His radicalism is aptly illustrated by his sympathy for the sentiment "que les grands de la terre et que tous les nobles fussent pendus et étranglés avec les boyaux des prêtres" [that the great ones of the earth and all the nobles be hanged and strangled with the intestines of the priests]. As an expert on D'Ablaing's work, Tristan participated in a colloquium on Meslier held at the University of Reims in 1974, presenting an article entitled 'Rudolf Charles et la diffusion de son édition du "Testament" de Meslier, 1860–1888'. (In: Le curé Meslier et la vie intellectuelle, religieuse et sociale au début du XVIIIe siècle: Actes du colloque international de Reims, 17–19 Oct. 1974, pp. 539–573). This contribution has been described as 'très savant', although the manner in which D'Ablaing acquired the manuscript remains unknown, despite his mention of purchasing it in October 1859 from a Dutch antiquarian bookshop in his foreword to the publication. The Institute acquired this manuscript in 1937 through Arthur Lehning's mediation and with financial support from De Centrale Arbeiders-Verzekerings en Deposito-Bank. 

Tristan also had a strong connection with Multatuli and published several articles about him in the Multatuli Society's magazine, Over Multatuli [On Multatuli]. In 1995, despite the limited documentation available, he wrote a study about the women in Multatuli's life, titled Multatuli’s legioen van Insulinde. Marie Anderson, Dek en de anderen [Multatuli's Legion of Insulinde. Marie Anderson, Dek and the others]. Multatuli himself coined the term 'Legion of Insulinde'. It was a kind of secret society consisting mainly of young women who were supposed to support him in his struggle for 'justice', as he saw it. Tristan described them as follows: "Many legionnaires had a rebellious nature that could lead to revolt: they were open to something new and susceptible. They also had a capacity for adoration, or for catching fire for an ideal, depending on your perspective. They had no lack of courage in breaking with their environment of origin.' Tristan wrote the book as a distraction and a form of mourning following the tragic death of his son, Udo (1966–1989), to whom he dedicated it.

At the intersection of freethinking and work on Multatuli lies his contribution to the liber amicorum for former Institute employee Anneke Welcker, Op een beteren weg. Schetsen uit de geschiedenis van de arbeidersbeweging [On a better path: Sketches from the history of the labour movement]. His piece was about a fundamental debate on Multatuli within the freethinker movement De Dageraad. During a meeting in 1867, the question was discussed as to whether it had been wise of Douwes Dekker to resign as a colonial civil servant shortly before his retirement. After all, this had plunged him and his family into financial misery!

What is striking about Tristan's writings, particularly those about Multatuli, is that his style of argument demands a great deal of attention from the uninitiated reader. Fortunately, the subject of this booklet, the Insulinde Legion, lends itself to a lighter touch. On page 95, he sighs: 'Since I have been dealing with archives, one rule has proved to be of lasting value, because it prevents disappointment. Without a widow, there is no archive; with a widow, there is only half an archive.' Was he thinking of his experiences with Dori Prudhommeaux in Versailles when he wrote this? She was the widow of the French libertarian publicist André Prudhommeaux (1902–1968). Thanks to a tip-off from the French anarchist Daniel Guérin, Rudolf de Jong came into contact with her in 1972. During his visit, he discovered that the remainder of the archive of the French utopian socialist Étienne Cabet was located there. André's father, Jules (1869–1948) — a pacifist and biographer of Cabet — had transferred the first part of the archive to the Paris branch of the IISG in 1938. The war prevented him from continuing. In 1974, Rudolf took Tristan to meet Dori Prudhommeaux and view the archive. Despite the Ministry of Education promising 17,000 guilders to support the acquisition of the archive, the Institute ultimately missed out. Remarkably, Dori had asked the Bibliothèque Nationale (BN) for permission to export the archive. Unsurprisingly, she was refused, and the BN acquired it itself for a considerably lower amount. However, what Tristan did acquire in 1976 was Jules' archive. According to the 1976 annual report (pp. 14–15), this was a successful year for him, thanks to the purchase of archives and rare printed matter from the Parisian antiquarian bookshop of Léon Centner.

Over the course of more than twenty years, Tristan meticulously acquired printed material (books, brochures, and periodicals) for the richly diverse France collection. He did the same for the Italy collection, albeit on a more modest scale. In his correspondence with contacts and archive providers, he proved himself to be a master of the French language. He was also fortunate to have a correspondent in Paris in the form of Willem Frijhoff (1942–2024). In the 1960s and 1970s, Frijhoff regularly visited the Rue Saint-Honoré, where the Librairie Parallèles sold a wide selection of brochures from left-wing movements. He purchased these for the Institute.

Since the time of his predecessor, the Utopia, Judaica and Israel collections had also been under the remit of the France department. He made a valuable contribution to these collections, too. In a discussion piece on utopias in the Netherlands, published in de Volkskrant on 3 February 1998 and written by Saskia Poldervaart, a political scientist and expert on utopian socialism, she praised the Institute's Utopia collection, saying: 'In the Netherlands, utopian studies have indeed found remarkably little acceptance, but all publications can be found in the International Institute of Social History.' Regarding the Judaica collection, the words of the Anne Frank House librarian are worth remembering after she organised an exhibition on anti-Semitism. Had she known, she could have borrowed all the works exhibited there on this subject from the Institute; now, the Anne Frank House had to purchase them itself. Regarding the Israel collection, Tristan made the obvious choice from the Institute's perspective, documenting the Israeli peace movement and Palestinian national aspirations alongside the classic labour movement.

Tristan was an engaging conversationalist when he felt like it. The author of this article recalls an after-party held late one night after one of the Institute's famous New Year's receptions in the late 1970s, when the Institute was still located on Herengracht. After the party ended, a small group went out into Amsterdam's nightlife in search of a café that was still open. Once seated around the table with a pot of coffee in front of him, Tristan regaled us with a colourful and entertaining anecdote about life in the French Enlightenment era.

Despite his great erudition, however, Tristan did not fare well at the Institute in later years. He was reportedly hurt by what he perceived as a lack of recognition for his work on the publication of the Commune issue of the Review. He also struggled to deal with visitors, much to the annoyance of his colleagues in the Reading Room. Until the reorganisation of 1985–87, visitors wanting to consult the archives had to obtain permission from the relevant cabinet member. Tristan was not always very accommodating in this regard. Following the reorganisation, his employment with the Institute was terminated and he was offered a position at the Institute for Text Editions instead.

In the 1990s, he collaborated on the final two volumes of the Volledige Werken [Complete Works] of Multatuli.

Written by Kees Rodenburg