Vol 1. 12 pages unpaginated prelims + 482 pages
Contents Vol 1 and Nos I (March-April 1824), II (May-June 1824), III (July-August 1824), IV (September-October 1824) and V (November-December 1824)
Vol 2. XII prelims & 454 pages
Contents Vol 2 and Nos I (January-February 1825), No II (March-April 1825), III (Mei-June 1825), IV (July-August 1825), V (September-October 1825) and VI (November-December 1825)
The two volumes are in good condition, with excellent binding and internally clean. Black titling to the spines which are sun-faded.
The Het Nederduitsch Zuid-afrikaansch Tydschrift (HNZAT) played an important role in the development of journalism in South Africa. Dr Abraham Faure, a Dutch Reformed Minister and was spent 45 years as the Minister of the Groote Kerk, Cape Town. In 1824, he founded the HZNAT, together with Thomas Pringle who founded an English version. Indeed this proved to be the first Cape Dutch Publication.
By 1824, the Cape Dutch Church had grown to fourteen congregations as the Dutch-speaking farmers on the borders of the colony moved further and further away from Cape Town. The large area made it difficult to attend church services. Twelve ministers alone could not handle this great pastoral task. Many members also became careless on Sundays and began working on that Sabbath day, or were even ignorant of Christ's deliverance. For this reason, Faure launched the NZAT a few months before the 1824 Synod. Two magazines appeared; A Dutch version (with Faure himself as editor) and an English version (with Pringle as editor), serving two different communities. This allowed the Cape Dutch Church to communicate with the scattered members.
Faure's main aim was to serve the distant members pastorally with the magazine, but the magazine did indeed also include topics of a literary, historical or scientific nature, but also matters "inevitably connected with this Colony". Also "memorable pieces" such as the origins of the "first Volksplanters" and their re-experiences in the new country, are included in it. The Cape Dutch Church History also receives its attention in the magazine, but without developing "one narrow-minded cult spirit": the aim of this was to spread the magazine "as widely and as widely as inquisitive readers and readers' will be found".
Faure has been called 'the father of South African literature', because he made the first organised effort to promote literature in the country, was responsible for the first Cape Dutch and later Afrikaans publications.
When Dr Dr Abraham Faure founded HNZAT in 1824 with Thomas Pringle’s English version, it was regarded as “interesting” that Pringle’s partner in his fight for an independent press was not the press pioneer John Fairbairn, but a Dutch (Afrikaner) minister. The founding of these two magazines, as a seemingly harmless step, would develop into an “acrimonious press battle with overtones of spying, conspiracy and intrigue which rocked the staid Cape society”. Both Pringle and Faure argued that there was “a very strong sentiment” that colonists should have their own publication, even if it was only a literary and religious magazine.
Sources: https://af.wikipedia.org/wiki/Het_Nederduitsch_Zuid-Afrikaansch_Tydschrift and https://www.litnet.co.za/the-origins-of-dutch-afrikaans-journalism-the-period-in-which-it-developed-and-abraham-faure-as-pioneer/
- Binding Condition: Very good
- Overall Condition: Good
- Size: 210 x 125 mm
