Rc Dablaing Van Giessenburg

Personal

Vocation

Family

Dutch publisher, freethinker and writer. Rudolf Carel was the illegal son of the jurist Rudolf Carel d'Ablaing baron van Giessenburg (27 April 1804, Amsterdam - 7 April 1881, De Bilt) and his half sister Johanna Maria d'Ablaing van Giessenburg (1838-). Both parents had general major J.D.C.C. d'ablaing van Giessenburg (6 June 1779, Utrecht - 27 June 1859, Doorn) as father. Though he had from birth the right to use the name d'ablaing van Giessenburg, his unmarried mother gave him the name Meijer. Shortly before his marriage, his mother recognised him as her natural son ( 22 March 1861). Till that day he called himself R.C. Meijer, thereafter R.C. d'Ablaing van Giessenburg, R.C. He also used pseudonyms: Aërobaat, Caper, Rudolf Charles, R.C., L. Dabinga, Karel, Jan Rechtuit, Een Staatsburger and signed with his initials D.A.V.G. He followed elementary education, but had no interest in the Latin School. Probably he spoke French at home. He became a clerk in Amsterdam and Batavia (1847-50). Back in Amsterdam he become companion of book seller and publisher J. Stemvers. In 1853 he worked for him self as book seller and in 1856 he started publishing books, targeting on forbidden and prosecuted French writers. He became member of the freemason lodge Post Nubila Lux (1849). In 1855 he released the Magazine De Dageraad and on 4 and 12 October 1856 the freemason lodge De Dageraad. On 28 May 1858 he left this group as he as an atheist had problems with the deistic course of his companion F.C. Günst. Before that, on 11 January 1858 he had left the Wallonian church, which was a major step in a country where church and state were not yet fully separated. He worked years to get the complete “Le Testament de Jean Meslier” (1664-1729) published. Jean Meslier was a French Catholic priest that shortly before his death converted to atheism. He repented that he as a priest had misled so many Catholic sheep. It was published in French in three parts in 1864. He also published Ideën I and II of Multatuli, but in 1866 he was financially broke. In later years he worked on a major project: “L'Evolution des idées religieuses dans la Mésopotamie et dans l'Egypte depuis 4400 jusqu'à 2000 avant notre ère.” He never finished it. Personal On 18 April 1861 he married Josephina Maria Anthonia Luken (b. 1827). They got four sons. He died 13 March 1904 in Amsterdam.