Akshay Kumar Maitreya

Akshay Kumar Maitreya (Bangla: অক্ষয় কুমার মৈত্রেয়) (1861-1930) is one of the most important historians and social workers in Bengal. He was born in Nadia (now in West Bengal), but much of his education was in Kolkata and Rajshahi (in Bangladesh). He was a friend of Rabindranath Tagore, but famously engaged with him in an argument about whether history based fiction should necessarily represent historical facts correctly. Maitrya, being a historian, called for historical correctitude, while Tagore declared that an artist has freedom to bend historical facts.

Maitreya was instrumetal in creating the Barendra Museum, Rajshahi and also credited for disproving the Black Hole of Calcutta theory used by the colonial British to discredit Siraj Ud Daulah.

Works

• Aitihasik Chitra (Snapshots of History)
• Gaudalekhamala (The writings of Gaur)