Research project

Cultural diplomacy and the Javanese Courts (19th and early 20th century)

Central to Nuranisa’s PhD project is the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java (Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman and Mangkunegaran) in response to the increasing Dutch colonial power in the 19th and early 20th century. The Javanese sultanates were incorporated into the modern colonial state of the Dutch East Indies, but were awarded a special status that gave them greater autonomy. This resulted in a dynamic colonial interaction in which the power, wealth and social standing of the Javanese courts was protected and enhanced through diplomatic tools. However, not much is known about the political maneuvering and cultural interactions between the Javanese courts and the Dutch from a Javanese perspective. This project therefore aims to show how Javanese courts shaped these relations, and how they employed forms of cultural diplomacy such as gift-giving to strengthen bonds in an age of colonialism.

Duration: 2024 - 2028
Contact: Nuranisa Nuranisa
Funding: Leiden University Starting Grant

Abstract

This PhD project focuses on the cultural diplomacy practiced by the Javanese courts of central Java—Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Pakualaman, and Mangkunegaran—in response to growing Dutch colonial influence during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the Javanese sultanates became part of the Dutch East Indies, they were granted a special status that allowed them significant autonomy. This created a dynamic colonial relationship in which the Javanese courts were able to preserve and even enhance their power, wealth, and social standing through diplomatic strategies. However, the political maneuvering and cultural exchanges between the Javanese courts and the Dutch, particularly from a Javanese perspective, remain understudied. This project seeks to show how the Javanese courts navigated these interactions, employing cultural diplomacy tools like gift-giving to forge and maintain ties during the colonial period.

Questions

The four Javanese courts were the inheritors of the last independent Sultanate of Java, and had to deal with the encroaching presence of colonial power. In order to persuade the Dutch that a collaborative approach to colonial dominance - founded upon a symbiotic alignment of interests - would be most effective, Javanese courts wielded their ‘soft power’: they engaged in gift-giving and they constructed a historical narrative stressing the importance of the bond between kings and governed (Taylor 2016). While adopting Western diplomatic tools to further their aims, they also drew from their long history of global diplomacy.

Often, the Dutch House of Orange-Nassau was the focal point of the Javanese courts’ exercises in diplomacy. For example, Javanese aristocrats regularly sent gifts to Dutch royals, from betel sets to photographic portraits (Taylor 2016, Wassing-Visser 1995). William I was the linchpin of the newly founded Dutch kingdom of 1815: politically, constitutionally and ideologically (Koch 2013). The political power of the royals diminished after 1848, but members of the House of Orange remained important players in the representation of power and a wide range of international and imperial diplomacy. Towards the Javanese courts, the role of the House of Orange was of a Janus faced nature: they were colonizers, but at the same time they were allies to safeguard dynastic interests. Javanese sultanates, for their part, tried to transcend the dichotomy between colonizer and colonized. They wanted all residents of the Indies, both colonizer and colonized, to recognize them as rulers.

This project investigates the Javanese courts’ tools of cultural diplomacy towards the colonizer in Java and towards the Dutch state represented by the House of Orange. Its aim is to develop a thorough understanding of different dimensions of Javanese cultural diplomacy and to trace its developments over the course of more than a century. Research question are, but are not limited to: how did the Javanese courts construct and navigate their narrative of power towards other rulers? Did the sultanates perceive the status (regality) of the Dutch royals higher than that of colonial bureaucrats, residents or the governor-general? How did gift-giving, and ceremonial and representational roles shape these relationships? What was the degree of westernization in Javanese cultural diplomacy (Amini 2014)?

Approach

The proposed project builds on recent work following the cultural turn in diplomatic history for the Global South that centralizes multivocality and non-European perspectives in colonial encounters (Amirell 2022, Tremml-Werner, Van Meersbergen and Hellman 2020). With a focus on the Javanese side of the relationship this project moves away from a story of ever-increasing Dutch power towards a narrative in which the Dutch did not dictate the (dis)continuity in political and cultural developments in the Netherlands Indies. It emphasizes the local conditions and circumstances of cross-cultural diplomacy and imperial expansion, including violence and coercion, but also negotiations, gifts and ceremonies.

By focusing on the 19^th and early 20^th century (1815-1920), this project also highlights the long-term character of imperial and diplomatic relations. Thanks to centuries of European presence, Javanese courts were already accustomed to the necessity of accommodating European colonial powers, and they were skilled in employing strategic maneuvers to safeguard and boost their wealth and social standing. This project can build on existing case studies about Javanese cultural diplomacy by Taylor and Protschky, and on a recent symposium held in Surakarta (2023), Towards a New Global History of Javanese Court Culture, Politics and Governance.

Apart from these studies, historians in this field have traditionally concentrated on the art of ritual governance and on the creative arts of the Javanese courts. Dutch historians have written about the Dutch royal family’s role in imperialism, but less about the royal family as the object of diplomatic strategies of colonized kingdoms. From a Dutch imperial perspective, earlier research has also argued that these courts held little influence on the center of colonial authority.

Our new approach to this topic is centered on the Javanese perspective of these interactions, combined with methods and concepts from the history and anthropology of gift-giving (Mauss 1966, Gregory 1982, Hyde 1983, Martin 2015), royal colonial interactions (Aldrich and McCreery 2016) and from the cultural turn in new diplomatic history (Duindam 2019, Amsler, Harrison and Windler 2019). This cultural turn has not been extensively applied to colonial encounters in Java until now.

Our shift in focus to the Javanese side of cross-cultural relations means this project will primarily draw upon Indonesian sources. Sources from the Javanese courts include writings such as chronicles and autobiographies (Babad Tanah Jawi, Serat Baron Sakendher and Babad Giyanti), located in Indonesia but also at Leiden University Library (Pigaud 1967). For examples of the effective use of these sources, see: Poedjosoedarmo et al., 1967, Ras 1987, Saddhono 2014 and Widodo 2022. Objects and accompanying correspondence in the Dutch Royal Archives will also be sources for this project. Access to this archive is guaranteed through the House of Orange project (see below). If relevant, comparisons can be drawn between the Javanese court culture and sultanates from the ‘outer islands’, such as Bali, where Dutch colonial influence appeared much later and where cultural diplomacy took shape in a different context.