Anisa Nuranisa MA
PhD candidate
E-mail: [email protected]
Area(s) of interest: Asian History, Colonialism & Postcolonialism, Political History
Cohort/Start PhD: 2024-2025
Cultural diplomacy and the Javanese courts (19th and early 20th centuries)
Leiden University
Supervisor(s): Alicia Schrikker, Bart Verheijen, and Fenneke Sysling
Aanstelling: May 2024- May 2028
This research project focuses on the practices of cultural diplomacy by the four princely courts in central Java—Surakarta, Yogyakarta, Mangkunegara, and Pakualaman. This research will dwell on the practices of diplomacy by these Javanese princes, such as gift-giving and court cultures, during the period of incremental colonial dominance in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These four princely courts were unique and interesting for many reasons. First, after the bloody Java War (1825–1830), these kingdoms in central Java were stripped of their political authority and simultaneously became economically dependent on the colonial government. Secondly, these states—albeit politically stripped of their power—were granted a new status as Vorstenlanden, which resembled vassals with nominal self-governing capacity. These princely courts remained under the watchful eyes of the colonial government in Batavia and, by extension, were subjects of and under the suzerainty of the House of Orange-Nassau in the Netherlands.
To maintain and assert their authority, these central Javanese courts employed diplomatic practices with both the colonial government in Batavia and the scions of the House of Orange in the Netherlands. These princes not only consistently sent gifts to the royal House of Orange but also, when given the chance, attended in person rites of passage for Dutch Queen Wilhelmina, presenting their gifts directly.
This research seeks to examine how these Javanese princes used diplomatic practices as a way to assert their dominance in the midst of colonial domination. Through such practices, what can we infer about their relations? These are the sorts of questions I attempt to answer in this research.