Yogyakarta:

The Birth and Growth of the Kraton in Central Java

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary attempt to discuss the birth and growth of Yogyakarta in Central Java from a cultural perspective. Yogyakarta is peculiar in its inception. Unlike other Javanese kingdoms before it, the negara and kraton of Yogyakarta (territory and palace) was created by the Treaty of Giyanti in 1755. In the process of negotiating this treaty with Sultan Mangkubumi, first ‘king’ of Yogyakarta, VOC (the Dutch East Company at Batavia) always held the upper hand. It was also instrumental in setting the power dispute between the ‘kings’ of Mataram and Mangkubumi. As a result of the Treaty of Giyanti, Yogyakarta was created as a ‘visible’ and ‘limited’ domain in terms of its bounded territory and the registered population in its realm. In the creation of Yogyakarta, we see for the first time in the long history of Javanese kingdoms a curious development in which the ‘invisible’ and ‘unlimited’ nature of Hindu-Islam-Java kingdom was circumscribed by the ‘visible’ and ‘limited’ nature of a treaty of western origin, that is, the Treaty of Giyanti.
 This historical background enabled the ruler of Yogyakarta to concentrate his efforts on the revival of traditional Javanese culture in its most ‘authentic’ form. This tendency was further accentuated by the existence of the kraton of Surakarta; since the Treaty of Giyanti, the latter became a cultural rather than political rival of Yogyakarta. The whole purpose of this cultural revivalism was to rule the people not only by a political means but also the alleged cultural supriority of the kraton as an ‘exemplary center’. A primary tool of Yogyakarta's ‘cultural rule’ was the krama-ngoko syndrome, which was developed and refined after the birth of the kraton.