HHH Column: Adventures in the archives: Urk and Surakarta by Fenneke Sysling
The HHH column is a monthly blog in which History, Health & Healing members share their thoughts on research, current affairs, or anything to do with medical history. Each edition is written by a different member — in due time, we hope to offer everybody a chance to publish a contribution. This month, the floor is for Fenneke Sysling, assistant professor at Leiden University, specialised in the history of science, medicine and colonialism. In this photo-blog, Fenneke shares her unique experiences working in archives in two very different locations: Urk and Surakarta.
Adventures in the archives: Urk and Surakarta
Fenneke Sysling
In 2024 I visited two very different archives, one in Surakarta (Indonesia) and the other in the village of Urk. Each housed documents related to the health policies of the royal houses of Surakarta in the colonial era. As a historian working on colonial science and medicine, I was particularly interested in how – in the early twentieth century – it was not only the Dutch colonisers who implemented health policies, but local rulers as well.
My first visit was to the archives of the Mangkunegaran court in Surakarta (known colloquially as Solo). Surakarta is located on the island of Java, in the fertile plain between the Merapi and Merbabu volcanoes in the west, and the Lawu volcano in the east. The city boasts palaces belonging to not one but two royal courts, that of Mangkunegaran and that of the Susuhunan of Surakarta. In the colonial era, these courts lost much of their political and administrative power, but they maintained (and still maintain) cultural and symbolic authority. The Mangkunagaran palace complex is centrally located in the city and reflects a typical Javanese style: a large courtyard surrounded by buildings with a giant pendopoat its centre: a pavilion open on all sides. The palace complex also houses the library and archive of the court.
From the mid-19th century onward, the Mangkunegaran court had been open to western medicine, hiring European doctors to serve the court. The Mangkunegaran rulers invested in plantations and the sugar industry, and their health services were directed at the members of the court and the labourers working in these industries. In the twentieth century, these services included a hospital, clinics in the vicinity of Solo and a pharmacy. According to historians Rinda Handayani and Mutiah Amini, the Mangkunegaran court also had an infectious disease control agency, constructed public toilets, and had a team of health educators who visited local communities to teach about hygiene and disease prevention. A box in the archive revealed that the court also supported the Dutch-run temporary shelter for the indigenous insane [Doorgangshuis voor Inlandsche Krankzinnigen] by covering the costs for the poorest of their subjects who ended up there.
Months later, I visited another library and archive just outside of Urk, a picturesque Dutch fishing village, surrounded by land reclaimed from the sea. There, next to the fish processing factories, the Trefpunt Medische Geschiedenis is a thriving library, archive and museum, run by volunteers, including many retired doctors. In their Farmaceutisch Erfgoedcollection, I found more references to the early twentieth century medical activities of the Solo courts. The collection holds a large album with photographs and writings by J.J. Hansma, a Dutch pharmacist, who traveled to Solo to work in a pharmacy, not a Dutch pharmacy but one that was part of growing medical infrastructure of the court of the Susuhunan, the other of the two royal courts in Surakarta. Hansma worked closely with Radjiman, the main physician of the Susuhunan court, who later became a national hero in Indonesia for his role in the independence movement. From Hansma’s writing it becomes clear that it was due to Radjiman’s efforts that the Susuhunan’s clinic and pharmacy ran smoothly. Radjiman worked exceptionally long hours and wrote more prescriptions than the rest of the medical staff combined, and more laborious ones too. When Radjiman was out of town, the pharmacy would become very quiet.
These examples illustrate how two archives, located far from each other, help piece together a picture of how Javanese courts managed their health services during the late colonial period. While they were subordinate to the Dutch colonial government, the files and photo album demonstrate the courts’ investments in modern medicine, both to take care of the health of their people, and to keep pace with Dutch colonial state building.
Further reading
Rinda Handayani, Mutiah Amini, ‘Dari poliklinik hingga rumah sakit: upaya menyehatkan pekerja perkebunan di Mangkunegaran pada 1914-1930-an’, Patrawidya 25, 1 (2024), https://doi.org/10.52829/pw.407
Liesbeth Hesselink, Healers on the colonial market; Native doctors and midwives in the Dutch East Indies (Leiden 2011)
With special thanks to Wim Rakhorst