3 - Blessing in Disguise: Kawi Culture in The Early 20th century Through The Hands of Mangkoenagoro VII and His Intellectual Network (1913–44)

Presentation Abstract
The beginning of the 20th century holds interesting stories about the development of Kawi cultural knowledge in Javanese society. One of these stories comes from Surakarta, with the main actor Mangkoenagoro VII as the leader of Mangkunegaran palace. During his reign, he contextualized Kawi culture in the architecture of buildings: Kumudawati, Sasana Soeka, Tugu Selogiri and Ponten Ngebrusan. Mangkoenagoro VII also played an active role in sponsoring archaeological activities in his region.Those acts were driven by the production of knowledge from cultural institutions such as Cultuur-Wijsgeerige Studiekring, Java Instituut and Bataviaasch Genootschap along with their publications. This article attempts to look at the big picture behind the cultural politics of Mangkoenagoro VII and the network he had in the context of the Dutch East Indies government. This network, whose embryos alreadyexisted when Mangkoenagoro VII was studying in Leiden, would eventually appear as the main basis for massive cultural work and rejuvenation of the knowledge in Kawi culture during his era. Moreover, the beginning of the 20th century also serves as a period of discourse battle between religious discourse and Javanese nationalism discourse, which influenced the intellectual journey of the aristocrats and scholars around Mangkoenagoro VII.