The National Archives of Indonesia ( id, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, ANRI) is the non-departmental government institution of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Gui ...

responsible for maintaining a central

archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual ...

. It holds the largest archive collection related to the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

(VOC). In 2003, Indonesia introduced a joint submission to the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...

Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembere ...

with the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

, and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

for their archival collections related to the VOC. The National Archives collection traces its origins to the work of Jacob Anne van der Chijs, who was appointed the first archivist of the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...

in 1892 by the colonial government.

History

The task of archive management in the early period of Dutch presence in Indonesia fell upon the General Secretariat of the colonial government. Archive material received little attention during this period and was often unmaintained, resulting in accumulation of material and insect damage. During the

interregnum An interregnum (plural interregna or interregnums) is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order. Archetypally, it was the period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next (coming from Latin '' ...

period (1811–1816) arising from

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...

, the British took over administration of the Dutch East Indies. Archive maintenance fell upon the hands of the librarian of the

Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences The Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijk Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, 1778–1962) was a Dutch learned society in Batavia (now Jakarta, Indonesia). The society was founded in 1778 by naturalist Ja ...

. On 19 February 1819, the archive was returned to the management of the General Secretariat and remained within its jurisdiction until 1892. In 1860, Jacob Anne van der Chijs and Henry David Levyssohn Norman were commissioned to investigate the existing archives. Over the next several years, 15 chests of archive material were transported to the

Nationaal Archief The Nationaal Archief (NA) is the national archives of the Netherlands, located in The Hague. It houses collections for the central government, the province of South Holland, and the former County of Holland. There is also material from private ...

in the Netherlands. Plans to send all material overseas were blocked by the Batavian Society, and a commission was charged in 1872 to determine which materials important enough to be kept would be transferred to the Society. Van der Chijs was recommissioned in 1880 to create the archive's first

collection catalog In museums, the collection of cultural property or material is normally catalogued in a collection catalog (or collections catalog). Traditionally this was done using a card index, but nowadays it is normally implemented using a computerized dat ...

, which was eventually published in two years later. The collection contained 18,387 items, and work began to order and number them definitively. Van der Chijs was appointed the first archivist of the Indies on 28 January 1892 through a government decree. Although van der Chijs regarded his work as provisional, his successors did not continue the work to document the VOC archives. In 1925, the collection was moved to the former country estate of

Governor-General Governor-general (plural ''governors-general''), or governor general (plural ''governors general''), is the title of an office-holder. In the context of governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general are appointed as viceroy t ...

Reynier de Klerck, where it remained undamaged during the period of Japanese occupation. When the Dutch transferred sovereignty of the Indies to Indonesia in 1949, the collections were handed to the current National Archives. They were finally moved to the new location of the National Archives in 1975.

Collection

Indonesia holds the largest archive collection related to the

in the world, with documents dating between 1612 and 1811. The collection encompasses almost half of the VOC archives worldwide with a total of 15,000 entries on 1,800 meters of shelf space. In 2003, a joint nomination to include the combined archives of the Dutch East India Company in the

with the

, and

was submitted to and approved by

Notes

References

* *

External links

Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia
{{authority control

Memory of the World Register Buildings and structures in Jakarta Colonial architecture in Jakarta

History

Collection

See also

Notes

References

External links