The results of the research programme Independence, Decolonization, Violence and War in Indonesia, 1945-1950 will be presented on Thursday, February 17, 2022 during a meeting at the KNAW in Amsterdam. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the research results appear later than originally planned.

Delay due to COVID-19 pandemic

Initially, the results were to be delivered early September 2021. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, archives in the Netherlands and Indonesia were closed and traveling to and within other countries became impossible. Therefore the publication of the results had to be postponed until the end of November 2021. Due to the even more drastic consequences of the second lockdown, it was inevitable to adjust the schedule again.

Information about the research programme

Independence, Decolonization, Violence and War in Indonesia, 1945-1950 is a joint research programme of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), the Netherlands Institute of Military History (NIMH) and the NIOD, Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. NIOD and KITLV are institutes of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The research programma consists of eight subprojects. In a number of them we work together with Indonesian historians. The programme’s central question concerns the dynamics of events surrounding the violence that occurred from the proclamation of the Republic on 17 August 1945 (the chaotic period from August 1945 to the beginning of 1946) until the end of the war in 1949. Military, political and judicial aspects, as well as the consequences of the violence for different groups in the population, will be studied in detail. The political and social aftermath in the Netherlands will also be covered. Read more about the research programme here.

15-04-2021