Asisten Wedana ("Sub-District Chief") approximately 1,200 positions.Wedana ("District Chief") approximately 400 positions.The bupati is subordinate to, and usually has a one-to-one correspondence with, the assistant resident ‒ the lowest ranking official of the Binnenlands Bestuur. The position of a bupati was often inherited from father to son, a practice allowed under the 1854 Dutch Constitutions, and families of the bupati often formed a local aristocratic class. A bupati is responsible for a kabupaten, often a polity with a semi-autonomous history. Bupati ("Regent") approximately 70 positions.In turn, there were three pangreh praja offices with territorial responsibilities, staffed by the indigenous priyayi, in descending order: Raden Tumenggung Danoediningrat, Regent of Kediri, with his wife. Assistant Resident approximately 70 positions.īy 1926, the Binnenlands Bestuur in the directly ruled areas of Java and Madura consisted of the following offices with territorial responsibilities, in descending order: Outside of the areas ruled directly by Yogyakarta and Surakarta, Dutch colonial authorities established two civil service bodies: the Binnenlands Bestuur ("Interior Administration"), staffed by Dutch officials, and the Pangreh Praja ("Ruler of the Realm"), the indigenous bureaucracy. In the lowland rural areas of Java, the presence of a centralized indigenous bureaucracy strengthened state control over uncultivated land, and helped transform the peasantry from independent smallholders to agricultural laborers. Although Dutch political influence severely limited their autonomy throughout the colonial period, the two kingdoms continued to serve as symbols of Javanese courtly culture. Colonial period Īfter the arrival of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and the collapse of Mataram, the Sultanates of Surakarta and Yogyakarta became centers of Javanese political power since the 1755 Treaty of Giyanti. Although "Javanized" by Mataram’s political expansion, the Sundanese-speaking western part of Java, the easternmost parts of Java, and the nearby island of Madura retain ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences from the Mataramese heartland. The homeland of priyayi culture is attributed to Mataram’s center, namely the Javanese-speaking middle and eastern parts of Java. Named para yayi ("the king’s brothers"), nobles, officials, administrators, and chiefs were integrated in a patron-client relationship with the Sultan to preside over the peripheries of the kingdom. The Mataram Sultanate, an Islamic polity in south central Java that reached its peak in the 17th century, developed a kraton ("court") culture from which the Sultan emerged as a charismatic figure that rules over a relatively independent aristocracy. Mataram Sultanate during Sultan Agung's reign, mid-17th century.