Hamengkubuwono IX

Hamengkubuwono IX (1912–1988) was the ninth Sultan of Yogyakarta and an Indonesian statesman: second vice president of Indonesia (1973–1978), first governor of the Special Region of Yogyakarta, and a minister in the republic's governments across three decades. Crowned a sultan under colonial rule, he chose the republic in 1945 and put his throne, treasury and palace at its service. ^{1 2}

He was born on 12 April 1912 at Sompilan, Yogyakarta, as Gusti Raden Mas Dorodjatun, ninth son of Hamengkubuwono VIII. From the age of four he was raised for some years by a Dutch family, the Mulders, who called him Henkie. Schooled at Yogyakarta, Semarang and Bandung, he went to the Netherlands in 1930, attended the Haarlem Lyceum and read Indology at Leiden, but was recalled in 1939 as war began; his father marked him as heir by pinning the keris Kyai Jaka Piturun on him, and died days after their return, on 22 October 1939. ^{1 3}

After four months of hard negotiation with the Dutch over the terms of his rule, he was crowned on 18 March 1940 with a regnal style that includes the title Kalifatullah, declaring in his coronation speech that, Western education notwithstanding, he remained a Javanese. Under the Japanese occupation he governed Yogyakarta autonomously, and used projects such as the Mataram irrigation canal to shield his people from forced labour. ¹

On the proclamation of independence in August 1945 he and Paku Alam VIII declared for the republic, and Yogyakarta became a Special Region with him as its governor for life. When the capital moved to Yogyakarta in 1946 he funded the government; when the Dutch seized the city in December 1948 he stayed at his post and refused to head their projected federal state. He conceived the general offensive of 1 March 1949, which briefly retook Yogyakarta and proved to the world that the republic lived. ^{1 4}

He served the republic as defence minister, vice premier, audit chief and coordinating minister for development. In the transition of 1966 he formed, with Suharto and Adam Malik, the triumvirate that reversed Sukarno's policies, and held the economics portfolio until 1973, when he was elected vice president. Expected to serve again in 1978, he refused renomination, disillusioned by authoritarianism and corruption. ¹

On a visit to Washington, D.C., he suffered internal bleeding and died at the George Washington University Medical Center on the evening of 2 October 1988 — 3 October in Indonesia. He was buried in the royal mausoleum at Imogiri and named a National Hero of Indonesia; his son succeeded him as Hamengkubuwono X. The religious colour of his court was Javanese: the regnal style he bore is an office of the throne, and the Kejawèn reading of a banyan's fall during his funeral rites belongs to his people's culture — the sources name no school for the man himself, and this record records none. ^{1 2}

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