On June 6th 2017 four History students of Leiden University started checking and enhancing two digital datasets for access to the Dutch East India Company Archives of the National Archives of Indonesia. The work includes the recording of indexes of person and place names present in the so called Marginalia of the Daily Journals of the Castle of Batavia, and also document descriptions of the series Appendices to the Resolution Books.

The students are supported and guided by Alicia Schrikker and Lennert Bes, both teachers at Leiden University, and Marco Roling and Joan Snellen of The Corts Foundation. The students have the opportunity to get more acquainted with the archives of the Dutch East India Company and her large variety of documents, and also it is a good excercise in reading and interpreting 17th and 18th century texts. Later this year both these indexes will be published online on the website Sejarah-Nusantara.

The Dutch association "De Haagsche Besoygne" has awarded The Corts Foundation for her invaluable efforts and merit for the digital sustainable preservation of Dutch East India Company archives in Jakarta and in particular the digitization of about one million documents at the National Archives of Indonesia.

The secretary of The Corts Foundation, mr. Joan Snellen van Vollenhoven, has received a honor medal on May 30th 2017 at "'t Goude Hooft" in The Hague, on behalf of the board and all participants of the DASA project.

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Monday 27th February 2017 the Dutch Oorlogsgravenstichting organised a commemoration at the war cemetery Kembang Kuning at Surabaya to honour the casualties of the Sea Battle in the Java Sea, 75 years ago. Wreaths were laid down by the ambassador of the Royal Kingdm of the Netherlands, the director of the Oorlogsgravenstichting, the president of the National Comittee 5 May, by survivors and by descendants of the victims. This was an emotional meeting where offcourse was memorised that the sunken allied war ships were no longer present in the war grave of the Indonesian waters.

March 1st 2017 a second commemoration was organised, where the admirals of both Indonesian and Dutch naval forces laid wreaths. Representatives of the various allied forces extensively declared the importance of this mutual sacrifice of both navies.

On behalf of the The Corts Foundation mr. Joan Snellen van Vollenhoven (secretary, ex-marine officer) was present on both occasions, accompanied by Prof. Bambang Hidayat (advisor TCF). The Corts Foundation is presently working on translation of a volume of the Senshi Sosho from Japanese to English, regarding the Battle of the Java Sea.

At the international cultural meeting of the Dutch Trading Heritage Network in South East Asia, held at Baan Hollanda Information Center (Ayutthaya, Thailand) a publication was presented on 14th November 2016 about old diplomatic letters from the 17th and 18th century. These letters were found at the National Archives of Indonesia (Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, ANRI).

This diplomatic correspondence contains more than eight thousand letters, four hundred of which apply to the relation between the kingdom of Siam and the Dutch at the castle of Batavia (Jakarta, Indonesia). Eleven letters in particular have been studied in detail by Thai and Dutch historians and bundled in a book publication. This publication in English is now available digitally.
The book publication has also been presented to the Dutch embassador in Thailand, the Dutch Prime Minister Rutte and the Dutch Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Ploumen. 

At the moment work is in progress on a translation in the Thai language. This version is expected in the beginning of next year 2017 and will be presented to Thailand.

See photo to the right (from right to left): prof. dr. Bhawan Ruangsilp (historian), ms. Risma Manurung (archivist ANRI), prof. dr. Dhiravat na Pombejra (historian), ms. Sutthiman Limpanusorn (translator), mr. Joan Snellen van Vollenhoven (secretary TCF)

On the website about the Dutch 17th and 18th centurie archives, developed by TCF and ANRI, a special web page has been created on the diplomatic letters of Siam. See: https://sejarah-nusantara.anri.go.id/letters-from-siam/

Also the individual articles and the digital version of the book publication can be found.

An introduction video on the letters is shown here (see video on the right).

The publication and the video were made possible with the support of Baan Hollanda Historical Center, the Dutch embassy in Thailand, Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia and The Corts Foundation.