MODERN To MARIJKE, ANANDI, JOSINE, ARIE and KRISTINE, who have so generously shared their father with all his funny books. KONINKLIJK INSTITUUT VOOR TAAL-, LAND· EN VOLKENKUNDE

'TRANSLATION SERIES 10

MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE

BY

A. TEEUW

UNIVERSITY OF LEIDEN

Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V. THIS BOOK IS PUBLISHED UNDER A GRANT FROM THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCES

ISBN 978-94-015-0250-4 ISBN 978-94-015-0768-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-0768-4 SOFTCOVER REPRINT OF THE HARDCOVER 1ST EDITION 1967 FOREWORD

The histQry of this book dates back exactly 20 years. When I first set foot on the shores O'f in September 1947, I was, amongst other things, assigned the task 0'£ teaching Malay literature in an advanced teacher-training course, with the instructiOon to' lay stress on modern literature. This was easier said than done, as very little had been written Oon the subject, and few materials were available to me. From this period I recall with great gratitude the regular and friendly contacts I had with Mr. , whO' in many ways helped me with information and documentatiO'n. The editQrs of the magazine "Kritiek en Opbouw" found my lecture• nffies Qn some pre-war authors worth publishing. These articles, with an introduction on Bahasa Indonesia and some other additiQns, were subsequently coUected and published by Pembangunan under the Voltooid Voorspel (Completed Prelude) (Djakarta 1950). The little book sold fairly quickly, but rather than publishing a new edition in Dutch the publisher was interested in bringing out an Indo~ nesian adaptation. Much material was added, the larger part of which had been CQllected by writing occasional reviews Qf Indonesian literary works for the Dutch newspaper Nieuwsgier in Djakarta. The text of the book was very conscientiously turned intO' Bahasa Indonesia by Anku Raihul Amar gl. DaItuk Besar, according to the requirements demanded of a pre-waJr 'translateur' hut perhaps with mOore deference to' the Dutch author's vQice than awareness of the exigencies of a new in a new era. The Indonesian hOQk was called Pokok dan Tokoh dalam Kesusasteraan Indonesia Baru (Topics and Figures in Modern Indonesian Lirerature) (Djakarta 1952). A new, expanded version in two volumes appeared in 1955. In 1961 the Board Qf the Koninklijk Insiliuut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology) decided to include Pokok dan Tokoh in its translation prQject, which is meant to make the results of Dutch scholarship available to the world at large. TranslatiQn, however, has turned out to be a gross euphemism for the process which the original Indonesian texrt: had to undergo. As for VI MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE the text, I found it impossible to restrict myself to minor additions and corrections. When I started to occupy myself again with this literatul"e systematically, it turned out to be a new literaJt:ure in many respects - or should I say that I was a new reader? In any case the 1"esulrt of this new confrontation with the subject is not the translation of an old book, but a book which is new in design, contents and expression. An effort has been made especially to remove the haphazard and a1"bitrary element inherent in Pokok dan Tokok, due in part to the way this earlier book had developed piecemeal. BtlIt even though I flatter myself with the hope that the present book is more objective, more systematic and more complete than its predecessor, I am not at all certain that this means progress in all respects. Aiming at a certain completeness inevitably led to sometimes rather dry enumerations of what are hardly more than marginal phenomena of modern literature (e.g. the section on the sja'ir, the 'Odds and Ends' etc.). On Ithe other hand, the subject itself did not always allow me to maintain the objec• tivity of a scholarly discussion. Confrontation with authors like Chairi1 Anwar, Amir Harnzah or Pramudya Ananta Tur does not take place in an atmosphere of detachmenJt, and consequently the book tends in places to be literary criticism rather than literary history. This double viewpoint of history and criticism also finds expression in the strudture of the book as a whole. There are sections in which a historiOaJl survey is given alongside separate essays devoted to specific authors. It is not accidental, of course, that in the treatmenJt of pre-war literature historical description dominaJtes, whereas post-war authors receive more individual attention. The pre-war period, the 'completed prelude' is a period which is now well rounded-off, so that an assess• ment can be made of ius historical significance. The poet Amir Harnzah seems to be the only one who survived that period as a creative writer, so a separate essay has been devoted to him alone. On the other hand the literatuI"e of the Angkatan 45 is still so contemporary and alive that an individual accounJt of the work of the main authors seemed called for. For obvious reasons the newest generation could only be dea1Jt with summarily in this study. The homogeneity of the book, already suffedng from the effects of the double viewpoint sketched above, has been still further effected by another approach which crept in in the final stage of writing the book. A series of lectures on Indonesian literature as a possible source for anthropologists and sociologists, which was given during the academic year 1965-66 at the request of Professor G. W. Locher for students FOREWORD VII in the social sciences, fOirced me to re-read many novels and stories from a rather different angle, and this reOirientart:ion has had its con• sequences fOir the final shaping of the book. The process of translating this book intOi English pr-oved tOi be a rather laborious one. Initially I started tOi turn Part I into English myself. However my experiences with translating and wr-iting in English were so frustrating that the book stagnated for some time. Only when I found Mr. and Mrs. Russell Jones willing to undertake the re-writing of the part which had then been finished, as well as the translation of the rest OIf the book, did I find the courage to continue this work. I am extemely grateful to both Mr. and Mrs. Jones for the energy, patience and devotion which they bestowed Q1n my book - the loss of the illusiQln of myself ever being able to write an essay in reasonable English I gladly take into the bargain! I als,o assume full responsibility for any offence against English idiQlm which may be left in the text as a result of my ineradicable vice Q1f last-minute muddling with a manuscript. I am happy to express my gratitude to Mrs. W. E. Haver Droeze• Hulswit who typed the final draft of the manuscript, at the same time smoathing out a gre3Jt number of incOinsistencies and unevennesses in the text. I am also grateful to Professolr G. J. Resink and to Mr. S. O. RobsQln, M.A., both af whom have carefully read the proofs of the book and have given many valuable suggestions far its improvement. I wish ta acknowledge my debt of gratitude ta the publishing house of Pembangunan in Djakarta, and its director Drs. Hazil Tanzil, who so readily gave his permission to use the Indanesian book Pokok dan Tokoh as the basis for this new English book. To the Board of the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en V olkenkunde in Leiden I express my apprecicution fOir its willingness tOi oOinsider this book worthy of publicatian in the scholarly Translation Series, even though it is neither completely scholarly nor really a translation. This appreciation is also extended to the Ministry of Education and Sciences which provides the funds fQlr this Translation Series. Pembangunan and various private persons have most liberally made photQlgraphs available forr the illustration of this book - persons in• cluding Messrs. F. A. E. Batten, H. B. Jassin, J. M. Arsath Ro'is, Ajip RQlsidi and W. S. Rendra. To all of them I am deeply thankful. For the translation of some IndQlnesian poems quoted in the text, the author and translatQlrs have made use of published translations by VIII MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE

Professors A. H. Johns and B. Raffel, the latter in collaboration with St. Takdir Alisjahbana, Sabina Thornton, Nurdin Sailam and Jean Kennedy. I gratefully acknowledge their permission, as well as that of the Asia Society which holds the copyright of Mr. Raffel's Anthology of Modern Indonesian Poetry (University of California Press) to use their work. I assume of course full responsibility for any deviations which I permitted myself from their tra:nslaJtions. In the appendix more detailed acknowledgements have been made. ALthough formal permission for quotations from Indonesian publi• cations is not needed, as Indonesia is not yet a member of the Berne Copyright Convention, I wish to acknowledge that this book has greatly profited from the work of many authors and publishers of magazines and books, including direct quotations. Those deserving special mention in this respect are the magazines Siasat, Mimbar Indonesia, Indonesia and Pudjangga Baru, and the publishers , Pustaka Ra'jat, Pembangunan, Gunung Agung, Djambatan 'and . Explicit mention should be made of the great debt which I owe tOi Drs. H. B. Jassin, whose numerous wmks I have shamelessly plundered for the documentation included in this book.

Finally I offer a few practical remarks intended to faciliJt:ate the use of this book by the reader. Indonesian and Dutch pro~e quotations have usually been translated in the text. The original is ooly quoted in footootes in those cases where the original formulation was considered to be relevant or historically important and/or when the original is difficult to find. Poe~ have been inserted in the original and the translation, has been added in footnotes (in the case of short quotations) or in the Appendix. Indonesian words, and quotations - including pre-war ones - are normally spelt in the present-day Indonesian spelling. This also holds good for of magazines and books and names of authors. In particular the oe has been replaced systematically by u, even in those cases where in the printed sources almost invariably the oe has been used. Poedjangga Bar:o-e and have been called Pudjangga Baru and Pramudya Ananta Tur throughout this book, including footnotes and bibliographies, even if not strictly correctly. But the author saw no other way of avoiding the confusion caused by differently spelt names than by being radically consistent. He offers his apologies to authors who might consider their names disfigured. have normally been inserted under the firslt FOREWORD IX in the bibliographies and index ( under Chairil etc.), unless such a name is appa.rently used as a first name in the Western sense and occurs regularly in an abbreviated form (e.g. Hans Hague Jassin under Jassin, H. B.). In the text the titles of Indonesian novels, collections of stories, poems, etc. have been translated (unless such a title is a proper name, when the translation has been omitted). These translations have not been repeated in the first bibliography in which all books of Indonesian literature mentioned in this book have been collected, together with those short stories which were discussed as separate works. The second bibliography contains all the references quoted in the text and foot• nOites, with a sometimes abbreviated or approximate English rendering. It should be remarked that neither of the two bibliographies pretends to be exhaustive for modern literature as such. They are restricted to maJterials discussed or used explicitly in this book. In another respect too the author has not aimed at bibliographical completeness: in the case of items which have been reprinted in various forms, normally only the reference which was easily available to the writer has been quoted. Reprints, reviews, etc. have only been men• tioned incidentally. CONTENTS

page FOREWORD V CONTENTS XI LIST OF PLATES . XIV

PART ONE: PRE-WAR LITERATURE

1. Socio-political Background...... 1 2. The History of the . . . . 4 3. Indonesian Nationalism and Bahasa Indonesia 7 4. The Beginnings of Poetry: Yamin . 9 5. Early Political Novels ...... 13 6. Poetry up to 1928; RuSitam Effendi. . . . 17 7. 1928, the Proclamation of Bahasa Indonesia . 21 8. Sanusi Panes Madah Kelana. . . . 24 9. Historical DramaJs...... 27 10. Pudjangga Baru and Bahasa Indonesia. . . 28 11. Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana on Bahasa Indonesia. 31 12. The Poetry of Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana. . 34 13. The Polemics on Culture ...... 35 14. The Artist as a Teacher: Lajar Terkembang. . 38 15. Pudjangga Baru and the Tachtigers; J. E. Tatengkeng 41 16. Pudjangga Baru in Retrospect 45 17. Other Poetry of the Period...... 47 18. Traditional Poetry: the Sjairs . . . . . 49 19. Traditional Prose Writing; Historical Novels 51 20. Early Balai Pu:staka Novels ...... 53 21. Minangkabau Society and the Indonesian Novel . 54 22. Marah Rusli's Sitti Nurbaja . . . . 56 23. Nur St. Iskandar and his Early Novels 57 24. Other Novels in Minangkabau Setting. 59 25. Development of the Novel; Muis' and other Highlights ...... 61 26. Varioos Novels by Takdir and Nur St. Iskandar . . . . 65 XII MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE

page

27. Novels in Various Sumatran Settings 66 28. as a Novelist . 69 29. Story Tellers and Roman Pitjisan 72 30. Various non-Sumatran Novels 75 31. Pre-war and Post-war Literature; as a link? 79 32. Armijn Pane's 81 33. , Seal of Malay and Herald of Indonesian Poetry. 84

PART TWO: POST-WAR LITERATURE

1. 1942, the Year of the Break ...... 105 2. Novel and Story-Writing under the Japanese Occupation. 107 3. Play-Writing under the Japanese Occupation. . . 110 4. The Angkatan 45. DocumentaJtion ...... " 114 5. The Angkatan 45. Meetings, Congresses, Symposia .. 118 6. H. B. Jassin, Custodian of Modern Indonesian Literature. 120 7. The Angkatan 45. Chairil Anwar and Vitalism . 122 8. Surart: Kepertjajaan Gelanggoog; the Ideal of Universal Humanism ...... 126 9. Asrul Sani, Sitar Sirt:umoll"ang and the Ideals of the Angka- tan 45...... 129 10. The Marxists and the Angkatan 45. . 134 11. Discussion on the Crisis in Literature . 139 12. Broader Framework of the Angkatan 45 142 13. Chairil Anwar . . . 145 14. ...... 159 15. Pramudya Ananta Tur 163 16. Sitar Situmorang. . 180 17. Dtuy Tatang Sontani . 190 18. . . . 195 19. Trisno Sumardjo . . 199 20. . 202 21. Minor Poets of the Angkatan 45 . 206 22. Some Post-War Women Authors 212 23. Minor Prose WriteT's of the Angkatan 45 . 215 24. Odds and Ends. . . 218 25 The Angkatan Terbaru ...... 227 CONTENTS XIII

page 26. Three Javanese Poets ...... 232 27. ...... 236 28. Prose Writers of the Younger Generation 241 29. Epilogue. The Manifes Kebudajaan and the AngkaJ1:an 66 . 251

APPENDIX 257 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 272 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 273 BIBLIOGRAPHY II 286

INDEX 300 LIST OF PLATES

I Pudjangga Baru · facing p. 32 a. Cover of the First hsue, July 1933 b. Cover of the Issue 0'£ January 1936

II Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana . facing p. 33 (Photo Ministry of Information, Djakarta; Documentation H. B. Jassin)

III Some Pre-War Writers facing p. 48 a. Muhammad Yamin (Photo A.N.P., The Hague) b. RUSItam Effendi (Photo Ministry of Information, Djakarta, 1951; Documentation H. B. Jassin) c. (idem) d. Armijn Pane (idem)

IV Amir Hamzah facing p. 49 (Documentation H. B. Jassin)

V Hans B. J assin · facing p. 128 (Photo Ministry of Information, Djakarta, 1951 ; Documentation H. B. Jassin)

VI Tiga Menguak Takdir · facing p. 129 a. Rivai Apin (Photo G. v. Cattenburch (?) of a Painting by Baharudin; Documentation J. M. Arsath Ro'is) b. Chairil Anwar (Photo G. van Cattenburch of a Painting by Mochtar Apin; Documentation F. E. A. Batten) c. Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (Photo Djamat, Djakarta 1967; Documentation "Foto Fakta" Djakarta) d. Asrul Sani (Photo G. van Cattenburch of a Painting by Baharudin; Documentation F. E. A. Batten) LIST OF PLATES xv

VII Chairil Anwar . facing p. 144 a. Cover of First Edition of a Collection of Poems b. Handwriting of Chairil Anwar (Documentation H. B. Jassin)

VIn Chairil Anwar · facing p. 145 (Photo Baharudin; Documentation J. M. Arsath Ro'is)

IX Idrus · facing p. 160 (Photo Ministry of Information, Djakarta; Documentation H. B. Jassin)

X Pramudya Ananta Tur · facing p. 161 (Photo 1953; Documentation F. E. A. Batten)

XI · facing p. 176 (Photo J. M. Arsath Ro'is, 1952; Documentation H. B. Jassin)

XII Some Post-War Writers. · facing p. 177 a. Achdiat Karta Mihardja (Photo Zaini; Documentation H. B. Jassin) b. Trisno Sumardjo (Photo Ministry of Information, Djakarta; Documentation F. E. A. Batten) c. Mochtar Lubis (Documentation H. B. Jassin) d. Utuy Tatang Sontani (Photo Ministry of Information, Djakarta; Documentation F. E. A. Batten)

XIII W. S. Rendra facing p. 240 a. 1%1 (Documentation A. Teeuw, presented by Rendra) b. Kakawin Kawin (Documentation A. Teeuw, presented by Rendra)

XIV Ajip Rosidi . · facing p. 241 a. Angkatan T erbaJru (Photo , Djakarta; Documentation H. B. Jassin) b. Pingpinan Redaksi Madjalah Sunda (Photo 1967, presented by Rosidi to A. Teeuw)