Chairil Anwar

Chairil Anwar 

Born July 26, 1922, in Medan; died Apr. 28, 1949, in Jakarta. Indonesian poet. Leader of the “1945 Generation.”

Chairil Anwar was influenced by the Dutch expressionist poets and by R. M. Rilke and T. S. Eliot. In patriotic poems, such as “We Are Ready” and “Pact With Sukarno,” he attacked both Japanese militarism and the British and Dutch interventionists. Several collections of his verse were published posthumously, including Thunder and Dust (1949), Sharp Gravel and the Discarded and Despairing (1949), and Three Against Fate (1950; coauthors, Asrul Sani and Rivai Apin).

Chairil Anwar’s amatory and philosophical lyric poetry is imbued with a deep sense of tragedy. It reflects the disjointed consciousness of the individual in an age when established values are being destroyed and men search instinctively for a new “point of support.” This point is sought, however, not in external traditions but in man himself, seen as an abstract and even asocial being. Chairil Anwar revealed the descriptive potential of the Indonesian language and profoundly influenced modern Indonesian literature.

WORKS

The Complete Poetry and Prose. New York, 1970.
In Russian translation:
[“Stikhotvoreniia.”] In the collection Golosa trekh tysiach ostrovov. Moscow, 1963. Pages 19–38.

REFERENCES

Sikorskii, V. V. Indoneziiskaia literatura. Moscow, 1965.
Boldyreva, M. A. Tvorchestvo indoneziiskikh poetov XX v. Amira Khamzakha i Kheirila Anvara. Moscow, 1976.
Jassin, H. B. Chairil Anwarpelopor angkatan 45. Jakarta, 1956.
Teeuw, A. Modern Indonesian Literature. The Hague, 1967.

V. V. SIKORSKII