Chairil Anwar

1) His Biography and Main Works:

One of the well-known members of the “1945 Generation,” the group of luminaries who helped Indonesian literature in its early years by bringing fire and light, was Chairil Anwar. Chairil Anwar was able to inject new life into Indonesian poetry and revitalize the country’s cultural scene through his poetry. He also gave friends and acquaintances an endless supply of stories to tell about his personal idiosyncrasies, such as his habit of robbing bookstores of their books, his propensity to steal poetry from other countries, his countless loves, his numerous illnesses, and his bohemian lifestyle.

Chairil attended the Hollands Inlandsche School (HIS), a Dutch elementary school for “natives,” after being born on July 22, 1922, in Medan, North Sumatera. He then carried on with his studies at the Meer Uitgebreid Lager Onderwijs, a junior high school in the Netherlands, but he left before finishing. After his parents’ divorce when he was nineteen, Chairil relocated to Jakarta with his mother, where he first encountered the literary scene. Chairil had a working knowledge of English, Dutch, and German despite his incomplete education, and he passed the time by reading works by worldwide authors including Rainer M. Rilke, W.H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, H. Marsman, J. Slaurhoff, and Edgar du Perron.

These authors became his sources, directly affecting his poetry and eventually assisting him in turning Indonesian literature’s attention away from Indonesia to Europe. One of the key distinctions between Chairil’s “1945 Generation” contemporaries and the preceding generation of Indonesian writers, the “New Authors Generation” of the 1930s, who were more focused on conventional poetic forms, was this westward turn. In contrast to the “New Authors Generation” poets, who were more focused on channeling nationalist fervor, Chairil’s poetry was not only thematically original but also grappled with personal and existential themes.

With the release of “Nisan” (“Gravestone”) in 1942, Chairil made his literary debut. He was only twenty years old at the time. He appeared to have been horrified by his grandmother’s passing, which made him realize that one could pass away at any time. Most of the poems he composed after this time made reference to this consciousness of death, at least in part. Three books, Deru Campur Debu (“Roar Mixed with Dust,” 1949); Kerikil Tajam Yang Terampas dan Yang Putus (“Sharp Pebbles The Seized and the Severed,” 1949), contain all of his poems, including the originals, adaptations, and some that may have been plagiarized. The Seized and the Severed,” published in 1949; Tiga Menguak Takdir (“Three Tear Open Fate,” a collection of poems published in 1950 which included Asrul Sani and Rivai Apin).

Chairil’s physical state, which weakened as a result of his chaotic lifestyle, was never balanced with his literary vitality. He had a number of diseases under his belt before he turned twenty-seven. Chairil Anwar passed away at the CBZ Hospital in Jakarta (now R.S. Ciptomangunkusomo) on April 28, 1949. And the following day, he was truly laid to rest at Karet Cemetery. In Indonesia, April 28th is currently observed as Literature Day in honor of the words he left behind.

2) Main Themes in His Poems:

Teeuw observes that because Anwar’s poetry reflect his mental condition at the moment of writing, it is challenging, if not impossible, to pinpoint a single topic that runs throughout all of his work. According to Teeuw, the single quality of Anwar’s work that unifies them all is the intensity and vivacity that Anwar’s radicalism, which penetrated every area of his life, displays. Even though they can be exciting at times, individual poems typically express a dread of dying or despair, making it tough to pinpoint “the actual Chairil [Anwar]”.

In addition, Anwar’s works are open to interpretation, allowing each reader to draw their own conclusions from his or her readings. For example, according to Teeuw, the Japanese colonial rulers interpreted “Diponegoro” as a challenge to white colonialists, Indonesian Christians interpreted “Doa” (“Prayer”) and “Isa” (“Jesus”) as evidence that Anwar had a favorable opinion of Christianity, and Indonesian Muslims interpreted “Dimesjid” (“At the Mosque”) as evidence that Anwar “met with Allah at a mosque and argued with Him”.

In addition, Teeuw points out that Anwar’s early works prominently display Hendrik Marsman’s influence, while other pieces recall Rainer Maria Rilke, J. Slauerhoff, and Xu Zhimo. Anwar was a “poet of intellect,” according to Muhammad Balfas, and his writings were “distant.”Teeuw also notes that Anwar’s early works heavily show the influence of Hendrik Marsman, while other works harken back to Rainer Maria Rilke, J. Slauerhoff, and Xu Zhimo. Muhammad Balfas notes that Anwar was an “intellectual poet”, with his works being “detached”.

3) His Influence:

Even the Japanese occupation couldn’t silence Anwar’s voice; he was an unstoppable poet who wrote despite great hardships. His vocabulary is forceful and blunt, and he discusses everything from love to patriotism. Anwar’s poetry represents a conscious and dramatic rejection of both the Dutch-influenced literature of his country’s long colonial period and the poetry of the Pudjangga Baru movement which immediately preceded Anwar’s era and which looked to nineteenth-century Western poetry for its models, according to the reviewer of Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism.

Perhaps for this reason, young poets from Djakarta began to look up to Anwar. He joined the “45 Group,” a group of writers who had given their craft and their entire life to the nationalist cause. These authors, who had grown up under Japanese occupation, expressed a desire for literary success on a global scale in their writing. Despite being a role model for the others in the organisation, Anwar never held a formal leadership position because of the way he lived.

He was too prone to vanish unexpectedly in the middle of the planning, abandoning all the literary ado for the sailors of the harbour area, the prostitutes of downtown Jakarta, or the soldiers fighting the Dutch in the mountains, as James S. Holmes noted in his introduction to Selected Poems by Chairil Anwar. On April 28, 1949, Anwar passed away, leaving historians to consider his brief but significant life. The poet “gained mastery over the power of words and determined their usage,” according to A. Teeuw, author of Modern Indonesian Literature, in 1967.

That is how poetry works; Chairil possessed this enigmatic force that is so challenging to define. Poetry gives the ordinary word power. He mixed words in such a manner that they lit one another and employed words in such a way that they became fresh. In addition to other methods, Teeuw said that Anwar remains a vital and active force in Indonesia’s development. He contributed to the creation of that new Indonesia and gave it direction through his personality and poetry.