Indomitable Soul And Spirit - Of The 20th Century Indonesian Chinese Literature Simple Theory

This thesis is written with the time frame since the existence of Chinese literature in Indonesia in early 19th century. The thesis is trying to study and analyze systematically the history of Indonesian Chinese literature' s existence, the development of it and the historical, the social and the aesthetic values of the Indonesian Chinese literature (from here forth, the Literature means the Indonesian Chinese literature, unless mentioned otherwise) at this modern society. For the last one hundred years, the ups and downs of the Literature is much depended on the development of International political situation, especially the most noted ones were the events after the second war world, where it reached the highest stage, but unfortunately the conflict of two political ideologies has pushed the Literature' s development to take a nose dive. As a result of continuing struggle of the two ideologies, the existence of Chinese culture and the practice of it were prohibited in Indonesia, the teaching of Chinese language in schools and the practice of it in public was stopped too. The prohibition of the Chinese culture in Indonesia of course would take its toll to the development of the Literature in the future. This vacuum period lasts for 32 years. It is irreparable catastrophic indeed. This is a very difficult time for the Literature and the writers, it is interesting to see how the Literature and the writers managed to survive the harsh environment, only with a will of iron and a believe that they had the responsibility to keep the Literature alive, surviving it to see the light at the end of the tunnel and yet it had to preserve the energy to develop it further so that they could pass on to the next generation. Because after all they believed that this is the part they could play to inherit Chinese identity to the young Chinese generation.According to the study of historians, 2000 years ago that is in the Han dynasty, Chinese has come to stay in this archipelago. In the 9th century (Tang dynasty), in China there was a Huangchao revolt. This event had leaded more Chinese to come and stay in the archipelago. These migrants did not only bring the superb technology with them at that time, but also the most up to date Chinese culture and oral literature. The arrival of the migrants had in fact not only injected the fresh blood to the Literature itself, but it also enriched the Indonesian literature as well. This enrichment process to the local literature is a unique characteristic of the Chinese literature development in Indonesia, because compared to many other countries where the literature brought by Chinese migrants failed to contribute or enrich their local literature. There is another unique characteristic, which will be mentioned later.At the early time of its development the local Chinese translated Chinese classical literature from Chinese to Malay language. For example: Haigong Xiaohongpao Quanzhuan (1882), San Guo Janyi (1882), Lie Guo Zhi (1883), etc. This is how the Literature developed at its early stage. This is a fine example of how the Chinese literature had enriched the local literature as mentioned earlier. It provided new stories and new ideas to the local literature scenary.In 1908, a Chinese newspaper named Sibin Ribao was established and thus this year is assumed to be the establishment of the Indonesian Chinese literature. In 1909, in Batavia another newspaper named Huaduo Bao was also in circulation. All these newspapers primarily emphasized on the teaching and thoughts of Dr. SunYatsen, an intellect in China who later succeeded in overthrown the Qing dynasty. In 1921, in Batavia newspapers Tiansheng Ribao, Xin Bao and Nanyang Ribao were published. These newspapers all had special columns for Chinese literature. Literature works that most often appeared at that time were historical romances, swordsman fictions, romantics or sentimental novels, poems, etc. This is how the Literature finds its path and developed from here on.The second unique characteristic of the development of the Literat...