ON THE BEGINNING OF MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE

Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 ON THE BEGINNING OF MODERN INDONESIAN LITERATURE Dipa Nugraha1*, Suyitno2 Indonesian Language and Literature Education, Universitas Muhammadiyah Surakarta, Indonesia, 2Indonesian Language and Literature Education, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia. Email: 1*[email protected], [email protected] 1 th th th Article History: Received on 20 July 2019, Revised on 30 November 2019, Published on 11 December 2019 Abstract Purpose of the study: This study aims to bridge the gap in the dispute over the beginning of modern Indonesian literature and determine which literary work marked the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. Methodology: This uses close reading over selected texts on the usage of specific words in Malay used in anticolonialism political movement and the existence of the words Indonesia, bangsa, negeri, tanah air, and tumpah darah as the central themes for the development of the analysis from the selected texts. The selected texts are four novels published in the Dutch East Indies in the early of twentieth century: Student Hidjo (1919), Hikajat Kadiroen (1920), Azab dan Sengsara (1920), and Sitti Nurbaja (1922). Main Finding: We find that Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaja have word Indonesia to help foster a new identity among educated natives and help conceptualize eptualize the new idea of the homeland. Whilst Student Hidjo and Hikajat Kadiroen do not see beyond the land of Java and they only relate the Dutch East Indies to the land of Java. We conclude that Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaja marked the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. Implications: The debate over the beginning of modern Indonesian literature should stop with the finding of this study that Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaja marked the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. While Student Hidjo and Hikajat Kadiroen must be named as the modern pre-Indonesian literary works. Keywords: Modern Indonesian literature, Student Hidjo, Hikajat Kadiroen, Azab dan Sengsara, Sitti Nurbaja, Indonesian Literary History. INTRODUCTION The standard Indonesian literary history positions Azab dan Sengsara (1920) and Sitti Nurbaja (1922), both novels published by Dutch East Indies colonial government publishing house Balai Pustaka, as the pioneers of modern Indonesian literature. However, prominent Indonesian literary critics such as Umar Junus, Bakri Siregar, and Ajip Rosidi reject such notions and have different opinions about it. They stress the importance of tracing the existence of Indonesianness in literary works produced by native writers in the Dutch East Indies to set up the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. In Istilah dan Masa Waktu Sastera Melayu dan Sastera Indonesia (Terms and Periodizations of Malay Literature and Indonesian Literature, 1960), Umar Junus writes that the birth of Indonesian literature correlates with the birth of the Indonesian national language. Junus believes that Sumpah Pemuda, the Youth Pledge of 1928, was an important milestone in Indonesian literature as it established the Malay language as the national language for Indonesians. Junus does not consider the literary works published by Balai Pustaka like Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaya as Indonesian literature because these novels were published before 1928. Furthermore, Junus believes that any book published by Balai Pustaka – a colonial government publishing house – is “bertentangan sekali dengan sifat nasional yang melekat pada nama Indonesia (contrary to national characteristic attached to the word Indonesia).” In Sedjarah Sastera Indonesia Modern (1964), Siregar argues that the start of modern Indonesian literature cannot be separated from the history of Indonesian society and the language used. To illustrate this, Siregar (1964: 10, 25) points to the birth of “kesadaran sosial dan politik nasion Indonesia (social and political awareness on Indonesian-ness” and he addresses the development of Indonesian language as the result of a national awakening. Siregar (1964: 25) selects two works by Mas Marco Kartodikromo, Student Hidjo (1919) and Rasa Merdeka (1924), as the first modern Indonesian literary works. He (1964: 25-26) argues that Marco wrote in bahasa (persatuan) Indonesia (the language of Indonesian unity) and about kebedjatan moral bordjuasi dan Belanda kolonisator (the corrupted morality of the bourgeoisie and the colonial Dutch). Siregar also talks about Balai Pustaka. Although he acknowledges that Balai Pustaka contributed to the dissemination of Malay language in the Dutch East Indies to native students being taught in the schools established by the Dutch colonial government and also standardized the Malay language in literature (1964: 35, 37), however, he (1964: 47, 50) also believes that Balai Pustaka blocked and diminished Indonesian nationalism. As an example of a book published by Balai Pustaka that did this, Siregar (1964: 48) points out how Sitti Nurbaja (1922) became a promoter of the colonial government’s policy to native people by depicting the main protagonist Samsulbahri as the one working for the Dutch, while the antagonist character Datuk Meringgih was doing damage in the Dutch East Indies. Furthermore, he suggests that Balai Pustaka’s works could not attack colonialism and capitalism because these works were written by educated 604 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 native aristocrats who could still benefit from the adat (traditional customs) and feudalism that existed in the Dutch East Indies (Siregar, 1964: 48-50). In Kapankah Kesusasteraan Indonesia Lahir? (When was Indonesian Literature Born?), first published in 1964 and reprinted in a revised edition in 1985, another Indonesian literary critic, Rosidi, criticizes Umar Junus’ (1960) writing about the birth of Indonesian literature. Rosidi does not agree with Junus’ opinion that Indonesian literature was born when the Indonesians renamed the lingua franca among the native people in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), the Malay language, as Indonesian in the Youth Pledge of 1928. Rosidi (1985: 5) instead proposes the following measurement to determine the birth of Indonesian national literature: Kesadaran kebangsaan itulah yang menjadi perbedaan hakiki antara kesusasteraan Melayu dengan kesusasteraan Indonesia. Kesusasteraan Melayu sebelum adanya kesadaran kebangsaan itu adalah tidak berbeda dengan kesusasteraan daerah lainnya. Kita membicarakannya [kesusasteraan Melayu itu] sebagai kesusasteraan di Indonesia dan bukan kesusasteraan Indonesia atau lebih tepat bukan kesusasteraan bahasa Indonesia. Nationhood awareness (Indonesian-ness) makes Malay literature different from Indonesian literature. Malay literature before the birth of Indonesian-ness was not different from any other local literary work. We talk about those Malay literary works as literary works produced in Indonesia and not as Indonesian literature or literature in the Indonesian language. Rosidi argues that the existence of Indonesian-ness or Indonesian nationalism should be the determinant factor for claiming any literary work produced in the Dutch East Indies is the pioneer of Indonesian literature. He (1985: 6) argues that Indonesian literature was born in the years 1920 to 1922 and identifies Muhammad Yamin’s poem “Tanah Air (Homeland),” which was published in 1922, is sort of an embryo of Indonesian literature. The reason for this is because the poem talks about “cinta tanah air dan bangsa yang sedang dijajah (the love of the colonized homeland and nation).” Both Rosidi and Junus agree that Indonesian literature is different from Malay literature. The marker of the difference is the presence of Indonesian-ness. For Rosidi, the emphasis is on the existence of Indonesian-ness in a literary work, whilst for Junus, Indonesian-ness is marked by the existence of the Indonesian language. For Siregar, both of those two factors – Indonesian-ness and the use of the Indonesian language – are the deciding elements when naming which literary work are the pioneer of Indonesian literature. However, all three literary critics agree that Balai Pustaka’s early literary publications cannot be considered as the pioneers of Indonesian literature. Even in contemporary books on Indonesian literary history (see Bandel, 2013; Mujiyanto & Fuady, 2014), doubt over the Indonesian-ness or Indonesian nationalism of Balai Pustaka’s literary works still exists. But, did Indonesian-ness in literary work published in the Dutch East Indies only exist after 1928? Is it true that the Indonesian language only existed in literary work after the Youth Pledge event? It is interesting to compare to what Freidus suggests on the term of “modern Indonesian literature” in her thesis Sumatrans Contributions to the Development of Indonesian Literature, 1920–1942. Freidus (1977: x, notes 1) distinguishes “modern Indonesian literature” from the “literature of Indonesia.” The first is literary work written in the Indonesian language, which started appearing with the changes in the traditional society in the Dutch East Indies in the twentieth century along with the rise of individualism and “the presence of a sense of nationhood,” while the second is any literary work written in any language in Indonesia. While Johns (1959: 293) argues that modern literature in Dutch East Indies began when literary works were started as products of individuals and “not anonymous part of the traditional way of life.” They were produced “for private and individual stimulus and response.” The norm of their making was formal realism compared to mythologies. Just like Freidus, the emergence of modern literature in the Dutch East Indies according to Johns (1959: 293) “developed parallel to the growth of Indonesian national consciousness.” However, these terms “modern literature” and “Indonesian national consciousness” to mark the early development of modern literature in the Dutch East Indies should be revisited. Modern literature had already emerged in the Dutch East Indies long before the establishment of Balai Pustaka (Wahyudi, 1998) and before the invention of Indonesian nationalism through the use of political connotation from the word Indonesia which took place in the early of the twentieth century (cf. Nagazumi, 1978). In addition, literary critics agree that the Indonesian language is different from the Malay language. It is true that the Malay language is the mother of the Indonesian language. However, the new name given to the Malay language used in the Dutch East Indies by the Indonesian nationalists gave new direction and identity to the language. The new name, Indonesian language, made the language not Malay language anymore and shifted the orientation of any socio-cultural expression through the use of language from the Malay world to the Indonesian context. If the Indonesian nationalism had always been there in the very beginning of anti-colonialism movement in the modern times against the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies –a belief that anti-colonialism movement had always been monolithic, something which Hagen (1997) criticizes– and if we can accept that Indonesian language is just the same with Malay language, we may take any literary work produced in the Dutch East Indies written in any Malay language as Indonesian literature, we may take Wahyudi’s (1998: 129) argument that “pre-Balai Pustaka works should be regarded as Modern Indonesian Literature.” However, if we focus on the word Indonesia, whether it refers as the specific language used as the marker of certain identity coming from a specific national consciousness, in our search for Indonesian-ness in literary work produced in the Dutch East Indies, we then should trace back to the invention of political and anti-colonialism word 605 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 “Indonesia” and look for its presence in modern literature written in the Dutch East Indies. Issues on the new identity reflecting modernity, nationalism, or the orientation on the soil are related with the emergence of modern literature in the colonized countries in the twentieth century (Littrup, 1996: 12), or as suggested by Wahyudi (1990: 32) that cultural horizon or orientation must have been the focus on the discussion over Indonesian literary periodization, or as stated by Chernov and Gomel (1991: 771) that the selection of the language used by the author, his orientation towards specific national traditions and values, and “conscious self-identification” with the traditions and values may become the basis for the canonization of national literature. This paper tries to bridge the gap on the dispute over the beginning of modern Indonesian literature by focusing on the emergence of the new orientation and identity coming from the usage of the word Indonesia in literary works and how the word Indonesia changed the cultural and geographical orientation of the educated native people in the Dutch East Indies. If Indonesian-ness is the reflection of the Indonesian nationalist movement and is the most important marker to define the birth of Indonesian literature, we need to investigate the development of the idea of Indonesian-ness and explore how literary works of the era reflect the dissemination of this idea. In order to investigate the conceptualization of Indonesianness in printed language, we will use Milner’s findings on the invention of politics in British Malay as the basis for Malay nationalism in printed language to help us focus in our search for Indonesian-ness in literary works produced in the twentieth century in the Dutch East Indies. Because the Malay language is the mother of the Indonesian language and some words related to the orientation of nationalism and nationhood must have been developed through the language, we argue that Milner’s findings are relevant to the goal of this article. It is not just the presence of the word Indonesia. This word would exist in a discursive conceptualization with other words driving to a specific imagined community in the creation of a new identity and nationhood just similar to what happened in Malaysia. Milner (2002) shows how the nationhood of Malay was built around the conceptualization – not imagined – of a bangsa (race, nation) community in British Malay. The word bangsa, in flux with the other Malay words such as negeri (land) and tanah ayer (homeland), were reconceptualized in the creation of Malay nationhood. The prominent Malay newspaper, Utusan Melayu, helped create the association of the word bangsa “toward a formulation and understanding of nationhood” which had “the notion of a specific political community” (Milner, 2002: 105-106). Along with the political discursive narrative on the usage of the word bangsa, the word negeri also evolved from its previous relatedness with kerajaan (kingdom) or city (Milner, 2002: 104) to the attachment to bangsa Malay (Milner, 2002: 119). Utusan Melayu spoke about the changing world in the British Malaya, drawing attention to the increasing number of Chinese and the Indian immigrants, which it said should be a concern for the Malay community (Milner, 2002: 92). The magazine called for fellow Malays to start to realize that they “could lose their race,” not just to Westernization (Milner 2002, 100) but also to other races (Milner, 2002: 93, 119, 121). Utusan Melayu, therefore, promoted the idea of bangsa on the basis of anxiety concerning how the Malays should know their race so they can protect themselves against the threat of other races (Milner, 2002: 102). Indeed, the search of the transformation of those specific Malay words (bangsa, negeri, and tanah ayer) in the search of nationalist movement in the Dutch East Indies along with the use of the word “Indonesia” is relevant because these words were also used by Chinese writers in the early twentieth century in a different nationalist context. In his study on the literary works produced by Chinese writers in the Dutch East Indies from 1905 to 1924, Rieger (1996) shows that the Chinese Peranakan (born and bred in the Dutch East Indies) writers wrote about the effort of constructing an identity which united them with the other Chinese Totok (newcomers in the Dutch East Indies) and those in the mainland of China. They engaged in pan-Chinese nationalism, using the bazaar Malay words bangsa (nation or race), bahasa (language) and tanah air (motherland) in their writing but instead referring to the mainland of China (see Rieger 1996: 156–157 footnotes 14–15). The imagined community, to borrow Benedict Anderson’s term, of these Chinese writers was a united community, unified with the same culture and origin, belong to the mainland of China. The search for Indonesian-ness to mark the milestone of the birth of Indonesian literature through analyzing the use of specific Malay words in literary work produced in the Dutch East Indies has already been conducted by Rosidi (1985). He (1985: 6) argues that “Tanah Air,” a poem written by Muhamad Yamin in 1922 [1920] 1, was the pioneer of Indonesian literature. He argues that the use of the word tanah air in the poem is a sign of nationalism. However, Rosidi also admits that the word tanah air in the poem “Tanah Air” refers to Sumatra and not Indonesia. However, for the first time, Yamin only wrote his poem with the word Indonesia as his tumpah darah and tanah air, both words mean motherland, in a poem he wrote in 1928 entitled “Tumpah Darahku.” In addition to Rosidi’s discussion of Yamin’s works, Miert (1996: 606) has also shown that Yamin did not write about Indonesia in his early years of writing poetry. Miert notes that a poem was written by Yamin in 1921, “Bahasa, Bangsa,” clearly imagines Sumatran nationalism where the homeland in the poem was Sumatra, the nation was Sumatran and the Malay language that of the Sumatrans. Miert (1996: 613) argues that Sumatran activists and writers imagined Indonesia as a new future homeland following the influence of Indonesian students in the Netherlands. We must understand that Indonesian nationalism in the Dutch East Indies came after the previous discourses of ethnic nationalism among Sumatrans with their Sumatran nationalism (cf. Miert, 1996), which was also different from Javanese nationalism (cf. Fakih, 2012). This signifies what Hagen (1997) argues about the non-monolithic discourse of nationalism 606 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 among the native people in the Dutch East Indies before they merged into Indonesian nationalism, or came to the conception of a larger unified race or nation of Indonesia as the base of their ethnonationalism (Stutje, 2014). Therefore, selecting literary works that reflect Indonesian nationalism must first address the birth and then the development of Indonesian nationalism as distinct from other nationalist discourses occurring within the Dutch East Indies. This is important in the talking of the changing contour of literature and expression of the experience through the idea of national unity reflected within, as in Canadian national literature Gerson (1988) also highlights how national identity becomes one issue in the writing on the history of Canadian national literature. Contrary to the propaganda in the national song “Hari Merdeka (Independence Day),” which declares 17 August 1945 to be Independence Day, the birth of bangsa Indonesia (the Indonesian race), studies (Nagazumi, 1978; Jones, 1975; Ave, 1989) have revealed that Indonesia as a widespread conceptualized nationhood did not exist until the term “Indonesia” was adopted from the existing anthropological term and used by the educated natives studying in the Netherlands in 1917 politically to refer to a group of people in the Dutch East Indies. Before 1917, the word Indonesia had been used in anthropology to address the brown races of the Indian archipelago of the Ceylonese, the natives of the Maldives and Laccadives and the Malayans. The term was first coined by George Windsor Earl in an article that appeared in February 1850 entitled “On The Leading Characteristics of the Papuan, Australian, and Melayu-Polynesian Nation” (Jones, 1975: 12–13). Following the publication of the article, James Richardson Logan used the word to specifically address the native inhabitants of the Malay archipelago and the term then became known and widely accepted by European anthropologists in the nineteenth century (Ave, 1989). The specific use of the word Indonesia relating to the Dutch East Indies started in 1917. At a dinner party held by the Indische Vereniging to welcome delegates of the Dutch East Indies organizations on 14 April 1917, RMA Soerjo Poetro used the words Indonesier and Indonesisch to address all of the inhabitants of the Dutch East Indies without any distinction between the native and the non-native inhabitants (Nagazumi, 1978: 28). Following this, the word Indonesian became a reference specifically to the unity of race of the indigenous people in the Dutch East Indies on 23 November 1917, when Baginda Dahlan Abdoellah made a speech before the Union of Indologists in Leiden entitled “Indie voor Indiers.” This was important because it became the basis for the Indonesian anti-colonialism movement was “us,” the new unified identity of the natives, and “they” started to exist. In this speech, he asked that a bigger proportion of native employees be hired in government administration because the Indonesians – as he referred to the unity of the various ethnicity of the natives in the Dutch East Indies – were the majority in the Dutch East Indies and therefore they should have more representation in government offices (Nagazumi, 1978: 29–30; Elson, 2003: 23). From this moment on, the word became political. The word Indonesia became a racial identity for the educated native people of the Dutch East Indies and was used to mark the racial differences between them as the native(s) and the other two groups of people in the Dutch East Indies: the Dutch and the Chinese. The idea of being Indonesian became a common cause for the educated natives, allowing them to remove their ethnical heterogeneity and unify a new national identity. It empowered an anti-colonialism movement that had a racial basis (cf. Fanon 1963: 46, 93) with the usage of the word Indonesia as the basis for valuing high indigeneity through this new identity (cf. Enloe, 2014: 118) and making those who did not belong to the group either as a threat or as the other. This new identity surpassed the previous ethnic identity of the natives because being Indonesian was different too, for example, being Javanese (cf. Stutje, 2014), and overcame the given identity in Dutch language as the subject of the Dutch colonial government, inlander (native) or inheems (indigenous) (Stutje, 2018). It was also a different movement to Sumatran nationalism (cf. Miert, 1996) and Javanese nationalism (cf. Fakih, 2012) in the Dutch East Indies. The word “Indonesian” also offered an imagination of a united geographical space of various negeris (lands) in the reference to the homeland of the various ethnic identities of the native people previously attached to into one negeri (land) of Indonesia. METHODOLOGY Indonesian nationalism grew from a specific discourse within Malay language users in the Dutch East Indies which separated them from the people using the Malay language in the British Malay with whom they had previously shared bangsa Jawi and bangsa Melayu identities. As we have described before, such a discourse developed with the use of the word “Indonesia” by the native elites of the Dutch East Indies studying in the Netherlands in 1917 and only became widespread in the Dutch East Indies after that year. In the following section, we examine four literary works written by native writers in our search of milestones on the existence of Indonesian-ness in literature. Because the word Indonesia as the basis for Indonesian identity by the colonized of the educated native people from the Dutch East Indies and Indonesian nationalism was only invented in 1917, we chose notable literary works written after 1917. The literary works are Student Hidjo (1918), Hikayat Kadiroen (1920), Azab dan Sengsara (1920) and Sitti Nurbaja (1922). The Chinese peranakan literature of the Dutch East Indies has been excluded because, as shown by Rieger’s (1996), the orientation and political identity of these literary works were different from Indonesian nationalism. We do close reading these literary works using the following three signs that expose the presence of Indonesian nationalism. Janicke et al (2015: 84) define close reading as “the thorough interpretation of a text passage by the determination of central themes and the analysis of their development.” Therefore, in our close reading, we focus on some specific words, sentences, and passages which are relevant to our need. 607 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 Based on Milner’s observation that Utusan Melayu used certain specific words in Malay related to nationhood (e.g. bangsa or nation, race; negeri or land; tanah air or homeland; tumpah darah or homeland, etc.) and the idea of threat and othering that unite a group of people (Milner, 2002; cf. Fanon, 1963) wherein the Dutch East Indies context, Laffan (2003: 2, 25, 98–99, 144–145, 157–158) also finds that the construction of Indonesians-in-the-making involving the dynamic usage of some particular words like bangsa and tanah air were quite similar to Milner’s findings and developed later with the emergence of the word Indonesia as the foundation of the existence of Indonesian-ness and the basis for the new political identity for the educated native people of the Dutch East Indies (cf. Nagazumi, 1978), our close reading focuses on the usage of the words: bangsa, negeri, tanah air, tumpah darah. Using descriptive qualitative analysis, we argue that there was a changing orientation or a conceptualization process of the imagined community when those words existed and intertwined with the presence of the word Indonesia in the selected literary works from 1918 to 1922. The presence of the word Indonesia in literary work reflected a new orientation and identity within the writers’ minds. Thus, we will define which literary work marked the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. RESULTS Student Hidjo (Student Hidjo, 1918) Originally published in 1918 as a serial in the Sinar Hindia newspaper, Student Hidjo was republished in 1919 by Masman and Stroink as a novel. Student Hidjo tells the story of Hidjo, the only son of a rich tradesman Javanese aristocrat family Raden Potro and Raden Nganten. Hidjo’s father, Raden Potronojo, wants to send Hidjo to Delft in the Netherlands to study engineering. Potronojo believes that his family will gain respect from the other aristocratic families who work as colonial government officers if his only son studies in the Netherlands. Before Hidjo departs Java for the Netherlands, it is arranged that Hidjo will marry his cousin Raden Ajeng Biroe, as the two of them have been good friends since they were young children and their parents are also good friends. In the Netherlands, Hidjo rents a room at a local family’s house in Den Haag. His adventure in the Netherlands involves a romance with Betje, the daughter of his landlord. Although Hidjo enjoys his romance with Betje, he knows that he cannot break his promise to his fiancée Raden Ajeng Biroe to return home and marry her after he finishes studying in the Netherlands. Back home in Java, Raden Ajeng Biroe meets Raden Ajeng Woengoe and her brother Raden Mas Wardojo, who are old friends of Hidjo. The parents of Hidjo, Biroe, Woengoe, and Wardojo become friends as Woengoe and Wardojo frequently visit Biroe and Hidjo’s parents. In time, Biroe falls in love with Wardojo and Woengoe realizes that she is actually in love with Hidjo. The story ends with Hidjo returning home and marrying Woenge and Biroe marrying Wardojo after both Hidjo’s and Biroe’s parents agree to cancel the engagement. Hidjo and Woengoe have a happy marriage, as do Wardojo and Biroe. We examined Student Hidjo, which was republished by Penerbit Narasi in 2018, in our search for Indonesian-ness. Our findings are as follows:  The word bangsa is used to address race in phrases like “bangsa kulit putih (white race, p. 95).” The word is used to distinguish between people with bruin (brown) skin like Hidjo (the Javanese) and white skin like Betje (Europeans) (p. 103). Bangsa is used interchangeably with orang (people), for example, “pendeknya orang Jawa atau orang Hindia itu adalah bangsa paling busuk sendiri (in short, Javanese people or Hindia people are the worst bangsa, p. 155).” Bangsa Hindia is equal to bangsa Jawa and Bumiputera. The word Bumiputera is used to address the native people colonized by the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies and the Javanese people are included within this group (p. 163). This can be seen from “anak-anak Bumiputera (terlebih bangsa Jawa)(Bumiputera children (esp. Javanese people).” It seems that the word Bumiputera is a translation of Dutch word inlander (native people). However, on page 163 the word Bumiputera is used specifically to define the native people who use Malay and Javanese when speaking to the Dutch. We argue that the deictic pronoun Bumiputera in Student Hidjo refers to the native people living in Java. This is supported by the conversation between Controller Walter and Regent Djarak about interracial marriage on pages 116 and 117, where Bumiputera is used to refer to Javanese people. We also find that bangsa Hindia is used in the context of the novel to mean Javanese people. On page 173, the word bangsa Hindia used by sergeant Djepris in his insult to the Javanese people is related to the same term used on page 155.  The word negeri is used many times in the novel (40 times), mostly to address Negeri Belanda (the Netherlands). There are only two times this word is used as a substitute for Tanah Hindia and different places. The first is found on page 161, when the word is used to address the Dutch who go to Tanah Hindia for money only but “tak mengenal penduduk negerinya (do not care for the characteristics of its people).” On the second occasion, the word negeri used is on page 150 to refer to different places (cities, kingdoms) in Java. 608 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691  The word tanah air (or in Malay tanah ayer), which means homeland, is used in “Karena ia ingat nasib bangsanya yang ada di tanah airnya sama dihina oleh bangsa Belanda (Because it reminds him to his people in his tanah air who are disrespected by the Dutch)” on page 50. Here, tanah air used by Hidjo to refer his homeland Tanah Jawa, where his family and bangsa live (p. 113), and the cities are Batavia, Semarang, Surabaya, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Surakarta (p. 160).  We did not find the terms tumpah darah or Indonesia in the novel. Hikayat Kadiroen (The Story of Kadiroen, 1920) Written by Semaun in 1919 when he was in jail for his presdelict (violation of the press law), Hikayat Kadiroen was edited by his friend Ngadino and then published in Sinar Hindia magazine in 1920 as a serial. Semaun was a native Marxist journalist in the Dutch East Indies. He started his political activism as the member of Sarekat Islam but after meeting with Henk Sneevliet, a Dutch socialist and founder of the Indies Social Democratic Association (Indische Sociaal Democratische Vereeniging, ISDV), he changed his activism to focus on the prosperity of the rakyat (the mass) through a social communist ideology. In the preface of Hikayat Kadiroen, Semaun dedicated his work to the public and the rakyat. Hikayat Kadiroen tells the story of Kadiroen, a native bureaucrat working for the Dutch East Indies colonial government. As a smart and honest officer who always thinks about the prosperity of the people and gets along well with a wise and kind father-figure Dutch senior bureaucrat Tuan Asisten Residen (p. 169), Kadiroen is quickly promoted from the position of a low-ranking government officer to a district chief. He attends a public gathering conducted by Partai Komunis (the Communist Party), where a propagandist named Tjitro amazes him with the idea of social communism. In this public gathering, the colonial government’s representatives, the Dutch bourgeoisie, journalists from Dutch, Tionghoa (Chinese), and Bumiputera newspapers, santri (Haji Moesno, Kyai Noeridin and Haji Mamirah) and a Dutchman (Tuan Edelhart) also attend (pp. 110, 144–147). A speech given by Tjitro about helping rakyat through political activism in the Partai Komunis inspires Kadiroen to resign from being a bureaucrat in the Dutch East Indies office and instead work as the co-editor of a social communism newspaper under Partai Komunis, Sinar Ra’yat. We searched for the words bangsa, negeri, tanah air, tumpah darah, and Indonesia in Hikayat Kadiroen, using the edition published in 2014 by Sega Arsy. Our findings are as follow:  The word bangsa is used to define the people of a region, country or race. On pages 113 and 114, the word bangsa Hindia (Indies people), negeri Hindia (Indies land), bangsa Eropa (European people) and bangsa Belanda (Dutch people) are used to compare the advancement of European civilization and the backwardness of the Indies people. Bangsa is also used to distinguish the native people in the Indies from the bangsa asing (foreigners). Moreover, the Dutch are recognized as bangsa lain (different bangsa [to bangsa Hindia]) with their own negeri in Europe, just like Tionghoa and the Arabs have their own (p. 118). Native people (bangsa Hindia) and the mass in the Indies (rakyat di Hindia) are addressed on many occasions as Bumiputera (pp. 64, 87, 100, 110, 113, 119–121, 145). However, the words bangsa Hindia and Bumiputera in the novel refer specifically to bangsa Jawa (pp. 145-146). The references to tanah Jawa or Java Island is also found, for example, on pages 14, 56, 98 and 112 to 114. Furthermore, on page 36 (cf. p. 116), the reference for negeri ini (this land) is explicitly said as tanah Jawa (Javanese Island). On pages 112 and 113, the story of the Dutch coming to Hindia also refers to Java Island, where the kingdoms in Java Island were fighting each other and some of the kings were unjust to their own people.  The word negeri is used to define a region like negeri Eropa and negeri Hindia (p. 119) or a country like in negeri Belanda (the Netherlands, p. 126). But negeri is also used to define a territory where there is a ruling government (Gupermen) and the governed rakyat (p. 133). Interestingly, on page 134, the word Gupermen is used in the form of Gupermen Belanda (the Dutch Government) and the word rakyat is used in the form of rakyat Hindia (the people of the Indies) in the context of the negeri of the Indies. On page 111, negeri and rakyat are mentioned at the same time twice in the forms rakyat dan negeri Hindia and negeri dan rakyat Hindia. This means that negeri and rakyat are related to each other.  Tanah air is used to describe the land. This word is distinguished from kerajaan (kingdom). On page 113, it is stated that “karena di Hindia banyak raja-raja kecil, maka dengan demikian sering terjadi peperangan, hal yang mana mudah membikin pecah belahnya tanah air kita (because in the Indies there were small kings, therefore wars between kingdoms happened all the time, making our tanah air divided).” In the novel, tanah air refers to the Java Island, as the previous page, page 112, tells the story of kingdoms in Java, but it is clearly stated that the word refers to the Java Island as single entity of homeland. Thus, the homeland has nothing to do with the ruling king or the government governing. The same implication about the use of tanah air to address the unity of Java Island as a single homeland is also seen on page 117. Furthermore, on this page, tanah air is equal to Hindia (Indies) but different from kingdoms competing for power and conquered territories in Hindia. However, “our tanah air” is also related to manusia dalam negeri versus other bangsa (p. 114).  The words tumpah darah and Indonesia are not found in Hikayat Kadiroen. 609 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 Azab dan Sengsara (Pain and Suffering, 1920) Written by Merari Siregar, Azab dan Sengsara is considered the pioneer of the modern Indonesian novel. The theme of this novel is the conflict between young people and their parents over adat (traditional customs). This novel has nine chapters and consists of two main narratives: the love story of Aminu’ddin and Mariamin and the married life of Sutan Baringin and Nuria. Both end in tragedy due to the nature of arranged marriages. Aminu’ddin fails to marry his long-term lover Mariamin because he has to marry a different girl, as arranged by his parents, while Sutan Baringin is unhappy with his wife Nuria, as she was chosen by his parents. In the search on the use of words relating to Indonesian-ness in Azab dan Sengsara,2 the findings are as follows:  In the permulaan kalam (foreword) of the novel, Siregar states that he wants to highlight negative practices of adat in order to change them for the benefit of his bangsa (people) (p. vii). The use of the word bangsa with the same meaning is also seen on page 127 in “Demikianlah yang biasa kejadian di antara bangsa kita (This is what usually happens within our bangsa).” The word bangsa has also other meanings. On page 47, it is used in bangsa manusia (human race). On page 138 and 142, it is used to define “descendant” in “rupanya pantas, bangsanya cukup” and “Bangsa lebih dari kepandaian: bagi dia.” Bangsa can also refer to ethnic group, like in “bahwa Mariamin orang Batak, seorang bangsanya” on page 180.  The words negeri is used in various contexts. The use of negeri to refer to city is found on page 76 with negeri Medan and on page 91 with negeri Deli. On page 76, the word negeri is also used to refer to “kampong” in this sentence “Yang tersebut ini di daerah negeri Sipirok.” On page 3, negeri Sipirok has equal meaning to kampung Sipirok. Negeri is also used to refer to the land of the natives, like on page 91 in anak negeri asli (the indigenous people of the negeri) but the word is also used in negeri Jawa on page 140 to imply a region with particular customs.  The word tanah air is used in two different contexts in the novel. The first is used to define the area belongs to a kerajaan (kingdom) as on pages 47 and 48 in the sentence: “Sudah tentu kerajaan yang lain-lain itu hendak mempertahankan tanah airnya.” The second time tanah air is used, it refers to bangsa. On page 77, tanah air does not refer to any kerajaan but it is related to the bangsa living on the area.  The word tumpah darah, which has the same meaning as tanah air, appears one time on page 128 as negeri tumpah darah. On this page, the main character of the novel, Aminu’ddin, writes a letter from kota Medan to his lover, Mariamin, telling that he misses his negeri tumpah darah; his kampung halaman, and his lover.  The word Indonesia is used in the novel in “bahasa Indonesia” (p. 75). The narrator in the novel on this page explains the use of bahasa Indonesia to translate an idiom he uses on the same page from his local language. 3 Sitti Nurbaja (1922) At one point the most loaned novel in public libraries in the Dutch East Indies (Teeuw, 1972: 117), Marah Rusli’s Sitti Nurbaja tells the sad love story of Samsulbahri and Sitti Nurbaja. The two are long-time lovers who have to separate because Nurbaja must marry a rich but evil old merchant, Datuk Meringgih, as a substitution for her father’s unpaid debt. Nurbaja’s father is threatened with jail for the unpaid debt. In his paper discussing the novel, Abdullah (in Aveling 1970: 244) says that Nurbaja accepts the marriage because she “cannot face the fall of her father in society’s esteem” and it is her “duty to guard her father’s honor.” Samsulbahri cannot do anything to help Nurbaja. Her unhappy marriage makes Nurbaja displease Meringgih and, as a result, Meringgih fatally poisons her. Samsulbahri avenges her death by joining the Dutch and becoming a soldier fighting against the rebellion funded by Meringgih. Sitti Nurbaja uses an omniscient narrator, which means the narrator has access to all the thoughts and actions of every character. In general, the novel deals with a similar topics to Azab dan Sengsara and the rest of the novels published by Balai Pustaka in the 1920s, which is an argument about adat (customary rules); however, this is mostly about some aspects of marriage and child-rearing of the aristocrat class in traditional society and is not a total rejection of the adat (Aveling, 1970). In terms of the emergence of Indonesian nationalism, however, Sitti Nurbaja has not attracted the same thorough studies by scholars as, for example, Salah Asuhan, a novel published by Balai Pustaka in 1928 (cf. Watson, 1973; Hoadley, 1996; Foulcher, 2005). Moreover, Jassin (1987: 18) argues that Samsulbahri sees Minangkabau [Padang] as his tanah air and tumpah darah and considers other regions in the Dutch East Indies only as foreign lands. Our reading of Sitti Nurbaja4 in search of Indonesian-ness through the use of specific words had these findings:  The word bangsa is used several times in the novel to refer to different things. Bangsa is used to refer people from a country as in bangsa Belanda (p. 1) or a race as in bangsa Eropa (Barat), Cina and Arab (pp. 1, 10, 188, 205). The word is also used to define social class in traditional society, like in “ia anak seorang yang berbangsa tinggi (he is from upper-class parents, p. 1),” “tiada hamba pandang bangsa (I do not value women from their blood, p. 19),” or “Bukankah baik orang berbangsa itu beristri berganti-ganti, supaya kembang keturunannya? (Don’t you agree that a noble man should have more than one wife so he will preserve his blood?, p. 19).” Bangsa is also used to refer people 610 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 from the same customs as in bangsa Melayu (p. 9) or suku bangsa Jawa and suku bangsa Sunda (the Javanese and the Sundanese, p. 130) and adat [bangsa] Barat (p. 188). The word is also used to name a group of people with the same habit like in bangsa penjudi (gamblers, p. 46) or a group of people with the same gender, behavior or specific characteristics (pp. 172, 200, 254). Additionally, Sitti Nurbaja also introduces the word bangsa to describe the native people of the Dutch East Indies. On pages 318 and 319, Samsulbahri expresses his grief over his fate of being a soldier of the colonial government of the Dutch East Indies. On these pages, the word bangsa is used in two different contexts. The first refers to the native people of Padang, his hometown (“Sekarang disuruh pula aku membunuh bangsaku, Now they order me to kill my own people”) whilst the second refers to the native people in Dutch East Indies (“Bilakah aku dapat berhenti dari pekerjaan jahanam ini dan menjadi algojo bangsaku sendiri? When will I stop from this evil job of being the butcher of the native people?”).  Negeri in Sitti Nurbaja is used to refer to a city, for example negeri Pariaman (p. 50) or negeri besar (Jakarta) and negeri Padang (p. 210). But, it is also used to address a region like in negeri Tiku and Air Bangis (p. 50). It is also used to address native people when it is combined with anak, as in anak negeri (pp. 2, 38, 41, 43–44, 93) or is combined with bangsa anak just like in bangsa anak negeri, which is different to bangsa asing (p. 95). Negeri is also used for country, as in negeri Belanda (pp. 18, 66) or negeri Cina and Jepun (p. 94). Interestingly, the word negeri is also used in the context of Indonesia along with the word tanah air (p. 58).  The word tanah air in the novel is used to define the negeri to which one belongs. The first usage of this word is on page 58. The unique thing about the usage of tanah air on this page is that the compound word of tanah air is related to ibu negeri Indonesia (Jakarta), whilst in other places in the novel, tanah air is used to address kampung halaman or homeland or home (pp. 95, 100, 118, 205, 241, 288, 289, 291).  The word tumpah darah is described as follows: padahal di sinilah tumpah darahmu, di sinilah tumpah darahku dan di sinilah pula orang tua-tua kita tinggal telah lebih dari 80 tahun dan di sini pula ayah-bunda kita berpulang ke rahmatullah (pp. 16–17). It is here your tumpah darah, this place is also my tumpah darah and our elders have been living for more than 80 years and here is the place where our parents died. The compound word tumpah darah comes from tumpah or spilt and darah or blood. In the passage above, tumpah darah means the place where one is born and should be buried when he dies. The use of this word tumpah darah having the same meaning can be found in Muhammad Yamin’s poem dated 9 December 1922 entitled “Tanah Air.” In the eighth stanza of the poem, there are lines: “Karena di sanalah darahku tertumpah (because it is the place where my blood was spilt)/Serta kupinta berkalangkan tanah (the place where I want my body to be buried).” On pages 48 and 58 of the novel, the word tumpah darah is used in the same way as tanah lahir (the birthplace).  In terms of unity and threat, Sitti Nurbaja shows that all the negeri from Sumatera to Papua under the Dutch East Indies are united and the people living in them must work together to achieve progress. Our negeri and the other foreign negeris are now united under tanah Hindia with the Dutch as the rulers (pp. 323–325) but Sitti Nurbaja also acknowledges that the Dutch are bangsa asing (p. 328). This tanah Hindia, in Sitti Nurbaja, is different from the neighboring [tanah] jajahan bangsa lain seperti bangsa Inggris (p. 331). That Jakarta is the center of the colonial governmental system of the Dutch East Indies but Jakarta still follows orders from the government in the Netherlands (p. 334) are understood in Sitti Nurbaja. Sitti Nurbaja also places native people in competition with the Dutch and the Chinese. The bangsa of native people are afraid to lose their bangsa with the superiority of the Dutch and the Chinese in the Dutch East Indies (p. 310). On the other side, Sitti Nurbaja also shows that anak Indonesia, as represented by the character of Samsulbahri (p. 313), with his education and bravery, is able to become a role model for a Dutch represented by a Dutch character, Yan Van Sta (p. 318, cf. p. 303).  The word Indonesia in this novel appears several times. It is found in anak Indonesia when Samsulbahri, the main character, compares himself to his Dutch friend, van Sta (p. 313). In other places, the word Indonesia comes with bangsa anak as in “bangsa anak Indonesia” when the narrator describes the physical appearances of two different bangsa between the bangsa anak Indonesia, Samsulbahri and bangsa di atas angin, Yan Van Sta (p. 301). It also appears with the word perempuan (women) as found twice on page 311. The bangsa anak Indonesia is also called the bumiputra (p. 302) and the word bumiputra is used interchangeably with anak negeri (p. 357).  The word Indonesia is also related to specific geographical unit, as seen in “di Indonesia ini” (in Indonesia, p. 187) and “ke Indonesia ini” (to this Indonesia, p. 304). Moreover, the word Indonesia comes also with the idea of ibu negeri Indonesia (the capital city of Indonesia) as found on pages 58 and 244. It is interesting that although Padang (Sumatra) and Jakarta (Java) are different negeri, as the first is Sitti Nurbaya’s tanah air and the second is negeri orang (p. 241), when it comes to negeri Indonesia, Jakarta is imagined as the capital of it (p. 244). 611 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 DISCUSSION Our reading on Student Hidjo confirms the study conducted by Maier (1996), who says that “Java was the world of Mas Marco” (1996: 188). We also find in Student Hidjo that the orientation of Mas Marco’s world was bangsa Jawa (Javanese nation) and tanah Jawa (Java Island). Maier’s study on other Mas Marco writings also indicates that Mas Marco never thought beyond Java. Maier (1996: 193) says: But then, what was the nation? What was a bangsa? Apparently, Marco himself did not have a clear idea about “the Indies,” let alone “Indonesia” for that matter. Echoing the Dutch term of inlanders, he alternately used terms like anak Hindia, boemipoetra, and b. p. ; those words suggest that he had a feeling there were many people like him in the colony, in and outside Java, in the world. From his writings, however, it is clear that he was not yet able to think far beyond Java-and Java was big enough for his ire and energy. Thus, Anderson’s narrative in his seminal book Imagined Communities on the effect of print-capitalism towards the emergence of nationalism in the context of the Dutch East Indies does make sense, as it helps explain the growth of nationalism among educated native elites. However, our findings from Mas Marco’s Student Hidjo show that the novel only talks in the context of Javanese-ness. This indeed supports Hagen’s (1997) argument that the nationalist discourse in the Dutch East Indies was more complex than what Anderson implies. Hikayat Kadiroen, based on our findings, does not just show the absence of Indonesian-ness but, more importantly, it reflects Javanese-ness. Our findings support Maier’s (1996: 196) statement that: Hikajat Kadiroen could not but steer its readers to a message that echoes the tale of Student Green’s [Student Hidjo’s]: we should strive for equality and justice on our own Javanese terms, but let us be pragmatic and work together with the European masters for the time being, for the benefit of all involved, for the sake of stability and peace. Moreover, based on our readings of Student Hidjo and Hikayat Kadiroen, we also find the use of the word Hindia (Indies) interesting. The word refers to Java Island. We also find that the terms Bumiputera and Anak Negeri are used in the two novels to refer to Javanese people, not all of the native peoples under the rule of the Dutch in the 1920s – the time when the two novels were published – in the Dutch East Indies. Azab dan Sengsara does not mention Indonesia as tanah air or Indonesia as bangsa yet. However, there is an interesting point in the way Azab dan Sengsara depicts tanah air. To kerajaan, tanah air is the area it possesses that it needs to defend from the invasion of other kerajaan. When it comes to bangsa, tanah air refers to the people living within. The emotional attachment of loving one’s tanah air is seen in the way one cares for his bangsa. Unlike bangsa, kerajaan or the ruling government may come and go. This, the love to homeland and nation instead of kingdom and king, is indeed the basis for modern nationalism. It is true that Azab dan Sengsara does not relate the word Indonesia to a bangsa, negeri, tanah air or tumpah darah. It only uses the word Indonesia to address the language used in the novel. Nevertheless, Azab dan Sengsara imagined a community of readership in the use of the Indonesian language, which is the language the novel mentions explicitly (p. 75). The narrator of the novel addresses the intention he writes the stories in Indonesian language: “Supaya dibaca bangsaku (So my bangsa will read the stories)”. The idea to better his bangsa (of negeri Sipirok) through reading activity (p. 77), where the text is delivered intentionally in the Indonesian language (p.75), encourages its readers to see the language differently. The readers, who are the general reading public in the Dutch East Indies and not just people from negeri Sipirok, were exposed to a specific term ‘Indonesian language’ with Azab dan Sengsara. If, as Johns (1959: 295) argues, Balai Pustaka with its book distribution all over the Dutch East Indies made “writers assume that there was a united Indonesia with Djakarta as its capital,” we believe that Azab dan Sengsara created a community of readership where a native writer from a negeri in the Dutch East Indies could share his experience and the story of his bangsa in the Indonesian language. For the writers the following suit, they assumed that there were readers of their writings in the Indonesian language in the Dutch East Indies. It changed the orientation of the writers and readers of literary work towards the specific language which indeed “played an important part in the development of national consciousness [with the word Indonesia] and fertilized the growth of [then] the national language” (Johns, 1959: 295). The use of the name Indonesian for the language used in Azab dan Sengsara helped establish a break from the Malay language. The Malay literary tradition, which previously was “boleh dikatakan masih mendjadi milik orang Melaju sendiri (considered as exclusively for the people in Malay)” (Enre, 1963: 18), now became a new literary tradition when its community of readership became the people in the Dutch East Indies and the authors imagined Jakarta as the center. Moreover, it also provoked an essential question to the use of the name Indonesia: “To who does this Indonesian language belong? Whose language is the Indonesian language?” This question was important in the context of more than a literate community – a readership community of the print products – but a wider community of the new language. Thus, we argue that Azab dan Sengsara was the start of the Indonesian literary tradition before Sitti Nurbaja made the word Indonesia more visible and imaginable in the wake of Indonesian nationalism. 612 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 In Sitti Nurbaja, the word Indonesia is related to the future negeri (state) with Jakarta as its ibu negeri (capital city). This statement is expressed twice in the novel (pp. 58, 244). Based on this finding, we have no doubt of the existence of Indonesian nationalism in this novel. However, Sitti Nurbaja contains more messages to its native readers. The threat felt by the Malays in British Malaya in relation to the mass immigration of Chinese and the Indians and the fear they would lose their bangsa is also present in Sitti Nurbaja. In this novel, the Indonesians or the Bumiputra are represented by the character of Samsulbahri, who is afraid that he cannot compete with the Dutch and the Chinese. He is afraid he will lose his bangsa because he feels himself becoming more marginalized with the situation. It is not just the social system in the colonial system in which the native people are considered lower in comparison with the Dutch and the Chinese, now the colonial government in the Dutch East Indies further marginalizes his bangsa through the education system. He is aware of the fate of his bangsa if the Dutch are still in control. Later, Samsulbahri realizes that he can no longer work for the colonial government because it is not just the system but the controlling power through military action – in which he is involved– that also kills his bangsa. The message delivered by Sitti Nurbaja to its readers was the feeling of being threatened by the situation. The awareness of this kind of situation unifies people with the same fate and removes their heterogeneity (Fanon, 1963: 46), or leading to a sense of unity through a certain situation where native people feel like they are all in the same group (cf. Hagen 1997). Taking such rigid criterion to define the birth of a nation-state national literature, the first modern Indonesian literature was then Sitti Nurbaja, published in 1922, instead of Azab dan Sengsara. Sitti Nurbaja shows how the orientation of the words bangsa, negeri, tanah air, and tumpah darah changes along with the presence of the word Indonesia. This novel at that time must have encouraged the native people of the Dutch East Indies to recognize the threat to their bangsa. It also voiced nationalism. In the novel, the message was clear. The native people might lose their bangsa if they stood still while the rapid changes in society and the colonial system subjugated them. Furthermore, this novel shows how different people from different native ethnic groups in the Dutch East Indies were merged and introduced as the same bangsa (nation, race) Indonesia whilst the imagined negeri (country) with Jakarta as its ibu negeri (capital city) was also presented. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS Our reading of four novels published after 1917 provides evidence that Indonesian nationalist discourse based on Indonesian-ness was not present in literary works written by educated natives in the Dutch East Indies before the publication of Azab dan Sengsara by Balai Pustaka in 1920. Azab dan Sengsara demonstrated an idea of Indonesian-ness to educated natives living in the Dutch East Indies by introducing a new name for the Malay language used by the educated natives: bahasa Indonesia. Giving a new name to the Malay language did not just imply a break from the Malay world and its literary tradition, it also gave a new association to the community using the language. Sitti Nurbaja furthered the Indonesian-ness in terms of nationalist discourse. The identity of being Indonesian, a part of bangsa Indonesia where the native peoples from different islands in the Dutch East Indies are the same bangsa, were added with an explicit imagination that Jakarta would be the best capital city for Indonesia. Thus, we may say that Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaja were the pioneers of Indonesian literature. The term “Indonesian literature” by itself implies modern literature because the birth of the idea and the rise of Indonesian nationalism happened alongside the modernization of the traditional society in the Dutch East Indies. Literary works that were written when modernization of the traditional society in the Dutch East Indies was occurring but before the birth of Indonesian-ness and which do not contain Indonesian-ness are called modern Malay literature in the Dutch East Indies in order to separate them from classical Malay literature as some Indonesian literary critics, like Rosidi (1985), suggest. However, while we also realize that there are differences in using the term modernity for Malay literature (cf. Rahmat 1996) since the Dutch East Indies was different from British Malaya we can, therefore, situate modern Malay literary works in the Dutch East Indies as part of Indonesian literary history. The question about the existence of Indonesian-ness and the spread of Indonesian nationalism within and/or by Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaja, both of which were published by Dutch colonial government publishing house Balai Pustaka, can be compared to the impact of Bintang Hindia, a colonial government-sponsored magazine. Studies by Poeze (1989) and Adam (1995) show that Bintang Hindia did contribute to the early nationalist awakening of the educated natives in the Dutch East Indies, leading to the nationalist movement before the birth of specific Indonesian nationalism. These scholars show that nationalist movements by the educated natives in the Dutch East Indies used the colonial infrastructure in their nationalism struggle. Our study finds that Azab dan Sengsara and Sitti Nurbaja disseminated the idea of Indonesia to the mass through literature in the early the twentieth century when Indonesian nationalism emerged competing with or replacing any other pre-existing nationalist idea in the Dutch East Indies. Azab dan Sengsara reflects implies a new orientation in literary tradition from the selection of the language whilst Sitti Nurbaja shows a more complex orientation on the new identity and the land. Both novels reflect the rise of the new identity of Indonesia among native writers in the Dutch East Indies. As for the “missing link,” to use Muhadjir’s (1990: 310, 313) words, from traditional to modern literature written in Malay in the history of modern literature in Indonesia should have been solved by recognizing these modern literary works produced by the Chinese peranakan, the Dutch, the Betawi, the Sundanese, and the Javanese (including the two 613 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 novels discussed in this paper: Student Hidjo and Hikajat Kadiroen) writers simply as modern literature in the Dutch East Indies. We would suggest avoiding using the terms Sastra Melayu Lama (Old Malay Literature), Sastra Indonesia Klasik (Classical Indonesian Literature), and Sastra Nusantara 5 Klasik (Classical Nusantara Literature) (Rosidi, 1973: 22-23) to name these literary works. These terms do not reflect the fact that there were modern literary works written in Malay in the Dutch East Indies before the beginning of modern Indonesian literature. We could actually use a term which is used by a prominent Indonesian cultural and intellectual figure, Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (1950: 14-15), to define cultural tradition and orientation before the emergence of Indonesian nationalism if the word Indonesia has to be addressed in the writing of Indonesian literary history. He calls the period as the pre-Indonesia period. By taking his suggestion, we may label these literary works as modern pre-Indonesian literature. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Dr. Klaas Stutje for criticism and advice for the development of this article. REFERENCES 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Abdullah, bin Mustaffa & Syafi’i, Abdul M. (2009). 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The edition of the novel used in this article is the 29 th , published by Balai Pustaka in 2010. 2 615 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews eISSN: 2395-6518, Vol 7, No 6, 2019, pp 604-616 https://doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2019.7691 3 In Student Hidjo, the language used is called as bahasa Melayu (p. 157) We use the 50th edition of Sitti Nurbaya, which was published by Balai Pustaka in 2013. 5 The word nusantara is used in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei Darussalam to address a community of a long-standing cultural tradition in the archipelago of South East Asia stretching from Malay Peninsula to western Papua (Ave, 1989; Abdullah & Syafi’i, 2009; OdM et.al., 2016; Evers, 2016). However, the word has also been used by the Indonesians as synonym to the Indonesian archipelago or the state Indonesia (Ave, 1989; Evers, 2016). 4 616 |www.hssr.in © Nugraha and Suyitno