Indonesian nationalism and the Battle of Surabaya 1945
Channel: Asian Studies
Date: 2020-11-10

Indonesian nationalism and the Battle of Surabaya 1945: what the nation means to the Kampung People of Surabaya

10 November
14:00 - 15:30 p.m.

An online interactive lecture by Adrian Perkasa, lecturer in the Department of History, Universitas Airlangga; PhD candidate in Leiden University Institute for Area Studies; and Principal Investigator of Surabaya in the SEANNET program of IIAS-UKNA.

Soon after Sukarno and Hatta declared Indonesia's independence on 17 August 1945, there was a period in Indonesian official historiography known as the Indonesian national revolution. The battle of Surabaya, which reached its peak in November 1945, became a national symbol of resistance. There were numerous youths from many kampungs (neighbourhoods) in the city involved on the Indonesian side. Even after the British forces captured Surabaya and the Dutch regained its control over this city, many hinterland people refused to supply food items to Surabaya. However, the adult native people's literacy rate in Surabaya in a decade before this event was deficient. Then, how did the Indonesian national consciousness emerge in the kampung people of Surabaya? What did the nation mean to them?

This talk aims to discuss the development of the Indonesian nationalist idea in Surabaya during the 1920s to the 1940s. Following research on nationalism studies, the speaker uses the perspective of nationhood from below to observe why nationalism, particularly Indonesian nationalism, became a popular affair in Surabaya during that period.

The Speaker
Adrian Perkasa is a PhD candidate in Leiden Institute for Area Studies at Leiden University and a Lecturer in the Department of History, Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia. He is also a local Principal Investigator of Surabaya in the Southeast Asia Neighborhoods Network (SEANNET) program of the IIAS Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA).