The Angkatan 45. Chairil Anwar and Vitalism

Abstract

However, even where we have good documentation and information, all sorts of problems of Indonesian literature remain difficult to solve, because the borderlines appear so vague and the criteria prove to be so difficult to manage. The main problem, for example: precisely which people form the Angkatan 45, what is the principle which binds together the members of that generation and distinguishes them from an older generation on the one hand, and on the other from a possible later one? From the beginning the Indonesians themselves in fact debated this question and, as we might expect, a solution satisfactory to all has never been reached. The first thing to observe is that the term Angkatan 45 itself is a retrospective label, only attached when Chairil Anwar, for example, had produced most of his works. According to Jassin ³⁶ the term Angkatan 45 was first launched by Rosihan Anwar in Siasat dated 9th January, 1949. It had already been used by Hazil Tanzil in Pudjangga Baru of November, 1948, but it is possible that the publication of this number was delayed,³⁷ so that indeed Rosihan Anwar’s article may have appeared in print earlier.