Amir Hamzah, Tengku

1. The Story of Life

Two aspects of poet‘s life always spoken are his reality as a human and his capacity as a poet. These two realities present at the same time, provide explanation and influence each other. In another word, daily human experiences play a central role in enhancing the quality of poem, while various expressions of poet are the texts that explain the humanity of the person.

All poets are human, but not all humans become poets. In this context, to become a poet, a person has specialty of humanity. Therefore, it is normal to place poets at certain position of human history with emerging strong desire in ourselves to think, understand and appreciate their great contemplation. Amir Hamzah is a poet. Due to his specialty, he was famous. And because of his humanity - born in the sultanate family of Langkat - he was murdered.

He was the son of the sultanate family of Langkat, a political status which did not always lead him to reach good fortune, particularly at the time. Once again, he was born; he did not ask to be born in the sultanate family. He had no strength to choose or to reject whether to be a part of ordinary people or of nobility. In this case, wherever he was born was undoubtedly not his mistake. Therefore it is difficult to understand why he was murdered due to his blue blooded, the fate that he could not avoid.

Both harmony and conflict are two realities that regularly present on the earth. Born on January 28, 1911 in Tanjung Pura, Langkat, North Sumatera, Amir Hamzah grew into an adult in the harmony life of the sultanate palace. Like other Malay kingdoms, the Langkat kingdom upheld strongly the tradition of literature. Amir Hamzah‘s early study on literature was in the area of palace. His father, Tengku Muhammad Adil, was a prince of the Langkat Kingdom who loved both Malay literature and Malay history so much. Muhammad Adil admired to the Hikayat Amir Hamzah (the story of Amir Hamzah) that inspired him to name his son as Amir Hamzah. Muhammad Adil, more often than not, invited story tellers to tell Malay stories throughout the whole night. Among the stories that were usually delivered were Hikayat Hang Tuah, Sejarah Melayu, Hikayat Amir Hamzah, Hikayat Ali Hanafiah, Bustanussalatin and the stories of Prophets. In such circumstance, Amir Hamzah‘s concern on the history, tradition and literature of his land began to emerge. Additionally, Tanjungpura in the time was also the advantageous city of literature development, since its inhabitants were from Siak, Kedah, Selangor, Pattani and other Malay regions. It can be clearly seen that Amir Hamzah‘s background grew and developed within the Malay culture. His early formal education was in Langkatsche School (later on was changed into HIS), a school supervised by the Dutch teachers. And in every evening, he learned reading the holy Qur‘an at a big house, the remains palace of Sultan Musa that sat behind Azizi Langkat mosque. After having completed his education from HIS, he studied at MULO in Medan city, North Sumatera. In the age of 14, he moved to Jakarta to continue the same level of education (MULO).

Alongside the Langkat palace and the Tanjungpura city, formal educations, particularly in Java, also molded Amir Hamzah‘s creativity in developing the Malay literature. In Java, he attended his formal education at MULO in Jakarta, Aglemeene Middelbare School (AMS) in the department of East Literature in Solo, Central Java, and at High School (in the department of Law) in Jakarta. In the meantime, Java was the center of Indonesian national movement in attaining the independence from the occupation of the Dutch colonialism. All potencies of nation were forced to gain the independence. Disputes, conflicts and idealism powerfully shaped the thoughts of the Indonesian youths to determine their own future. In that period, particularly during his study at AMS in Solo, Amir Hamzah wrote most of his early literary works.  

Indeed, revolution creates marvelous figures, but sometimes it also buries them. Amir Hamzah was born and grew within the Indonesian revolution, but unfortunately it had buried him. He passed away in the revolution happened in East Sumatera in March 1946, the early days of the Indonesian independence. In the meantime, he disappeared. His body was eventually found in a shallow mass graveyard in Kuala Begumit. He was beheaded on March 20, 1946 without any process of judicial before. It is sad to be said that the smart kind-hearted poet was murdered at his very young age, 35 years old. Today, two of his poems are carved on his grave. The sajak (poem) below is written at the right side of his grave‘s tombstone:

Bunda, waktu tuan melahirkan beta
Pada subuh embang cempaka
Adalah ibu menaruh sangka
Bahwa begini peminta anakda

Tuan aduhai mega berarak
Yang meliputi dewangga raya
Berhentilah tuan di atas teratak
Anak Langkat musafir lata

And the sajak below is carved at the left side:

Datanglah engkau wahai maut
Lepaskan aku dari nestapa
Engkau lagi tempatku berpaut
Di waktu ini gelap gulita

Sampaikan rinduku pada adinda
Bisikkan rayuanku pada juita
Liputi lututnya muda kencana
Serupa beta memeluk dia

The revolution in East Sumatera happened uncontrollable, so that it needed huge number of innocent people to be victimized. What was Amir Hamzah‘s guilty? He was a real nationalist. In 1931 he headed the Indonesian Congress of Youth in Solo; in the time, he involved extensively in the national movement, besides had given worth contribution in the Indonesian literature. However, he had one guilty: he was born in the sultanate family. During that period, most people thought to diminish the role of feudalism in the society. Such view brutally forced them to extinct all nobilities of the region. Notwithstanding, the contribution of Amir Hamzah, through his works, in developing and maturing the Malay language to become the Indonesian language has nothing to be compared. 

2. The Thought

His kind-hearted character appeared on his bright face. But it obviously hid loneliness, aloneness and tartness. Both hesitancy and fear frightened him during his lifetime. He demanded for perfection, but it could not be reached; he was hunger for peace of mind, but it never came true, but broken-hearted smashed him instead; and with regard to his transcendent relation with God, he intended to be faithful, but, as appear through his poems, he experienced to be skeptic. Both skepticism and doubt can be seen in his poems below:

Tuhanku Apatah Kekal?

Tuhanku, suka dan ria
gelak dan senyum
tepuk dan tari
semuanya lenyap, silam sekali.

Gelak bertukar duka
suka bersalin ratap
kasih beralih cinta
cinta membawa wangsangka…

Junjunganku apatah kekal
apatah tetap
apakah tak bersalin rupa
apatah baka sepanjang masa

Bunga layu disinari matahari
makhluk berangkat menempati janji
hijau langit bertukar mendung
gelombang reda di tepi pantai

Selangkan gagak beralih warna
gemerbak cempaka sekali hilang
apatah lagi laguan kasih
hilang semata tiada kentara

Tuhanku apatah kekal?

(Amir Hamzah)

Amir Hamzah preferred to use the Malay language as a media in expressing his deep feeling. In November 1932 he wrote a letter to his close friend, Armijn Pane, to tell him that the Malay language is beautiful, “Engkau kudengar telah menjadi guru sekarang, apakah yang kau ajarkan? Bahasa Melayu tentu, baik-baik Pane, jangan kau lipu-lipukan bahasa yang semolek itu,” (I have heard that you are teacher now, what are you teaching about? You teach certainly the Malay language. Please preserve it as good as possible and do not deface this beautiful language). Amir Hamzah somehow had made a great decision to choose his mother language as a media of literature, when other poets by contrast preferred to use the Dutch colonialist‘s language. His language preference leaded to enormous implication on the future of the Malay language development that finally was selected as the national language of Indonesia. He was the pioneer who urged other Indonesian poets to grasp their own identity by expressing their ideas in the Indonesian language. This step was undoubtedly necessary to make the language as the strong unifier of the nation. It may be said that the development of the Indonesian language today can not be separated from the amazing effort of Amir Hamzah.

As Amir Hamzah use the Malay language as the media of expressing his idea, he knew the fact that other men of letters such as Notosuroto, who wrote his literary works in the Dutch language, did not attain any appreciation from the colonialist government, alongside it was his mother language. Notosuroto was not given chance to occupy any important position whether on the riverbank of Rijn or on the top of volcano. However, Amir Hamzah did not want to have the same fate with him. Due to this fact, he preferred the Malay language (Indonesian language) in expressing his ideas. His social interaction with the figures of national movement, particularly during in Java, had also molded his spirit of nationalism. It can be seen through his language preference. For him, the Indonesian language is the symbol of heroism, Islamism and Melayuism. In addition, his poems reflected his religiosity, love toward the country and also the feeling of discomfort. Writing his early poems such as Buah Rindu, Amir Hamzah harbored his thought in paduka (title for honorable person), bunda (mother) and dinda (young sister). One example of his early poems is “Ke bawah paduka Indonesia raya//Ke bawah lebu Ibu-Ratu//Ke bawah kaki Sendari-Dewi”. However, his next works such as Nyanyian Sunyi reflected submission and clinging toward God to reach maqam fana (one of the steps taken by the Muslim mystic toward the achievement of union with God), “Dalam rupa maha sempurna//Rindu sendu mengharu kalbu//Ingin datang merasa sentosa//Mencecap hidup bertentu tuju”.

3. The Works

If Amir Hamzah did not pass away in his very young age, he should have written much more works of literature than we have found today. But one‘s fate can not be predicted, and history sometimes leads its heroes to die early. Passing away in the young age was not Amir Hamzah‘s preference, but merely God‘s decision, or at certain level is a historical accident. Although had only short age, he had published 50 poems, 77 translations of poem, his own 18 lyric prose, one translation of lyric prose, his own 13 prose and one translation of prose. Therefore he had published 160 works of literature in total. These works are unified in sajak (poem) collection, namely Buah Rindu, Nyanyian Sunyi, Setanggi Timur and the translation of Baghawat Gita. These works brought Amir Hamzah to be acknowledged as a great Indonesian poet. Sutan Takdir Alisjahbana (the modern Indonesian poet) saw his works collected in Nyanyian Sunyi reaches international level. Other observers remarked that his works were the top of Indonesian poetizing. With regard to his personality, Anthony H. Johns calls him as a distinctive and uncompromising individual. H.B Jassin and Zuber Usman called him as Raja Penyair Pujangga Baru (the king of the new Indonesian men of letters). And A. Teeuw sees him as the only pre-war poet in Indonesia whose works reaches international level and is of lasting literary interest.

4. The Award