The Heroes Monument (Indonesian ''Patung Pahlawan''), popularly known as Tugu Tani is a bronze statue and important landmark located in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

, Indonesia. The monument celebrates the heroes of the struggles of the Indonesian nation symbolized by a peasant youth wearing a '' caping'' with a rifle on his shoulder, a mother behind him offering him a dish of rice. The ''caping'' is a traditional farmer's hat in Indonesia, thus the statue is also referred as the Farmer's Monument (Patung Pak Tani or Tugu Tani).

History and design

The idea for the creation of the statue was initiated by

Sukarno Sukarno). (; born Koesno Sosrodihardjo, ; 6 June 1901 – 21 June 1970) was an Indonesian statesman, orator, revolutionary, and nationalist who was the first president of Indonesia, serving from 1945 to 1967. Sukarno was the leader of ...

, the first president of Indonesia, when he visited Moscow in the late 1950s and was impressed with the statues in the city. He was introduced to a

Socialist realist Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II. Socialist realism is ...

sculptor

Matvey Manizer Matvey Genrikhovich Manizer (russian: Матвей Генрихович Манизер, – 20 December 1966) was a prominent Russian sculptor. Manizer created a number of works that became classics of socialist realism. Life Manizer wa ...

and his son Ossip Manizer. In order to inspire them, Sukarno invited the sculptors to Indonesia to build a statue which embodies the fight to achieve independence, which at that time Indonesia was fighting for the freedom of

West Irian Western New Guinea, also known as Papua, Indonesian New Guinea, or Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the Melanesian island of New Guinea which is administered by Indonesia. Since the island is alternatively named as Papua, the region ...

from the Dutch colonialism. While exploring a rural village in

West Java West Java ( id, Jawa Barat, su, ᮏᮝ ᮊᮥᮜᮧᮔ᮪, romanized ''Jawa Kulon'') is a province of Indonesia on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten ...

, the sculptors were inspired by a folklore about a mother who supported her son to win the war and to remember his parents and his land as well as giving him some rice for his journey. The statue was built in the Soviet Union and brought to Indonesia by ship. It was inaugurated in 1963. The statue sits at the junction of

Menteng Menteng is the south-central district of Central Jakarta, one of the administrative municipalities in the capital city Jakarta, Indonesia. The nexus of its heritage is the Menteng neighbourhood (Project), a new urban design developed mainly in t ...

and Prapatan Street, which had been an important place during the days of the August 1945 revolution. The statue has been controversial since armed peasants are sometimes identified with

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

. There is a caption on the pedestal, a sentence by Sukarno: ::"HANJA BANGSA JANG MENGHARGAI PAHLAWAN PAHLAWANNJA DAPAT MENJADI BANGSA JANG BESAR" ::(English: "ONLY NATION THAT EXALTS ITS HEROES COULD BE A GREAT NATION")

Accident and Incident

On 22 January 2012, a

Daihatsu Xenia The Toyota Avanza and Daihatsu Xenia are cars developed by Daihatsu and marketed by both Toyota and Daihatsu. It is a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) and mainly sold with three-row seating. The Avanza and Xenia were developed as an entry-level MPV ...

crashed a bus stop near the monument and killed nine people around the pedestrian path. the suspect Afriyani Susanti was driving home from nearby Hotel Borobudur and presumed to be in a drunken state.

References

Cited works

* *{{cite book , title=Urban symbolism , volume=8 of Studies in human society , author=P. Nas , year=1993 , publisher=BRILL , location= , isbn=9789004098558 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R7-xvYmg3HcC&q=hero+monument+jakarta&pg=PA52 , access-date=October 1, 2011 Buildings and structures completed in 1963 Monuments and memorials in Jakarta Post-independence architecture of Indonesia Buildings and structures in Jakarta