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

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

, 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 (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 Indonesian struggle for independenc ...

, 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 sculptor Matvey Manizer 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, and Indonesian Papua, is the western half of the island of New Guinea, formerly Dutch colonial empire, Dutch and granted to Indonesia in 1962. Given the island is alternatively n ...

from the Dutch colonialism. While exploring a rural village in

West Java West Java (, ) is an Indonesian Provinces of Indonesia, province on the western part of the island of Java, with its provincial capital in Bandung. West Java is bordered by the province of Banten and the country's capital region of Jakarta to t ...

, 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 a district () in the administrative city of Central Jakarta, Indonesia. Menteng is surrounded by the districts of Senen and Matraman to the east, Tebet and Setiabudi to the south, Tanah Abang to the west, and Gambir to the north. ...

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 () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

. 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 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 Military history of Jakarta Terminating vistas