The concept of the “short 20th century” as an interpretative model for studying the socio-political history of Indonesia

Kyrchanoff Maksym Waler'evich ORCID: 0000-0003-3819-3103 Doctor of History Associate Professor of the Department of Regional Studies and Economics of Foreign Countries, Faculty of International Relations; Associate Professor of the Department of History of Foreign Countries and Oriental Studies, Faculty of History; Voronezh State University; ResearcherID: B-8694-2017; Scopus Author ID: 57193934324 394077, Russia, Voronezh region, Voronezh, Pushkinskaya str., 16, room 236 maksymkyrchanoff@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Introduction. In the twentieth century, Western historical science has made some progress in the genesis of concepts claiming limited epistemological universality. Interpretive models have generally been proposed by Western historians. If we consider the history of Western historical science in theoretical terms, then we can assume that several concepts did not just replace each other, but coexisted simultaneously, being quite influential and significant, which predetermined their use by several generations of professional historians. In the twentieth century, Western intellectuals proposed several concepts of this kind, claiming to be universal. Most of these ideas were related to interdisciplinary studies of nationalism. In such a situation, the history of modern states was written through the prism of the history of one or another nationalism. Therefore, historical experience was interpreted, evaluated, and reinterpreted in the context of concepts such as "imagining communities" and "inventing traditions." These theories, proposed in the first half of the 1980s, claimed a certain universality and were quite successfully used to analyze the historical, political, cultural and intellectual experience not only of the Western world, but also of Eastern, African, Asian and Latin American states. Indonesia was no exception to such dynamics in the development of historical science.

The Indonesian intellectual situation. During the second half of the twentieth century, Indonesian intellectuals actively used various Western conceptual approaches to write and rethink their own history, which they perceived as national. While Marxism could claim the status of such a historiographical paradigm to a certain extent until the mid-1960s, the political events of 1965 led to the marginalization of leftist tendencies in the intellectual and political life of Indonesia. Therefore, Indonesian intellectuals were forced to undergo a certain revision of the methodological tools that they used to write and comprehend their own national history.

Since the 1990s, Indonesian historical science has been more actively using Western concepts, which, as noted above, claimed to be universal. Indonesia during the second half of the twentieth century was distinguished by stable and stable ties with the West, which took place not only in politics and economics, but also in historiography. If a significant part of the participants in the nationalist movement, through whose efforts Indonesia became an independent state in 1945, were educated in Europe, then a similar dynamic was observed in the second half of the twentieth century not only within the political class, but also in the intellectual community. Some Indonesian historians were educated and defended their master's and doctoral theses at American, Australian and European universities, which was due to their assimilation of those approaches that were practiced in Western historiography.

The "Short 20th Century" as a universal of historical imagination. Eric Hobsbawm, a well-known specialist in the history of nationalism and a British Marxist historian, is known in modern historiography and thanks to the term "short twentieth century" popularized by him. Initially, such an interpretative model was used primarily for research focused on the study of the history of the West and those regions whose political and historical features could be integrated into Western historical, social and political contexts. From the point of view of chronology, the concept of the "short twentieth century" has boundaries limited to 1918 and 1991, respectively. At the same time, such periodization is of limited effectiveness only for theoretical understanding and conceptual rethinking of the history of Europe in general and some European countries in particular. Globalization, which began actively in the twentieth century, and the tendency to integrate non-Western societies into Western political models of development raised the question of the possibility or illegality of using such concepts and interpretative models to study and write the history of the non-Western world, including Indonesia.

Methodology. From the point of view of methodology, this article is based on the achievements of several generations of historians within the framework of interdisciplinary historiography, which developed dynamically during the second half of the twentieth century. Therefore, it is assumed that, analyzing the prospects and features of the transplantation of Western historiographical concepts into Indonesian historical contexts, it should be taken into account that the latter can be described using the concept of the "short twentieth century". The very phenomenon of the "short twentieth century" in the Indonesian context, on the one hand, needs to be analyzed using the tools that have been proposed within the framework of intellectual history, cultural history, the history of ideas and the archaeology of ideas. On the other hand, it is necessary to use concepts that were previously proposed by researchers of modernization and nationalism. Such approaches are effective because they provide historians with the opportunity to analyze the contradictions between the social pace and cultural speeds of both the historical development of Indonesia and the integration of the humanitarian knowledge of this country into Western contexts, which is achieved by transplanting the achievements of Western historiography into the practices and strategies of historical writing used by Indonesian historians.

Geographically and chronologically. The history of Indonesia in the twentieth century can probably be viewed through the prism of the "short twentieth century" since the triumph of the ideas of nationalism and political modernization most significantly influenced the vectors and trajectories of the country's political and socio-economic development, which allows us to define the period from 1928 ("The Oath of Youth") to 1998 (the end of the period the "new order") like the Indonesian "short twentieth century".

Purpose and objectives. In this article, the author analyzes the concept of the "short twentieth century" as one of the models of theoretical reinterpretation of the historical experience of Indonesia, whose history throughout the twentieth century was interpreted through the prism of theories of nationalism and modernization, which allows, taking into account the achievements of previous historiography, to transplant the above-mentioned concepts into the cultural, political, intellectual and historiographical contexts of Indonesia.

The aim of the author in the presented article is to analyze the possibility of using the concept of the "short twentieth century" as an interpretative model for studying the historical experience of Indonesia through the prism of the development of nationalism and the processes of political and socio-economic modernization. The author's tasks include 1) analyzing the history of Indonesia through the prism of its integration into theoretical approaches proposed within the framework of the concept of the "short twentieth century", 2) identifying the strengths and weaknesses of this concept for studying the historical experience of Indonesia, 3) studying the limitations that objectively arise due to the fact that this model of explanation was It is proposed to describe and write the history of the West, 4) identify the prospects for using the concept of the "short twentieth century" as one of the "great narratives" for studying the history of Indonesia.

"The Short Twentieth Century": Western realities and Indonesian contexts. When transplanting the concept of the "twentieth century museum" into the historical contexts of Indonesia, the specific "content" of this concept should be taken into account when it is applied to the study of Western and American history. Eric Hobsbawm and his supporters identified 1) total confrontation, including in military uniform, as systemic features and characteristics of the "short twentieth century"; 2) the revolution in Russia, which led to the establishment of a communist regime; 3) the general crisis of liberal ideology in the context of strengthening authoritarian tendencies, which led to the emergence and preservation of (until the 1970s) undemocratic regimes on the territory of, for example, Southern Europe; 4) the economic downturn within the framework of the "Great Depression"; 5) decolonization, the collapse of empires and the emergence of new national or nationalizing states forming the "third world"; 6) the post-war economic recovery and subsequent crises; 7) the emergence, progress, crisis and fall of the left alternative development model.

Of these seven characteristics, most can be found in the social, economic, political, cultural and intellectual history of Indonesia from 1928 to 1998. Two models for the implementation of such transformations were the political regimes of Sukarno (1945 – 1967) and Suharto (1967 – 1998), and the ideological concept designed to legitimize and motivate such changes became Indonesian nationalism. The latter actualized most of the ideas, the history of which is more or less connected with the "short twentieth century", including the very idea of the liberation of an early oppressed group, the creation and development of a national state and a nation-state, the primacy of nationalism in the political and ideological sphere, fierce opposition to leftist ideas, the implementation of a modernization policy with the active participation of the state within the framework of the authoritarian model. Within the framework of such a perception, the content of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia can be reduced to nationalist socio-political modernization, implemented within the framework of actually two undemocratic regimes in conditions of active use of both nationalist rhetoric and confrontation between secular nationalist elites and the Islamic alternative.  

The social history of the "short twentieth century". Considering these systemic features of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia, a number of factors should be taken into account, which most significantly influenced the vectors and trajectories of development. These processes are described in relative detail in historiography, but most of the works ^[1] focused on specific areas of social, political and economic history, reduced to modernization, clearly lack theoretical foundations. Indonesia of the early "short twentieth century", if we recognize the relevance of this term, was characterized by a special social structure. If a significant part of other colonial societies were societies with incomplete social structures, partially underdeveloped or completely absent institutions, then in Indonesia by the 1920s a different situation had developed.

The starting conditions for the historical and political dynamics of the "short twentieth century", which coincided with the beginning of the active development of the nationalist movement and the activities of nationalist activists who advocated political liberation and national sovereignty of Indonesia, correlate both chronologically and procedurally with important social transformations at the level of social structures, institutions and relations of colonial society. As for the social structure of the Indonesian population, two factors should be taken into account in this context. On the one hand, Islam played a significant role in the life of Indonesians ^[2]. On the other hand, transformational processes began in Indonesia, which led to the erosion of traditional social semi-ancestral groups that existed in various regions of Indonesia earlier. Thus, by the beginning of the "short twentieth century, the social structure of Indonesian society had changed significantly. This transformation, the mechanisms of which were launched by colonialism, made possible subsequent modernization within the framework of the nationalist model.

In this context, the question of what Indonesian society was like in the second half of the 1920s, that is, in the years that we date the lower chronological boundary of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia, becomes particularly relevant. There were several social groups in Indonesian society, but the identification of these groups as social is largely conditional, because such a division is not based on the characteristics of social status, not on different property rights and characteristics, not on different and uneven access to economic and political resources. At the same time, the social factor should still be taken into account, since different access to both real economic and symbolic political resources has actually institutionalized a system of multiple and heterogeneous inequalities in society ^[3]. The main criterion that allows us to distinguish three groups within Indonesian society ^[4] – Santri, Abangan and Priyai – is the attitude of representatives of these groups to Islam. The Santri were believers and practicing Muslims who followed the norms of Islam and tried to follow the precepts of Sharia. Abangan represented formal Muslims, in whose daily life Islam played, of course, an important, but still a secondary role in comparison with local regional pre-Islamic beliefs and traditions. As for the priyai ^[5], they developed as a group represented by class elements ^[6] associated with political elites. Thus, by the beginning of the "short twentieth century", Indonesian society was not just largely fragmented and heterogeneous from a social point of view, although sociality intersected with religiosity.

The "Short twentieth Century" as a historical time of new social groups. Within the framework of this society, the processes of forming new groups begin. In the 1920s, two new social groups were dynamically formed, groups that were previously absent or marginal due to their small numbers. The first such group was the emerging and actively increasing Indonesian working class, which was, of course, due to the factor of Dutch colonialism ^[7], which was the main incentive for socio-economic transformations ^[8] of the regional economy, designed to serve the interests of the metropolis.

Despite the unequal nature of relations between the Netherlands and its colonies, including Indonesia, the Dutch influence on the local population was progressive to a certain extent, as it contributed to the erosion and destruction of traditional social groups and the erosion of the traditional model of social relations based more on the levels and depth of manifestation of Muslim religiosity, rather than on class statuses and features. Therefore, class groups or social categories of the class type were gradually replaced by new strata of the population, which in the Western understanding can be defined as new classes. The first of them was the working class. The second arose somewhat later and was represented by young politically active and aggressive representatives of the national movement. If we can localize the genesis of the proletariat in the social history of the urban population, then the nationalists as a separate political group never existed before.

The emergence of nationalism and its subsequent development of nationalism ^[9] became the factors that during the "short twentieth century" determined the main vectors and trajectories of the development of society. It was the nationalists, as a new social category of Indonesian society, who turned out to be associated with both Santri and Priya. Representatives of this new, dynamically developing social stratum were educated in Europe, usually in the Netherlands, bringing European ideas to Indonesia, primarily the values of political and civic nationalism. Thus, these two new emerging groups, represented by the working class and a new active stratum of dynamically growing nationalists, became the strata that actually launched the mechanisms of social, political and economic transformations in Indonesia. In such a situation, since the late 1920s, the main trend in the history of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia has been the development of Indonesian political nationalism.

The "Short twentieth century" as a time of nationalist modernization. Indonesia has developed traditions of nationalism ^[10], but the focus of the author's reflection in the presented article is not the event dimension of the history of Indonesian nationalism ^[11], but to a greater extent the theoretical issues of its functioning during the "short twentieth century". Nationalism proved to be so successful and effective that it was able to launch the mechanisms of nationalist mobilization and related modernization of Indonesian society, automatically stimulating and legitimizing broad changes in social, cultural and political terms. Thus, nationalists, as carriers of the ideology of nationalism, automatically contributed to the creation of both an Indonesian political and ethnic nation, and determined its social structures at the level of dividing society into various groups.

Analyzing these social components of the history of the "short twentieth century", one should, of course, take into account a certain genetic continuity between the old groups represented by Santri and Abangan and those new classes that arose and dynamically developed within the framework of Indonesian society. However, the traditional groups that the modernizing Indonesia inherited from its colonial predecessor, of course, formally continued to exist in subsequent years. However, it was modernization that became the incentive that contributed to the gradual blurring and destruction of the boundaries between these groups, which were not just socio-economic, but also class-political. In this regard, the history of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia, if we reduce it to the history of nationalism, can be described in terms of modernization.

Therefore, both nationalism and its modernization project proposed by the nationalists played a leading role, becoming the factors that stimulated progressive changes. Analyzing the history of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia through the prism of the theory of modernization and the development of nationalism, it should also be taken into account that nationalism, which launched modernization mechanisms, becoming an incentive for social, economic, political and cultural changes, was not the only factor of progressive development in Indonesia. Another, no less important, and perhaps even more important factor that had the most significant impact on both social and political processes in Indonesia was Islam.

Despite the fact that nationalism and Islamism actually developed in parallel and simultaneously, "the depth with which these discourses were discussed and agreed upon by the intellectual elite was asymmetric. Strong nationalist discourses contributed to the creation of a key political tool through which people of different ethnic, racial and religious groups could be united ... there was no consensus in the debate about the discourse of Islamic identity ... both among Muslim scholars and between Islamists and secular nationalists" ^[12]. Despite these objective contradictions, by the 1920s, Indonesian Islam had managed to gain not only the experience of development as a religious teaching, but also actualized the potential of its own political participation. By that time, the first formally public, but actually political organizations existed, the main members of which were Muslim believers. Islam was perceived by significant segments of Indonesian society, primarily by religious practicing Muslims, Santri, as an important factor in both social development and political national liberation.

"The Short twentieth Century": the values of the Ummah and the principles of the nation. The situation of the Indonesian "short twentieth century" is characterized by a unique situation, which was based not only on competition between two diametrically opposed ideologies. The first ideology in this dichotomy of political development was nationalism introduced from the West. The second ideology was political Islam, but when we analyze the social and religious dynamics of the relationship between these systems in Indonesian society during the "short twentieth century", it should be taken into account that in some cases political nationalism and political Islam actually played very close or even identical roles in political processes.

Taking into account the fact that the very concept of the "short twentieth century" genetically goes back to interpretative models designed to describe the history of the West, it should be remembered that during this historical time religion has significantly weakened its position in comparison with secular ideologies and scientific worldview. The "short twentieth century" in Indonesia demonstrates other vectors of the development of Islam, since "in countries where it is the main religion, its power over people has not decreased over the past hundred years, and in some cases has strengthened" ^{[13, p. 23]}. If the nationalists fought for national and social liberation, for the creation of an independent Indonesia as a nation-state, then supporters of political Islam set themselves largely similar tasks, with the only difference that they not only sought to create an independent Indonesia, but also perceived the population of this future country not just as Indonesian citizens, but as Muslims, that is, members of the Ummah. In such a situation, Islam was positioned as a systemic element of the future independent Indonesian statehood ^[14].

Thus, the experience of the historical development of Indonesian Islam during the "short twentieth century" demonstrates adaptive political potential, since the ideology of Islamism was actually designed to articulate the interests of believers at the level of political and social institutions and relations within Indonesian society, which developed, from a political point of view, as secular. In this context, the history of Indonesia of the "short twentieth century" seems not only to be a history of competition between Islamism and political nationalism, but also the development of confrontation between two successful projects – the project of the political civil Indonesian nation and the project of the Ummah, which turned out to be no less successful against the background of the activation of nationalists.

Early Independent Indonesia of the "short twentieth century": the search for a development model. This confrontation between nationalists and believers has led to the fact that, since the mid-1940s, relations between these early allied social groups have been largely disrupted. Therefore, the history of the "short twentieth century" can be reduced to the intellectual history of nationalism or the history of the ideas of political Islam ^[15]. This was facilitated by the creation of independent Indonesia in 1945, which, however, did not lead to its transformation into an Islamic state, and Islam was not mentioned as the basis of the political and state system, which the Islamists hoped for. The establishment of a secular model also led to the disregard of Sharia law, which was perceived by supporters of political Islam as the basis of future Indonesian statehood at the legal level.

Therefore, the history of Indonesian modernization during the "short twentieth century" can actually be described in terms of competition, confrontation between two modernization projects by their nature – secular nationalist and religious Islamic. If Indonesia, in which secular nationalists came to power in 1945, turned out to be inclined to implement a technocratic model of governance and solving specific tasks related to the development of the Indonesian economy, then Indonesian Islamists were at the opposite ideological pole, who also attempted to create parallel state structures. The latter led to the proclamation of the Islamic State of Indonesia, but by the mid-1960s this project was eliminated.

The authoritarianism of the "short twentieth century". Along with the suppression of the threat from radical political Islam, in the context of a deep political crisis, the first leader, President Sukarno, was removed from power in Indonesia ^[16], replaced by Suharto ^[17]. The latter built his political regime as authoritarian and largely anti-Islamist. In this situation, the development of the regime as its systemic paradigm was based primarily on Indonesian political civic nationalism with its characteristic technocratic approach to governance ^[18]. At the same time, especially at an early stage, Suharto actively used violence ^[19]. It was the latter that was actively practiced as a universal form of communication between the regime and the part of society that did not accept it or refused to do so. Along with the struggle against radical Islam, Suharto, who relied on the armed forces in carrying out such a policy ^[20], eliminated the leftist threat.

Therefore, if the first half of the "long twentieth century" was marked by the strengthening and development of Indonesian communism ^[21], then its second half was actually in the absence of a left–wing alternative. In such a situation, the political modernization project secured itself from threats from the left, but was forced to respond to challenges from political Islam. The tendency to authoritarian management models led to the preservation of the political regime, primarily the elites ^[22], established in the mid–1960s precisely through violence ^[23]. The "orb" or "new order" regime ^[24], however, proved to be relatively effective, despite its characteristic corruption, economic and social problems ^[25]. It has been since the 1970s. Indonesia began to actively practice attracting foreign investment, which led to the forced restructuring of both infrastructure and the entire system of social and economic relations and institutions, stimulating migration to cities, which significantly changed the structure of society.

The most important factor in such changes was industrialization, launched in Indonesia in the 1980s ^[26]. Commenting on the specifics of the "new order" regime, E. Reid believes that "Suharto's Indonesia occupied the last place in the ranking of political and civil liberties, and its government did not include them in the list of national priorities. Human rights did become an issue in the post-Suharto reform era, starting in 1998, but it was conservatives who more often referred to Indonesian traditions, while human rights defenders sought personal freedoms as an integral aspect of the universal modernity they sought. In other words, freedom as a key concept was most likely perceived as Western or modern and rarely as inherently Indonesian" ^{[27, p. 105]}. This situation, which developed in Indonesia during the second half of the "short twentieth century", actually became a reflection of a historically arisen dichotomy based on both simultaneous co-functioning and parallel confrontation of the values of nationalism and political Islam.

The "Short twentieth Century": the cyclical nature of challenges and threats. The consequence of the development of the authoritarian stage in the history of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia was the strengthening of its economy since the 1980s, which, however, can be explained not by the successes of authoritarian elites, but by the general favorable economic situation. Nevertheless, in the context of such economic growth, by the end of the "short twentieth century", conventionally dated 1998 ^[28], Indonesia is already facing new threats and challenges. In this case, the political elites of the "new order", which is gradually subject to decline and stagnation, face the task of solving these problems, which came from conditionally "new" challenges. However, we can only formally define these threats as "new", because in fact they were represented by the same political Islam, which differed from its earlier predecessor only in that another generation of Islamists came, and the slogans of Islamization practically did not change.

In this situation, the authoritarian Suharto regime, which at an early stage functioned as anti-Islamist, since the 1990s, gradually underwent moderate Islamization and, thus, by the end of the "short twentieth century", that is, by 1998, Indonesia found itself in a situation that resembled the starting conditions in which Indonesian society entered in the "short twentieth century". Commenting on the "short twentieth century" as a whole, E. Hobsbawm emphasized the absence of "serious doubts that in ... the early 1990s one era in world history ended and another began" ^{[29, p. 12]}. This assumption seems quite appropriate for the historical process in Indonesia, since the departure of Suharto and the beginning of democratic transit significantly changed the main vectors and trajectories of the country's development. Indonesian society thus appears to be already largely different and distinct from the society of the second half of the 1920s, but it continued to remain fragmented in the context of maintaining the formal division into Santri and Abangan.

At the same time, these groups are losing their social status, as political and ideological contradictions begin to play an important role, primarily related to the competition between the two dominant ideological discourses represented by political nationalism and political Islam. Thus, the socio-economic, political and intellectual history of the "short twentieth century" in Indonesia was dominated by the goals and objectives of modernization, the implementation of which was burdened by competition between its two alternative versions, limited by secular nationalism and political Islam.

Conclusions. The concept of the "short twentieth century" can be used to study the modern history of Indonesia, but at the same time its multilevel nature must be taken into account, which is manifested in the presence of both strengths and weaknesses of this historiographical approach.

Several factors actualize the strengths of the concept of the "short twentieth century" for its transplantation into Indonesian historical contexts.

Analyzing the history of Indonesia through the prism of the "short twentieth century", we are forced to take into account the parallel action of a number of factors. Nationalism in the twentieth century became one of the universal political ideologies, and the socio-economic and political logic of the development of the historical process provides historians with numerous examples when nationalism played a leading role in determining the main vectors and trajectories of society's development. The use of such an interpretative model contributes to the expansion of our understanding of the social, economic and political recent history of Indonesia. Thus, we can consider it not just through the prism of an eventful, exclusively political history, but the very concept of the "short twentieth century" allows us to consider the history of Indonesia more specifically and more concisely. This makes it possible to place research accents differently, focusing on the social component or the religious component of the processes of political modernization. In this context, if we use the potential of historical revisionism, Sukarno's political regime, represented by "guided democracy" and Suharto's "new order" look more complicated than it seemed in previous historiography. Thus, the concept of the "short twentieth century" allows us to equally take into account both the achievements of early historiography, which has accumulated considerable experience in interpreting the event component of the history of the 20th century, and actualizes the opportunity to apply the achievements to a greater extent of theoretical works presented by studies devoted to the processes of modernization and development of nationalism.

Along with the interpretative potential of the concept under study, its weaknesses should also be taken into account.

Historically, the concept originated in the West and, probably, that is why it is actively used to study Western history. Therefore, attempts to transplant it into non–Western, in this case Indonesian, contexts may be artificial. In such a situation, the potential of the comparative approach actualizes its situational character, which creates the danger of convergence and comparison of Indonesian and Western historical experience, unsupported by sufficient material presented by social and economic history.

In general, in the current historiographical situation, it is not possible to exclude that their potential of the concept of the "short 20th century" will be in demand by subsequent generations of historians who will consider the history of Indonesia comprehensively and interdisciplinary through the prism of simultaneous and parallel co-development of secular and religious institutions and the forms of identity behind them.