S.K. Trimurti lights Kartini's fire (Historia, preview)
Historia premium feature by Budi Setiyono (preview only) on S.K. Trimurti's role in founding Gerwani, noting she resigned when Gerwani 'started leaning left' and chose her husband Sayuti Melik; opens at the Waluya Sejati elderly home. Partial text.
CIA report, 6 May 1954: Financial preparations for the Gerwis congress, March 1954
CIA report, 6 May 1954: Trimurti and Dr Thung Sin Nio collecting funds to finance the Gerwis (now Gerwani) congress in Jakarta, 25-31 March 1954, including from Chinese-Indonesian donors. Evidence on congress financing and cross-community support.
CIA intelligence survey of the PKI's history, structure and front organisations, May 1955, before the September 1955 elections. Section III.E (report pp. 49-50) profiles Gerwani: founded 1950 as Gerwis, renamed Gerwani at the March 1954 congress, 25,000+ members, S.K. Trimurti general chairman and Umi Sardjono chairman
US Monthly Indonesian Press Survey (1958): Gerwani branches, Kowani secretariat, Sulami
US Monthly Indonesian Press Survey (1958) extracts: Kowani secretariat (Maria Ulfah Santoso chair, Mudigdio of Gerwani treasurer); Harian Rakjat's 30 Dec 1957 list of Gerwani's working council (Umi Sardjono chair; Mudigdio, Suharti, S.K. Trimurti deputies; Kartinah secretary-general; Sulami deputy; Suwati Sutrimo Sudji
Suluh Indonesia, 14 February 1958: Welcoming the Asian-African Women's Conference in Colombo
Suluh Indonesia, Jakarta, 14 February 1958 (four pages, OCR very noisy). Front page: the Husein ultimatum, cabinet and Sumatra crisis. Page 3 (cont. from p. 1) carries 'Menyambut Konperensi Wanita Asia-Afrika' on the conference due in Colombo 15-24 Feb 1958 (education, health, labour, slavery, nationality), and lists t
Api Kartini No. 1, Year 1, June 1959
Inaugural issue of Api Kartini (June 1959), published by Jajasan Melati with Maasje Siwi as editor in chief. Built around Hari Kartini: Kartini's writings and socialist reading, profiles, and contributions from S.K. Trimurti, Rukiah Kertapati and Sulami.
Api Kartini No. 4, Year 1, 1959
Fourth issue of Api Kartini (1959). Editorial praises Sukarno's Political Manifesto; features a report on peasant women's economic conditions (land tenure, usury, wage discrimination), ethnography, recipes and household advice; contributors include S.K. Trimurti and Sudjinah.
US Monthly Indonesian Press Survey (1959-60): Api Kartini magazine (Maasje Siwi), Umi Sardjono in the DPR-GR
US Monthly Indonesian Press Survey (1959-60) extracts. A review of the new monthly Api Kartini, published by Yayasan Melati and headed by Maasje Siwi, lists its editors (S. Asijah, Darmini, Parjani Pradono, S.K. Trimurti, Rukiah Kertapati and others). Parliamentary notes list Umi Sardjono (functional group for women) a
Api Kartini No. 4, Year 2, April 1960
April 1960 issue on Hari Kartini and the fifth anniversary of the Bandung Conference. Kartini as writer and painter, her translations, and a historical essay on the women's movement from Kartini to the 1928 congress and after.
Api Kartini No. 7, Year 2, July 1960
July 1960 issue centred on the new DPR-GR, with interviews with women members on economic hardship, marriage law reform and land reform; Kartini's letters, fiction, children's education and international solidarity statements.
Biographical Profiles of DPR-GR Members, Aug 1960
Compilation of US embassy Djakarta biographical despatches (2 Aug 1960) on members of the new Gotong Royong parliament. Contains profiles of Gerwani figures: Umi Sardjono (Gerwis then Gerwani chairwoman, WIDF delegate 1960), Francisca Fanggidaej (PKI women's group Gerwani board), Setiati Surasto (SARBUPRI, Gerwani link
Api Kartini No. 2, Year 3, February 1961
February 1961 issue tied to Sukarno's speech at the Indonesian Women's Congress (6 Feb 1961); a cluster of pieces mourning the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, with editorial calls for land reform and socialist society.
Api Kartini No. 6, Year 3, June 1961
June 1961 issue (second anniversary, 5000 copies): Indian women honouring Rameshwari Nehru's Lenin Peace Prize, a profile of WIDF magazine Women of the Whole World and its Afro-Asian congress coverage.
US Embassy Despatches on PKI Tactics and the SOBSI Women's Labour Seminar, May 1961
US Embassy Djakarta despatches to the State Department, May 1961. One reports conservative views (Mohammad Roem) that the PKI won a limited victory by gaining legal recognition. The other reports the SOBSI National Seminar on Labouring Women (Jakarta, 11-14 May 1961), attended by Djuanda and Gerwani central board membe
Api Kartini No. 2, Year 4, February 1962
February 1962 issue on 'Mobilisasi Umum' for the Tri Komando Rakjat West Irian campaign: volunteer registration, home-front food production and reports on Dutch atrocities.
Api Kartini No. 3, Year 4, March 1962
March 1962 issue on International Women's Day: its history from the socialist women's movement and suffrage victories to the 1962 Jakarta commemoration at UI; cover commemorates Clara Zetkin.
Api Kartini No. 7-8, Year 4, July-August 1962
Double issue (Jul–Aug 1962): excerpts of Sukarno's 17 August 1962 speech, a profile of BTI activist Daeng Tomi, Alexandra Kollontai, reports on the Moscow World Peace Congress (Hurustiati Subandrio) and the All-African Women's Conference in Dar es Salaam.
Api Kartini No. 1, Year 5, January 1963
January 1963 issue opening with a report on the DPP Gerwani plenum (Jakarta, 6–10 Jan 1963) where Umi Sardjono addressed the international situation and the plenum endorsed the coming WIDF World Congress.
Api Kartini No. 4, Year 5, April 1963
April 1963 issue: Sukarno's opening speech to the Afro-Asian Journalists' Conference, an interview with Sierra Leonean journalist Nancy Grant on African women and the Peace Corps, and a state visit report.
A Little about the Indonesian Women's Movement
Api Kartini (late 1964) history of the Indonesian women's movement for Youth Pledge Day, tracing Kartini, Isteri Sedar, Perwari, wartime Fujinkai and Gerwis's founding on 4 June 1950 from the Gerakan Wanita Sedar, its name change to Gerwani after merging with railway workers' wives and Perwin Menado, joining Kowani and
History of the Indonesian Youth Struggle (Youth Bureau, Ministry of Education and Culture, 1965)
Official history of the Indonesian youth movement (1908-1960) compiled by the Youth Bureau of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Balai Pustaka, Jakarta 1965 (prefaces dated Dec. 1963), in five periods. Gerwani appears only briefly: it is listed among organisations demanding action against the 1957-58 PRRI separatis
FO 371/181556: Joint Malaysia-Indonesia Department, Propaganda [1] (1965)
UK Foreign Office file FO 371/181556 (Joint Malaysia-Indonesia Department, 1965): minutes, letters and telegrams on countering Indonesian propaganda during Konfrontasi (crashed-aircraft evidence, guidance telegram no. 36, Afro-Asian posts). It has nothing on Gerwani in the official papers. Filed within it is a printed
Youth and the Wane of Soekarno's Government (Paget, 1970)
Roger Paget's 1970 Cornell PhD thesis on how student and youth action groups, culminating in KAMI, emerged after 1 October 1965 and helped undermine Sukarno. Gerwani appears in several passages: action fronts demanded its banning (p. 44) and its offices were ransacked (p. 63); Herlina denounced it for not fighting Mala
Losing a Revolution: The PKI versus the Army in Indonesia, 1949-1965 (Sutley, 1988)
Stewart K. Sutley's MA thesis (Political Science, McGill, 1988) applies Tilly and Aya's 'political conflict' model to the PKI-Army struggle of 1949-65, arguing the PKI's state-within-a-state depended on Sukarno and was destroyed after the army struck at the president. Gerwani is treated only as the PKI's 'women's front
From politics to mysticism: S.K. Trimurti in her own words (Tempo, 21 Apr 1990)
Tempo profile (21 April 1990), in S.K. Trimurti's own first-person voice, of her life from teacher and Partindo cadre to labour minister and spiritualist. She says she co-founded Gerwis around 1950 (Ketua III, Yogyakarta), that Gerwis became Gerwani at its third congress under Umi Sardjono, and that in 1965 she quit Ge
Amien Rais: Communism, the cruellest ideology
Bali Post, 30 Sept 1996, p. 1: at a youth seminar on the 'latent danger of communism' Amien Rais says Gerwani 'slashed' the generals; Taufiq Ismail cites S.K. Trimurti as ex-Gerwani; PRD branded 'new PKI'.
Saskia Wieringa's 2002 monograph, the foundational history of Gerwani: a semi-autonomous organisation with triple loyalty to feminism, nationalism and socialism, and the New Order's founding on manipulation of sexual symbols through the 1965 slander. Based on interviews with Umi Sardjono, Sulami, Sudjinah, Trimurti and
History of Gerwis and the emergence of Gerwani (detikNews, 2013)
detikNews feature (2013) on Gerwis's founding on 4 June 1950 by six organisations (Rupindo, Persatuan Wanita Sedar, Istri Sedar, Gerwindo, Wanita Madura, PPRI) and founders Trimurti, Salawati Daud, Umi Sardjono, Tris Metty and Sri Panggihan, with I.G.A.A. Ratih. Concise account of origins.
The Story of Suti, 96-Year-Old Gerwani Activist and 1965 Survivor (Rappler, 2016)
Rappler first-person account (2 Feb 2016) of Suti (Arjo Sutiyem), 96: born 1920 in Musuk, third wife in an arranged marriage, joined Gerwis in 1951, chaired Musuk and Boyolali Gerwani, then persecuted in 1965. Fullest of three texts on her.
Ummah Yet Proletariat: Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1915-1959 (Lin, 2020)
PhD dissertation (History, University of Washington, 2020) by Hongxuan Lin tracing the confluence of Islam and Marxism in the Netherlands East Indies and Indonesia, 1915-1959, through vernacular print culture; it genealogises Sukarno's NASAKOM. Gerwani appears only briefly: citing Blackburn, it says millions joined for