Surabaya

Surabaya (formerly Soerabaja) is Indonesia's second-largest city, and the capital of the province of East Java. It is located on the northern shore of eastern Java at the mouth of the Mas River and along the edge of the Madura Strait. To Indonesians, it is known as "the city of heroes", due to the importance of the Battle of Surabaya in galvanising Indonesian and international support for Indonesian independence during the Indonesian National Revolution. In 2007, the population of the city was approximately 3 million.

Etymology

Fighting Sura (shark) and Baya (crocodile), the icon of Surabaya.

Surabaya is locally believed to derive its name from the words sura or suro (shark) and baya or boyo (crocodile), two creatures which, in a local myth, fought each other in order to gain the title of "the strongest and most powerful animal" in the area according to a Jayabaya prophecy. This prophecy tells of a fight between a giant white shark and a giant white crocodile. Now the two animals are used as the city's logo, the two facing each other while circling, as depicted in a statue appropriately located near the entrance to the city zoo. This folk etymology, though embraced enthusiastically by city leaders, is unverifiable. Alternate derivations proliferate: from the Javanese sura ing baya, meaning "bravely facing danger"; or from the use of surya to refer to the sun. Some people consider this Jayabaya prophecy as a great war between Surabaya native people and invaders in 1945, while another story is about two heroes that fought each other in order to be the king of the city. The two heroes were Sura and Baya.

History

Map of Surabaya from an 1897 English travel guide

The earliest record of Suyabaya was in a 1225 book written by Chau Ju-Kua, in which it was called Jungala, the ancient name of Surabaya. By early 15th century, Admiral Zheng He's Treasure ship visited Sulumayi. Ma Huan who accompanied Zheng He wrote in his 1433 book Ying-yai Sheng-lan : "after travelling south for more than twenty li, the ship reached Sulumayi, whose foreign name is Surabaya. At the estuary, the outflowing water is fresh".

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Surabaya was a sultanate and a major political and military power in eastern Java. It entered a conflict with, and was later captured by, the more powerful Sultanate of Mataram in 1625 under Sultan Agung. It was one of Mataram's fiercest campaigns, in which they had to conquer Surabaya's allies, Sukadana and Madura and to lay siege to the city before capturing it. With this conquest, Mataram then controlled almost the whole of Java, with the exception of the Sultanate of Banten and the Dutch settlement of Batavia.

The expanding East Indies Companies took the city over from a weakened Mataram in November 1743. Surabaya became a major trading center under the Dutch colonial government, and hosted the largest naval base in the colony.

In 1917 a revolt occurred amongst the soldiers and sailors of Surabaya, led by the Indies Social Democratic Association. The revolt was firmly crushed and the insurgents given harsh sentences.

During World War II Surabaya was captured by the Japanese in 1942. It was bombed by the Allies in 1944. After that it was seized by Indonesian nationalists. However, the young nation was soon put into conflict with the Allied-backed Dutch who tried to retake their colony. The Battle of Surabaya was one of the most important battles of the Indonesian revolution. It was started after British Brigadier General Mallaby was killed in October 30, 1945 near Jembatan Merah10 November, and is nowadays celebrated as Heroes' Day (Hari Pahlawan).The incident of the red-white flag (the Dutch national red-white-and-blue flag at the top of Yamato Hotel's tower that was torn into the Indonesian red-white flag) by Bung Tomo is also recorded as a heroic feat during the struggle of this city. Because of prolonged international pressure, the Dutch transferred sovereignty of Indonesia in December 1949, after much unnecessary bloodshed on both sides.