Sukarno (June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia. He helped the country win its independence from the Netherlands and was President from 1945 to 1967, presiding with mixed success over the country's turbulent transition to independence. Sukarno was forced from power by one of his generals, Suharto, who formally became President in March 1967.
Sukarno's name is sometimes spelled Soekarno (pre-1947 spelling), and Indonesians also remember him as Bung Karno (Bung is an affectionate title used to address colleagues, popular in early 1900s). Like many Javanese people, he had just one name.
The son of a Javanese schoolteacher and his Balinese wife from Buleleng regency, Sukarno was born in Surabaya, East Java in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). He was admitted into a Dutch-run school as a child. When his father sent him to Surabaya in 1916 to attend a secondary school, he met Tjokroaminoto, a future nationalist. In 1921 he began to study at the Technische Hogeschool (Technical Institute) in Bandung. He studied civil engineering and focused on architecture.
A rare breed even among the colony's small educated elite, Sukarno was fluent in several languages, especially Dutch (besides German, English and French and his native Javanese). He once remarked that when he was studying in Surabaya, he often sat behind the screen in movie theaters reading the Dutch subtitles in reverse because he could not afford the regular front seating's price.
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