Tjan Tjoe Som (Chinese: 曾珠森, 1903–1969) was an Indonesian Chinese intellectual and sinologist at the University of Indonesia.
Tjan was the son of a prominent Muslim Chinese family in Surakarta, Dutch East Indies.[1][2] His first education was in the local HCS (Dutch-Chinese School) and then in the AMS (General Middle School) in Yogyakarta.[2]
His brother Tjan Tjoe Siem also became an academic (of Javanese literature).
In 1935 he went to the Netherlands to study Sinology at Leiden University.[2] He obtained a PhD in Sinology in 1949 and was appointed as a professor there.[2] In 1952 he returned to Indonesia and became head of the department of Sinology at the FSUI (Fakultas Sastra Universitas Indonesia - Literature Department at the University of Indonesia).[2]
In the late 1950s he became associated with left-wing politics at a high level. In 1958 he joined the Himpunan Sardjana Indonesia (Indonesian: Indonesian Scholars' Association), a mass organization affiliated with the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).[2] He was appointed as director of the Universitas Rakjat (Indonesian: People's university), a PKI educational network.[2] He was also an advisor for the Chinese language edition of Warta Bhakti, a major left-wing newspaper in Indonesia at that time.[2]
He died in Bandung in February 1969.
