Rizal’s Christmas season in London

Even in a festive season like Christmas, Rizal was more concerned about his country the Philippines and its future rather than the festivities.

According to writer Roy Mabasa, Rizal went to London to learn the English language.

He lived in a house in Chalcot Crescent near the British Museum to look for materials on the Philippines before colonization. Happily, a community of intellectuals and orientalists also lived in the vicinity.

“Almost 130 years ago today, Dr. Jose P. Rizal arrived in London where he spent less than a year meeting with some of the most influential orientalists in Europe and, more importantly, worked on the formation of the Association Internationale Des Philippinistes or the Philippine Studies.”

Another scholar, Geronimo Suliguin, who is currently reading his postgraduate Historical Studies from the prestigious Oxford University in England, narrated in his essay “Rizal, London and the Beginnings of Philippine Studies” on what transpired during those colorful days of our National Hero in London and his attempt to launch the Philippine Studies as he “wanted the Association to be truly international and planned to invite scholars who were interested in Philippine affairs.”

“In keeping with the 130th year of the publication of his Specimens of Tagal Folklore, Two Eastern Fables, Annotations of de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas and his letter Sa Mga Kababayang Dalaga Sa Malolos – all written in London – let us go back in time and rediscover Rizal, his London and his Philippine project,” writes Suliguin.

In one week after his arrival in London, Rizal was invited to a tea party, his first, by the German Dr. Reinhold Rost who lived in nearby Primrose Hill at 1 Elsworthy Terrace a short walk of about 600 meters northwest of his lodging house.

Reinhold Rost used to be the secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for six years. He encouraged Rizal to contribute articles to the Asiatic Society of Singapore or the RAS in Great Britain, or the Shanghai Society or the one at Wellington in New Zealand.

At the time of their meeting in mid-1888 he was a librarian at the India Office (the park end of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office along Horse Guards Rd).

Rost was also a formidable linguist whose wide interests in Indian, East and Ssoutheast Asian and African languages cover Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, among others. He was a Sanskrit scholar, and yet had contributed articles on Malay language and literature, Pali, Thugs and Rajah to the 9th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Rizal was troubled by attacks not only on his novel but on “primitive” Filipinos in general. He lamented that majority of Spaniards, whether priests or employees, “judged us according to the conduct of their servants.”

He would work on something that would arouse the identity and pride of his countrymen and be recognized as a Filipino.

Thus began the task of finding the “glorious past of an extinct civilization” to counter the present mind view of the Indio as told by Spain.

He knew of the volumes Adelbert von Chamisso brought from the Philippines 60 years ago, including a copy of de Morga’s Sucesos. He read the account of Chamisso’s trip to the Philippines.

While in London he met the leading naturalists, ethnologists, anthropologists and geographers who had either visited the Philippines or had written about the country. There he presented and wrote a paper on Tagalog poetry, to demonstrate that the Tagalogs were not “primitives.”

It is more than a coincidence that Rizal was inspired to write more on Tagalog language and folklore, among others, to help generate more knowledge about his people.

He registered as a reader at the British Museum on 16 August 1898 and busied himself copying the entire work of Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. By annotating de Morga’s 1609 testimony, Rizal attempted to make known “our ancient nationality in its last days” to counteract the malevolent influence of numerous books written by some friars and Spanish writers and be an example to Filipinos. He was determined not to leave London until this task was done.

Rizal drafted the prospectus and got Rost, Regidor, etc. on board the project. Rizal opened 1889 by surprising Blumentritt with the formation of the Association Internationale Des Philippinistes with himself as secretary. With three German counselors in Rost, Dr. Meyer and Dr. Riedel, they were joined by Dr. Regidor.

Rizal’s name was wrongly printed as Dr. T. Rizol, Secretaire. Rizal thought of the Association and the nomination of Dr. Planchut and the French name of the organization as a homage to the Exposition Universelle 1889.

He planned to launch and publicize the organization at the Exposition and the study on the Philippines by holding the International Congress of the Association in August in Paris.

He also founded Kidlat Club with Filipinos in Paris in support of the activities during the Exposition.

To gain interest in the newly formed association, Rizal submitted two contributions in the May and July 1889 issues of Trubner’s Record.

Rizal’s articles were entitled Specimens of Tagal Folklore composed of proverbial sayings, puzzles and verses and Two Eastern Fables – a comparative analysis of the ‘Tagal Ang Buhay ni Pagong at ni Matsing and the Japanese ‘Saru Kani Kassen’ (Battle of the monkey and the crabs). The samples were printed in Tagal with their corresponding English translations.

Two Eastern Fables, on the other hand, was an invitation to dig deeper into Philippine studies by offering a comparative analysis of related fables from the Philippines and Japan.

Rizal stated that the Japanese fables may have come from a South country where the Philippine version may have come from as well. For him the Philippine version was a more primitive version as it is plainer, and shows a more delicate observation of character and feeling as different from the Japanese version.

By doing so he implied that the Philippine version may have been the primitive form itself and referred to it as an inheritance of an extinct civilization.

London enriched Rizal’s mind regarding his people’s past. The publication of his annotations of Morga’s Sucesos (published later in the year) and the International Congress would have completed his project and heralded the birth of Philippine Studies – all made in London.

But while the Association never bloomed, the seeds he planted had taken root.