In search of ‘Russian Mountain’
After reading Antonio Luna’s articles in La Solidaridad, I once attempted to follow his footsteps in Paris.
Off to the Bois de Boulogne I went in search of the “Montaña Rusa” where he enjoyed himself. It was not there. Was Luna inventing things?
Deep in the park where transvestite hookers lay in wait for their prey, I asked for directions to the “Russian Mountain” and drew laughter because it was not a mountain or a hill, a “montagne russe” was a roller coaster! This was one of my many memorable adventures resulting from mistranslation or misunderstanding of historical texts.
While some people wish that I would be out of work after Rizal’s 150th birthday, they do not realize that we have to prepare for more sesquicentennial birthday celebrations of other heroes of that age: Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, Emilio Jacinto, Apolinario Mabini, Antonio Luna, and many others unfortunately covered by Rizal’s shadow.
I will be busy well into retirement age. Three decades of research made me realize that while most people think we know or should know anything and everything on Rizal, this is far from true. While most of his writings have been preserved and organized, everything else of supplementary value remains largely ignored.
Furthermore, the over-emphasis on Rizal at the expense of other heroes has hampered rather than developed our knowledge of the period.
Almost everything we know of Rizal was compiled and translated from the original Spanish or German into English and Filipino by the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission (JRNCC) in 1961 to commemorate his 100th birthday.
Fifty years later we are still using the JRNCC material while the works of other patriots, like Mariano Ponce and Jose Burgos, remain without translation. Thus they are unread by a generation of Filipinos separated from their past because of the Spanish language.
Language can be a bridge or a barrier, and when Spanish was scrapped from our schools we chose the latter and are now paying dearly for it.
Rizal’s correspondence, my source for countless columns and lectures, was originally compiled under the direction of Teodoro M. Kalaw in the 1930s as part of a series called “Documentos de la biblioteca nacional de Filipinas” that included the “Epistolario Rizalino,” the writings of Mariano Ponce, Apolinario Mabini, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Marcelo H. del Pilar and a biography of Gregorio del Pilar.
Up till recently only the “Epistolario Rizalino” was available in English translation. Only Rizal has been translated into Filipino and all the major Filipino languages.
Kalaw compiled the basic primary source, the five volumes of the “Epistolario Rizalino,” in six books because volume 5, the correspondence with Blumentritt, was published in two parts.
The “Epistolario” is out of print but can still be found on eBay or used bookstores but volume 3, for some reason, seems to be the most scarce. These volumes are available online, that is, if you can get the link to work.
Drawn from the “Epistolario,” the JRNCC re-arranged Rizal’s correspondence into four parts: Correspondence with Family; Correspondence with Blumentritt; Correspondence with the Propaganda Movement; and last but not least “Miscellaneous” for people who didn’t fit in the other categories.
Like the “Epistolario,” the JRNCC collection of letters has no index, making simple search by name, date or subject unnecessarily difficult. One would think chronological arrangement regardless of author would be the most sensible and useful, but that is how the JRNCC series hindered rather than enhanced our scholarship.
The task ahead, the task that should have been done by Kalaw in the 1930s and by the JRNCC in 1961, and by creators of Rizaliana online in 2011 should be to return to the source of all that we hold true and accept by faith today.
We must review what we have and supplement the “Epistolario” with letters unknown to Kalaw and the JRNCC. Off-hand there are about 50 extant letters that should be included in any new compilation, and another 24 that were offered to the National Library in the 1950s but could not be acquired for lack of funds. These letters are now missing and should be tracked down.
The archeology of Rizaliana has to be undertaken. We must return to the primary sources and trace each and every original manuscript to check the accuracy of transcription, annotation and translation. If left with a transcription we have to verify the source.
The late Esteban de Ocampo once gave me a funny example from his own research experience. Tracing Rizal’s travels, he could not locate a place in Germany called “Donnerstag” which Rizal mentioned in a letter to his sister Trinidad on March 11, 1886.
Reproduced in facsimile in the “Epistolario,” Rizal wrote the date “March 11” but left out the year and on the upper right hand part of the letter he wrote “Donnerstag.”
When Kalaw and his assistants transcribed the letter, they supplied the year in brackets [1886] and also the location “Donnerstag, [Alemania].” De Ocampo found out later that Donnerstag is not an obscure German town but it means “Thursday.”
In fairness to Kalaw, such mistakes are rare, but it should alert us to the need for renewed and critical documentary editing. Thus I have my work cut out for me in the next decade.
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