jose rizal in berlin

I was on my way to the Rembrandt exhibition (which by the way, was quite excellent, since I bothered paying for an audio guide this time--it's really important to do things like that in these mega exhibitions crammed with too many people), when I passed by a house with a huge plaque... I was surprised! I knew that Jose Rizal lived in Berlin for a time and even studied here, but the plaque announced that this was the house he lived in and it was here that he wrote the extremely famous book Noli me Tangere.

Jose is a bit of the Filipino version of Gandhi, and Noli me Tangere is one of its most inspired literary works--as many other sources say, it was instrumental in forming the Filipino national identity and began the revolution against the corrupt colonial European government and clergy. In my failed attempts to become fluent at Tagalog I bought a comic book version of Noli me tangere during my last visit to Manila, but I'm going to have to read the English translation.

I did a bit of a search and found that the plaque was only installed last year, in 2005, and man, the Filipino ambassador looks really sharp, she does. I quote her speech here:

Rizal’s stay in Germany was an important part of his life, and for that matter, for Philippine history. In the course of his travels throughout Germany, Dr Rizal had acquired a broad knowledge and understanding of Germany and its people, its history and literature, its arts and culture, and its customs and traditions, which greatly influenced his two immortal novels, Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. It could therefore be said that Germany influenced his writings.

In his Noli Me Tangere, Rizal mentions about German customs and traditions, the thick German forests, the romantic Rhine river, and the numerous castles he had seen in the course of his boat trip along the Rhine. In his second novel, El Filibusterismo, the German poet mentioned by Rizal clearly refers to the great poet, dramatist, historian and philosopher Friedrich von Schiller. Rizal’s most popular poem, To the Flowers of Heidelberg, was inspired by the beautiful flowers on the banks of the Neckar river and the Heidelberg castle.

During his stay in Berlin, he became a member of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Pre-History. Through his membership in this organization, he met many noted German men of science, among them Dr Rudolf Virchow, famous scientist, anthropologist and statesman, who wielded a considerable influence on him, and Feodor Jagor, noted German ethnologist and geographer, who visited the Philippines from 1859 to 1860.