Historical Figure
José Rizal
d. 1896
Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath (1861–1896)
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Biography
José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda was a Filipino nationalist, writer and polymath active at the end of the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines. He is popularly considered a national hero of the Philippines. An ophthalmologist by profession, Rizal became a writer and a key member of the Filipino Propaganda Movement in the 1880s, which advocated political reforms for the colony under Spain.
In Their Own Words (5)
Friar! What a strange name. I don't remember having created such a thing! (God speaking to the angel Gabriel)
"The Lord Gazes at the Philippine Islands", an allegory. (date unknown) , 1890
Each one writes history according to his convenience.
Letter to Blumentritt, written at Leipzig,(22 August 1886) , 1886
No, let us not make God in our image, poor inhabitants that we are of a distant planet lost in infinite space. However brilliant and sublime our intelligence may be, it is scarcely more than a small spark which shines and in an instant is extinguished, and it alone can give us no idea of that blaze, that conflagration, that ocean of light.
Letter to Fr. Pastells (4 April 1893) , 1893
The tyranny of some is possible only through the cowardice of others.
Letter to the Young Women of Malolos (22 February 1889) - translated from Tagalog by Gregorio Zaide , 1889
To doubt God is to doubt one's own conscience, and in consequence it would be to doubt everything.
Letter to Fr. Pastells (4 April 1893) , 1893
Timeline
The story of José Rizal, told in moments.
Published Noli Me Tangere in Berlin. A novel exposing the corruption of Spanish colonial rule and the Catholic friars in the Philippines. Written in Spanish. Smuggled copies arrived in Manila wrapped in newspapers.
Returned to Manila and founded La Liga Filipina, a reform organization. Arrested within days and exiled to Dapitan, a remote town in Mindanao, for four years.
Executed by firing squad at Bagumbayan field in Manila. Age 35. He turned to face the sun as the soldiers fired from behind. The Philippines commemorates the day as Rizal Day.
Artifacts (5)
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