Czech Ambassador Visits SU

The Ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Philippines, Jaroslav Ludva, will be at Silliman University as guest of honor in a special academic convocation at 10am, Monday, November 3 at the SU Audio-Visual Theater.

Under the Integrative Lecture Series program, the talk of the Czech Ambassador will revolve around the friendship between Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal and Prague-born Dr. Ferdinand Blumentritt during the Spanish colonial era in the Philippines.

The Ambassador gained national prominence in 2006 when he unveiled his Czech translation of Mi Ultimo Adios -- written by Rizal hours before his execution in December 1896 – on a marker at Fort Santiago in Intramuros.

He had recently launched a volume of poems titled Doce Poemas de las Islas Filipinas which also pays tribute to our history, our Spanish colonial architecture, the Filipino people, and more importantly on the life of Rizal and his friendship with Blumentritt.

He was then invited by the Knights of Rizal to be area commander in the Czech Republic. The Ambassador now vigorously promotes cultural and historical activities between the sister cities of Litomerice in the Czech Republic where Blumentritt grew up and where Rizal frequented, and Calamba in Laguna where Rizal was born. Litomerice and Calamba signed a sister city agreement in 1974.

While it took the Ambassador only two days to translate Rizal’s masterpiece from Spanish, it took him two years and several trips to Intramuros, San Agustin Church, Calamba, Vigan, Dapitan, the Cordilleras and Batanes to write the book Doce Poemas.

A Filipino translation of Doce Poemas will be worked on later this year with his Filipino friends in the academe. It will not be translated to English, however.

Ambassador Ludva will also meet with Dumaguete Mayor Agustin Perdices and other City officials, and the members of the Knights of Rizal here.

He will later proceed to Dapitan City, where Rizal went into exile in 1892. Before Rizal left for Dapitan that time, he had made a stopover in Dumaguete where he walked along the shoreline teeming with locals. Some believe it was Rizal who coined the term the “City of Gentle People” to refer to Dumaguete, although there are no factual records to prove this.