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Early life

Retana was born in the province of Madrid known as Boadilla del Monte in 1862. He studied to be a military engineer in Guadalajara.

He later became a high official in the Ministerio de la Gobernacin. In 1884 at the age of 22, he was assigned to the Philippines as a minor financial officer in the hacienda, assigned to the governorship ofBatangas.

He married Doa Adela Ramrez de Arellano, the daughter of a distinguished family in Manila. Wenceslao and Doa Adela were blessed with eight children, four girls and four boys. One of his children,Alvaro Retana would later be one of the earliest known gay writers in Spain.

Due to a heart ailment he returned to Spain in 1890. He was again assigned to different government post and offices. He was the secretary of the International Congress of American Scholars and secretary of the Congress of Geographic Orientalist of Madrid. Aside from his government positions, Retana was also active as a journalist, editor and correspondent. He served as a correspondent of La Voz Espaola and Heraldo de Madrid, editor of La Oceana Espaola, assistant editor of La Opinin and correspondent of La Espaa Oriental and El Porvenir de Bisayas, La Poltica de Espaa en Filipinas, La poca, Heraldo de Madrid, El Nacional, La Espaa Moderna, Nuestro Tiempo (1903), Raza Espaola, Boletn de la Academia de la Historia, La Poltica Moderna, Guttemberg (1904). His nom de guerre was "Desengaos". He wrote on all aspects of Philippine life -- culture, politics, religion and art -such that his fame as a Philippine scholar extended internationally, perhaps second only to Ferdinand Blumentritt. On 13 October 1922, he was admitted as an academico to the Real Academica de Historia. In his multi-faceted life Retana was a deputy to the Spanish Cortes, a police chief in Barcelona and civil governor of two Spanish provinces. [edit]

The anti-Filipino phase

During his journalistic years, he wrote many articles defending the Spanish colonial government in the Philippines against calls of economic and political reforms. With the Feced brothers, he founded La Politica de Espaa en Filipinas, a political journal to address every issue brought up by Marcelo H. del Pilar and other propagandists in La Solidaridad.

Retana carefully positioned himself at the heart of the conservative Spanish ideology regarding the Philippines. Retana wrote that the promulgation of liberal laws such as the Maura Decree in 1893 would

turn indios from being obedient subjects to a people much conscious of their native rights. In his view, the solution to the increasing agitation in Philippine political life lay in the restoration of Spanish friars to their rightful roles as political and spiritual leaders of the colony. He was adamant that what del Pilar called the frailocracy was the "ultimate and true citadel in the Philippines." Such was his unreserved advocacy of the frailocracia that many of his enemies suspected that he and two Feced brothers Pablo and Jose were directly receiving subsidies from the Augustinians and other orders for the continued publication of La Politica. Years later, the Filipino historian Manuel Artigas y Cuerva would substantiate that the friars financially supported the Spanish writer.

Because of this he earned the ire of many Filipino members of the Propaganda Movement such as Jose Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Mariano Ponce and others. The liberal thinker Rizal was very much at the top of the list as the enemy of the staunch conservative Retana. He published an article in August 1890 of La Epoca, ridiculing the plight of Rizal's parents who were driven out of their lands. In less than 24 hours, Rizal sent a representative to challenge the scholar to a duel. Rizal would tolerate personal attacks, since he was a fighting man, but he would not brook any insult on a relative. Retana backed out from the duel and apologized to Rizal when his friends told him that Rizal was very skilled in fighting with a sword or pistol.

In Madrid Retana positioned himself as the leading authority on the Philippines. He was known to assiduously study works of Filipinos and give critical reviews. Not even the great painter Juan Lunaescaped his judgement, which led the fiery painter to bitterly complain about Retana's putdown in one of his letters to Jose Rizal in December 1890: "(Wenceslao Retana) says that I am not known in Spain and that he has seen all my paintings, except one, and according to those who know, I do not occupy any notable place among Spanish painters, but, on the contrary, I am a painter of the fifth or sixth class! Tell me now what inanities this man says about me and what his judgment is that I should get offended. All this is written to make our countrymen understand that we are...as always of an inferior race and we are always at the tail end."

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The Rizal conversion

After the loss of the Philippines and the execution of Jose Rizal, Retana experienced a conversion. In the February 1904 prestigious Alma Espaola article "Espaa en Filipinas: La verdad para todos" he stated that "We (Spaniards) have all contributed to the loss of the Philippines." He publicly acknowledged for the first time that it was a serious political error of Spain to have ordered the execution of Rizal. His complete turnaround was evidenced by his magisterial biography of Jose Rizal, published in 1907, wherein he argued that Spain made a grave mistake by having Rizal tried and executed.

Foremost nationalist Isabelo de los Reyes wrote in his 1908 review of the book that although the name of Retana was greeted with antipathy because of his earlier pro-friar and anti-Rizal stances, his past disgraceful conduct was condoned by this subsequent important contribution. History writer Elizabeth Medina observed that this book "not only paints a portrait of Rizal the man, but compellingly describes the process of Spain's loss of her most important remaining colony." He devoted the last years of his life to writing books about the Philippines and collecting books, manuscripts, and documents about the former Spanish colony. Among his works are El periodismo filipino, Aparato Bibliogrfico de la Historia General de Filipinas, Archivo de bibliofilo filipino, Apuntes para la historia,Crisis de la literatura en Filipinas, Folletos filipinos, Frailes y clerigos and Vida y escritos de Dr. Jose Rizal. Retana died in Madrid on 21 January 1924.

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Legacy

Retana's name is inextricably bound with Philippine historiography. Even after the loss of Philippines to the United States, the Spaniard kept up with his Filipiniana publications, producing more than 36 scholarly works. Among his key works still being cited by Filipino scholars are Archivo del bibliofilo filipino (Archive of the Filipino bibliophile), a 5 volume series of primary historical documents that preceded Blair and Robertson; Bibliografia de Mindanao (1894), a key source for Mindanao history; La imprenta en Filipinas (1593-1810) (The press in the Philippines), 1899; Noticias histrico-bibliogrficas de el teatro en Filipinas desde sus orgines hasta 1898 (Bibliographic and historical notes on Philippine theater from its origins until 1898) (1909), a landmark historical scholarship; andVida y escritos del Dr. Jose Rizal (1907), the first and most scholarly biography of the national hero.

Retana was a consummate researcher and scholar, leaving no stone unturned in search of Philippine documents that would shed light on its history and culture. In La imprenta en Filipinas, he deduced that the first book printed in the Philippines was Doctrina Christiana and that in 1604, the first typographic press was manufactured in the Philippines. In 1893 he published Father Joaqun Martnez de Ziga's unpublished manuscript Estadismo de las Islas Filipinas, first written in 1803 as a statistical overview of the colony. The edition was appended with Retana's copious notes and appendices.Historia de Mindanao y Jolo, first written in 1667 by Jesuit Father Francisco Combes, was enriched with notes by both Retana and Father Pablo Pastells, the Jesuit confessor of Rizal. This book was followed up in 1897 with an extensive bibliography and supplemented with new text and historical and linguistic data. A similar landmark book was Antonio de Morga's book Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas first published in Mexico in 1869, which he

annotated extensively in a new edition published in Barcelona in 1908, a project that invited direct and audacious comparison to Rizal's similar attempt eighteen years earlier in 1890.

Not content with his seminal 1907 biography of the national hero, the following year Retana sponsored the first Spanish publication of Rizal's El Filibusterismo in Barcelona, a work that the national hero had deliberately kept from being circulated in Spain, fearing its unwelcome reception.

As a bibliographer, Retana made it a point to examine some of the most important primary documents in Philippine history. Andres Bonifacio's Ang Dapat Mabatid ng mga Tagalog, which was first published in the Katipunan newspaper Kalayaan, was examined, transcribed and attributed to Bonifacio by Retana. Retana's transcription is our only remaining link, as the original copy in the National Library's collection was presumably lost in World War II. The transcript of Rizal's trial was also personally studied and transcribed by the scholar; in fact the tumultuous last years of Rizal cannot be reconstructed without Retana's dogged research. The eternal question of Rizal's retraction is also tackled in Retana's biography. In it he described his interview with Father Balaguer, a Jesuit who was one of the last to see Rizal, and who told him that such a retraction was made. Retana asks for proof but gets none.

During his years in both the Philippines and Spain, Retana amassed a great personal collection of Filipiniana. Such was the fame of his collection that Tabacalera, then based in Las Ramblas, Barcelona, acquired his collection in 1885 and then asked Retana to be its chief bibliographer, upon which he was able to compile his monumental Aparato bibliogrfico de la historia general de Filipinas, a work that surpassed the similar work of his friend and contemporary Jose Toribio Medina, the greatest Spanish-language bibliographer of all time. Demonstrating his keen love for sharing books, in 1912 Retana arranged the sale of the fabled Tabacalera collection of Filipiniana to the Philippine National Library, then under James Robertson. Over a thousand of its extremely rare Philippine books were originally from Retana's collection. It could be said that Retana was really the father of the fabled Filipiniana collection of the Philippine National Library.

The Philippine government, cognizant of the value of his papers, passed P.L.A. NO. 3130, an Act authorizing the Secretary of Justice "to purchase the papers, documents and other printed works and unpublished manuscripts relative to the Philippines, owned by the heirs of the late Wenceslao R. Retana, and the copyright upon the same, which shall all become the property of the Philippine Islands, and shall be kept and filed in the Philippine Library and Museum."

Even today his writing still remains fresh and relevant to Philippine readers. Retana scholar Elizabeth Medina writes: "Retana doesn't sound dated or boring, but speaks in a voice so modern it is astounding. His humor, sarcasm and witty irreverence are a delight, whether aimed at the friars, the Spanish authorities or the Filipinos.... what makes Retana most deserving of being read today is as a creditable witness of the historical moment that has had the greatest impact on the Filipino consciousness, and how Rizal transformed himself into its symbol. He gives witness as one who embodied and was able to clearly state the meanings that the mentality of those times ascribed to those events. Thus, I believe, he is able to transmit to Filipinos a hundred years hence a vision that is both moving and explicative in a culturally accurate manner -- he succeeds in transporting us to that compelling time, so that we may gain insights that a conventional academic approach cannot give."

Wenceslao Retana was one of the foremost Spanish intellectuals of his time, the greatest Philippine scholar, and the perfect foil to the embodiment of the ilustrado class, Jose Rizal. The discourse of the two reflected the ambiguities and united sentiments of that time. [edit]

In his own words

"DEFINITION OF yo cuidado: l cuidado [Hell take care of it.]. The word CUIDADO (bahala in

Tagalog) is conjugated there in a very singular way: Yo cuidado, t cuidado, l CUIDADO; nosotros cuidado, vosotros cuidado, ellos cuidado [In Tagalog: Akong bahala, ikaw bahala, siya bahala, tayo/kami bahala, kayo bahala, sila bahala.] All of the philosophy contained in these Philipinisms does not fit in the limits of a footnote, nor in a brochure. The Spanish declare that the expressiveness of these phrases is so rich that they can find nothing analogous in any language. Four quick examples will give an idea of the philosophy as I call it. In the editorial office of a newspaper, the editor says, Who will be in charge of writing the article on such topic? Yo cuidado, someone says. Very good, theres nothing more to be said the one who said Ill take care of it! solemnly promised to do the job impossible for him to fail. The phrase obliges him that much. A father knows that his daughter is too headstrong for her own good. His biggest threat is this: T cuidado, ah? [You better watch it, eh!] Like someone who says, "Careful! Because if you do anything out of hand... yo cuidado!" [Ill take matters into my hands!]. People are murmuring about someone who hasnt shown up, That man! What mess has he gotten himself in this time! But you -- youre his friend, why dont you give him some good advice? Me? L CUIDADO!" [Its his problem!] The phrases yo cuidado, t cuidado, etc., are therefore equivalent to a promise that cannot be broken, an indulgent or forceful warning, a reprimand, etc. etc.; an expression of indifference; or a recommendation, as when one says to a servant, t cuidado con la casa, ah? [Take good care of the house, eh?] And it means several other things

besides, that we cannot include here because of space constraints. -- From Cosas de All (1893), translation by Elizabeth Medina, from her book Sampaguitas en la Cordillera (2005). [edit]

Bibliography

Austin Craig writes the biography of Dr. Jose Rizal. He traces Rizal's ancestry to his Chinese forbears and provides insight into the personalities that influenced him as he is growing up. Craig enumerates the places Rizal visited and the persons he met and connected with. His sojourn in Europe, especially the influence of liberal ideas on his thinking and writings, as well as his involvement in the Propaganda Movement, are highlighted. The publication of his two novels, the Noli Me Tangere and the El Filibusterismo is the synthesis of his ideas and a call to attention directed at the authorities in Spain to the abuses of the Spanish Government and Clergy in the Philippines. In the last chapters Craig portrays the loneliness, sorrow, bravery and courage of Dr. Jose Rizal when he was sentenced to death by the Spanish military court. Through it all, Rizal's love for his country never wavered. Written by Wesley June P. Inay; Edited by Frederick N. Castillo. The First Filipino by Leon Ma. Guerrereo won the Centennial Award in 1961 for best biography of the Philippines national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. According to its author, Rizal was the first native ever to seriously articulate the vision for a united Philippines, then a colony of Spain for more than three hundred years. Rizals contemporaries were constrained by regionalism, the same weakness among the natives that were exploited by the colonizers to divide the ethnic regions and prevent any serious united front against the Crown. In the prologue, the Spanish friar is shown as the real power behind colonization: He was a blind reactionary who reached for the whip when he heard the word progress. The friar in effect wielded more clout than the civil guard, keeping watch over every indio from cradle to grave. To discourage filibusterism (rebellion or inciting to sedition), the natives are kept ignorant, steeped in religious and folk superstition, hooked to cockfighting and other forms of gambling. The small educated minority composed of mestizos and children of native landowners are held in check, some of whom are trained in the colonial service, using them against their own countrymen. This has persisted until modern times: the Philippines has always been ruled by an elite who control most of the countrys wealth. Ironically, the last Spaniard (the Spanish friar) becomes the great antagonist of the First Filipino. In the opening chapter, the book focuses on the execution of the Three Martyrs Fathers Gomez, Burgoz and Zamora or Gomburza who are unjustly accused of plotting to overthrow the government. After a hasty trial, they are sentenced to death by means of the garrotte, a contraption whereby the neck is suddenly screwed tight, wringing the neck of the condemned. This incident has a profound influence on the young Rizal, whose brother Paciano was also a student activist. In fact, the family had decided to have young Jose use Rizal as his surname instead of the more well-known Mercado for fear of arousing suspicion on the part of the authorities towards the boy, who has shown early indications of a versatile genius. In time he was to become an artist, farmer, surveyor, physician, novelist, historian, scholar, freethinker. The book traces Rizals early awakening to the conditions in his native land. He becomes eyewitness to abuses: his mother herself is a victim, forced to walk a long way as punishment for a petty offense. He deplores the discrimination towards the natives (known as indios); the rampant land-grabbing and other injustice; the corruption in government; the sordid state of education. He also becomes aware of the apathy, indolence, and vices that have kept the indios shackled to poverty. He believes such shortcomings on their part are but the effects of centuries of foreign domination. His travel to Europe after taking up medicine further awakens him to the truth. There he mingles freely with compatriots dedicated to the attainment of reforms at home. As student of history, Rizal comes to believe that his forebears were not the savages depicted in history books, but were quite civilized and prosperous before the white man came. He writes a detailed account of life in the Islands in his novel Noli Me Tengere, which is quickly

denounced by the friars as subversive, its copies confiscated. Rizal pictures the Islands as paradise lost, and goes on to annotate Antonio Morgas history book, correcting what he perceives are biases against the natives. Independence from Spain was at this point too radical, and Rizal shrank from violence. He believes the people, ignorant and incapable of governing themselves, are not ready for independence. It is his view that the people should first be educated before they could begin thinking of independence from Spain. He asks, through his novel El Filibusterismo: What is the use of independence if the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow? Seen as a threat to the government, Rizal is banished to the island of Dapitan where he practises medicine, opens a school, tried his hand in farming, undertakes community improvement projects, conducts scientific research, and keeps on writing. During his sojourn in Dapitan he falls in love with Josephine Bracken, an Englishwoman in from Hong Kong. He lives with her without the benefit of marriage (Rizal has been ex-communicated by the Church due to his writings). In the meantime, the Philippine revolution has caught up with him. He applies as a volunteer surgeon in Cuba but is ordered to return and incarcerated at Fort Santiago for treason. He is sentenced to die after going through the motions of a trial, defended by a military officer as counsel. He was sentenced to die by musketry on the 30th of December, 1896. His last few hours preparing for execution are among the most controversial of his life. In the chapter The Hounds of Heaven, Guerrero cites accounts of how two of Rizals former Jesuit mentors at the Ateneo strive to win him back to the Catholic fold. In this book, Guerrero is of the view that Rizals alleged retraction, hotly debated until now, may have indeed come to pass. It does not sit well with the Freemasons and other Rizal historians, but whatever may be its shortcoming, The First Filipino remains one of the best-written books about Rizal, and is a must reading for everyone who wants to have a comprehensive understanding of Philippine political history and culture.

Who was Wenceslao Emilio Retana?

by Elizabeth Medina, Coypright 1998

Wenceslao Emilio Retana's name is omnipresent in any important

work of Philippine historiography, as the foremost bibliographic contributor and writer on 19th-century Hispanic Philippines. However, a bias has persisted against him because of his initial "anti-Filipino" phase from 1884, when he arrived in the Philippines with a minor appointment as a financial officer in the governorship of Batangas, until around 1898. During these years he defended the Spanish colonial regime against advocates of civil rights for the Filipinos. He married a Filipina of high social rank during his tour of duty in the Philippines, asking to be repatriated in 1890 because of a heart ailment. He left in early 1890 for Madrid and never lived in the Philippines again, though he may have returned for a visit, as he did keep studying our history and was responsible for the Tabacalera's sale of its fabulous Barcelona Filipiniana collection to the Philippine National Library, around 1912. In Madrid, he became the ideological opponent of the writers of La Solidaridad.

After Rizal's execution Retana experienced a "conversion," and

wrote the first published biography of Rizal to show that Spain had committed a gross error by executing him. His biography not only paints a portrait of Rizal the man, but compellingly describes the process of Spain's loss of her most important remaining colony.

After Spain had lost the Philippines and the Spanish people had
put the entire affair behind them, Retana continued to study and write about the Philippines, compiling a total of 36 scholarly works, until his death in 1924 at the age of 62. He was a member of important European cultural organizations, and held a series of prestigious government positions, such as deputy to the Cortes, civil governor of the cities of Huelva and Teruel, and Chief of the Barcelona police. Some of the titles he produced: 500 abbreviated biographies entitled "Index of the Generals, Chiefs and Artillery Officers who have been in the Philippines (1521-1898)"; "The Origins of Printing in the Philippines" (1911); HistoricalBibliographic News on Theater in the Philippines, from its Origins until 1898 (1910); "Censorship of the Press in the Philippines" (1908); "The Inquisition in the Philippines. The Unusual Case of Governor Salcedo" (1910)" etc.

Retana's point of view in this biography is that of a Spanish liberal

examining the actions of his own country as a colonial ruler in the Philippines with a very critical eye, the character and psychology of Rizal, and the development of the revolution. He includes all the perspectives: that of the conservative peninsulars, of the friars, the intelligentsia, and that of the common people. He expresses his own feelings, and sometimes this means he eulogizes Rizal and the Filipinos, and other times he criticizes. Though he is involved, he is able to take distance from his own biases. Filipinos today do not know what cultured, self-critical Spaniards thought at that time, how they saw what was happening -- I believe Retana was one of the very few who took the time and trouble to write it down. He was deluged with valuable collaborators and had access to such excellent sources as Paciano Rizal, Epifanio de los Santos, Spanish officials, deputies, journalists; the politico-military commanders of Dapitan who were with Rizal during his exile, and Prof. Blumentritt. The translation and commentaries are 230 pages long, including 143 footnotes which consist of Retana's own parallel comments and my explanations of Hispanic cultural meanings and Spanish political events and personages.

Retana doesn't sound dated or boring, but speaks in a voice so

modern it is astounding. His humor, sarcasm and witty irreverence are a delight, whether aimed at the friars, the Spanish authorities or the Filipinos.

In my opinion, what makes Retana most deserving of being read

today is as a creditable witness of the historical moment that has had the greatest impact on the Filipino consciousness, and how Rizal transformed himself into its symbol. He gives witness as one who embodied and was able to clearly state the meanings that the mentality of those times ascribed to those events. Thus, I believe, he is able to transmit to Filipinos a hundred years hence a vision that is both moving and explicative in a culturally accurate manner -- he succeeds in transporting us to that compelling time, so that we may gain insights that a conventional academic approach cannot give. Given the distancing that our North American colonization produced in the Filipino psyche vis a vis the mythical figure of Rizal and the legendary time he lived and died in, the Retana biography's availability today, translated and explained with cultural sensitivity, after the long forgetting of both the work and its creator's fascinating figure, is an important cultural event during our Centennial year.