Los Hijos del Pais v3: Two Hundred Years of Solitude, a Philippine TL
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Leona Florentino (Part 1)
The Florentinos of Vigan are an old and respectable family of Ilocano gentry, a family that is content to tend to their estates and play little more than a minor role in the politics and history of the nation. For the most part, they are hacienderos of the old school, landlords with a personal and almost feudal relationship with their tenants and peers. They produce the odd priest, civil servant, or military officer from their spare sons and cadet branches, but in general they are emblematic of the old school provincial and regional principalia, a conservative clan who hold some power but are content to lead and be led, knowing their place in the old order.
That said, the transformations of the republic have shaken the old order, and much that seemed stable is now uncertain, institutions that have stood for centuries challenged and crumbling. And for the family, it has become a saying that for every generation of Florentinos, there is one oddball, a black sheep or estranged cousin who rises from the medieval stupor of haciendero and bourgeois life to carve their name into the history and culture of the nation. First and most famous among them is, of course, the ruthlessly anticlerical nationalist Marcelino, fourth president of the republic, but there are others who have written their names outside of politics.
And so, we come to one of the finest minds of 19th century Ilocos and the Florentino oddball of her generation: Leona Josefa Florentino, the woman bard of the north and mother of Philippine feminism, a fiercely independent woman born of the main, Vigan-based branch of that illustrious family. Daughter of Don Marcelino Pichay Florentino who was head of the family and namesake of the notorious president, Leona was born in 1849, and her early life was caught in the midst of the culture wars of the Liberal Supremacy. For a woman of her background, she was given a diverse education, learning Spanish, Tagalog, English, and some Latin alongside her native Ilocano from a series of tutors. A voracious reader and quick thinker from a young age, Leona was raised seeing the most dramatic transformations of Philippine society reach and affect her hometown. With the rise of commerce and industry in the towns of the Philippines since the revolution, much has changed in the capital of Ilocos, from the influx of Chinese refugees and the introduction of new methods of agriculture and manufacturing, to the building of steamships and macadamized roads and the introduction of Western thought into the cultural and intellectual life of the city.
In the 1860s, the Florentinos of Vigan were to arrange young Leona's marriage to a prominent young Conservative politician, the son of a family friend, but the Florentino heiress had other plans. In 1863, at the tender age of 14, Leona escaped her family's estate with the aid of a servant and made for the heart of the nation, Manila, not wanting to marry just yet, instead wanting to pursue an education, much to the chagrin of her father. After a weeks-long journey across the heartland of Luzon, Leona makes her way to the Mariquina estate of Saturnino Florentino y Chua, son of the former president and the young head of the Manila branch of the Florentinos. There, she asks for support from her kinsman to pursue the continuation of her studies, in exchange becoming a governess for his children after she completes her education. He considers the proposal, allowing the young Leona to stay in the estate while things cool down in the north between her and her father. Eventually, after a couple of years, Don Marcelino accepts her decision, but makes clear that she is not as of yet welcome to return north.
During her stay with the Mariquina Florentinos, Leona meets many new faces: the prominent men of the Liberal Party, as well as their female relatives. The latter in particular would in time form the core of the feminist movement in the Philippines, while the former teach her in various ways the politics and culture of the now rising republic.
That said, the transformations of the republic have shaken the old order, and much that seemed stable is now uncertain, institutions that have stood for centuries challenged and crumbling. And for the family, it has become a saying that for every generation of Florentinos, there is one oddball, a black sheep or estranged cousin who rises from the medieval stupor of haciendero and bourgeois life to carve their name into the history and culture of the nation. First and most famous among them is, of course, the ruthlessly anticlerical nationalist Marcelino, fourth president of the republic, but there are others who have written their names outside of politics.
And so, we come to one of the finest minds of 19th century Ilocos and the Florentino oddball of her generation: Leona Josefa Florentino, the woman bard of the north and mother of Philippine feminism, a fiercely independent woman born of the main, Vigan-based branch of that illustrious family. Daughter of Don Marcelino Pichay Florentino who was head of the family and namesake of the notorious president, Leona was born in 1849, and her early life was caught in the midst of the culture wars of the Liberal Supremacy. For a woman of her background, she was given a diverse education, learning Spanish, Tagalog, English, and some Latin alongside her native Ilocano from a series of tutors. A voracious reader and quick thinker from a young age, Leona was raised seeing the most dramatic transformations of Philippine society reach and affect her hometown. With the rise of commerce and industry in the towns of the Philippines since the revolution, much has changed in the capital of Ilocos, from the influx of Chinese refugees and the introduction of new methods of agriculture and manufacturing, to the building of steamships and macadamized roads and the introduction of Western thought into the cultural and intellectual life of the city.
In the 1860s, the Florentinos of Vigan were to arrange young Leona's marriage to a prominent young Conservative politician, the son of a family friend, but the Florentino heiress had other plans. In 1863, at the tender age of 14, Leona escaped her family's estate with the aid of a servant and made for the heart of the nation, Manila, not wanting to marry just yet, instead wanting to pursue an education, much to the chagrin of her father. After a weeks-long journey across the heartland of Luzon, Leona makes her way to the Mariquina estate of Saturnino Florentino y Chua, son of the former president and the young head of the Manila branch of the Florentinos. There, she asks for support from her kinsman to pursue the continuation of her studies, in exchange becoming a governess for his children after she completes her education. He considers the proposal, allowing the young Leona to stay in the estate while things cool down in the north between her and her father. Eventually, after a couple of years, Don Marcelino accepts her decision, but makes clear that she is not as of yet welcome to return north.
During her stay with the Mariquina Florentinos, Leona meets many new faces: the prominent men of the Liberal Party, as well as their female relatives. The latter in particular would in time form the core of the feminist movement in the Philippines, while the former teach her in various ways the politics and culture of the now rising republic.
Yeh, I've been busy returning to the patterns of normal life.Nice that you updated after more than a month, I've been aching for more of your content, been following your thread for almost 3 months now...
WanderingProfessor
Banned
The most interesting part of this TL is Britain losing Canada and India. Never expected an independent Quebec through American intervention or a successful Metis revolt.Yeh, I've been busy returning to the patterns of normal life.
I don't know enough of the specifics of Canadian history, but I do know that I wanted Canada to not be British and America to be split up. As for India, it was a surprise for me too. So now I'm trying to figure out what Britain would be like at this point.
Its kinda nice to see how Feminism in the atl Republic would rise earlier than otl.
Leona Florentino (Part 2)
Continuing her education, Leona Florentino studied under American and Filipino teachers alike and was introduced to Greek, Hebrew, and the Chinese dialects, all of which she studied with diligence. The 1860s were a hard slog for her, full of tears and hardship, but at the same time these years of hard work and study gave her the foundation for her later career as a classicist, translator, and writer. As she studied, splitting her time between the Florentino estate and her dormitory in the arrabales of Manila outside the walls, Leona built up her connections with the Mariquina Florentinos and the prominent families of the Liberal Party, and formed friendships with men and women from all walks of life in the bustling city, especially with those involved in the booming publishing industry such as the sangley printing magnate and literary patron Horacio Tiongson y Uy, founder of Casa del Sol, one of the oldest secular book publishers in the Philippines and one of many centers of cultural and intellectual life in the city.
During this time, her place in the Mariquina Florentino household was one of increasing work and responsibility, with her kinsman Saturnino and his mother Anastasia Chua y Ruiz delegating additional tasks for her to do as an agent of the family in addition to being a governess to the younger Florentinos. During her education, Leona finds work with Tiongson and his Casa del Sol, translating literature from both East and West into Spanish and Tagalog, absorbing the intellectual life and radical philosophies rising in the city. As part of the time of the Liberal Supremacy, a lot of literature from around the world found its way into the ports of the Philippines alongside new methods of printing, and with the rise of public education but a few decades ago, there was a high demand for booksellers, publishers, and above all, translators to make these works comprehensible to the populace now starving for knowledge. The diligent young woman, bibliophile and polyglot that she was, made a name for herself in the field of translation as the years passed, having an ear for words and a mind for philology, both of which she applied in her own personal works and her job as governess.
With all of this going on in her life, between her work as governess, her career as a translator and woman of letters, and the social life she had cultivated, Leona made little time for a family of her own, at least until after the victory of the Nationalist Party over the numerous Liberal factions and the Philippine Social War.
By 1875, the young girl who had come to Manila desperate to escape her arranged marriage had since become a professional translator and woman of letters, known to be humble and diligent to the point of seeming timidity in her work yet biting and brutal in her wit when she uses it to defend herself from critics. At 26, Florentino had translated numerous texts, worked on the second edition of the Dicionario nang Uicang Tagalog under a male pseudonym, and had gotten some of her works in Spanish and Tagalog published (works of varying fields, from literature and song to treatises on the relations between the Ilocano and Tagalog dialects, among other topics), but was still unmarried and seemed content to continue on being so, were it not for the machinations of her relatives.
For relations between the Florentinos of Vigan and Alta Mariquina have become more cordial, but Don Marcelino still wanted his daughter to marry and bear grandchildren, and the Mariquina Florentinos began subtly pressuring Leona to get married. Adding to this the squabbling factionalism of the Liberal Party having led to the rise and dominance of the Nationalists in the past few years and causing tensions in her workplace, Leona decided that a return home and reconciliation with her parents would be for the best, difficult though it was to leave behind her career for the moment. Thus, after more than a decade and with the blessing of her employer, the estranged daughter of the Vigan Florentinos returns north for a sabbatical and a potential marriage.
During this time, her place in the Mariquina Florentino household was one of increasing work and responsibility, with her kinsman Saturnino and his mother Anastasia Chua y Ruiz delegating additional tasks for her to do as an agent of the family in addition to being a governess to the younger Florentinos. During her education, Leona finds work with Tiongson and his Casa del Sol, translating literature from both East and West into Spanish and Tagalog, absorbing the intellectual life and radical philosophies rising in the city. As part of the time of the Liberal Supremacy, a lot of literature from around the world found its way into the ports of the Philippines alongside new methods of printing, and with the rise of public education but a few decades ago, there was a high demand for booksellers, publishers, and above all, translators to make these works comprehensible to the populace now starving for knowledge. The diligent young woman, bibliophile and polyglot that she was, made a name for herself in the field of translation as the years passed, having an ear for words and a mind for philology, both of which she applied in her own personal works and her job as governess.
With all of this going on in her life, between her work as governess, her career as a translator and woman of letters, and the social life she had cultivated, Leona made little time for a family of her own, at least until after the victory of the Nationalist Party over the numerous Liberal factions and the Philippine Social War.
By 1875, the young girl who had come to Manila desperate to escape her arranged marriage had since become a professional translator and woman of letters, known to be humble and diligent to the point of seeming timidity in her work yet biting and brutal in her wit when she uses it to defend herself from critics. At 26, Florentino had translated numerous texts, worked on the second edition of the Dicionario nang Uicang Tagalog under a male pseudonym, and had gotten some of her works in Spanish and Tagalog published (works of varying fields, from literature and song to treatises on the relations between the Ilocano and Tagalog dialects, among other topics), but was still unmarried and seemed content to continue on being so, were it not for the machinations of her relatives.
For relations between the Florentinos of Vigan and Alta Mariquina have become more cordial, but Don Marcelino still wanted his daughter to marry and bear grandchildren, and the Mariquina Florentinos began subtly pressuring Leona to get married. Adding to this the squabbling factionalism of the Liberal Party having led to the rise and dominance of the Nationalists in the past few years and causing tensions in her workplace, Leona decided that a return home and reconciliation with her parents would be for the best, difficult though it was to leave behind her career for the moment. Thus, after more than a decade and with the blessing of her employer, the estranged daughter of the Vigan Florentinos returns north for a sabbatical and a potential marriage.
Leona Florentino (Part 3)
Much had changed in the city of Vigan by the time Leona Florentino returns home. The principal town of the Ilocos had long flip-flopped between the three established political parties as the region as a whole did while the Old Nationalists gave way to the Liberals, and Liberal supremacy gave way to Nationalist rule, but under the surface of that political history of indecisiveness it thrived, and the twelve years of Florentino's absence from the region saw a steady rise in wealth and economic development. From an old though mildly prosperous colonial town, Vigan had become a jewel of the north, the beating heart of commerce and industry in the Ilocos region and a center of finance for the northern half of the increasingly formal Filipino empire.
With all this, Vigan and the Ilocos region as a whole have also become a Nationalist-Conservative stronghold over the years as the Liberal Party fell into factional squabbling between the Tagalists, the Hispanists, and the Young Liberals among others, many Ilocanos turning to regionalism, tradition, and devolution of power against the central government's heavy-handed attempts to assert control over the other provinces of the nation and force through Enlightenment-inspired reforms. Among these Ilocanos are many of the Vigan Florentinos who are some of the leaders of the conservative gentry and bourgeoisie who dominate politics in the region with their wealth and connections. With patronage of schools and artists and pious gifts to the Church, the occasional shows of generosity to the people and strategic marriage alliances, Don Marcelino and his sons have risen to all but rule Ilocos Sur.
And it is for these marriage alliance that the aged Don Marcelino Pichay Florentino has reached out for his long-estranged daughter to come home, though it is not the only one. The years immediately after Leona and her maid ran away were a time of shame and embarrassment for the family. It was a scandal that, in Don Florentino's eyes, damaged the reputation of his family for a long time to come. And so he and his sons worked to repair the reputation of the clan, and indeed the shame stoked a fire of ambition in the hearts of the sons of that house, a flame that did not burn before, that propelled them to go into the politics of the region and the nation as a whole, all but waging war against the reforms of the Liberals. And as the years passed, though the hearts of the Vigan Florentinos cooled and they slowly rebuilt a cordial relationship with their cousins in the south, full reconciliation still seemed far off.
But now Don Marcelino is old and ailing, and Leona is returning from the south with less scandal and a name as a scholar and translator, but also with a reputation for radical politics and philosophical anarchism, her avowed beliefs opposed to much of her estranged family's policies and programs that are focused on reinforcing the formal institutions and traditions of the nation as a whole and the region in particular. Still, returning to Vigan, the daughter tries to set aside her resentment and reconcile with her parents and siblings. Long are the silences and harsh the words between the stern patriarch and the wayward daughter, and the first days back in the House of Florentino are tense and heavy for Leona Florentino.
And these days come to a head with the question of Leona's marriage. After so deeply rejecting her first proposed marriage, few seemed interested in marrying her, and the years had only lessened her prospects. Still, there are a couple suitors courting her family, and Don Marcelino wants to see her accept a proposal and finally marry. His daughter, on the other hand, has remained content without a marriage, having built a life and career for herself in the south and not being willing to give that up to be a housewife for some politician allied to her father and brothers. Harsh as the first days of Leona's stay in Vigan were, they paled in comparison to the heavy conversations about her possible marriage, to the point of giving Don Marcelino a fever. This latest episode of illness, bringing Leona's father so close to death, softens both sides and pushes the two to reconcile, with Leona herself confronted with the specter of death.
And so after weeks of tension, she meets with her suitors over the course of 1875, acceding to the wishes of her father. Over the course of the following weeks and months, she meets and spends time with each of her prospective husbands, seeking someone who would not try to restrain her career. One of these suitors is one of Horacio Tiongson's nephews, Felipe Tiongson y Banaag, a playwright and musical composer somewhat younger than Leona, whom she had aided and befriended during her time at Casa del Sol. She found him charming and witty enough, if a bit more outspoken about politics than her, but not enough to dissuade her family from the match. More importantly, he was humble enough to accept advice from women and was not against her having a career. Thus, though her heart remained elsewhere, her favor went to Felipe, whom she married the following year, much to the relief and joy of her parents. Don Marcelino died a few weeks after the honeymoon, and late in 1876 the couple returned to Manila and continued their respective careers under the regime of then-president Marcelo Novales.
With all this, Vigan and the Ilocos region as a whole have also become a Nationalist-Conservative stronghold over the years as the Liberal Party fell into factional squabbling between the Tagalists, the Hispanists, and the Young Liberals among others, many Ilocanos turning to regionalism, tradition, and devolution of power against the central government's heavy-handed attempts to assert control over the other provinces of the nation and force through Enlightenment-inspired reforms. Among these Ilocanos are many of the Vigan Florentinos who are some of the leaders of the conservative gentry and bourgeoisie who dominate politics in the region with their wealth and connections. With patronage of schools and artists and pious gifts to the Church, the occasional shows of generosity to the people and strategic marriage alliances, Don Marcelino and his sons have risen to all but rule Ilocos Sur.
And it is for these marriage alliance that the aged Don Marcelino Pichay Florentino has reached out for his long-estranged daughter to come home, though it is not the only one. The years immediately after Leona and her maid ran away were a time of shame and embarrassment for the family. It was a scandal that, in Don Florentino's eyes, damaged the reputation of his family for a long time to come. And so he and his sons worked to repair the reputation of the clan, and indeed the shame stoked a fire of ambition in the hearts of the sons of that house, a flame that did not burn before, that propelled them to go into the politics of the region and the nation as a whole, all but waging war against the reforms of the Liberals. And as the years passed, though the hearts of the Vigan Florentinos cooled and they slowly rebuilt a cordial relationship with their cousins in the south, full reconciliation still seemed far off.
But now Don Marcelino is old and ailing, and Leona is returning from the south with less scandal and a name as a scholar and translator, but also with a reputation for radical politics and philosophical anarchism, her avowed beliefs opposed to much of her estranged family's policies and programs that are focused on reinforcing the formal institutions and traditions of the nation as a whole and the region in particular. Still, returning to Vigan, the daughter tries to set aside her resentment and reconcile with her parents and siblings. Long are the silences and harsh the words between the stern patriarch and the wayward daughter, and the first days back in the House of Florentino are tense and heavy for Leona Florentino.
And these days come to a head with the question of Leona's marriage. After so deeply rejecting her first proposed marriage, few seemed interested in marrying her, and the years had only lessened her prospects. Still, there are a couple suitors courting her family, and Don Marcelino wants to see her accept a proposal and finally marry. His daughter, on the other hand, has remained content without a marriage, having built a life and career for herself in the south and not being willing to give that up to be a housewife for some politician allied to her father and brothers. Harsh as the first days of Leona's stay in Vigan were, they paled in comparison to the heavy conversations about her possible marriage, to the point of giving Don Marcelino a fever. This latest episode of illness, bringing Leona's father so close to death, softens both sides and pushes the two to reconcile, with Leona herself confronted with the specter of death.
And so after weeks of tension, she meets with her suitors over the course of 1875, acceding to the wishes of her father. Over the course of the following weeks and months, she meets and spends time with each of her prospective husbands, seeking someone who would not try to restrain her career. One of these suitors is one of Horacio Tiongson's nephews, Felipe Tiongson y Banaag, a playwright and musical composer somewhat younger than Leona, whom she had aided and befriended during her time at Casa del Sol. She found him charming and witty enough, if a bit more outspoken about politics than her, but not enough to dissuade her family from the match. More importantly, he was humble enough to accept advice from women and was not against her having a career. Thus, though her heart remained elsewhere, her favor went to Felipe, whom she married the following year, much to the relief and joy of her parents. Don Marcelino died a few weeks after the honeymoon, and late in 1876 the couple returned to Manila and continued their respective careers under the regime of then-president Marcelo Novales.
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So does Ph recognize also India?
and I think with this the UK would focus to Lat Am,Ph, Africa away mainly from India for the meantime then return
Yes. Though with the Mughals ruling over a chaotic mess of republics and princely states, and the Sikhs standing as rivals... well, I'll deal with that later.
As for Latin America and Africa, yeah, I'll also deal with that later. That said, the Indian Independence War has ruined Britain.
I see. Though I was surprised PI did recognize it, I was mainly expecting for a European/US/Latin American Centric diplomacy mainly to get those huge investments to mainly focus on internal stuff to benefit them with no war. Nice
I am definitely interested for Lat Am, If you want strong Mexico you need mainly to make Santa Anna competent and stay as he is already a unifying figure some kind of compromise where both Liberals and conservatives are fine with. Or in Haiti Have them rebuild their exports of cash crops to at least pre revolution levels and I believe they'll go in and pay those reparations france gave them in exchange for recognition as they could be an alternative source of coffee instead of Brazil for France and those debts used to pay them and to spend stuff.
Nice work, as it seems lacking of Philippine centric TLs that were a bit sizeable though I did find a few good ones here. Let us writers of these continue da good work writing these stuff.
Leona Florentino (Part 4)
From 1876 onward, Leona Florentino, now Doña Tiongson, continues life as she had in the years prior, though as wife to Felipe she needed to bear children. She does her duty as a lady of the house and as a wife, bearing five children over the course of the following years: Saturnino (1877), Anastasia (1879), Horacio (1880), Andres Nicanor (1882), and Emilia (1885). To ease the burden on her as a housewife and mother, the couple hire a maid to help raise the children while Leona and Felipe continue their work. The maid hired by Leona is Librada de Cabugao, the same one who helped her escape to Manila many years ago, one of Leona's most trusted retainers and confidants. She had been working for Saturnino's household since coming to Manila with her mistress, and now returned to her service after many years, having learned her letters and numbers with Leona's help.
From 1876 onward, the Tiongson y Florentino household sees a steady income trickle in as Felipe gains commissions from the ilustrados and principalia to write a number of plays and Leona continues to translate classical and popular works into Spanish, Tagalog, and Ilocano. She also begins in this period to publish compilations of original works, having built up her style of writing and established her name as a scholar and writer. Between and after her pregnancies, she travels across the towns and provinces of Luzon in the name of researching the nation's culture in the vein of other scholars of her time and even ilustrados of her generation. She compiles notes and writes various travelogues, ethnographies, treatises on language and literature, and a number of miscellaneous other works. The sentimental style of her juvenilia had developed into a more sparing, lapidary prose as the years passed, influenced in her craft by all the myriad influences she had absorbed over the years.
Over the years, Leona had formed a number of rivalries and made some enemies in her literary relationships and career. Despite her patience and humility for people as a whole, she was still an honest and outspoken woman unafraid to express her somewhat unorthodox opinions, and though this gained her a following among some circles, it annoyed others, especially those of a more conservative bent. Chief among her literary rivals is Agustin Calag, the third son of a self-made industrialist from the Visayas, a Romantic poet of Nationalist persuasion, and a brilliant mind in his own right. Given an education in the classics in Cebu and sent north to learn further at a more cosmopolitan university, Calag has also made a name for himself as a witty speaker and elegant writer, a classicist and a polyglot, poring over the Western and Eastern literary canons as a young student and publishing his own ethnographic and philological works with the Insular-founded and more Nationalist-aligned Prensa Republica.
The two scholars have been acquainted with each other's work and learned from each other's ideas back when both began working at their respective publishing houses, but it was not until Leona got married that the two become rivals in earnest, with divergences in opinion between them turning into increasingly sharp correspondences, disputes, and eventually arguments on various topics, not the least of which was the running of the nation as it was in the day. These arguments and debates, though mildly venomous at times, sharpen the wits and ambitions of Calag and Florentino, whose works and responses aimed at one another become resonant as time passes, holding in their books and poems the two opposing tendencies developing in ilustrado aesthetics and future generations of Philippine artists.
On the one side is Florentino, with her increasingly sparse but lapidary style echoing the Old Masters of East and West, a woman upholding a clear and Apollonian aesthetics alongside her Young Liberal politics in her poems and treatises. On the other there is Calag and his ornate and almost flowery style throwing back to the old bards of the nation, upholding an ironically more primal and medieval Dionysian conception of art as well as traditionalist politics in his many popular prose romances. The two disagree deeply on many points, but there is a healthy respect between the two, even as they tear each other's work apart in their correspondences.
From 1876 onward, the Tiongson y Florentino household sees a steady income trickle in as Felipe gains commissions from the ilustrados and principalia to write a number of plays and Leona continues to translate classical and popular works into Spanish, Tagalog, and Ilocano. She also begins in this period to publish compilations of original works, having built up her style of writing and established her name as a scholar and writer. Between and after her pregnancies, she travels across the towns and provinces of Luzon in the name of researching the nation's culture in the vein of other scholars of her time and even ilustrados of her generation. She compiles notes and writes various travelogues, ethnographies, treatises on language and literature, and a number of miscellaneous other works. The sentimental style of her juvenilia had developed into a more sparing, lapidary prose as the years passed, influenced in her craft by all the myriad influences she had absorbed over the years.
Over the years, Leona had formed a number of rivalries and made some enemies in her literary relationships and career. Despite her patience and humility for people as a whole, she was still an honest and outspoken woman unafraid to express her somewhat unorthodox opinions, and though this gained her a following among some circles, it annoyed others, especially those of a more conservative bent. Chief among her literary rivals is Agustin Calag, the third son of a self-made industrialist from the Visayas, a Romantic poet of Nationalist persuasion, and a brilliant mind in his own right. Given an education in the classics in Cebu and sent north to learn further at a more cosmopolitan university, Calag has also made a name for himself as a witty speaker and elegant writer, a classicist and a polyglot, poring over the Western and Eastern literary canons as a young student and publishing his own ethnographic and philological works with the Insular-founded and more Nationalist-aligned Prensa Republica.
The two scholars have been acquainted with each other's work and learned from each other's ideas back when both began working at their respective publishing houses, but it was not until Leona got married that the two become rivals in earnest, with divergences in opinion between them turning into increasingly sharp correspondences, disputes, and eventually arguments on various topics, not the least of which was the running of the nation as it was in the day. These arguments and debates, though mildly venomous at times, sharpen the wits and ambitions of Calag and Florentino, whose works and responses aimed at one another become resonant as time passes, holding in their books and poems the two opposing tendencies developing in ilustrado aesthetics and future generations of Philippine artists.
On the one side is Florentino, with her increasingly sparse but lapidary style echoing the Old Masters of East and West, a woman upholding a clear and Apollonian aesthetics alongside her Young Liberal politics in her poems and treatises. On the other there is Calag and his ornate and almost flowery style throwing back to the old bards of the nation, upholding an ironically more primal and medieval Dionysian conception of art as well as traditionalist politics in his many popular prose romances. The two disagree deeply on many points, but there is a healthy respect between the two, even as they tear each other's work apart in their correspondences.
Leona Florentino (Part 5)
The 1880s see the politics and aesthetics of the conservative plebeian Calag and the populist patrician Florentino take center stage as the educated take sides between them. With the retirement of Marcelo Novales in 1882, the alliance between the Nationalists and Conservatives that had dominated politics for twelve years as a coalition government and had slowly drifted apart over the past few years finally begins to split, and the factional disputes between the Liberals that haven't formally broken away from the party are resolved by new leaders, reestablishing a strong Liberal Party. In this atmosphere, the the two writers and their circles wage war with their pens, writing brilliant treatises and essays pushing for different causes, both calling for reforms of one or another system that had developed over the years of the republic. Their novels and journalistic chronicles also sharply study and critique the society in which they lived, building a clear picture of the world as they knew it.
It is a strange picture, for the decades of the republic have seen the nation change in innumerable ways. The declaration of the republic, the dissolution of most church lands over the decades, the vast immigrations from China and improvements in agriculture causing a meteoric rise in population, the military expansion of the republic into an increasingly integrated network of trade and administration, and above all the rise in commerce and industry; all these have in many ways transformed the fabric of the old society beyond recognizing, displacing large portions of Filipino society, and many see the tensions and costs of the republic's transformations and consequent rise to prominence and wealth. Among them, none feel this displacement more keenly than the Filipino intelligentsia, an amorphous mass of literary and scholarly circles from a number of ethnic backgrounds established but a generation or two ago with a feverish patriotism and hunger for anything artistic that defines the Filipino. Thus, in the 1880s, the two bright stars of the first generation ilustrados begin their magna opera.
Calag, for his part, weaves a tapestry of the past, taking inspiration from the southern regions and the songs of the nation to build a pre-Hispanic literary epic for it. His Canciones de Ma-i, drawing on folklore, scholarship, and a rich imagination, is a Romantic work of prose and poetry that straddles the border between historical novel and romance in a way that calls to mind the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Despite all the interconnected stories of this sprawling work building an idealized portrait of the pre-Hispanic Philippines, it has a deeply Catholic worldview and theme to it, and in the subtle love of tradition and the land are shown his strangely paradoxical orthodoxy. The extensive appendices build up a tantalizing picture of the deep past on the few scraps of philology and ethnography that had been brought out into that light of his time, and this work lights the way for future archaeologists, linguists, and writers of speculative romance alike.
Florentino, on the other hand, builds a sprawling family saga of the modern world, a tale spanning decades and spinning around the fictional town of San Isidro and its households, presenting a panorama of life in the Philippines from the British invasion of Manila to her present day in the late 19th century. Her Realist epic, the Metamorphoses, are a veritable socio-psychological landscape of the Filipino people coming to terms with republican life with all its duties, burdens, and consequences. Among the numerous volumes of this work, the most memorable is El Tofet, the sixth part of the series and a response and homage to the older work La Nueva Gehenna written by one of Florentino's mentors. Florentino's own novel details the downfall and destruction of a family in the wake of industrialization, or the 'coming of the devil's spinning wheels', as Florentino puts it. Despite this harsh critique of the dehumanization of man by man within a capitalist system, Florentino gave no easy answers to the problem.
In the midst of writing these works, the two writers and their friends also begin many other side projects: adding to or elaborating the 'Roman tales' of Balagtas, writing or translating verse romances relating to the Matters of Britain and France, writing original verse romances based on the Byzantine Empire, translating the folk songs and epics of the lowlander Christian Filipinos, and many others. Many are even adapted for stage by Felipe Tiongson, who becomes the father of Philippine tragedy thanks to his adaptation of Racine's Athalie along with translations of other plays and zarzuelas.
It is a strange picture, for the decades of the republic have seen the nation change in innumerable ways. The declaration of the republic, the dissolution of most church lands over the decades, the vast immigrations from China and improvements in agriculture causing a meteoric rise in population, the military expansion of the republic into an increasingly integrated network of trade and administration, and above all the rise in commerce and industry; all these have in many ways transformed the fabric of the old society beyond recognizing, displacing large portions of Filipino society, and many see the tensions and costs of the republic's transformations and consequent rise to prominence and wealth. Among them, none feel this displacement more keenly than the Filipino intelligentsia, an amorphous mass of literary and scholarly circles from a number of ethnic backgrounds established but a generation or two ago with a feverish patriotism and hunger for anything artistic that defines the Filipino. Thus, in the 1880s, the two bright stars of the first generation ilustrados begin their magna opera.
Calag, for his part, weaves a tapestry of the past, taking inspiration from the southern regions and the songs of the nation to build a pre-Hispanic literary epic for it. His Canciones de Ma-i, drawing on folklore, scholarship, and a rich imagination, is a Romantic work of prose and poetry that straddles the border between historical novel and romance in a way that calls to mind the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Despite all the interconnected stories of this sprawling work building an idealized portrait of the pre-Hispanic Philippines, it has a deeply Catholic worldview and theme to it, and in the subtle love of tradition and the land are shown his strangely paradoxical orthodoxy. The extensive appendices build up a tantalizing picture of the deep past on the few scraps of philology and ethnography that had been brought out into that light of his time, and this work lights the way for future archaeologists, linguists, and writers of speculative romance alike.
Florentino, on the other hand, builds a sprawling family saga of the modern world, a tale spanning decades and spinning around the fictional town of San Isidro and its households, presenting a panorama of life in the Philippines from the British invasion of Manila to her present day in the late 19th century. Her Realist epic, the Metamorphoses, are a veritable socio-psychological landscape of the Filipino people coming to terms with republican life with all its duties, burdens, and consequences. Among the numerous volumes of this work, the most memorable is El Tofet, the sixth part of the series and a response and homage to the older work La Nueva Gehenna written by one of Florentino's mentors. Florentino's own novel details the downfall and destruction of a family in the wake of industrialization, or the 'coming of the devil's spinning wheels', as Florentino puts it. Despite this harsh critique of the dehumanization of man by man within a capitalist system, Florentino gave no easy answers to the problem.
In the midst of writing these works, the two writers and their friends also begin many other side projects: adding to or elaborating the 'Roman tales' of Balagtas, writing or translating verse romances relating to the Matters of Britain and France, writing original verse romances based on the Byzantine Empire, translating the folk songs and epics of the lowlander Christian Filipinos, and many others. Many are even adapted for stage by Felipe Tiongson, who becomes the father of Philippine tragedy thanks to his adaptation of Racine's Athalie along with translations of other plays and zarzuelas.
That's as if we had that tradition IOTL to begin with, well, beyond zarzuela, morality plays, and moro-moro comedies anyway.Drama and theater are arts that should be respected.
I feel that we didn't because we don't have the gravitas of, say, the French or ancient Greeks IOTL. Our aristocrats have ever been too pathetic to enjoy tragedy. Instead we laugh, because we have no more tears to shed as a nation.
Interesting development, anyway what other developments besides literature that are very different TTl compare to Otl especially in sports , art and theatre as literature is much more diverse than Otl Philippines and such it would be interesting if those could be easily replicated into different mediums especially theatre and later movies as I like to see what a Philippines movie industry would look like TTl.
Also is there any other party besides the Big three (Liberal, Conservative,Nationalists) because I'm feeling there going to be a new major party sometimes between 1880s-1920s
Also is there any other party besides the Big three (Liberal, Conservative,Nationalists) because I'm feeling there going to be a new major party sometimes between 1880s-1920s
Also, with the collapse of the Indian Raj and the British Empire itself, TTL's 19th century may be defined more by sovereign nations and informal, "imperial regimes", maybe perhaps outside of Africa which they may still take a liking for reasons of prestige and cheap raw materials.
The United States fucking it up in the South while taking Canada may also put them up to one hell of an insurgency.
The United States fucking it up in the South while taking Canada may also put them up to one hell of an insurgency.
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I'm definitely interested in exploring the arts and atmosphere of late 19th and early 20th century Philippines. As for politics, yes, the future's going to be interesting to say the least.
It just turned out that way, somehow. The Anglosphere burning down in the middle of the century was a happy accident of my desire to see America not become completely dominant and Europe to not be in a place to interfere with Latin America, at least at first. So protectorates and mini-empires built by second-tier allies of Europeans will proliferate.