17 December 2015 – National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Chairman Felipe M. De Leon, Jr., together with Philippine Ambassador to the Russian Federation Carlos D. Sorreta, unveiled a sculpture of the bust of Dr. Jose Rizal at the Philippine Embassy in Moscow on December 11.

The ceremony was a celebration of the life and works of the country’s most revered hero. It included presentations by Vera Golikova and Nina Prakapovich - both Filipino majors pursuing graduate degrees at the IAAS-MSU - on the medical achievements of Rizal and scholarly works on Rizal by Russian experts.

Decades before the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and the Philippines, a number of academic literature on Rizal had already been published in Russia starting in 1937 when Alexander Guber’s essay appeared in the series“Life of a Remarkable People”.

Rizal’s two novels - El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere - were translated into Russian and published in 1937 and 1963, respectively.

The most extensive and seminal body of work on Rizal belonged to renowned Philippine expert and Rizalista, Dr. Igor Podberezskiy, who wrote the book “Evolution of the artistic path of Jose Rizal” (published in 1982), demonstrating Rizal’s contribution to Philippine and world culture and political thoughts. Three years after, he came out with a biography of Jose Rizal. Dr. Podberezskiy, a fluent Tagalog speaker, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit of President of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2009.

The program also featured MSU freshmen students (also Filipino majors) rendering  Rizal’s “Sa kabataang Pilipino” - in Russian and Tagalog - and singing “Ako’y isang Pinoy.”

The bust of Rizal was provided to the Philippine Embassy by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) through the Cultural Diplomacy Unit of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The event was organized in anticipation of the upcoming Rizal Day celebration on December 30 as part of the Embassy’s cultural diplomacy program. END