SHILLONG: A copy of the speech Rabindra Nath Tagore had delivered at the Humboldt University in Berlin on June 2, 1921, has been “rediscovered” at the university archive, according to a press release e-mailed by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kolkata on Thursday.
The university in those days was known as the Friedrich Wilhelm University.
With his speech and his concept of ‘one world,’ Tagore had “mesmerized the audience,” said the release.
The audio of the last portion of the speech and its transcript were available in the website of the German Consulate in Kolkata.
The release said that on June 1, 1921, Tagore had delivered his lecture titled “The message of the forest” at Friedrich Wilhelm University for the first time. But, because of overwhelming public interest, he had to repeat his speech in front of several thousand listeners on June 2.
The final passage of Tagore’s famous lecture was recorded in Berlin’s Hotel Esplanade on June 4, 1921.
The original shellack disc is still preserved in the so-called ‘Lautarchiv’ (sound archive; ‘Laut’ meaning sound) of Humboldt University.
Tagore had visited Germany twice more, in 1926 and 1930. In his last visit, he had met Albert Einstein. At present, the only publicly visible memorial for Tagore’s connection with Humboldt University is his large bust, a present of the Indian government, unveiled in the Institute for Asian and African Studies in 2006.
