ИСТИНА

Modern literature of the Philippine archipelago develops in the Tagalog language, English, as well as several major regional Philippine languages, incl. Cebuano. The impetus for the genesis of Philippine literature was Spanish influence (from the 16th century to the turn of the 20th century), and modern regional literatures began to take shape in the 1920s under the influence of American as well as Tagalog-language prose (Lumbera 2006). The impetus for the development of the local literatures was the increase number of periodicals in major regional languages, incl. in Cebuano. The report will highlight the contribution to the support of the local creative writing from Filipino-Chinese entrepreneurs and philanthropists: the publishing house of Ramon Roses in the 1st half of the XXth century and the Carlos Palanca Prize in the 2nd half of the XXth century The report will present an analysis of the main stages in the development of prose in Cebuano , which largely follows the development of the Tagalog literature (Baklanova 2019), but with a lag of several decades. So, the 1st half of the 20th century was characterized by a long period of sentimental-didactic short stories (Vicente Sotto, Fernando Buiser and others) and novels (Vicente Rama and others), incl. prose on social themes (Sulpicio Osorio, Thomas Hermosisima), as well as the first attempts at a realistic reflection of life and author's reflection (Marcel Navarro, Gardeopatra Quijano). By the 2nd half of the 20th century under the influence of Western literature, the position of realism, the attention of authors to the form of the work and modern artistic techniques got strengthened (Lumbera 2006). Cebuano writers, like other regional authors, began to diversify the themes of their prose, to experiment more actively with form, style, and characters, which is well reflected in the novels by Lina Espina Moore, Godofredo Roperos, short stories by Tiburcio Baguio, G. Chan Reyes, Santiago Pepito and others.