IV.

Culture

The Cuban people began articulating nationalist ideas in literature, art, and music during the 19th century. European colonists in Cuba did not develop an independent culture earlier because the island was only a shipping and military outpost and not a great administrative or mining center while part of the Spanish Empire. Early Cuban authors of importance, such as 19th century writers María de las Mercedes Santa Cruz y Montalvo, better known as La Condesa de Merlín, and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, lived and wrote in Spain rather than in their homeland. The influences of the French Revolution (1789-1799) and the American Revolution (1775-1783) awoke Cubans to the possibilities of social and economic change, and stimulated intellectuals to become involved in nationalist and independence movements.

Romanticism, an artistic and literary movement stressing freedom of expression and a reliance on imagination, first appeared in Cuba in the early 19th century with the early poetry of José María de Heredia. Cuban romanticism was the genesis of national patriotism, but Spain’s repression of free speech and artistic expression forced nationalistic romanticism to focus on the beauty of nature and the spirituality of the people rather than on political freedoms. Later in his career Heredia joined the Parnassian school, a reaction against romanticism. Artists of this school focused on technical perfection and an impersonal attitude in their art. Heredia’s poetry straddled these two literary movements. Many artists and thinkers of the romantic period were influenced by Father Felix Varela y Morales, a professor at the Seminary of San Carlos in Havana. Originally a supporter of Spain’s constitutional monarchy and limited self-government in the colonies, he later became an advocate of complete independence from Spain.

Submovements within romanticism were introduced by writers such as Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés (known as Plácido) and Juan Francisco Manzano, a former slave. They illustrated the unique facets of Cuban national characteristics through submovements within romanticism such as costumbrismo, an art form that satirized social types within Cuban society, particularly the mulattoes. Other social types were portrayed in criollismo and siboneyismo, which dealt with the daily lives of Creoles and Native Americans, respectively.

In the last half of the 19th century, a second period of romanticism began as artists were seized by the idea of Cuban independence from Spain. Writing moved from caricatures of Cuban society, nature, and regional language styles to elegant writing and literary imaging. Cuban romanticism differed from European romanticism in several important aspects. It emphasized racial complexity rather than the exaltation of upper-class individualism. Cuban romanticism expressed a positive attitude toward life, whereas European romanticism often exhibited heavy undertones of melancholy and a fascination with self-destructive tendencies. While contemporary European artists often dealt with the subject of nature and the simplicity of rural life, the hope of national sovereignty remained the central theme running through Cuba’s romantic movement.

Modernism coincided with romanticism at the end of the 19th century and ultimately replaced it in the 20th century. Modernism is an artistic movement characterized by a concentration on art for art’s sake, or by emphasis on the beauty of structure in language and art. Cuban modernism was short-lived and pertained to only a few artists, including writer and revolutionary José Martí, the father of Cuban independence, and poet Julian del Casal. Cuban modernism gained influence at the same time that U.S. citizens were investing in Cuba, which opened Cuban writers to increased contact with foreign literature. This was a period when calls for political, economic, and cultural change appeared in all literary genres. This era gave way to postmodernism within the first decade of independence.

Postmodernism emerged in 1909, just after the first democratically elected presidential term ended with U.S. military occupation. Corruption, economic ineffectiveness, and full dependence upon the United States undermined the ability of any government to control state matters peacefully. People of different political persuasions agreed that the renovation of past ideas about independence and sovereignty was necessary. Many postmodernists advocated specific political resolutions to Cuba’s postindependence confusion, and some sought authentic cultural expression in a blend of African and Spanish language and visual design.

In 1923 leftist activists began organizing against government corruption. Broader democratic participation and social justice for all Cubans were demanded by protest groups, such as the University Student Union, the First National Congress of Students, the First National Women’s Congress, the Protest of the Thirteen, the Grupo Minorista, and the Universidad Popular José Martí. The Grupo Minorista, an informal association of writers and artists, was the forerunner of the literary vanguard movement that unified between 1927 and 1933 against President Gerardo Machado’s illegitimate government. As a movement, Cuban vanguardism brushed aside established styles through disruptive or unconventional techniques. Vanguardists were characterized by a mixture of modern artistic movements. The political nature of their movement was, however, the tool of their destruction. Between 1934 and 1958, vanguardism dissolved into various political factions as former allies became bitter enemies over a variety of political issues affecting Cuba’s future.

Following the 1959 revolution, Cuba’s artistic freedom came to an end. The new government selected writers and artists to publish and create as long as they did not obviously criticize the government. Government efforts to control artistic expression isolated Cuban artists and thinkers from the bold, antiestablishment artistic movements in the United States and Europe. People such as writer Juan Marinello spent their energies running literary organizations supportive of socialist ideals rather than creating. A number of Cuba’s liberals and progressives, such as painter Jorge Camacho, went into exile in protest. Camacho and other Cuban painters went to France in 1959 on a grant from the Cuban government. Camacho became disillusioned with the Cuban Revolution when Castro supported the Soviet Union’s crackdown on Czechoslovakia in 1968 following Czechoslovakia’s Communist government’s experimentation with reforms (Prague Spring). Even Communist novelist Alejo Carpentier published his prorevolutionary pieces from Paris. Occasional purges of artists occurred, the most famous case being that of Heberto Padilla, a poet who won a prize in 1968 for his collected poetry entitled Fuera del juego. He was forced to leave Cuba in 1969 for the suggestions in those poems that the revolution limited human freedom. Entire colonies of Cuban artists live in exile, particularly in Mexico, Spain, and the United States, because their work criticized the revolution.

New generations of Cuban artists born after 1959 began to present mature works in the 1980s. After 1975 some leniency allowed artists and writers to take up nonrevolutionary themes, as long as the government did not come under criticism. Young writers and artists did not showcase overt political critiques, but looked inward to describe the psychological anguish of a revolution in crisis. The Novísimos, as the writers of the 1990s were known, distanced themselves from the revolution and often parodied communist lifestyles.

Only a few intrepid intellectuals have dared to direct their accusations at the government. Exile was the only alternative for dissenters, and some people chose to leave Cuba rather than limit the expression of their frustration. Poet María Elena Cruz Varela, who pointed out that Castro’s restrictions made Cubans all the more vulnerable to capitalist influences, was forced to eat the paper upon which her poems were written in a public act of repudiation. She was also imprisoned for two years for sedition between 1992 and 1994.

A.

Literature

In the last decades of the 19th century, two great romantic poets, Manuel de Zequeira y Arango and Manuel Justo Rubalcava, explored Cuba’s natural beauty. Romanticism stimulated thinking about national independence. Writers such as José María Heredia, José Jacinto Milanes, Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, Cirilo Villaverde, Joaquín Lorenzo Luaces, Juan Clemente Zenea, and José Antonio Saco lived in exile because of their militancy in favor of independence. All created visions of an independent nation and sovereign people in their works, although each came from different perspectives. Both Heredia and Avellaneda attacked the institution of slavery and proposed that the success of an independent Cuba rested on educating women and former slaves. Villaverde depicted the vanity and social climbing intentions of the mulatto population. Saco insisted that Afro-Cubans had to be held at the base of the social ladder because he believed they were not capable of governing or participating in the functions of an ordered society.

From 1880 to 1910 the modernist movement was led by writers José Martí, Julian del Casal, Juana Borrero, and José Manuel Poveda. Originally a romantic poet, Martí is said to have initiated modernism in Cuba with his 1882 collection of poetry entitled Ismaelillo. His work, like that of his romantic contemporaries, presented nationalist ideals, but it surpassed their arguments with the power of its sentiment expressed through artistic reference to colors, the physical senses, and emotion. Besides his poetry, Martí was a journalist who wrote for Latin American newspapers. He was also one of the most articulate organizers for Cuban independence from Spain.

Particularly dynamic were writers from eastern Cuba who were completely disenchanted with Havana’s mediocre political society and uninspiring, self-serving writers. In 1913 a group of writers in Oriente province issued a manifesto announcing their determination to bring life to the nationalist spirit that represented the passion of the Cuban people and their rejection of the sterile, formal, and dogmatic sentimentality they felt characterized Havana’s literary leadership. Most notable among the Oriente dissenters were José Manuel Poveda, Regino E. Boti, Agustín Acosta, Medardo Vitier, Hilarión Cabrisas, and Miguel Carrión.

The avant-garde movement began in 1923 with the formation of El Grupo Minorista, a group of young intellectuals who published their ideas in the magazine La Revista de Avance, first published in 1927. In 1944 the poet José Lezama Lima founded Orígenes, one of the most important literary and artistic magazines in Cuba and the Americas. It presented developing art in Europe and the Americas, and it conducted a dialogue among artists about artistic expression. Orígenes placed Cuban artists among the world’s most renowned writers, painters, philosophers, and composers. It also drew Cuban attention away from its own situation and struck a connection with the rest of the art world.

After the 1959 revolution, the Lunes de Revolución was the main publication for emerging writers. Criticizing previous generations for their middle- and upper-class affiliations, it invited writers and artists to introduce new themes, such as race and class divisions. The publication presented art and literature that reflected the social, economic, and political realities of life. At the same time, the editors rejected any suggestion that they were socialists or political activists of any bent.

After 1961 the revolution’s leadership was more secure, but the test of whether Castro could implement profound reforms was in question. Censorship curtailed artistic expression and supported prorevolutionary works. Writers who remained in Cuba faced government intolerance of any nonrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary ideas in literature. Nicolás Guillén, a well-known black poet, channeled his talents toward promoting greater revolutionary ideals such as racial and social integration.

Many leading writers in Cuba left for exile so that they could develop their thoughts freely. Among those who left were novelist, film critic, and essayist Guillermo Cabrera Infante, who went to London in 1965 and consistently published works critical of the revolution. Reinaldo Arenas worked at Cuba’s José Martí National Library and the Casa de las Américas, the nation’s most recognized publishing house, while he wrote poetry and novels. In 1980 he left Cuba and settled in New York City. His last book, Antes que anochezca (1993, translation Before Night Falls, 1993) is an autobiography that unmasks the revolution’s treatment of homosexuals and critical intellectuals. Cuban writers who chose exile had to overcome the difficulties of expressing themselves in foreign cultures and languages. Latin American Literature.

B.

Art

Cuban painting began in earnest in the 18th century with such artists as José Nicolás de la Escalera and Vicente Escobar. Late 18th- and early 19th-century artists were influenced by newly developed European and American printing techniques in lithography, a process that reproduced paintings cheaply. Suddenly the middle class was able to afford art, and artists created works for a new audience. Costumbrismo, an art form that satirized social types within Cuban society, was particularly popular beginning in the 1840s and 1850s. Victor Patricio de Landaluze, a painter and cartoonist, is the most recognized artist of this type. His oil paintings and watercolors stereotype the farmer, landowner, slave, and Afro-Cuban santeros (religious practitioners). Romantic landscape painting also characterized this period and idealized nationalism not in political terms but in an attachment to the island’s natural habitat.

With the introduction of European avant-garde styles in the 1920s and 1930s, a new generation of painters, such as Victor Manuel, Eduardo Abela, and Carlos Enríquez, concerned themselves with black and mulatto components of Cuban society. Their interests complemented anthropologist Fernando Ortíz’s argument that Afro-Cuban culture formed the distinguishing aspect of Cuban identity. Other painters, such as Fidelio Ponce de Leon or Aristides Fernández, followed a different path by depicting certain dramatic or religious aspects of the human condition. Post-1930s painters such as Amelia Pelaez, Rene Portocarrero, and Mariano Rodríguez were linked to the literary group of Origenes and depicted modern, abstract variations of typically Cuban architecture features, such as domestic interiors, stained glass windows, and church facades.

During the 1950s a new group of painters, known as El Grupo de los 11, challenged the aesthetics of the former masters by introducing the abstract tendency with emphasis on geometric form and color rather than realism. Wifredo Lam worked most of his life in Paris and was influenced by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, but he returned to Cuba in 1966 after the revolution to become a master teacher. His works incorporated surrealism while often featuring Afro-Cuban images.

After the 1959 revolution a number of painters left Cuba and established themselves mainly in Madrid and Paris. However, younger generations of artists both in Cuba and in exile introduced new and exciting dimensions to Cuban art. Between 1960 and 1980 much of Cuban art, particularly poster art, portrayed positive images of the revolution. Artists used simple materials to compose images of heroic sacrifice and military battles that brought socialism to the Americas and the world.

In the 1980s, as the problems of the revolutionary experiment became increasingly clear to most Cubans, a generation of artists in the island produced blatant criticism of the government. Their works derided incompetence, corruption, and hopelessness, and they even depicted scenes of torture, escape, and suicide. Many of these artists eventually chose exile over remaining in Cuba. More recently Cuban art often reflected individual responses to isolation and frustration as well as the difficulties of daily life, which was a less theoretical, but no less serious, denunciation of the government.

C.

Architecture

Cuba has an architectural tradition dating back to colonial days. Some of Cuba’s most important buildings were constructed as early as the 16th century. The fortresses of El Castillo de la Real Fuerza (1560) and the famous Morro de la Habana (1590, known in English as Morro Castle) introduced the baroque style prevalent in Spain at that time, characterized by massive structures and large windows accented with iron filigree.

Moreover, major cities such as Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, and Trinidad were built following the 1573 Ordinances of Philip II. These regulations, issued by the Spanish king, required a cathedral, the administrative office buildings, and a governor’s palace to occupy the four sides of a city’s central plaza. Cities were laid out in a grid that expanded as the urban population grew. Homes, churches, and some public buildings added the stained glass windows of Arabic origin that gave Cuban architecture its specific character.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the cities grew, giving rise to the fortress of El Morro de Santiago de Cuba (1633), the Cathedral of Havana (1787-1811), Santa Clara and San Agustín convents in Havana (17th century), Santa María Rosario church (1779), and The Plaza de Armas of Havana (1772). The romantic buildings of the 19th century followed the same traditions established in the early colonial period. In the mid-20th century, Cuban architecture took on the daring attributes of several new internationalist styles, particularly that of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, whose works blended neo-gothic, art nouveau, and surrealist influences. Residences in Havana’s Miramar and Siboney neighborhoods exhibit these traits while retaining an open air, tropical ambiance.

After the revolution, architecture followed a single, utilitarian path, with new buildings constructed to be practical and economical. Most architectural structures built after 1959 were apartment cities in suburban areas and in the countryside intended to house the poor and professionals who did not have homes. The architecture rarely varied from the prescribed Soviet styles. An apartment building in the Soviet style, usually three stories high, consists of units with up to three bedrooms and one bath, a tiny kitchen, and a laundry balcony. These rectangular apartment buildings were built with concrete blocks, and pressed marble was used for the floors. Revolutionary-era school buildings also followed the heavy, utilitarian, Soviet model that makes a distinctive landmark among the more tropical and colonial buildings that were built before 1959.

D.

Music and Dance

Cuba has been recognized by the international community for the richness and variety of its popular music. Spanish Andalusian, French, and African music have created a special blend of rhythms and melodies that constitute the Cuban trademark in such musical forms as the contradanzas, danzón, son, chachachá, rumba/guaguanco, and salsa.

Church music was the first composed music native to Cuba. Seventeenth-century composer Esteban de Salas, a choirmaster in Santiago de Cuba, used European styles for his motets, masses, and psalms.

In the 19th century, composers Nicolás de Espadero, Ignacio Cervantes, and Manuel Saumell had their works performed in the Teatro de Tacón, a theater usually reserved for the elite Spanish society. Two black violinists, José White (also an important composer) and Brindis de Salas, played in almost every important concert hall in the world.

The 20th century witnessed a renewal of classical compositions with strong African strains. During the 1920s Amadeo Roldán was the first modern composer to insert Afro-Cuban percussion instruments into symphonic music. Cuba’s foremost conservatory, the Conservatorio Municipal Amadeo Roldán, founded in 1935, bore his name. Roldán and García Cartula were two composers of the Grupo Renovación that in the 1920s through the 1930s introduced African melodies into symphonic music. At about the same time, composer Alejandro García Caturla also experimented with Afro-Cuban instruments and added Cuban country music into some of his works. A generation later Juan Blanco and Leo Brower were recognized as Cuba’s leading composers.

Cuba is one of the most influential sources of Caribbean popular music. Its infectious African drumming and rhythms overlaid with Hispanic lyrical melodies and instrumentations have inspired dance and song such as the danzón, son, and chachachá since the 1880s. Between the 1930s and 1950s numerous performers and orchestras began to popularize Cuban music throughout the world. Some composers and performers of Cuba’s classical popular music include singer and dancer Rita Montaner, pianists Bola de Nieve and Ernesto Lecuona, and Moisés Simon, Benny Moré, Osvaldo Farres, all three of whom were pianists and composers. From the 1950s to the present the Cuban salsa has brought people all over the world to their feet in joyful dancing. Singer and entertainer Celia Cruz introduced the salsa in the early 1950s. Cuban jazz is legendary and best known in the United States through performances by Benny Moré’s dance bands.

In the late 20th century Cuba’s numerous educational institutes helped create new generations of musicians and composers who have adapted the best of Cuban musical tradition into more innovative forms. One innovative musical movement, the Nueva Trova, emerged in the 1960s. It imitated the troubadour style of the Middle Ages (500-1500) in that performers and songwriters incorporated popular and political messages into music as a means of communicating information to the population. The most recognized performers of this popular Cuban song form are the musical group Grupo Moncada, and performers and composers such as Silvio Rodríguez, Pablo Milanés, and Sara González. The best-known groups in the 1990s included Irakere, los Van Van, and los Muñequitos de Matanzas. The Buena Vista Social Club, a collection of veteran musicians who recorded an album with American guitarist Ry Cooder in 1997, also gained international fame at this time.

The Cuban National Ballet, under the direction of choreographer Alicia Alonso, has helped train ballet performers who are recognized throughout the world. It has offered new styles to modern ballet in the form of Afro-Cuban folkloric depictions, rhythms, and movement.

E.

Theater and Film

Havana’s Teatro Principal, where Cuban audiences viewed European classical works, was inaugurated on October 12, 1776. Theatrical life developed throughout the island, and soon the so-called teatro bufo, or farcical theater, began to depict the different ethnic groups in Cuban society. Later, playwrights such as Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and José Jacinto Milanés made important contributions to a romantic theater focused upon nationalism.

After independence, Cuban theater lay dormant, but by the end of the 1940s and into the revolutionary period, many small theaters emerged. Playwrights of this period include Virgilio Piñera, Anton Arrufat, Abelardo Estorino, and José Triana. All of these dramatists occupied posts in Casa de las Américas, Cuba’s most prestigious publishing house, and in the National Union of Cuban Writers and Artists. Since the revolution, Cuban theater has languished as popular street theater replaced the formal settings. Street theater took the message of revolution to people throughout the island and often involved them in theatrical productions in order to make them feel a part of Cuba’s new society.

Motion-picture making began with silent films such as La Virgen de la Caridad (The Virgin of Charity, 1930), a film about Cuba’s patron saint, who was a symbol of Cuban independence. Movies of this period glorified independence and celebrated Cuban heroism and sacrifice. During the 1920s and 1930s, Cuban movie houses featured U.S. films, and U.S. movie stars appeared in all the popular magazines. Many aspects of modernization and changing social attitudes were transmitted to Cuba through American films.

Not until the 1950s did Cuban film production compete well with the international film industry. This effort was led by motion-picture director Guillermo Cabrera Infante, founder of the Cuban Film Association, the Cuban Film Society, and after the revolution, the director of the Cuban Film Institute (ICAIC). Cabrera Infante went into exile in 1961 and was replaced at ICAIC by motion-picture director Alfredo Guevara. The movie industry continued to flourish with Memorias del subdesarrollo (Memories of Underdevelopment, 1968), Lucía (1969), and Retrato de Teresa (Portrait of Teresa, 1979), all of which contained messages that both praised and criticized the revolution. Tomás Gutiérrez Alea directed several award-winning films, including Los Sobrevivientes (The Survivors, 1979), Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate, 1993), and Guantanamera (1994). Cinematographer Nestor Almendros received numerous awards, including the Academy Award in 1979 for his work as a motion-picture photographer on Days of Heaven (1978).

F.

Libraries and Museums

The largest library in Cuba is the José Martí National Library in Havana, containing some 2.2 million volumes. It is the major repository for 20th-century literature, periodicals, monographs, maps, and reference books. The National Museum of Havana houses collections of both classical and modern art along with relics of native cultures. The Revolutionary Museum retains the memorabilia of the 1959 revolution as well as some relics of the wars of independence and the Batista era. The National Archives contain all primary documents from the colonial period to the present.

The History Institute contains primary documents, many of a sensitive nature, on the Cuban Communist Party and other radical groups from the 1950s to the present. It also is the repository for the artifacts and documents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and specific events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, in which the discovery of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba caused a tense standoff between the United States and the USSR. Other important museums are the Colonial and Anthropological museums in Havana, located in restored homes of Spanish officials, which depict the colonial past. The Museum of the City of Havana, also in a colonial palace, houses the papers of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, a journalist who became the city historian of Havana in 1933.

The Morro Castle is a fortress with excellent views of Havana’s harbor and skyline. It now houses a maritime museum. The Guanabacoa Museum, near Morro Castle, provides information about Santería and, occasionally, performances of rituals are given here. The Emilio Bacardi Moreau Museum of natural history and art in Santiago de Cuba displays the natural wildlife and plants of the island and is located in an old rum factory. A museum and monument to the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion stands at Playa Girón, where Cuban troops turned back a force of Cuban exiles which, with the support of the United States, attempted to overthrow the Castro government.