Cuban Identity/ National Identity
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What is a nation?
A nation is a group of people who share the same geographical location, language and cultures.
Cuba became a country in 1868. Prior to that, Cuba had been one of the Spanish colonies for over 300 years. Cuba was also a land where African slaves were sent to work for hundreds of years. Therefore, Cuba has at least three big demographic groups: Africans, Spaniards and indigenous people. Therefore, Cuba has a diversity of cultures although they share the same land and language (Spanish). The cultures include the original rituals of African and indigenous population as well as Spanish influences. Add to this, that African slaves escaped from Haiti (French colony) bringing with them French influences. Music is one of the channels to bring Cuban people together.
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Development of Modern Cuban artistic Nationalism
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Afrocubanismo Movement
The Afrocubanismo Movement during 1920s and 1930s significantly influenced Cuban arts, including Cuban literature, poetry, painting, music and sculpture. It acts as a response to nationalism in Cuba and it urges finding Cuban identity. It rediscovered the African heritage in Cuba which led to the emergence and acceptance of son in Cuba.
Afrocubanismo Movement was developed in two stages. The first stage coincided with Harlem Renaissance in New York. The white intellectuals in Cuba, including Spaniards Pablo Picasso, participated in this movement and brought the interests of African culture to public. The movement also encouraged the public acceptance to Afro-Cuban artists and their works, consequently their poems and essays were able to be published. The empowerment led to the second stage of the Afrocubanismo movement in the 1930s when African culture and religions were widely assimilated to the society.
The movement faded in the early 1940s. However, the movement opened up the African ethnic roots in Cuba. Simultaneously, the son music genre, influenced by African folklore and rhythms, is the best example to represent Cuban music between 1920 and 1940.
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The Cuban artistic Nationalism has two stages. The first stage began as early as the mid-nineteenth century and the supporters were mostly the White intellectuals in Cuba. Even when black artists were allowed to join their art society during that time, they were not allowed to express their ideas of Afro-culture in their artworks. The first stage ended when the second stage, Afrocubanismo movement took place.
Afrocubanism to Arts
The Jungle (1943)
Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982) includes elements of Cubism and Surrealism with African culture in this painting.
The four grotesque figures with mask-like faces emerging from dense vegetation, and has drawn comparisons with his friend, Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937)
La Gitana Tropical (1929)
Víctor Manuel García Valdés (1897-1969) was a Cuban painter whose works combined modern art with primitivism to create distinctive Cuban artworks.
La Gitana Tropical (The Tropical Gipsy) brought out qualities of sadness and strength which are considered as a representative work of Cuban Avant-garde art.
Afrocubanism to Literature
Nicolás Guillén (1902-1989)
Guillén is an important figure representing Cuba as well as Afro-culture. He was a poet, a political activist and a writer.
Motivos de son (1930), a collection of eight poems inspired by the rhythms of son and the life of Afro-cubans. His other publications also emphasized son, including Sóngoro consongo (1931).
Fernando Ortiz Fernández (1881-1969)
A Cuban essayist, anthropologist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture, Fernández explored all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture and collected and recorded folklores. He introduced the concept of transculturalism to Cuba in the 1940s and advocated for black people in Cuba. As an ethnomusicologist he published two books La africanía de la música folklorico de Cuba( 1952 ) and The dances and the theater of the blacks in the Folklore of Cuba ( 1953 ) which are an important contribution to Cuban folk tradition and music.
