Culture and Revolution: 60th anniversary of Words to intellectuals
- Written by Redacción ¡ahora!
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Sixty years ago Fidel Castro delivered his speech "Words to the intellectuals", during the first meeting of the historic leader with writers and artists on June 16, 23 and 30 at the National Library José Martí in a deeply complex scene, marked for the birth of the Cuban Revolution.
In this context, members the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in the province of Holguín expressed that the historic speech of that June 30, 1961, has become a standard within the culture throughout the Revolution, which brings together the artistic and intellectual avant-garde of the Caribbean Island in order to serve society from art and creation.
Ariel Zaldívar, university professor and researcher, commented to the ACN that this fact is conditioned by complex moments in universal history, with important centers of hegemonic power that were watching the development of the nascent Cuban Revolution.
He added that Fidel's call to artists opened several possibilities for the alternative intellectual model emerging at that time, accentuated by the diversity of criteria; in addition to that it was the opportunity to raise the foundations of Cuban cultural policy.
On the other hand, historian Minervino Ochoa Carballosa, said that since 1959, Cuba formulated a new cultural policy, if there was something that resembled it from projects totally different from the elitism or commercialism that existed before that date.
This does not mean turning all citizens into artists, but teaching artistic codes, previously understood by only a privileged few, because not only creators are trained, it is also necessary for the work to be socialized and that is achieved with knowledge on the part of the recipients, added Ochoa.
The mutual learning nature of these dialogues demonstrated the breadth of the nascent socialist process in Cuba, where culture as the heritage of the people was among the primary objectives.
"Words to the intellectuals", takes on vitality in the current Cuban context, being essential as the foundation of that critical thinking of artists and writers, because as Fidel said, "the Revolution can only be the daughter of culture and ideas."
