CAMAGÜEY.- There are very few spaces in the History of Cuba that Francisco Luna Marrero has not examined or questioned for more than four decades in the exercise of his profession. “Martí was one day ahead of me”, says this prestigious historian, born on January 29th, 1949 in Camagüey, the land where he began to forge the vocation of investigating and educating about national events, with a laugh.
"I lived for a long time on Lugareño street, in the bosom of a family of humble origins, although I had friends from the neighborhood who couldn't even go to school because they didn't have shoes," he says and confesses how his house was "a home for revolutionary people: my brother and my father belonged to the militias and my mother was a founder of the CDR”.
The smells of the streets, the colors of a sunrise in the legendary Camagüey, the first teachings and scolding of the strict teacher of the Ramón de Quesada academy and the impressions of the veterans center, located near his home, beat in his memory.
“I saw very old people with threadbare clothes, but full of allegorical medals to a glorious past. One of them was Sabatela, a tall, skinny mulatto who was a very close friend of mine. He told me stories of his adventures from when the independence deeds. In one of my forays I ran away from home one day and he was the one who found me. From a young age I learned that there was a sense of pride in the people of Camagüey for his land. Walking through the different arteries of the city has always meant walking through history”.
With the Triumph of the Revolution, changes took place that gave Cubans a second chance to work together to build a prosperous country. With this in mind, the Literacy Campaign was convened, which mobilized 121,000 popular literacy educators, 35,000 teachers, 15,000 workers and 100,000 students from the Conrado Benítez brigade. One of those brigade members was the boy Luna, who had gone to teach literacy with some classmates.
“I was in 6th grade when I went to Varadero to receive the primer, the manual, the Chinese lantern, the uniform and the instructions necessary to transmit the knowledge. They placed me in a neighborhood called San Miguel de Nuevitas, which is on the road that went to Santa Lucía, and from there they sent me to a military unit from the La Caridad farm. There I educated former members of the Rebel Army and highly regarded militiamen. It was an honor for me to teach those heroes of the Homeland”.
Before the end of '61, between the months of October and November, some 73,976 people in the region learned to read and write. Luna clearly remembers the images at the massive event in Havana, where Fidel declared Cuba a territory free of illiteracy. After participating in that feat that freed the people from illiteracy, Francisco wanted to be a pilot. They turned him down because of his flat-footed condition. His next goal would be to wait for the start of the next year to finish junior high.
“Meanwhile, they placed me for a while in the capital's neighborhood, Contry Club. We almost always saw Fidel pass by in his car. It was common. One day I went out to look for bread and when I was walking along 190 and 19, I recognized the car that was approaching me. I greeted him and to my surprise he stopped before me. When the rear window was lowered, a face covered with a beard of reddish tones peeked out and a hand, like the ones painted by Guayasamín, shook mine. He asked me how I was and about my studies. It was impressive to see the leader who materialized Martí's ideas”.
After completing a mission related to the collection and transport of coffee, in the mountains of Santiago de Cuba and Guantánamo, he was selected to learn the specialty of navigation technician in the city of Leningrad, former Soviet Union. “I visited the Kazan Cathedral, the Museum of Atheism and Religion, the Hermitage, where I appreciated paintings by Rembrandt, weapons from the Middle Ages, goldsmith jewels... and I ran into living history in any artery of the Venice of the North, to those who a few years ago had led the heroic resistance against the Third Reich”.
Back in Cuba, Luna's adventures did not stop: he took a military course in Guanacabibes, then studied at the Preuniveristary of Casino Campestre and when he finished he decided it was time to start a family. “At the end of the 1960s they selected me as a Party cadre and I attended the educational sphere in Camagüey. During that date I was in charge of the organizational process of the Pedagogical Detachment, and in the recruitment of teachers”.
During the mission in Angola, he politically prepared the soldiers who would fight in that country, and later he began to study History at the Pedagogical School. “At the end of my degree I was the teaching secretary of that institution and I had to combine the studies of my profession with that activity. I graduated in '84 and since I wanted to investigate Camagüey, I joined the Academy of Sciences.
In the Provincial Party History section, where I worked as a specialist, I made an inventory of historical research at the University and historical sites in the region. With a map, I went municipality by municipality, and I prepared a report with the help of the oldest inhabitants and the peasants of those areas”.
The Clavellinas Magazine, directed by him and in which he published various works, was another of the great companies to ponder the glorious events of the land of Agramonte: “It was a time without computers and we made it on a typewriter. With the collaboration of Elda Centro, Gustavo Sed and other historians, we were able to disseminate investigations into events related to the province and that had an impact on the country.
In this way, without losing momentum, we also created Camagüey and its history, we were the only province that formed a local history, on its own initiative”. Francisco recounts how he was selected to lead the Office of the Historian, a responsibility that entailed “enormous efforts because we had to create conditions from scratch.
We have an enormous historical wealth: the different combats in the mountains of the independence wars, the caneyes of the Indians, the caves of Sierra de Cubitas, just to mention a few. He needed city and rural archaeologists. When the headquarters were located in San Juan de Dios, a major restoration had to be carried out and dedicating a lot of time to organizational matters took time away from my research”.
Luna comments that the foundation of the Francisco Sánchez Betancourt trades school was another significant moment “because that would be the academy in charge of training specialized personnel in the care of the Historic Center. During the transfer of "the Office" to the building located in Plaza de El Carmen, efforts were also dedicated to its structural renovation. At that time I made the invasion route, on foot, that of Camilo and Che, and that of Maceo, I covered it on horseback”.
This versed in national events pauses, lights a cigar and his face is wrapped in wisps of smoke. He takes a second wind and talks about the future: “History must be constantly nurtured. It is a process that is never finished with a truth because a document, testimony or evidence always appears that updates it.
We must get rid of the idea that our heroes are saints. They have to be deconsecrated. Sometimes we assume positions that distance us from Marxism and approach the sanctification of our leaders. We must worship the truth, even if we don't like it. I have found events that I would not have wanted to be like that, but that's how they happened.
The professor affirms that “if we do not know the events of our country, it is impossible to articulate the international revolutionary ideas of Marxism with national interests. We must insert universal thoughts into the social struggle, to which we aspire, to the common good of an entire society”.
Luna, who recently received the Elda Cento Gómez Provincial History Prize for his excellent work and consecration as a historian, says that: "we live in a time where facts are distorted to stain, for example, the October Revolution or the symbols of socialism. For this reason, you find in an Xmen movie that the Americans are the saviors of the October Crisis, and even if it is a fiction, there are people who take it as a truth”. He states that history cannot be altered, because when it is taught well, an essential service is provided to the population.
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez