José Martí

ENRIQUE Collazo describes him as "small in stature and slim; his being was the embodiment of movement; his talent was great and varied, his brain perceived and reached great heights; he was refined in temperament, an intelligent and tenacious fighter who traveled widely; he knew the world and its inhabitants. While his character was excessively irascible and absolutist, he was always in control of it, which made him an amiable, affectionate, attentive man always prepared to suffer for others. He supported the weak, taught the ignorant, protected those who suffered. He was aristocratic in his tastes, habits and customs, and took democracy to its limits. He was a very restless, impassioned man, who wanted to move as quickly as his thinking, an impossible challenge."

José Martí, according to historian and researcher Gonzalo de Quesada y Miranda, dressed modestly but well. His suit and tie were black, symbolizing mourning for his enslaved homeland. He wore an iron ring fashioned from a piece of the chains he wore as prisoner No 113, on which the word Cuba was engraved. He stood out for his kindness, manners, language and regard.

His love for children was a special quality he possessed. He found great pleasure in writing for them, recounting the wonders of nature and narrating anecdotes and episodes in the struggles of the independence leaders of Our America.

A tireless worker, the magnitude of his written work, the beauty of his extensive collection of letters, his revolutionary writings, his poetry, his speeches, and intensive patriotic travels make him an exceptional man of his time. A brilliant speaker, he fired audiences with the profound content of his words, which sliced the air like a machete blade, arousing admiration and intense and heartfelt emotion in all who heard him, and particularly in the hearts of Cubans.

His health, seriously affected by his imprisonment, did not prevent him from doing his duty. With effort, resistance and sacrifice, he constantly surpassed the limitations it imposed on his life. An example of that is his extraordinary feat in the swamps and mountains of Maisí in easternmost Cuba, after his clandestine return by boat to the island from the United States in April 1895.

A patriot of outstanding qualities in terms of courage, altruism, dignity, loyalty and optimism, he never rested in his impassioned undertakings for the emancipation of Cuba, which occupied a central place within his concept of the greater American homeland.

He was an integral intellectual in terms of his steadfast positions in defense of the finest values of universal culture and that of Latin America in particular. Given the incomparable style of his written works, translations, poems, journalism and art and literary criticisms, he is recognized as an extremely cultured man and also as an intellectual committed to his cause.

A revolutionary convinced of his ideals, a man of unyielding principles and incomparable ideological vision, his sensitivity and political acumen perceived the imperialist danger hovering over the lands of Our America. He was the organizer and guide of the Cuban Revolutionary Party which he created, a party of action, with firm patriotic and internationalist principles.

He was a man in the most universal sense of the word and his elevated ethics, decorum, sincere sense of friendship and honor, his character, and his exemplary public and private conduct have made him a model for every generation of Cubans. That is how José Martí was, and will be for ever, the intellectual author of the assault on the Moncada Garrison and Cuba’s national hero. (Apuntes Biográficos, from the José Martí Multimedia System)

GRANMA

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