José Martí

For other uses, see José Martí (disambiguation).

José Martí
Born	José Julián Martí Pérez (1853-01-28)January 28, 1853 Havana (Cuba, Spanish Empire)
Died	May 19, 1895(1895-05-19) (aged 42) Dos Ríos (Cuba, Spanish Empire)
Cause of death	Gunshot wound
Resting place	Santa Ifigenia Cemetery
Other names	"The Apostle of the Independence of Cuba", "The Teacher"
Education	Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters Licentiate in Civil and Canon Law
Alma mater	University of Zaragoza
Occupations	Politician, poet, writer, teacher, thinker, journalist, combatant
Employer	La Nación
Notable work	La Edad de Oro Ismaelillo Versos Sencillos Versos Libres
Spouse	Carmen Zayas Bazán
Children	José Francisco Martí Zayas-Bazán "Ismaelillo"
Parent(s)	Leonor Pérez Cabrera Mariano Martí Navarro
Military career
Branch	Liberation Army of Cuba
Website	josemarti.cu

José Julián Martí Pérez (Havana, January 28, 1853 – Dos Ríos, May 19, 1895) was a Cuban politician, essayist, journalist and philosopher, founder of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and organizer of the Cuban War of Independence, during which he died in combat. He has been considered the initiator of literary modernismo in Hispanic America.

Biography

Studies and first exile

José Julián Martí Pérez was born in Havana on January 28, 1853. His father was Mariano Martí, a native of the Spanish city of Valencia, and his mother was Leonor Pérez Cabrera, from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. He spent a brief part of his childhood in Valencia (from the age of 4 to 6) before the family returned to Cuba.

Plaque in the Plaza del Miracle del Mocadoret, Valencia (Spain), marking the house where José Martí lived in his childhood.

In 1866 he enrolled in the Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza of Havana. He also entered the Elementary Drawing class at the Professional School of Painting and Sculpture of Havana.

On October 4, 1869, during the first Cuban war of independence (1868–1878), as a squad of the First Battalion of Volunteers was passing along Industrias Street no. 122, where the Valdés Domínguez family lived, laughter was heard from the house and the volunteers took this as a provocation. They returned at night and subjected the house to a thorough search. Among the correspondence they found a letter addressed to Carlos de Castro y Castro, a schoolmate whom, because he had enlisted as a volunteer in the Spanish army to fight the pro-independence forces, they described as an apostate.

For that reason, on October 21, 1869, Martí was committed to the National Prison, accused of treason for writing that letter, together with his friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez. On March 4, 1870, Martí was sentenced to six years in prison, a sentence later commuted to banishment to the Isle of Pines (present-day Isle of Youth), southwest of the main Cuban island. He arrived there on October 13. On December 18 he left for Havana and on January 15, 1871, through efforts made by his parents, he managed to be deported to Spain. There he began his studies at the universities of Madrid and Zaragoza, where he graduated with licentiate degrees in Civil Law and in Philosophy and Letters.

He lived in Zaragoza from May 1873 to November 1874, a period during which he completed his final year to obtain the Bachillerato qualification at the Instituto Goya and obtained the licentiate degrees in Law and in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Zaragoza. Although he graduated with outstanding marks, Martí was unable to collect his degrees because he did not have the money to have them issued. The University of Zaragoza corrected this situation posthumously in 1995.

During his stay in Zaragoza, José Martí contributed to the Diario de Avisos de Zaragoza, a publication of republican leaning directed by Calixto Ariño. In Zaragoza, Martí witnessed a society in full political ferment, with constant clashes between monarchists and republicans, the emergence of an incipient organized workers' movement, the Carlist insurrection and the cantonalist revolution.

From Spain he moved to Paris for a short time. He passed through New York and arrived in Veracruz on February 8, 1875, where he was reunited with his family. In Mexico he formed ties with Manuel Mercado and met Carmen Zayas Bazán, the Cuban woman from Camagüey who would later become his wife. From January 2 to February 24, 1878, he was incognito in Havana as Julián Pérez. Upon arriving in Guatemala he worked at the Central Normal School as professor of Literature and of History of Philosophy. He returned to Mexico to marry Carmen on December 20, 1877. He went back to Guatemala at the beginning of 1878.

Second deportation

In 1878 he returned to Cuba, on August 31, to settle in Havana, and on November 22 José Francisco, his only son, was born. He began his conspiratorial work as one of the founders of the Cuban Central Revolutionary Club, of which he was elected vice president on March 18, 1879. Later the Cuban Revolutionary Committee, based in New York under the presidency of Major General Calixto García, appointed him sub-delegate on the island.

In the law office of his friend Nicolás Azcárate he met Juan Gualberto Gómez. Between August 24 and 26, 1879, a new uprising took place near Santiago de Cuba. On September 17 Martí was arrested and deported to Spain once again, on September 25, 1879, for his ties to what became known as the Little War (Guerra Chiquita), led by the aforementioned General García. Upon arriving in New York, he settled in the boarding house of Manuel Mantilla and his wife, Carmen Millares.

The Cuban Revolutionary Party

Martí managed to bring his wife and son with him on March 3, 1880. They remained together until October 21, when Carmen and José Francisco returned to Cuba. A week later he was elected a member of the Cuban Revolutionary Committee, whose presidency he assumed, replacing García, who had left for Cuba to join the failed Little War.

Between 1880 and 1890 Martí would gain renown in America through articles and chronicles that he sent from New York to important newspapers: La Opinión Nacional of Caracas, La Nación of Buenos Aires and El Partido Liberal of Mexico. He later decided to seek a better situation in Venezuela, where he arrived on January 20, 1881. In Caracas he founded the Revista Venezolana, of which he was able to publish only two issues. In the second issue, Martí wrote a notable essay on the distinguished intellectual Cecilio Acosta that displeased President Guzmán Blanco, reason enough for him to be expelled from the country. In New York he worked for the Appleton publishing house as an editor and translator.

José Martí on a propaganda visit of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (1892)

In mid-1882 he resumed the task of reorganizing the revolutionaries (the supporters of Cuba's total independence from the Spanish metropole), communicating this by letter to Máximo Gómez Báez and Antonio Maceo Grajales. On October 2, 1884, he met with both leaders for the first time and began to collaborate on an insurrectionary plan designed and directed by Generals Gómez and Maceo. He later separated from the movement because he disagreed with the methods of leadership employed and the consequences they would have for the future Cuban republic, as he stated.

On November 30, 1887, he founded an Executive Commission, of which he was elected President, charged with directing the organizational activities of the revolutionaries. In January 1892 he drafted the Bases and the Statutes of the Cuban Revolutionary Party. On April 8, 1892, he was elected delegate of that organization, whose constitution was proclaimed two days later, on April 10, 1892. On the 14th of that month he founded the newspaper Patria, the official organ of the Party. Between 1887 and 1892, Martí served as consul of Uruguay in New York.

Fernandina Plan

José Martí with Fermín Valdés Domínguez and Panchito Gómez Toro in Key West (United States) in 1894

In 1893 and 1894 he traveled through several countries of America and cities of the United States, uniting the main leaders of the Ten Years' War with one another and with the younger ones, and gathering resources for the new conflict. From mid-1894 he accelerated preparations for the Fernandina Plan, with which he intended to promote a short war, without great attrition for the Cubans. On December 8, 1894, he drafted and signed, jointly with Colonels Mayía Rodríguez (representing Máximo Gómez) and Enrique Collazo (representing the patriots on the island), the plan for the uprising in Cuba. The Fernandina Plan was discovered and the ships with which it was to be carried out were seized. Despite the great setback this represented, Martí decided to go ahead with the plans for armed uprisings on the Island, supported by all the main leaders of the previous wars.

Uprising of 1895

On January 29, 1895, together with Mayía and Collazo, he signed the order for the uprising and sent it to Juan Gualberto Gómez for its execution. He immediately left New York for Montecristi, in the Dominican Republic, where Máximo Gómez was waiting for him, and with whom on March 25, 1895, he signed a document known as the Manifesto of Montecristi, the program of the new war. Both leaders arrived in Cuba on April 11, 1895, at Playitas de Cajobabo, Baracoa, in the southeast of the former province of Oriente.

Three days after the landing, they made contact with the forces of Commander Félix Ruenes. On April 15, 1895, the leaders gathered there under the direction of Gómez agreed to confer on Martí the rank of major general for his merits and services rendered.

On April 28, 1895, at the Vuelta Corta camp, in Guantánamo (the eastern end of the province of Oriente), together with Gómez he signed the circular "War Policy". He sent messages to the leaders indicating that they should send a representative to an assembly of delegates to elect a government within a short time. On May 5, 1895, the La Mejorana meeting took place with Gómez and Maceo, where the strategy to be followed was discussed. On May 14, 1895, he signed the "Circular to the Chiefs and Officers of the Liberation Army", the last of the organizational documents of the war, which he also drew up with Máximo Gómez.

On May 18, at the Dos Ríos camp, Martí wrote his last letter to his friend Manuel Mercado; this document is known as his political testament. In a fragment of the letter Martí states:

... I am now every day in danger of giving my life for my country, and for my duty—since I understand it and have the spirit with which to carry it out—of preventing in time, with the independence of Cuba, the United States from spreading over the Antilles and falling, with that added force, upon our lands of America. All that I have done up to today, and all that I will do, is for that. It has had to be in silence, and as if indirectly, because there are things that, in order to be achieved, must go hidden...

Death

Illustration depicting the death of Martí

On May 19, 1895, a Spanish column deployed in the area of Dos Ríos, near Palma Soriano, where the Cubans were encamped. Martí was riding between Gómez and Major General Bartolomé Masó. Upon reaching the site of the action, Gómez told him to stop and remain at the agreed place. Nevertheless, in the course of the combat, he separated from the Cuban forces. Martí rode, without knowing it, toward a group of Spaniards hidden in the brush and was struck by three shots that inflicted mortal wounds on him. His body could not be recovered by the mambises (Cuban soldiers). After several burials, he was finally interred on the 27th, in niche number 134 of the southern gallery of the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba.

The newspaper La Correspondencia de España, in its edition of Friday, May 24, 1895, narrated his death as follows:

"The column of Sandoval that had the encounter with the insurgents near the Contramaestre River was made up of some 500 men, with forces of the second and ninth Peninsular battalions and a cavalry squadron of Hernán Cortés. Cavalry forces of the Hernán Cortés regiment apprehended a spy who was carrying letters for Martí and Máximo Gómez from Maceo. It was learned from the spy that several bands joined together, forming a total of 800 horsemen, were in the village of Dos Ríos. The column commanded by Colonel Sandoval immediately set out for that point, and it marched so swiftly and took so many precautions not to be spotted that it fell upon the insurgents without giving them time for anything but to accept the combat in disarray. The combat lasted two hours. Martí, who, seeing his men waver, was haranguing them revolver in hand, fell wounded by two bullets, one in the neck and the other in the chest, fired with admirable marksmanship by the guide Oliva. Martí's body will be embalmed and taken to Santiago, in order to convince the people of the certainty that so renowned an insurgent leader has been killed."

Death certificate of José Martí

Literal copy

"... «In the general cemetery of the city of Santiago de Cuba, on the 27th day of the month of May 1895, assembled there at eight in the morning, Colonel D. José Ximénez de Sandoval, chief of the column that fought the action of Dos Ríos on the 19th of this month; Infantry Major of the first battalion of the Cuba regiment number 65, D. Manuel Tejerizo Cabrero; the cavalry major-captain, aide to His Excellency General D. Jorge Garrich, D. Enrique Ubieta Mauri; the infantry captain D. Enrique Satué y Carbonell, under the orders of the aforementioned Colonel Ximénez de Sandoval; and the doctor of medicine and surgery D. Pablo A. de Valencia Fons, proceeded, by order of His Excellency the General Governor of this garrison, to the identification and burial of the body of the so-called president of the insurgent Chamber, D. José Martí.

The gentlemen present, most of whom knew the deceased Martí in life, some having dealt with him recently and others previously, unanimously declared that the body displayed before their eyes was that of the man who in life was D. José Martí.
By virtue of this, and the identification having been verified, the aforementioned Colonel ordered that he be given Christian burial, as was carried out in the presence of the said gentlemen and a large group of residents of this city, in no. 134 of the South gallery.

And in compliance with what was ordered by His Excellency, we sign this record for the appropriate purposes and as evidence for the future.- Manuel Tejerizo.- Enrique Ubieta Mauri.- Enrique Satué.- Pablo A. de Valencia.- José X. de Sandoval.»..."

Earlier, Colonel Sandoval had said:

Gentlemen: before death, when men of noble condition such as ourselves fight, hatreds and grudges disappear. No one who feels inspired by noble sentiments should see in these stiff remains an enemy, but a corpse. Spanish soldiers fight to the death, but they have consideration for the vanquished and honors for the dead.

He then announced that "the Spaniards would pay for a tombstone for the niche that holds the remains of Martí."

Illnesses

José Martí's health was not stable. Recent studies have shown that he suffered from sarcoidosis, diagnosed in Spain at the age of eighteen. Probably as a result of this disease he suffered from ocular and nervous system disorders, heart problems and fever. It has also been established that he suffered from a sarcocele (a tumor of the testicle, of the cystic type), with an abundance of fluid around the tumor. To relieve his pain, doctors punctured the tumor periodically. He was finally operated on by Doctor Francisco Montes de Oca, who performed a total excision of the testicle, removing the tumor.

Descendants

José Martí with his son José Francisco in New York (1885)

In 1876 Martí married Carmen Zayas Bazán, with whom he had only one son: José Francisco Martí Zayas-Bazán, nicknamed Ismaelillo (1878–1945). José Francisco enlisted in the Cuban Army during the war of 1895, at the age of seventeen, as soon as he learned that his father had died. At that time he was studying at the Rensselaer Institute of Technology, in Troy, New York. He joined the forces of General Calixto García and with great modesty declined to use Baconao, his father's white horse, which had been sent to him by Salvador Cisneros Betancourt. Calixto García Íñiguez promoted him to captain for his bravery in the battle of Las Tunas. He was an aide to William Taft before the latter became President of the United States. During the republic, he attained the rank of general and was Secretary of Defense and of the Navy, under his close friend Mario García Menocal, in 1921.

Literary work

He was the initiator of modernismo, a movement made up of José Asunción Silva (Colombia), Rubén Darío (Nicaragua), Francisco Gavidia (El Salvador), Julián del Casal (Cuba), Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (Mexico), Manuel de Jesús Galván (Dominican Republic), Enrique Gómez Carrillo (Guatemala), José Santos Chocano (Peru) and Manuel González Prada (Peru), among others.

Poetry

Edition of Ismaelillo published in New York in 1882

• Ismaelillo (1882)
• Versos libres (1882)
• Versos sencillos (1891)
• Edad de oro (1878–1882)
• Flores del destierro (1878–1895).

Essay

• Marido para mi hermanita
• El presidio político en Cuba (1871)
• Nuestra América (1891)

His epistolary work, generally well regarded both literarily and conceptually, also deserves mention. Among his works is La Edad de Oro. Publicación Mensual de Recreo e Instrucción Dedicada a los Niños de América, of which he was the writer (July 1889).

Novel

• Amistad funesta (1885)

Publications of José Martí

• 1869 January: Abdala
• 1869 January: "10 de octubre"
• 1871: El presidio político en Cuba
• 1873: La República Española ante la revolución cubana
• 1875: Amor con amor se paga
• 1882: Ismaelillo
• 1882 February: Ryan vs. Sullivan
• 1882 February: Un incendio gracioso
• 1882 July: El ajusticiamiento de Guiteau
• 1883 January: "Batallas de la Paz"
• 1883 March: "Que son graneros humanos"
• 1883 March: Karl Marx ha muerto
• 1883 March: El Puente de Brooklyn
• 1883 September: "En Coney Island se vacía Nueva York"
• 1883 December: "Los políticos de oficio"
• 1883 December: "Buffalo Bill"
• 1884 April: "Los caminadores"
• 1884 November: Norteamericanos
• 1884 November: El juego de pelota de pies
• 1885 January: Teatro en Nueva York
• 1885 March: "Una gran rosa de bronce encendida"
• 1885 March: Los fundadores de la constitución
• 1885 June: "Somos pueblo original"
• 1885 August: "Los políticos tiene sus púgiles"
• 1886 May: Las revueltas anarquistas de Chicago
• 1886 September: "La enseñanza"
• 1886 October: "La Estatua de la Libertad"
• 1887 April: El poeta Walt Whitman
• 1887 April: El Madison Square
• 1887 November: Ejecución de los dirigentes anarquistas de Chicago
• 1887 November: La gran nevada
• 1888 May: El ferrocarril elevado
• 1888 August: Verano en Nueva York
• 1888 November: "Ojos abiertos, y gargantas secas"
• 1888 November: "Amanece y ya es fragor"
• 1889: La edad de oro
• 1889 May: El centenario de George Washington
• 1889 July: Bañistas
• 1889 August: "Nube Roja"
• 1889 September: "La caza de negros"
• 1890 November: "El jardín de las orquídeas"
• 1891 October: Versos sencillos
• 1891 January: "Nuestra América"
• 1894 January: "¡A Cuba!"
• 1895: Manifiesto de Montecristi – coauthored with Máximo Gómez.

Posthumous work

• Adúltera
• Versos libres

Martí and the Girl of Guatemala

María García Granados y Saborío, daughter of General Miguel García Granados and niece of the General's sister, the journalist and poet María Josefa García Granados, fell in love with Martí when he arrived in Guatemala, and her early death gave rise to the legend of La Niña de Guatemala (the Girl of Guatemala).

On May 10, 1878, the Guatemalan María García Granados y Saborío died, which would give rise to a sad legend inspired by the frustrated love between Martí and María. Martí left his sadness captured in poem IX of his Versos Sencillos.

In addition to Martí's verses of 1891, there are documents that have helped to partially clarify the episode:

• Two other poems that Martí dedicated to María before her death
• Some testimonies from mutual friends
• A short message that María had delivered to the Cuban when he returned married from Mexico
• A letter in which Martí painfully remembered her, addressed to his friend Manuel Mercado
• A character in his only novel.

About María, Martí wrote:
Guatemala, 1877

If at the theatrical festivity—the curtain drawn— She descends the winding staircase, Her foot resembles a little swan That shows its breast of shining silver. […] The bard would wish, when the sun rocks her, To hang his loves upon her enslaving neck; If she suddenly rises, it seems That the earth is about to be covered with flowers! Oh! Each time the exile speaks With fraternal love to the beautiful woman, He sleeps dreaming of the graceful palm tree, Bride of the Sun in burning Egypt.

And in a second poem from May 1877: I love the beautiful disorder, so much more beautiful Since you, the splendid María, Let your hair fall down over your shoulders, As a palm tree would do when loosening its crown! I dust off the lute, I kiss your hand And to you, joyful, goes my brotherly song. How different the song would be If it were played on strands of your braid!

Taken from: Martínez, M.B. Viejos datos reverdecen la leyenda: Martí y la Niña.

The story begins when Martí, only twenty-four years old, arrived in Guatemala from Mexico. In the Aztec country he had enjoyed professional success as a journalist and writer and had been reunited with his family after his political deportation to Spain (1871–1875). In Guatemala he met the dramatic actress Eloísa Agüero and, finally, he became engaged to his future wife, Carmen. In reality, he was arriving on Central American soil after his political disappointment with the authoritarian government of Porfirio Díaz, although he would later end up disappointed by the government of Justo Rufino Barrios as well. Upon arriving in Guatemala he did not fail to express a critical view regarding the inferior status to which women had been subjected in that country: in an article titled "Los códigos nuevos", published in El Progreso on April 22, 1877, he offered a reflection at the request of Joaquín Macal, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Guatemala: "What is the first of the colonial burdens of the deposed legislation that it mentions? The absolute power of the bestial lord over the venerable wife. It gives parental authority to the woman, enables her to bear witness and, by obliging her to observe the law, completes her legal personhood. She who teaches us the law of heaven, is she not capable of knowing that of the earth?"

Thus, he turned his attention to the Guatemalan ladies "of indolent gait, of chaste glances, dressed like the women of the people, with their braids hanging over the shawl, which they call pañolón; the idle hand recounting to the floating ends of the shawl the childish joys or the first sorrows of its owner"; and when he met María García Granados, a similar lady, but more cosmopolitan and educated, he was immediately smitten with her. Here are some descriptions of Miss García Granados:

• M.B. Martínez: "She was a most interesting young woman. I took Martí to a costume ball that was being given at the García Granados home, two days after he had arrived [for the first time] in Guatemala; the two of us were standing in one of the beautiful salons, watching the couples file past [when we saw coming] two young sisters arm in arm. Martí asked me, 'Who is that girl dressed as an Egyptian?' —'That is María, the daughter of the house' [I answered him]. I stopped her and introduced her to my friend and fellow countryman Martí, and the electric spark was kindled."
• José María Izaguirre described her thus: "She was tall, slender and graceful: her hair black as ebony, abundant, curly and soft as silk; her face, without being supremely beautiful, was sweet and pleasant; her deeply black and melancholy eyes, veiled by long lashes, revealed an exquisite sensitivity. Her voice was gentle and harmonious, and her manners so affable that it was impossible to know her without loving her. She played the piano admirably, and when her hand glided with a certain abandon over the keyboard, she knew how to draw from it notes that seemed to come from her soul and went on to move the souls of her listeners."

José María Izaguirre, a Cuban who lived in Guatemala at that time and was director of the then prestigious Instituto Nacional Central para Varones, appointed Martí professor of Literature and of Composition Exercises. Izaguirre, in addition to attending to his teaching duties, organized artistic and literary evenings that Martí frequently attended. It was there that he met María on April 21, 1877: a beautiful adolescent, seven years younger than he. Her father, General Miguel García Granados, had been president a few years earlier and enjoyed great prestige in the Guatemalan society of the Barrios government; he soon became friends with the Cuban émigré and frequently invited him to his residence to play chess, occasions on which Martí would meet María.

At the end of 1877, Martí went to Mexico and did not return until the beginning of the following year, by then married to Carmen. What happened after his marriage has also been commented on later by those who witnessed the events. José María Izaguirre, for example, set out to strengthen the myth of death from love: "When Martí returned with Carmen he no longer went to the general's house, but the feeling had taken deep root in María's soul, and she was not of the temper of those who forget. Her passion was enclosed in this dilemma: to be satisfied, or to die. As the first could not come about, the other recourse remained to her. Indeed, her constitution suffered from the blow, she gradually declined, a continuous sigh consumed her and, despite the care of her family and the efforts of science, after spending a few days in bed without uttering a complaint, her life was extinguished like the perfume of a lily."

When Martí managed to publish the Versos Sencillos, in 1891, Carmen and his son had gone to visit him in New York. Shortly afterward, Carmen secretly embarked for Havana, for which she requested the assistance of the Spanish authorities, thus bringing about the irreversible separation of the marriage and the definitive estrangement from his son. Martí then wrote to a friend: "And to think that I sacrificed the poor little thing, María, for Carmen, who has climbed the stairs of the Spanish consulate to ask for protection from me."

In his poem IX Martí hinted at even more than a death from sadness: he insinuates, allegorically, the suicide of the rejected lover:

Poem IX

I wish, in the shade of a wing, to tell this tale in bloom: the girl of Guatemala, the one who died of love. The bouquets were of lilies; and the trimmings of mignonette and of jasmine; we buried her in a silken box... She gave to the forgetful one a little scented pillow; he came back, came back married; she died of love. Carrying her on a litter went bishops and ambassadors; behind came the people in throngs, all laden with flowers... She, to see him again, went out to see him from the balcony;

he came back with his wife, she died of love. Like red-hot bronze, at the farewell kiss, was her brow—the brow that I have loved most in my life!... She went into the river at dusk, the doctor took her out dead; they say she died of cold, I know she died of love. There, in the icy vault, they laid her on two benches: I kissed her slender hand, I kissed her white shoes. Silent, at nightfall, the gravedigger called me; never again have I seen the one who died of love.

Taken from:
Poems of José Martí

Although the legend created as a consequence of an overly literal interpretation of the poem persists, there is no documentary evidence of sufficient weight capable of proving that María García Granados attempted to take her own life or even that she died as a result of a depressive psychological state. An interview with a descendant of the García Granados family sheds light on the family version, transmitted by oral tradition: it is said that María, although she had a cold, agreed to go swimming with her cousin, which was a habitual activity for them, perhaps to distract herself from the sadness into which she had sunk after the return of Martí, by then married to Carmen. After the outing, María grew worse and died of a respiratory illness from which, according to the informant's family, she already suffered.

It should not go unmentioned that everything seems to indicate that María did not fit the pattern of a shy and vulnerable girl; Guatemalan publications of the period speak of her relatively active participation as a musician and singer outside the home, in public artistic activities organized by societies and institutions—coinciding even with the presence of Martí, who took part in one of them as a speaker. Apparently, she was a popular young woman in the capital's society of the time; María was thus following in the footsteps of her aunt and grandmother María Josefa García Granados, who had died in 1848 and who, in addition to being a poet and journalist, had been very influential in the governments of Guatemala. After María's death, several poems appeared in the Guatemalan press as a posthumous tribute, in which the authors confessed the admiration she had awakened in them.

Political vision

Oil portrait of José Martí (1891)

His political vision was that of a republican and democrat. Furthermore, his political and propaganda work shows these three priorities: the unity of all Cubans as a nation in the postwar civic republican project; the ending of Spanish colonial rule; and preventing American and Spanish expansion. There is almost unanimous information about his great capacity for work and frugality, which, being evident, together with his persuasive speech, earned him recognition from most of his compatriots. Along with this, his lofty moral stature is worth noting, present for instance in a poem in redondillas from his book Versos sencillos that became famous throughout the Hispanic world:

I grow a white rose / in June as in January / for the sincere friend / who gives me his frank hand. / And for the cruel one who tears out / the heart with which I live, / I grow neither thistle nor nettle; / I grow the white rose.

Religious thought

José Martí does not take an antireligious position, but rather criticizes the established religions for their deviations, for the abandonment, at a certain moment of their historical development, of the principles that gave rise to them and of the foundations of religiosity.

An irreligious people will die, because nothing in it nourishes virtue. Human injustices make it weary of virtue; it is necessary that heavenly justice guarantee it.

Having received a religious education, Martí was able to perceive and delve into the differences held by the various religions; he managed to demonstrate through his own experience the necessity of conscience, reason and will, elements that he clearly relates to man's conduct in life, which he always conceived as linked to honesty, justice and human feelings. He looked favorably on religious convictions when they were in defense of the aspects expressed above; anything that fostered their limitation or development constituted an element that held back the healthy and creative thought of man.

Pedagogical thought

Martí stated that the homeland is a community of interests, a unity of traditions...

Influence of Martí

Mural in Varadero

His influence on Cubans is great. In general he is considered by his compatriots to be the principal shaper of Cuban nationality as we know it today. His prestige is reflected in the titles popularly bestowed on him. "The apostle of independence", "the teacher" and "national hero" are the most used.

José Martí is also considered the precursor of modernismo in Latin America, a literary movement that would explode in the region with Rubén Darío. This can be seen especially in the prologue he wrote to his Versos libres, where he defends the value of the originality of poetry born from the depths of one's being ("These are my verses. They are as they are. I borrowed them from no one.") as opposed to the methodism of earlier poets.

Monuments in his memory

• 
  Bust in Buenos Aires (Argentina).
• 
  Bust of José Martí in Vienna (Austria).
• 
  Monument to José Martí in Sofia (Bulgaria).
• 
  Bust of J. Martí – Quebec (Canada)
• 
  Monument to José Martí in the city of Cienfuegos (Cuba).
• 
  José Martí Memorial, in the Plaza de la Revolución, Havana (Cuba).
• 
  Bust in Parque Bustamante, Santiago (Chile).
• 
  Statue in Parque Portales, Santiago (Chile).
• 
  Monument in Madrid (Spain).
• 
  Monument to Martí in Cádiz (Spain).
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  Bust in San Cristóbal de La Laguna (Spain).
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  Statue of José Martí (Ecuador).
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  Bust of José Martí (Collins Park), Miami Beach (U.S.)
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  Statue in Davis Park, Mid-City, New Orleans (U.S.)
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  Monument to José Martí in Central Park, New York (U.S.)
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  Monument to José Martí in Ybor City (Tampa, Florida) (U.S.)
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  Bust of Martí, Parque Cuba, Barranquilla (Colombia).
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  Monument to José Martí in Esposizione Universale Roma (Italy).
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  Monument to José Martí in Mexico City.
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  Bust of J. Martí in Guanajuato (Mexico).
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  Bust in Lima (Peru).
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  Bust of José Martí in Plaza Cuba, Montevideo (Uruguay).
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  Monument to José Martí located in the park that bears his name. Santa Cristina, Oleiros (La Coruña, Spain).
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  Bust of José Martí Pérez in Hanoi (Vietnam).

Honors

• In Argentina, in Buenos Aires, there are two green spaces bearing his name: the Plazoleta José Martí located in Flores, and the Parque José Martí in the General Savio neighborhood of Villa Lugano, in addition to a commemorative bust of the poet.
• In Austria, in the city of Vienna, in the Donaupark, there is a bust of José Martí with the inscription: "Hero of the Independence of Cuba".
• In Belgium, in the City of Brussels, at the Library Espace Maurice Careme on Rue du Chapelain, Anderlecht, stands a bust of J. Martí.
• In Canada, in Quebec, inside the Parc de l'Amérique-Latine, there is a bust inscribed: "Bust of the Apostle of Cuba José Martí".
• In Chile, in the city of Santiago de Chile, in Parque General Bustamante, there is a bust, and in Parque Portales stands a life-size bronze statue, made by the Cuban sculptor José Ramón Villa Soberón and inaugurated in 2017.
• In Chile, in Santiago de Chile, the commune of El Bosque has a public school bearing his name: Escuela Básica José Martí, located on Calle 18 de Septiembre.
• In Chile, in Lota, in the Plaza de Armas, there is a bust donated by the government of Cuba as a gesture of solidarity with the coal miners after the earthquake of 1960. It was inaugurated by the renowned poet Nicolás Guillén.
• China: commemorative postage stamp issued by the People's Republic of China titled "Four World Cultural Figures", image name: Martí, Cuban writer, size: 22mm×33mm. Issued on December 30, 1953.
• In the cities of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Valdivia (Chile), Quito (Ecuador), Paris (France), Xalapa and Veracruz (Mexico), there is a street bearing his name.
• In Cuba, the nation's main airport bears his name: "José Martí International Airport", located in the Municipality of Boyeros.
• In Cuba, in Havana, is the José Martí Stadium, at the intersection of the Malecón and Avenida de Los Presidentes (G Street).
• In Cuba, in the Municipality of Marianao (Havana), there is a bust in the José Martí Civic Plaza, located on 124th Street between Avenues 51 and 43, a work that was inaugurated on Thursday, August 11, 1955, by the Municipal Mayor Francisco Orúe González.
• In Cuba, in the central square of the town of Nueva Paz in Mayabeque Province, there has been a bust of J. Martí since at least 1951.
• India issued a commemorative postage stamp in 1997, on the theme of universal poets and writers, featuring the figure of J. Martí.
• In Los Angeles (U.S.), in Echo Park, there is a bust of J. Martí inscribed with his phrases "Let him who has a Homeland honor it, and let him who has none conquer it." "With all, and for the good of all."
• In Miami Beach (U.S.), in Collins Park, there is a commemorative bust that is "a tribute from all Cubans and Latin Americans in exile honoring his inspired patriotic life dedicated to liberty and justice for all."
• In New Orleans (U.S.), in Davis Park, there is a statue of José Martí.
• In Madrid (Spain), the house where J. Martí lived bears a marble plaque, located at Calle del Desengaño no. 10.
• In France, in Paris, there is a small square, "Place José Martí", located at Avenue Paul Doumer and Rue José Martí.
• In Mexico, in Guanajuato, in the Jardín Reforma square, there is a bust of José Martí with the inscription: "Doing is the best way of Saying".
• In Mexico, in the city of Veracruz, there is a street named Paseo José Martí; at its intersection with Calle Ingeniero Ernesto Domínguez Aguirre stands a bust of José Martí. At one end of Paseo José Martí lies Playa Martí.
• In Mexico, in Xalapa-Enríquez, at the intersection of Avenida Xalapa and Calle Tepic, there is a bust of José Martí with the inscription: "To be cultured is the only way to be free".
• In Portugal, on July 14, 2023, a bust was inaugurated with the inscription: José Martí 1853-1895 Herói Nacional Cubano, located in the Praça da Alegria, in the city of Lisbon.
• In the Dominican Republic, in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the gardens of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, there is a bust of José Martí.
• In San José, capital of Costa Rica, there is a bust placed in the Parque Nacional, facing south toward Avenida 1 Eladio Prado Sáenz.
• In Uruguay, in Montevideo, in Plaza Cuba, there is a bust of José Martí with the inscription: "The Homeland of Martí to the Homeland of Artigas".
• In Venezuela, in Chacao Municipality, there is the Plaza José Martí.
• In Vietnam, in the city of Hanoi, stands a bust of José Martí Pérez, located in the "Taoist flower garden" square.

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  Plaque on the house where J. Martí lived in Madrid.
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  J. Martí Street, in Valdivia.
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  J. Martí Street, in Quito.
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  Plaza José Martí, in Buenos Aires.
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  Martí, Cuban writer, 1953
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  Postage stamp of India (1997), José Martí.

See also

• Order of José Martí
• Nuestra América

Further reading

About Martí

• Abel, Christopher; Torrents, Nissa, eds. (1986). José Martí, Revolutionary Democrat. Durham, U.S.: Duke University Press.
• Aguiar, Fernando (2012). "El modernismo republicano de José Martí". In Aguiar, F.; García, A.; Ribes, A. (eds.). Entre líneas. Ensayos sobre literatura y sociedad (in español). Madrid: CSIC. pp. 57–71.
• Agramonte y Pichardo, Roberto Daniel (1971). Martí y su concepción del mundo (in español). Río Piedras: Universidad de Puerto Rico.
• Belnap, Jeffrey Grant; Fernández, Raúl (1998). José Martí's "Our America": from National to Hemispheric Cultural Studies. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Coleman, Alexander (1975). ""Martí y Martínez Estrada: Historia de una simbiosis espiritual". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 41 (92–93): 629–645.
• Cruz, Jacqueline (March 1992). "Esclava vencedora: La mujer en la obra literaria de José Martí". Hispania (in español) (75.1): 30–37.
• Delgado Correa, Wilkie (May 2011). "José Martí: Unlargo viaje hacia la guerra y la muerte" (in español). Archived from the original on May 12, 2012. Retrieved May 20, 2012.
• Franco, Jean (1979). Historia de la literatura hispanoamericana (in español). Barcelona: Seix Barral. see "La tradición y el cambio: José Martí y Manuel González Prada", pp. 139-157.
• González, Aníbal (1993). "Journalism and the self: the Modernist Chronicles". Journalism and the Development of Spanish American Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 83–100.
• González, Manuel Pedro (1953). "Semblanza de José Martí". Hispania (in español). 36: 43–51.
• Hernández, José M. (1996). Tenenbaum, Barbara A. (ed.). "Martí y Pérez, José Julián". Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture. 3. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons: 534b–536b.
• Henríquez Ureña, Max (1963). "Panorama histórico de la literatura cubana 1492-1952. 2 tomos" (in español). Tomo II. New York: Las Américas: 210–231. {{cite journal}}: |chapter= ignored (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Hodelín Tablada, Ricardo (2007). Enfermedades de José Martí (in español). Santiago de Cuba: Oriente. ISBN 978-959-11-0550-9.
• Izaguirre, José María (1953). "Homenaje a José Martí en el Centenario de su Nacimiento". Revista Cubana (in español). Havana, Cuba: Publicaciones del Ministerio de Educación, Dirección General de Cultura. Archived from the original on July 15, 2014.
• Delgado Correa, Wilkie (2000). José Marti y la Medicina (in español). Havana: Editora Política.
• Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (1979). Historia de la cultura en la América hispánica (in español). Mexico: FCE. pp. 118–124.
• Kirk, John M. (1983). José Martí, Mentor of the Cuban Nation. Tampa: University Presses of Florida.
• Leante, César (1990). "Martí y el destierro". Revista Iberoamericana (in español) (152–153): 823–827.
• Lizaso, Félix (1963). "Normas periodísticas de José Martí". Revista Iberoamericana (in español) (56): 227–249.
• Mañach, Jorge (1963). Martí el apóstol (in español). New York: Las Américas Pub. Prologue by Gabriela Mistral
• Marbán, Jorge (1989). "Evolución y formas en la prosa periodística de José Martí". Revista Iberoamericana (in español) (55): 211–222.
• Masiello, Francine (June 1996). "Melodrama, Sex, and Nation in Latin America's "Fin de Siglo"". Modern Language Quarterly. 57 (2): 269–278.
• Martí, José (2010). "La América Central". Obras completas (in español). 13 (critical ed.). Havana: Centro de Estudios Martianos.
• Martínez, M.B. (n.d.). "Viejos datos reverdecen la leyenda: Martí y la Niña". La Jiribilla (in español). Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved August 23, 2014.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
• Molina de Galindo, Isis (1962). "El presidio político en Cuba de José Martí. Intento de un análisis estilístico". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 54: 311–336.
• Molloy, Silvia (June 1996). "His America, Our America: José Martí Reads Whitman". Modern Language Quarterly. 57 (2): 369–379.
• Oria, Tomás G. (1987). Martí y el krausismo (in español). Boulder: Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies..
• Pérez de Regules, Agustín (April 19, 1953). "La Madrina de Martí". Revista Bohemia (in español). 45 (16). Havana.
• Ramos, Julio; Blanco, John D. (2001). "Divergent Modernities: Culture and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America". Durham: Duke University Press: 151–159, 251–267, 268–279. See particularly "Marti and His Journey to the United States", "'Nuestra America': The Art of Good Governence", The Repose of Heroes: On Poetry and War in Marti" {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Ripoll, C. (n.d.). "La Niña de Guatemala, la vida íntima y secreta de José Martí" (in español). New York: Dos Ríos. Archived from the original on November 6, 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Sacoto, Antonio (1988). "Sarmiento y Martí y el aborigen americano". Del ensayo hispanoamericano del siglo XIX (in español). Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana.
• Sacoto, Antonio (1988). ""Nuestra América" de José Martí". Del ensayo hispanoamericano del siglo XIX (in español). Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana.
• Schulman, Ivan A. (1989). Solé/Abreu (ed.). "José Martí". Latin American Writers. 3 Vols. I. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons: 311–319.
• Stabb, Martín S. (1957). "Martí and the Racists". Hispania (40): 434–439.
• Teja, Ada María (1990). "El origen de la nacionalidad y su toma de conciencia en la obra juvenil de José Martí: semantización de Cuba y España". Revista Iberoamericana (in español) (152–153): 793–822.
• Ward, Thomas (1993). Alcira Arancibia, Juana (ed.). "La historia nacional como intertexto universal en las ideas de Sarmiento, Martí y González Prada". Literatura como intertextualidad; IX Simposio Internacional de Literatura (in español). Buenos Aires: Vinciguerra.
• Ward, Thomas (2004). La resistencia cultural: la nación en el ensayo de las Américas (in español). Lima: Universidad Ricardo Palma. pp. 140–159.
• Ward, Thomas (2007). "Martí y Blaine: entre la colonialidad tenebrosa y la emancipación inalcanzable". Cuban Studies (in español) (38): 100–124.
• Ward, Thomas (October 2007). "From Sarmiento to Martí and Hostos: Extricating the Nation from Coloniality" (PDF). European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (83): 83–104.
• Vitier, Cintio (1982). Temas martianos(Segunda serie) (in español). Havana: Centro de Estudios Martianos.
• Siracusa, Jordi (2005). Adiós, Habana, adiós (in español). introduction by Eusebio Leal Spengler

About his prose

• Miller, Nicola (1999). In the Shadow of the State: Intellectuals and the Quest for National Identity in Twentieth-Century Latin America. London: Verso. pp. 96–114.
• Molloy, Silvia (1997). "His America, Our America: José Martí Reads Whitman". In Foster, David William; Altamiranda, Daniel (eds.). Spanish American Literature: From Romanticism to 'Modernismo' in Latin America. New York and London: Garland. pp. 257–267.
• Fernández Retamar, Roberto (1997). "José Martí en los orígenes del antimperialismo latinoamericano". In Foster, David William; Altamiranda, Daniel (eds.). Spanish American Literature: From Romanticism to 'Modernismo' in Latin America (in español). New York and London: Garland. pp. 247–255.
• Marbán, Jorge (January–June 1989). "Evolución y formas en la prosa periodística de José Martí". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 146–147: 211–222.
• Martí, José (2001). "Los códigos nuevos". Obras completas. Edición crítica (in español). 5. Havana: Centro de Estudios Martianos.
• Ramos, Julio (January–June 1989). "Tres artículos desconocidos de José Martí". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 146–147: 235–247.
• Schwartz, Kessel (1973). "José Martí, the New York Herald and President Garfield's Assassin". Hispania. 56: 335–342.

About his poetry

• Carter, Boyd (1962). "Gutiérrez Nájera y Martí como iniciadores del modernismo". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 28: 295–310.
• Hauser, Rex (January–June 1989). "La poética de la artesanía y las claves sociales en la obra de Martí y González Prada". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 55 (146–147): 223–233.
• Henríquez Ureña, Max (1954). Breve historia del modernismo (in español). Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica. pp. 49–63.
• Omaña, Balmiro (January–June 1989). "Concepción de la poesía de José Martí". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 55 (146–147): 193–209.
• Sánchez, Luis Alberto (1963). Escritores representativos de América. Primera serie. Segunda edición. 3 tomos (in español). Vol. Tomo II: José Martí. Madrid: Gredos. pp. 189–202.
• Schulman, Ivan A. (1960). Símbolo y color en la obra de José Martí (in español). Madrid: Gredos. {{cite book}}: External link in |author= (help)
• Schulman, Ivan A. (1963). "Las estructuras polares en la obra de José Martí y Julián del Casal". Revista Iberoamericana (in español). 56: 251–282.
• Schulman, Ivan A. (1968). Génesis del modernismo: Martí, Nájera, Silva, Casal (in español). Mexico: Colegio de México/Washington University Press.
• Schulman, Ivan A.; González, Manuel Pedro (1969). Martí, Darío y el modernismo (in español). Madrid: Gredos.

Translations

• Хулиан дель Касаль. Хосе Марти. Средь сумерек и теней. Избранные стихотворения. Перевод с испанского Сергея Александровского. — М.: Водолей, 2011. – 256 с. (Julián del Casal. José Martí. Entre las densas sombras. Poesías escogídas. Translation into Russian: Serguei Alexandrovsky. — М.: Editorial Vodoley, 2011. – 256 pages).
• Edgar Allan Poe, El corazón delator, 1890
• Edgar Allan Poe, El cuervo, 1891
• Edgar Allan Poe, El gato negro, 1892

Notes

José Julián Martí Pérez was born in Havana on January 28, 1853. His father was Mariano Martí, a native of the Spanish city of Valencia, and his mother was Leonor Pérez Cabrera, from Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. He spent a brief part of his childhood in Valencia (from the age of 4 to 6) before the family returned to Cuba.

Plaque in the Plaza del Miracle del Mocadoret, Valencia (Spain), marking the house where José Martí lived in his childhood. In 1866 he enrolled in the Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza of Havana. He also entered the Elementary Drawing class at the Professional School of Painting and Sculpture of Havana.

On October 4, 1869, during the first Cuban war of independence (1868–1878), as a squad of the First Battalion of Volunteers was passing along Industrias Street no. 122, where the Valdés Domínguez family lived, laughter was heard from the house and the volunteers took this as a provocation. They returned at night and subjected the house to a thorough search. Among the correspondence they found a letter addressed to Carlos de Castro y Castro, a schoolmate whom, because he had enlisted as a volunteer in the Spanish army to fight the pro-independence forces, they described as an apostate.

For that reason, on October 21, 1869, Martí was committed to the National Prison, accused of treason for writing that letter, together with his friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez. On March 4, 1870, Martí was sentenced to six years in prison, a sentence later commuted to banishment to the Isle of Pines (present-day Isle of Youth), southwest of the main Cuban island. He arrived there on October 13. On December 18 he left for Havana and on January 15, 1871, through efforts made by his parents, he managed to be deported to Spain. There he began his studies at the universities of Madrid and Zaragoza, where he graduated with licentiate degrees in Civil Law and in Philosophy and Letters.

He lived in Zaragoza from May 1873 to November 1874, a period during which he completed his final year to obtain the Bachillerato qualification at the Instituto Goya and obtained the licentiate degrees in Law and in Philosophy and Letters from the University of Zaragoza. Although he graduated with outstanding marks, Martí was unable to collect his degrees because he did not have the money to have them issued. The University of Zaragoza corrected this situation posthumously in 1995.

During his stay in Zaragoza, José Martí contributed to the Diario de Avisos de Zaragoza, a publication of republican leaning directed by Calixto Ariño. In Zaragoza, Martí witnessed a society in full political ferment, with constant clashes between monarchists and republicans, the emergence of an incipient organized workers' movement, the Carlist insurrection and the cantonalist revolution.

External links

• Complete Works of José Martí
• José Martí, a wiki from Cuba
• José Martí y el Proyecto Cubano de Emancipación. Enrique Ubieta. Tiempo de Cuba.
• José Martí, The End of a Myth? × Maarten Van Delden in Literal. Latin American Voices
• josemarti.cu José Martí Portal
• The José Martí page
• José Martí y la República Archived September 26, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
• José Martí page on Poéticous
• José Marti Un poeta
• Works at Gutenberg.org
• Works at the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
• Iconografía Martiana
• Martí y la literatura
• Nuestra América, a compilation of texts by Martí.
• Interactive graphic: Death of José Martí
• Instituto de Integración Latinoamericana
• Carmen Zayas-Bazán
• Martí y Manzanillo
• José Martí Portal.
• Profiles, articles, news and various image galleries of José Martí.
• Selection of articles.
• José Martí.
• Presencia de Nuestro Apóstol José Martí en el Mundo
• ¿Cómo murió Martí? Un análisis desde la ciencia forense