# Esteban Borrero Echeverría

**Date of birth:** June 26, 1849

**Date of death:** March 29, 1906

**Categories:** Society, Doctor, educator, poet, narrator, independence soldier

Physician, pedagogue, poet, narrator and mambí. Important figure of letters in Cuba during the transition period from the 19th to 20th century.

Son of educator Esteban de Jesús and father of the poets Juana, Dulce María and Ana María, he was an intellectual who displayed exceptional talent both as a man of science and letters. He was educated and worked as a teacher from age 11 in a school founded by his mother in Camagüey, his native city. Later, he became accredited as a Primary Instruction teacher in Puerto Príncipe and, in 1863, he was placed as assistant draftsman in the Engineering Command of his native city. His pedagogical vocation led him to open an academy for adults and, when the War of 68 broke out, he set out to the countryside with his disciples. In the campaign, he founded two schools and served in the military until becoming head of advance service, captain and later colonel. In the conflict, Borrero was taken prisoner, suffered great hardships until the Peace of Zanjón and, after the war, made his living as a shoemaker and baker.

In the capital, where he arrived after being declared suspect by Spanish authorities, Borrero worked as an unpaid teacher and as a bookbinder and bookseller, and studied Land Surveying and the career for Customs Appraiser. In 1879, he published together with Enrique José Varona, the Sellén brothers and other important poets, the poetic selection Arpas amigas. He graduated as a licentiate in Medicine and Surgery, and obtained by competitive examination the position of municipal physician of Puentes Grandes, where he resided for several years. In that Havana locality, the Borrero family home became an important cultural center, since every Sunday, poetry gatherings were held there attended by Julián del Casal, the Uhrbach brothers and other personalities driving Cuban modernism.

Years later, Borrero was co-founder of the Society of Clinical Studies and the Anthropological Society. In 1892, he moved to New York to meet with members of the Revolutionary Junta. Following the outbreak of the War of 95, he was forced to emigrate to the United States, where he worked as a pharmacist, physician and teacher, and where he directed the School of the San Carlos Club, of Cuban emigrants. In exile, he was appointed delegate of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and minister of the government of the Republic in Arms in Costa Rica and El Salvador.

He returned to Cuba in 1902 and represented the Third Army Corps at the Assembly of Liberators. In the context of the Republic, Borrero served as professor of Anatomy, Pedagogical Psychology, History of Pedagogy and School Hygiene at the University of La Habana. He had an important role in directing scientific publications such as Crónica Médico Quirúrgica de la Isla de Cuba, Boletín de la Sociedad Antropológica de la Isla de Cuba and the Revista de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana.

His autobiography was published, in 1906, in the Revista de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias of the University of La Habana, of whose editorial board he was a member. He left in preparation works on medicine and pedagogy; and unpublished, among others, a volume of poems. He translated Broca's Anthropological Institutions and Wentworth's Treatise on Arithmetic.

As a transitional figure between the 19th and 20th centuries, Esteban Borrero is, along with José Martí, Ramón Meza and Julián del Casal, one of the best precedents of the later short story that would flourish during the republican years. The importance of Borrero as a narrator is due to several factors, including being the author of the first book of stories in Cuban literature—Lectura de Pascuas (1899)—in which he gathered stories that had previously been published, accompanied by illustrations by Juana and Dulce María Borrero, two of his daughters.

Esteban Borrero's narrative was characterized by its reflective, skeptical and pessimistic nature, where psychological inquiries, evocations and confrontations of ideas abound with the aim of understanding human behavior. This interest, in turn, led him to resort to satire, as well as to symbolic and allegorical elements. This occurs in Calófilo (1879), where the main character struggles between the precariousness of his existence and the search for pure forms of beauty, truth and art; or in the novella Aventura de las hormigas (1888-1891), a debate work in which human stupidity is criticized from the perspective of an ant colony.

Without a doubt, the most well-known narrative by Esteban Borrero is the short story "El ciervo encantado" (1905), which constitutes a historical allegory and, at the same time, a satirical-political fable about Cuba's situation at the beginning of the 20th century, and, at the same time, the republican period. The narrative, which unfolds in a prehistoric era and an imaginary island, became the first Cuban fictional account to address the theme of United States interference in national affairs. As occurs in Borrero's narrative in general, this story is also characterized by a naturalist aesthetic with overflowing scientific explanations, philosophical musings, abundant citations in Latin and varied medical, zoological and physical-naturalist terminology.

Interested in the visual aspect of his books, Esteban Borrero developed projects together with his daughter Dulce María Borrero, who in addition to being a poet was a distinguished painter and illustrator. Thus was born the book Don Quijote poeta (1905), with works by both. Furthermore, Borrero was interested in dedicating narrative books to younger audiences, for whom he published school works such as El amigo del niño (1906).

In the twilight of his life, two years before his seventieth birthday, he decided to take his own life on March 29, 1906, in San Diego de los Baños, Pinar del Río province. However, by right, for being an outstanding patriot and educator, physician and poet, Esteban Borrero Echeverría is found on the list of the best sons of Cuba.

Active Bibliography
Poesías, Imp. La Económica, La Habana, 1878.

La vieja ortodoxia y la ciencia moderna (Discurso leído en el Ateneo de La Habana), Imp. Militar, La Habana, 1889.

Lectura de Pascuas. Una novelita. Machito Pichón. Cuestión de monedas, Imp. El Fígaro, La Habana, 1899.

Las Bellas Artes y su influencia social, Imp. Avisador Comercial, La Habana, 1900.

Alrededor del Quijote (Trabajos escritos con motivo del 3er centenario de la publicación de la obra maestra de Cervantes), Librería e Imprenta La Moderna Poesía, La Habana, 1905.

El ciervo encantado. Cuento prehistórico, Imp. El Avisador Comercial, La Habana, 1905.

Don Quijote, poeta. Narración cervantesca (Escrita con motivo del 3er centenario de la publicación de la obra maestra de Cervantes), Imp. La Moderna Poesía, La Habana, 1905.

El amigo del niño (Libro primero de lectura), Imp. La Moderna Poesía, La Habana, 1906.

Alma cubana, Imp. La Prueba, La Habana, 1916.

Source: EnCaribe.org