Arturo R. de Carricarte Armas

Cuban journalist, writer, and diplomat. Scholar of the life and work of Cuban National Hero José Martí Pérez. Throughout his life he used the pseudonyms "Blas Gil", "Segundo Valbuena", "A. R. de Castro" and "Arracerit".

His memory remains in the institution he founded in 1925, the Casa Natal de José Martí to which he devoted himself, as a sincere and selfless tribute to the Cuban Apostle.

He deployed his multiple literary work in Havana and Marianao without detaching himself from institutions, newspapers and friendships from both cultural centers and from the countries he visited.

He distinguished himself as a journalist inside and outside Cuba. In Veracruz, Mexico he worked in the Revista Martiniana and El Mundo Artístico. He was Spanish language editor of The Havana Post and wrote and collaborated in El Fígaro, Bohemia and the newspaper El Mundo.

Upon dying at the age of 68, in full activity, as he held in Marianao the positions of President of the Association of Journalists and Writers, Official Historian of the City and President of the Culture Section of the Estrada Palma Lodge.

Both in the capital of the Republic and in Marianao, Carricarte was an intellectual highly respected for his creativity and for his human and social relations.

He did his first studies in Havana, where he graduated in 1894 as a bachelor. Not many remember that it was he who defended Leonor Pérez Cabrera, the mother of José Martí, so that she would not be deprived of her rights to occupy – upon the emergence of the semicolony – the house at Paula No.41 (later 102 and currently Leonor Pérez street 314).

When Jorge Mañach published in 1932 his biography "Martí el Apóstol", in thanking the people who in some way provided him with valuable data, he named Arturo R. de Carricarte among the first.

Throughout his life, Carricarte used the pseudonyms Blas Gil, Segundo Valbuena, A .R. de Castro, and Arracerit. He was in Mexico in 1902.

In 1908 he won the Critic's Prize. He distinguished himself as a journalist inside and outside Cuba. In Veracruz, Mexico, the Revista Martiniana and El Mundo Artístico. He was Spanish language editor of The Havana Post. He wrote and collaborated in El Fígaro, Bohemia, El Mundo. For years he wrote the editorials of El Triunfo.

In 1909 he entered the diplomatic service and held the position of Cuban consul in Montevideo (Uruguay). In 1913 he wrote the novel Historia de un vencido and the National Academy of Arts and Letters awarded him the Grand Prize for Literature. In 1920 he founded the Municipal Library of Havana and directed it until 1931. At the Faculty of Law of the University of Havana he was a professor of the Diplomatic and Consular Seminar.

He wrote other narrative texts: Noche trágica, Azul. And numerous essays of undoubted interest: "Why the house where Martí was born belongs to the Cuban people", "The Dictator", on the development of education on this Continent, "What the Montecristi Manifesto says and does not say", "Immortal Cuban Women, Bernarda Toro de Gómez", etc.

In relation to the cultural life of Marianao, I knew him shortly before he died.

A block from the old Town Hall, he had a two-story wooden bungalow built, precisely on the same corner, where the young intellectuals of the city would go, not only to share his conversation, but also his library, and enjoy the charm of his daughters, some cultured mestizas, with precious eyes, living portraits of his beautiful wife.

He deployed his multiple literary work in Havana and Marianao without detaching himself from institutions, newspapers and friendships from both cultural centers and from the countries he visited.

In Havana, before settling in Marianao, he established a family from which he was never separated either.

Undoubtedly he was a personality who contributed to national development from his vision of contradictory confluences. In Havana he was part of that notable group of literary figures and academics in which figures such as José María Chacón y Calvo, Antonio Sánchez de Bustamante, Rafael Montoso, Mario Guiral Moreno, Raimundo Lazo, José Manuel Carbonell, Miguel Ángel Carbonell, José Silverio Jarrín, etc., stood out.

In Marianao, he was an outstanding factor in a distinguished group that rejected the "republic of Baldomero", like the journalist Rafael Conte Mayolino, Evaristo Martínez Alonso, José Sixto de Sola – considered by José Ingenieros "one of the most exalted writers of the new Cuban generation" –, José María Suárez Solís, etc., and at the same time he received and maintained close relations with César San Pedro y Romero, director of the newspaper El sol; Rubén Alfonso Quintero, founder of the Municipal Library "Enrique José Varona" and with the historian Fernando Inclán Lavastida and the young members of the "Grupo Ariel".

His texts on José Martí are numerous. Besides the one mentioned above, he published works that allow for a deeper understanding of the complex nuances of his evaluations. I refer to: Honremos a Martí (1922), Martí en Isla de Pinos, octubre a diciembre de 1870 (1923), Iconografía del Apóstol José Martí (1925), La cubanidad negativa apóstol Martï (1934), Martí y el leonismo (1939), Lo que dice y no dice el manifiesto de Montecristi (1940).

Regarding all of the above, in relation to Carricarte, I once spoke at the Ateneo de Marianao with Dr. Elías Entralgo.

I do not forget his words about the political and social process of the Republic during the six five-year periods between May 20, 1902 and August 12, 1933, and about what came after with the sergeant of September 4 converted into a dominant factor in Cuba, the Fortress of La Cabaña and the Columbia Camp.

Nor do I forget how he spoke of Carricarte's sympathies for the educational institutions he frequented: Belén, Candler College, La Salle, Phillps School, Buenavista, San Francisco de Sales and the Public School "Esteban Borrero Echeverría", on Real street No.130.

Carricarte admired the Borreros. He visited them and spoke of them to those who came to see him. Sometimes he went to the Central Toledo, to converse with the descendants of the slaves of the place and with the wealthy proprietor.

No one, neither in Havana nor in Marianao – that I know of – remembers Arturo R. de Carricarte now. Nor does anyone have plans to deepen their understanding of his ideas and his life. To bring him closer to contemporary changes.