Fernando Portuondo del Prado

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Cuban pedagogue and historian who conducted important scientific work.

He was born in Santiago de Cuba. He came from a family of patriots who actively participated in the War of Independence.

He completed his early studies in his native city, where he graduated as a bachiller and normal school teacher, and began his teaching career in primary education, where he worked from 1921 to 1924.

He was a delegate to the Revolutionary National Congress of Students in 1923, and the following year he obtained his doctorate in Pedagogy from the University of La Habana.

Between 1925 and 1926 he served as inspector of schools in the former province of Oriente. Subsequently he held the same position in the capital of the Island until 1928, the year in which he obtained, through competitive examination, a position as professor of history at the Normal School for Teachers of La Habana, where he also served as director from 1929 to 1933.

At the proposal of Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez, he served as instructor of the Chair of History of Cuba and of the Introduction to the Colonization of Spain in America, at the University of La Habana, during 1933.

Five years later, and at that same prestigious educational institution, he attained his doctorate in Philosophy and Letters. He attended classes on historical topics offered by professors of the caliber of Claudio Sánchez Albornoz and Ramón Menéndez Pidal; the scientific consultations of Don Fernando Ortiz, and summer courses on history and pedagogy at Columbia University, in the United States.

From 1939, and for a period of 23 years, he taught history at the Institute of Secondary Education of La Víbora (La Habana), an institution of which he was director between 1942 and 1948, distinguishing himself in his position by his support for the work of revolutionary students.

In 1955 he began working as a professor of History of Cuba at the University of La Habana, where he maintained close professional relationships with Elías Entralgo. After the creation of the School of History, in 1962, he served as its vice-director, taught graduate courses, and oversaw research work.

Shortly thereafter he went on to direct the Humanities Section of the Enrique José Varona Pedagogical Institute, where he shared the duties of direction with the teaching of History of Cuba.

Based on his research, lectures, and articles—in which certain inaccuracies in our historiography were clarified—he prepared the volume Studies of History of Cuba, in an edition that collected thirty-two of his works written between 1943 and 1972, many of which he had carried out in collaboration with his wife, the distinguished researcher and professor of History at the University of La Habana Dr. Hortensia Pichardo, with whom he also developed Regarding the Conquest of Cuba.

In his final years he directed a group of historical research at the vice-deanship of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of La Habana.

He was responsible for editing the Cuban Notebooks, and was director of the Educational Advancement Institute of the Ministry of Education.

On numerous occasions he served on juries in contests on historical topics; among them, and systematically, the July 26 Contest, of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR). He participated as a lecturer in radio and television programs. He collaborated in various press organs, such as El Sol, directed by Max Enríquez Ureña, the magazines Cuba, University of La Habana and bohemia, the newspaper Granma, and the Journal of Inter-american Studies, among others.

His work History of Cuba, of great didactic value, which received recognition from the Pan-American Colombist Society and had nine editions between the years 1941 and 2000, constitutes a required reference text for those who study the process of economic, political, and social development of the greatest of the Antilles.

He was a close collaborator of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, alongside whom he distinguished himself as an active promoter and participant in national congresses of history.

He served as president of the XIII National Congress of History, held in 1960. He served as president of the National College of Doctors in Sciences and in Philosophy and Letters. He was a Member of Merit of the Academy of the History of Cuba, member of the National Board of Archaeology and of the Economic Society of Friends of the Country (SEAP). He was awarded posthumously the Medal of the XX Anniversary of the FAR.