José Antonio Cortina Sotolongo

José Antonio Cortina, one of the greatest orators Cuba has produced, from Matanzas and "almost Columbian".

He was born in the town of Guanajayabo (today Máximo Gómez).

His maternal grandfather Enrique José Sotolongo is one of the founders of Colón, originally from La Habana, lived there prior to the founding date of 1836. And he created his family in this incipient population. José Antonio's parents were named María Cristóbal Sotolongo y Sardiñas and the Spaniard Juan Manuel Cortina y Aldecoa, they were married on August 29, 1849 in the Parish Church of Nueva Bermeja (today Colón).

According to historian Pelayo Villanueva, José Antonio has fallen into oblivion. Cortina united his name with that of the most important intellectuals of the second half of the 19th Century: Enrique José Varona, Vidal Morales, Francisco Calcagno, Antonio Bachiller, among others.

It is known that in the 1850s Colón achieved important economic development; but 1853 also distinguished it for the birth, on January 18, of Eusebio Hernández, a prominent physician, General of the Liberating Army and great friend of Antonio Maceo; ten days later José Martí Pérez was born in La Habana, who in his childhood visited the place and lived for a few months in its jurisdiction, with all that this represented in his life; and shortly after José Antonio Cortina who resided in his early years in the home of his maternal grandfather.

He studied in Cárdenas and Matanzas. In Colón his two sisters were also born. Still in 1867, before traveling to Spain to study Administrative, Civil and Canonical law, he remained with his family.

Upon his return to Cuba in 1873 he began to distinguish himself for his talent for oratory and to actively participate among the most select of the era.

He published some of his speeches and left unpublished a book of poems. His friendship with José Martí marked his formative stage and he came to have his trust to substitute him as an orator at literary gatherings of Nicolás Azcárate. But his most representative work was the Revista de Cuba which he founded and directed from 1877 to 1884, whose last issue in November was dedicated to the death of its director.

This magazine was awarded at the Amsterdam Exposition and regarded as one of the best in America. It has a broad thematic spectrum: "of Sciences, Law, Literature and Fine Arts". In its headquarters he organized literary gatherings together with Ricardo del Monte, Felipe Poey, José Fornaris, Francisco Sellén, Figarola Caneda, Mendive, Sanguily and others. These meetings were the barometer of a critical and scientific generation in Cuban culture and synthesis of the creative talent of the era.

In the National Library the collection is preserved, in 16 thick volumes, awaiting research that measures the transcendence of its pages and restores the magnitude to José Antonio Cortina, who in only 31 years of life managed to move Cuban society.

On the 149th anniversary of his birth in Matanzas lands we remember this "stirring tribune", artisan of the word and of language, who moved, with his physical presence, many feminine hearts, such as that of Cuban poetess Nieve Xenes, who devoted her verses and her life to this idyllic love.

Communicator par excellence, José Antonio Cortina left a body of work devoted to the progress of his country that deserves study.

He died in the year 1884.