José Antonio Ysidoro Ramos Aguirre

Representative of the first generation of republican playwrights, his work is confined to the first three decades of the century, although his initial play, Almas rebeldes, was published in 1906, and his last, FU-3001, in 1944.

Cuban writer and diplomat. As a diplomat, he carried out numerous missions in Cuban legations in Spain, Portugal, Mexico, and the United States of America. He founded the Society for the Promotion of Theater (1910) and was one of the main promoters of Cuban theater, to which he contributed some of its best works. Among his theatrical pieces, Tembladera (1918) stands out, and among his narrative works, Caniquí (1936). His works address social and political problems. A frequent contributor to numerous Cuban and Spanish publications, he used the pseudonyms El Capitán Araña and Pancho Moreira jr.

He was one of the most illustrious intellectuals of the Republican period; he marked the development of Cuban culture as a writer, playwright, critic, but also as the first person who, in a scientific manner, was concerned with the organization and representation of information in Cuban libraries.

He was born in Havana and spent his childhood and youth in a house located at Manrique Street No. 123. His parents, José Eduardo Ramos Machado and Clemencia Aguirre y Minués, were both natives of the country's capital. He married Josefina de Cepeda, with whom he had a son.

He completed his primary studies normally, although it appears this was not the case with his secondary and university studies, which suffered interruptions and developed in an autodidactic manner. It is documented that his degree of Bachelor of Letters and Sciences was issued by the Institute of Secondary Education in Matanzas in 1921, at the age of 36.

Nevertheless, José A. Ramos's working life began early. At 15 years old, he began working as an English translator and typist in the Department of Public Works. He also began dedicating himself to writing, especially during his first trip to Europe, between 1907 and 1909. Interested in culture, his first inclination was to write, and to this work he devoted himself until the last days of his life. He was a novelist, playwright, and essayist; he raised his voice against social injustices and in favor of intellectual development.

He was an enthusiast of all intellectual endeavors in which he engaged throughout his productive life. With equal brilliance he spoke about the economic significance of women's emancipation—December 5, 1921, Cuban Women's Club—as about Cubanness and mestizaje—September 28, 1937, Society of Afro-Cuban Studies.

For his work in the field of culture, in 1937 he was made a Numbered Member of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, specifically in the Literature section. He was also a member of the Cuban Society of Historical and International Studies.

The primary place in José A. Ramos's life for a long time was occupied by theater, which he attended in the company of his friend Max Henríquez Ureña, visits that ended in meetings and cultural gatherings at Max's house. There, while each of them wrote the chronicle they had to deliver the next day, artists and friends in general delighted in their meetings, and even the two of them displayed their artistic abilities, mainly at the piano. United by their passion for theater, Ramos and Ureña were initiators of the founding of the Society for the Promotion of Theater in April 1910. Ramos also developed an interest in theatrical criticism and one of his brilliant lectures, dedicated to the theater of Tolstoy, delivered at the Society of Lectures, of which he had been the founder, is remembered.

Cuban society at that time and the political situation in the country greatly hindered the possibility of bringing the works of many writers to the stage. Ramos was not satisfied with writing theatrical works full of social denunciations; he also aspired to have his creations performed in theaters. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century, he was the author of four dramas—Almas rebeldes (1906), Una bala perdida (1907), Nanda (1908), La hidra (1908)—and one novel, Humberto Fabra (1908). Although later Ramos referred to these works as "Essays of Adolescence," he exclaimed:

"What good does it do me to write dramas if I cannot have them performed?"

This desire, which the author found impossible to fulfill in Cuba, was what led him to begin a diplomatic career so he could travel and display his works in other parts of the world. On January 24, 1911, at the age of 25, Ramos was appointed First Class Chancellor of the Cuban Consulate in Madrid, Spain.

To perform his duties at the consulate as a true diplomat, Ramos studied conscientiously and worked responsibly. Despite not possessing any professional degree, he was an extremely prepared man thanks to his thirst for reading. He was fluent in English, French, and Italian.

From his appointment onward, he was active in different parts of the world. In August 1911, he assumed the direction of the Madrid consulate until the arrival of the new director. He then returned to Cuba in December 1913 and was promoted to Vice-Consul in Lisbon on June 6, 1914. He remained there until May 1916, when he was transferred to Veracruz, Mexico. On July 27, 1917, he traveled to Vigo, Spain, where he continued his ascent, and in August 1919, he went to work in New York. There he was in charge of the department of Invoices, Bills of Lading, and Ship Dispatch, which was so well organized that his work lasted long after he transferred to Cleveland, Ohio in October 1920.

His ascent in the consular service continued: Athens, New York again... until the Consulate in Athens was closed due to economic problems and Ramos was laid off. By then, he was a bachelor and studying to complete his degree in Philosophy and Letters at the University of Havana. He had learned Portuguese and was perfecting his Greek and Latin, which served him to write in various newspapers about geography, history, and English at the Newton Academy, a secondary school. Also, during this period, he obtained the degree from the Diplomatic and Consular Seminary, attached to the University of Havana.

On September 30, 1922, he returned to diplomatic life when he was appointed consul, this time in Philadelphia. The ten years he lived there were very fruitful. At the University of Pennsylvania, he served as Professor of Spanish Language; he worked and studied to become a library science technician and perfected his knowledge of American literature. During this period, he completed one of his most significant essays—Panorama of American Literature—, some chapters of which were presented by the author himself in various lectures at the Hispano-Cuban Cultural Institution between September and October 1930. In one of them, when Juan Marinello was imprisoned, he made reference to this fact and for that reason a file was opened against him, although by November he had already returned to his normal duties, thanks to his good name and the collaboration of many friends.

His second and most prolonged layoff occurred in 1932, when he was informed that he should present himself in Havana. According to what Ramos himself told his friend José de la Luz León, in April he received a letter that he would later learn was actually addressed to the American consul in the Dominican Republic, containing "unfavorable insinuations" toward the "natives" of the "West Indies." Enraged by the insult to his Dominican friends and confident that they thought the same of Cubans, Ramos addressed a letter to the sender that in his opinion was a "spit," which resulted in his dismissal as consul in the United States, as he was considered persona non grata in that country.

When José Antonio Ramos learned that another file would be opened to investigate his conduct, he chose not to return to his country and made statements against the government of Gerardo Machado. In the aforementioned letter, Ramos said that he did not want to return to Cuba to act hypocritically and thus obtain another job, but instead traveled to Houston to move from there to Mexico and support his wife who was on the Island. He requested leave so that she could collect his salary if they finally paid it. For his trip to Houston, aboard the tanker ship Baldbutte, he had only 300 pesos in his pocket.

In Mexico, he lived from July 1932 to February 1934 as a simple citizen. According to Henríquez Ureña, in that Latin American country he worked as the administrator of a hospital. After Machado's fall, Ramos returned to diplomatic work as Consul General in Genoa. Later he traveled to Veracruz and also had to come to Cuba to finish his university studies once and for all, which he finally accomplished in 1934, according to his teaching records.[4] A year later, in 1935, he began processing his retirement, although all sources assure that he never got to enjoy it.

Ramos was an excellent diplomat. Assigned to the Department of State for a long time, he provided services to it not only as chancellor but also in various commissions to which he was assigned. He participated in numerous events such as:

The Sixth International American Conference (1928)
The Regional Radio Conference (March 12-15, 1937, Havana)
The VI International American Conference (Havana)
The Second Consultative Meeting between the Ministers of Foreign Relations of the American Republics (July 1940, worked as director of the Minutes Journal)

Beyond his work as chancellor, Ramos succeeded in being a link between his people and the cultures of the world. For his merits, José Antonio Ramos was decorated with the Title of Officer of the National Order of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.

Ramos never abandoned his work as a playwright. According to Ureña, his arrival in Madrid in 1911 opened the most productive stage in terms of his literary activity. The first work he wrote there was Liberta (1919), and the first that he was able to see performed on stage was Satanás in 1923 in Barcelona. From then on, driven by success, José Antonio deployed an entire literary endeavor.

He wrote Calibán Rex (1914), El hombre fuerte (1915), Tembladera (1917)—some sources indicate it was in 1916—probably his most important work, which earned him the Prize of the Literary Competition of 1916–1917 of the National Academy of Arts and Letters; he also wrote La recurva (1941), El traidor (1941), according to Ureña, based on a Martian strophe. He was the author of other theatrical works such as Cuando muere el amor (1925), En las manos de Dios (1932), La leyenda de las estrellas (1941), and FU–3001 (1944), an "ingenious comedy of Cuban setting".[5]-[6]

Although Ramos loved theater first and foremost, the novelistic genre was more generous with him. His three main novels were Coaybay (1926, winner of the "Minerva Prize"), Las impurezas de la realidad (1931), and Caniquí (1936). In his literary work, Ramos used two pseudonyms: El Capitán Araña and Pancho Moreira jr.

He also ventured into the essay as another way to express his political feelings and as another means to transmit cultural knowledge. Among his works in this genre, the following stand out: Panorama of North American Literature (1935), Entreactos, a collection of articles, and Manual of the Perfect So-and-So (1916), a social-political commentary.

He also distinguished himself as a literary critic. He wrote from Madrid for the newspaper La Prensa, theatrical chronicles for La Noche, Social, and the Revista de La Habana. The Dictionary of Cuban Literature makes reference to his numerous articles in Cuba Contemporánea, El Fígaro, Cervantes, Revista de Avance, El Siglo, Noticias de Hoy, Revista Bimestre Cubana, Información, El Comercio, Letras, Gaceta del Caribe, El Sol, and El Mundo. The main periodical publications of the era, those whose ideological currents were in agreement with Ramos's ideas, were able to count on the publication of his works on various occasions.

When Ramos began his theatrical career, the cultural situation was such that his first two works would be published in Barcelona, and they would not experience stage production. From the start, his theater would have social meaning; it would combat political scheming, it would be provocative and courageous, and it would fight for self-recognition against foreign penetration. In subsequent years, the author expanded these points, whether with women's equality (Nanda, 1908, Liberta, 1911), social reforms (Una bala perdida, 1907; Calibán Rex, 1914), religious fanaticism (Satanás, 1913), patriotic sentiment (El traidor, 1915), the failure of the 1933 revolution (La recurva, 1939), or the corruption of authenticism (FU-3001, 1944).[7]

But in January 1918 he premiered Tembladera, where he took the family scheme of La hidra from 1908 and contributed the best title of the neocolonial stage until 1947, when Carlos Felipe wrote El chino. The work won the first prize in Literature from the National Academy of Arts and Letters and demonstrated that Ramos was an author capable of overcoming his melodramatic burden and introducing the theme of the moment: the de-Cubanization of the Cuban in the face of North American capital.[7]

In November 1938, by presidential decree, José Antonio Ramos was appointed Technical Advisor to the National Library of Cuba. Although he lacked specialized training, he possessed some theoretical knowledge and certain experience in library work, acquired in the 1930s, when after being laid off from his diplomatic positions he decided to remain at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, where, while working as a professor, he deepened his studies of American literature and also took classes in library science techniques.

As for practice, in 1936, when he was assigned to work permanently in the Department of State, José Antonio Ramos, among other tasks, reorganized and classified the holdings of the library of that organization. The result of that work was so satisfactory that the following comment appeared in the newspaper El Mundo:

"Dr. José Antonio Ramos is one of the most effective officials of our foreign service, and to him we owe the effective organization of the Library of our Chancellery."

Specialists agree that Ramos's work at the National Library transcended purely administrative functions because he also assumed executive tasks. This, obviously, diminished the professional authority of Coronado, the library's Director, although he could not be replaced by Ramos because the government, despite recognizing his talents and merits at the library, would not have tolerated his advanced ideas about the country's social development. Although Ramos's ideas were unconventional, his colleagues followed and supported him.

As Advisor to the Library and practically its Director, Ramos was not satisfied with the library's return to the Castle of the Royal Force, where the narrowness of the space prevented efficient work. As the person in charge of the library, but also as a distinguished Cuban, on several occasions Ramos protested strongly about the delay in construction of the new building for the National Library.

In 1943, Ramos published his Manual of Library Economy, where, among other aspects, he again addressed the topic of public libraries, an institution to which his book was functionally destined. In its third part, Ramos proposed that the public library, even if inaugurated with great festivities and the presence of high-ranking officials, would be sustained by groups of intellectuals truly interested in its progress and effective functioning.

As for the physical space, Ramos expressed that the most important thing is to obtain it—whichever it may be—but in a permanent manner, and he emphasized the importance of the reading room as the most frequently visited area by users: a comfortable place for the reader, with logical arrangement of shelves. He also dedicates space to describing the storage area, where the reader should never go so as not to disturb the specialist, called the "stationer," in his work.

In this manual, Ramos also stopped to detail the conditions necessary for work in the library: furniture, mechanical instruments—file boxes, typewriters, clocks...—simple instruments—stamps and metal guides, book boxes, etc.—cleaning instruments, consumable materials—printed forms, labels, official paper and envelopes, etcetera.

In his effort to create new library institutions, Ramos took advantage of space in the Library Science Epitome to thank the contribution of entities such as the Bibliographic Cultural Association, the "Martyrs of Freedom" Lodge, the "More Light" library in Santiago de las Vegas, among others, in support of the founding of new libraries in the country.

He died in Havana on August 27, 1946, just days after the originals of the second edition of his essay Panorama of North American Literature were completed in the United States.

Works

Theater
Una bala perdida, Havana in 1907
Almas rebeldes, Havana, 1906
La recurva, Havana, editorial la Verónica, 1941
La leyenda de las estrellas, Havana, editorial la Verónica, 1941

Drama
La hidra y Nanda, Havana in 1908
Satanás, published in Madrid, 1913
El hombre fuerte, published in Madrid, 1915
Tembladera, Havana in 1917
Leonarda, Havana in 1921
En las manos de Dios, Mexico by Ediciones Botas, 1933

Comedy
Cuando el amor muere, United States, 1925

Dramatic Novel
Liberta, Havana in 1911

Comic Drama
FU-3001, Havana in 1944

Prize
Prize from the Cuban National Academy of Arts and Letters for Tembladera, 1917