Vicentina Antuña Tabío

Notable Cuban pedagogue and cultural manager of the twentieth century. The relevance of her work as a Latinist at the University of La Habana earned her the nickname Magistra. Recipient of the "José Martí" Order of the Republic of Cuba.

Vicentina Antuña was born on January 22, 1909 in Güines, a town in what was then the province of La Habana.

In the decade of the twenties she enrolled at the University of La Habana. She earned her doctorate from the School of Philosophy and Letters and also from the School of Pedagogy. From April 1934 she was a professor of Latin language and literature.

She took Latin courses at Columbia University (New York, 1936), Latin literature courses at the University of Rome (1956), and Greco-Roman art courses at the Dante Alighieri Institute in Rome (1956).

From a young age she was involved in educational and political activities. Although the José Martí Popular University was closed by Gerardo Machado in 1927, it was revived at the Woodworkers' Union, following the initiative left by Julio Antonio Mella. Vicentina Antuña was technical director and lecturer for several courses of the Popular University at the aforementioned union between 1936 and 1939.

In the general strike of March 1935, where educators played an active role, Vicentina Antuña became a professional activist, which linked her to the struggle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Similarly, she accompanied student leader Ramiro Valdés Daussá in the fight against university "bonchismo." In her political trajectory, her position as a firm ally of the Student Left Wing stood out.

From 1948 she was a founder and Secretary of the Movement for World Peace.

Vicentina Antuña was a defender of those who assaulted the Moncada and a resolute supporter of the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra. She was a leader of a cell of the Civic Movement of Resistance against the dictatorship.

She joined the Cuban feminist movement from 1934 onwards. She participated in the National Women's Congress, La Habana, 1939. She worked for twenty-five years on the board of the Lyceum, the leading association in the struggle for women's rights, an institution oriented toward women's cultural advancement. Vicentina maintained that it was necessary to train women, to carry out arduous educational work to end all prejudices inherited from colonial life and the early stages of the Republic. She understood that it was not enough to educate women alone, but that it was also necessary to include men in that education. She was a member of the editorial board of the Lyceum Magazine. She also participated in other women's movements such as the Association for the Popular Education of Women.

The forty-five years of continuous teaching work at the University of La Habana she dedicated to her work as professor of Latin Language and Literature and Roman Civilization. Her professional prestige allowed her to become founder and director of the School of Letters and Art (1962-1971) and, from 1962, head of its Department of Classical Letters, today the Chair of Philology and Classical Tradition. She was a member of the Scientific Council of the University of La Habana. She is recognized as having introduced new methodologies for teaching classical languages. She published lectures and articles in Cuadernos de la Universidad del Aire, University of La Habana and Prometeo.

She was director of culture of the Ministry of Education (1959-1961) and president of the National Council of Culture (1961-1963).

She participated in congresses on living Latin in Avignon, 1956 and in Rome, 1966, and in the General Conference of UNESCO in Paris in 1960 and 1962. Of her work, it is worth highlighting the speech delivered at the First National Congress of Culture, which took place in La Habana in 1962.

From 1975 she was president of the Cuban National Commission of UNESCO, an organization that performs liaison functions between the international organization and national bodies, promotes Cuba's participation in some of its programs, while the country receives aid from this organization through its experts, materials and equipment.

She was also president of the Spanish Subcommission of the Central Institute of Pedagogical Sciences, member of the Technical Advisory Board of the Ministry of Education, member of the Literature Commission of the Ministry of Culture and member of the Pedagogy Sub-Commission of the National Commission of Scientific Degrees.

In her professional life she received numerous distinctions, decorations and honors: in 1975 she obtained the Order of National Hero of Labor of the Republic of Cuba, for her outstanding work in Cuban education.

Vicentina Antuña was invested with the special category of Professor of Merit, the highest award conferred by Cuban universities to their professors in recognition of their academic merits, in the Great Hall of the University of La Habana, on January 23, 1979.

In January 1989 she received a Tribute from the Ministry of Education on the occasion of her eightieth birthday and fifty-five years of teaching. In November of that same year she was awarded the "José Martí" Order, the highest one granted by the country. In words of praise, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez said that Vicentina Antuña was one of the most outstanding women in our republican history, an intellectual whose thinking was expressed through her exemplary teaching at the University of La Habana.

She died in the city of La Habana on January 8, 1992, at the age of 83.

Source: EN Caribe.org