The renowned Camagüey historian Elda Cento Gómez has died

October 31, 2019

This constitutes a significant loss for the people of Camagüey and all of Cuba with the death this Monday, in the country's capital, of local intellectual Elda Cento Gómez, a teacher above any other title.

With her research, she exalted national Culture and, in particular, invited people to love the History of these plains, their traditions and heroes, through stories of love and life that intertwined in the struggle for the independence of the greatest of the Antilles.

No one like the National Prize winner for History in 2015, who was also President of the Union of Historians of Cuba, could tell with such fervor the vicissitudes of the Creoles in the 19th century who sought to rid themselves of Spanish domination; no one like Elda Cento could promote equal passion for those events that forged national identity.

She was 67 years old when she died and Cento's last public appearance, who was a Corresponding Member of the Academy of the History of Cuba, occurred on October 15 during a conversation at the Ateneo Vietnam bookstore, in her city of Camagüey.

With a distinguished career in pedagogy and historiographical research, Cento presided over the Union of Historians of Cuba, and obtained important recognitions such as distinctions for National Culture and Cuban Education and the status of Illustrious Daughter of the province of Camagüey, among many others.

One of her most outstanding books was El camino de la independencia. Joaquín Agüero y el alzamiento de San Francisco de Jucaral, which is rich in the history full of myths of that real hero, and with which Cento achieved the Annual Prize for Cultural Research from the Centro Juan Marinello, and the José Luciano Franco Historical Criticism Prize.

"Her sharp intelligence, her constant humor, her unconditional devotion to her homeland and to history are among many other things that she leaves us. Cuban historiography suffers a significant loss. For those of us who were beside her and her family an irreparable loss. Her sudden departure makes the wound deeper. The history of Camagüey in particular gave meaning to her life, José Martí her obligatory reference," wrote on his Facebook wall, José Rodríguez Barreras, director of the Office of the Historian of the City of Camagüey, cited by Adelante.