# Graziella Pogolotti turns 89 years old

**Date:** 01/24/2021

Graziella became "Cubanized" immediately upon her arrival from Europe. Feeling ardent passions for Cuba, she went six months without uttering a single word in Spanish, until suddenly, she woke up speaking it fluently. It was because of her aversion to improvisation, which is why she didn't want to use a language before she felt she had mastered it correctly.

These are the words of her father, Marcelo Pogolotti, when he speaks of the arrival from Europe, where Graziella had been born and learned her mother tongue, French, a language she mastered, as well as Italian. Graziella was barely eight years old then.

Here she lived with her parents, Marcelo and Sonia, in a modest home on Peña Pobre Street. The world war had hastened the trip to Cuba. Until then, she barely knew a few words of Spanish. She was familiar with the Slavic language, because her mother was Russian. Family communication contributed to her mastery, to perfection, of these languages.

These impressions from the Cuban painter would be enough to define Graziella's personality. But she would give – and gives – many more reasons to appreciate her intelligence and will over the 90 years we will celebrate this January 24th.

In the autobiographical book Del barro y las voces, published by Letras Cubanas in 1982, Marcelo himself describes the daughter he barely saw, and who, even as a child, would detail to him the painting exhibitions they attended, because Marcelo had lost his sight. Without realizing it, Graziella was forming herself as a critic of visual arts.

Pogolotti himself points out about his daughter: "she became interested in politics. She showed it from the time she wore braids…"

It was easy for Graziella to study in Cuba, attend the University of Havana, graduate with a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters, win a scholarship on contemporary French literature. Having achieved higher degrees in France, she would return immediately to Cuba and followed the struggles undertaken in the university environment, and even studied Journalism at the Manuel Márquez Sterling School. Without disparaging that school, I have heard her say: "I learned little there."

Of course, she herself was a teacher, and not all professors had the intellectual stature of José Zacarías Tallet, for example. But there she learned the craft to communicate with the masses and the tricks of the press. She mastered the typewriter: her companion of all times, until today.

Nothing was easy for Graziella Pogolotti, an only child, whose parents had to struggle under very difficult conditions. However, the wisdom of Marcelo and Sonia contributed

extraordinarily to tempering her character, based on the will and culture that distinguished them.

No one would be lying if they said that Pogolotti is today one of the most cultured intellectuals in Cuba. What doesn't Graziella know about the arts, history, politics, and daily life?

The need to open new paths in culture, taking advantage of the innovations of the Cuban Revolution underway, made her walk down the most hazardous roads, regardless of difficulties. Her years would be enough as examples, since the founding of the Teatro Escambray group, with which she traveled, learning an unsophisticated way of making art, and enriched that beautiful adventure (which she doesn't forget) in the mountains of Las Villas, even though she became involved in the theatrical company to carry out, shall we say, a social study in the Escambray.

None of the specialties of culture, nor of revolutionary political work or Marxist theory, have been foreign to Pogolotti. She had the instinct to recognize where the good for Cuba was, from the days of the insurrectional struggle, even before.

The deep and versatile intellectual, with a mischievous smile when speaking, always surprises with an exceptional viewpoint. Her voice is expected, as a conclusion, at congresses or other gatherings.

She is accustomed to seeing everything, asking those who have the privilege of seeing the light. And she knows how to listen in silence to others. For many years she has had readers, and she is up to date with what is happening in the world and significant cultural events, beginning with

literary currents. Curiosity is one of Graziella Pogolotti's indisputable assets, the source of her knowledge. And that is why she always knows what is new.

Worker at the National Library, university professor and later Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, editor of the magazine Revolución y Cultura, and other publications, serving as head or subordinate over the years, Graziella Pogolotti has always stood out, has learned and taught. If today we ask her what has been her greatest responsibility or most cherished one, she will say: "Right here where I am."

Graziella grows with each day. Don't we read her weekly in Juventud Rebelde and in Granma? What better-learned Spanish language to express as it should be all that is good, or needs improvement!

For Graziella there was a life – according to what she herself has said – from the moment she knew it, that made her see that you always have to learn: Fidel's. The exceptional intellectual considers that one would have to learn from him a little more.

And that is what she tries to do, day by day. And she even remains dissatisfied with what she has done. Graziella is permanently dissatisfied with herself. She thinks she should give more and she achieves it.