Memories, oral and written, have passed from one generation to another as an invaluable inheritance. It is said that José Martí had a high-pitched voice; that he spoke forcefully but softly and that wherever he was, people swirled around him attracted by the magnetism of his fiery verb. Martí overflowed the confines of this Island to lodge in the memory of the world.

Right in the middle of the planet, in Ecuador, stands a monument to the Cuban National Hero. "Homeland is Humanity", can be read at the base of the bust located in Shanghai, China; and in Turkey, his image appears next to that of Atartük, an         emblematic figure of that country's national history.

"Human beings need a three-dimensional image to perpetuate those important figures of our culture and the world." The phrase comes from the perception that, about this field, has the director of the Office of the Cienfuegos City Conservator (OCCC), architect Iran Millán Cuétara, and describes a phenomenon as old as man.

Millán Cuétara has devoted the last few years to the study of monuments and sculptural expressions in homage to the man whom history recognizes as the "most universal of Cubans".  The research started from an existing inventory at the Provincial Heritage Center on the commemorative monuments linked to José Martí in Cienfuegos, and has been extended to a large part of the national geography.

"We started from Pinar del Rio to eastern Cuba. We have visited some of the main cities of the territories, but this does not mean that the subject is exhausted, but up to here, we have evidence of the most transcendental expressions or of greater impact found in the different territories."

The research has so far revealed the existence of 167 monuments dedicated to the Apostle in Cuban territory. Other significant findings bring to light the sculpture of the child Martí in the Institute of History of Cuba, the only one of its kind; as well as the similarity between the sculpture located in the Great Masonic Temple in Havana and the one in the Santa Ifigenia cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.

                                                      The only bust of Martí as a child in the country/Photo: Courtesy of Iran Millán.

"All this has allowed us a very important element: to classify, first, the works according to the stage in which they have been developed; second: the sculptors and architects that have been identified by each stage and how we see expressions in different cities made by the same author," explains the conservator  of Cienfuegos city.

According to this line of research, the sculpture located in José Martí Park in Cienfuegos was erected in 1906 and was the second one dedicated to the Apostle in Cuba, after the one in Havana's Central Park. The study also states that due to their similarities, the group located in the municipality of Caibarién and the one in Cienfuegos were both sculpted by Italian masters, followers of the same style.

"This research is in full development. Because every day we realize that more and more commemorative exponents linked to José Martí are appearing," Millán Cuétara confirms, while showing the results beyond Cuban borders.

José Martí's thought and work had a great impact on the nations of the American continent. It is natural to find his image throughout South America, in Central America, among the peoples of the Caribbean and in the United States. His efforts to unite the Cubans living in the U.S. and to obtain from them the necessary support to carry out the liberating deed took him to the United States.

However, this inventory of Martí's monuments and busts counts until today, some 43 pieces in countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Germany. Others as far away as Austria, Belgium, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, within the European continent, and Asian nations such as Cyprus, India, the Philippines and North Korea, among others.

"We have realized how Cuban culture and that of various countries have taken Martí as their own and express him through their own cultural visions. When you see the bust of Martí that we found in China, you realize that there is an influence of that culture in the work and in its environment. When we look for the monument, when we find the sculpture, we are also investigating and getting to know the presence and impact of Martí in those countries".

One of the most recent sculptural expressions about Martí, in Cuba, is located in the city of Camagüey/Photo: Courtesy of Iran Millán.

Architect Iran Millán Cuétara recognizes that his Marti vocation comes from the inheritance he received from his father. A photo, taken when he was three years old next to an issue of Bohemia magazine with Martí's image on the cover, serves as an introduction to the study that perhaps, later on, may become a book.

"This image encloses a symbolism of what, later on, that three-year-old boy, and already a member of the  Martiano Club  of the Conservator Office, has tried to project. But I have a granddaughter whom we encourage to read Martí. That is also what interests us with this work, to stimulate, to motivate the study of Martí's work. Whoever does not drink from the source that is José Martí, does not know the essence of our nation and our culture and the projection of the Cuban Revolution", explains architect Iran Millán.

Like a wind announcing the rain, José Martí awaited hearts; he touched with his pen and his voice the lives of those who knew him and many others, who still seek him today in the validity of his ideology and in the living marble of the monuments.
The complex located in the municipality of Cruces is considered the second most important in the province of Cienfuegos.

(Taken from 5 de Septiembre)