JOSE MARTI -7-

JOSE MARTI, the way I see him (7)

-written for you by me-

By : Graciela Martinez Gonzalez

I am thinking how to write about Jose Martí to somebody that does not know any thing about him or just knows a little, i do not know where to begin.

What should i say first? That he was a patriot, or may be I should talk first about his poetry or may be about his way of thinking, or that he was a translator, or his journalist articles, or his passion and respect for woman or should I talk first about his love for children and his teaching books for them, may be I should begin saying that he is the apostle or that he is a Cuban national hero.

He was an exceptional man, he certainty was a big poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, orator, statesman, abolitionist, a professor, a publisher, a political theorist, a soldier, a lawyer, he is a symbol, a fighter for justice and freedom, a passionate man with a great respect for all men and races, with an eternal lover, CUBA, whom he honor and do not forget any minute of his short life.
"No man has any special right because he belongs to any specific race; just by saying the word man, we have already said all the rights."

You can read most of his work and recognize that he was a man ahead of his time, his talent and genius writings have the wisdom that overcome time.

He was an important figure in the planning and execution of the Cuban War of Independence against Spain as well as the designer of the Cuban Revolutionary Party and its ideology. He died in military action on May 19, 1895.

Martí's three major collections of poems were Ismaelillo (1882), Versos sencillos (1891), and Versos libres, written in the 1880s, but published posthumously in 1913. In his most famous political poem, 'Sueño con claustros de mármol', he takes the reader in his dream world, in which sculptures of dead heroes come alive.

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1853, January 28, began his political activism at a young age. He would travel extensively in Spain, Latin America, and the United States raising awareness and support for the cause of Cuban independence.
He was the elder brother to seven sisters: Leonor, Mariana, Maria de Carmen, Maria de Pilar, Rita Amelia, Antonia and Dolores.

In April the same year, after hearing the news of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Martí and other young students expressed their pain—through group mourning—for the death of a man who had decreed the abolition of slavery in a neighboring country. He signed up at the Escuela Professional de Pintura y Escultura de La Habana (Professional School for Painting and Sculpture of Havana) in September 1867, known as San Alejandro, to take drawing classes.
In 1867, he also entered the school of San Pablo, established and managed by Mendive, where he enrolled for the second and third years of his bachelor's degree, and assisted Mendive with the school's administrative tasks.

In 1869, he published his first political writings in the only edition of the newspaperEl Diablo Cojuelo, published by Fermín Valdés Domínguez. That same year he published "Abdala", a patriotic drama "Abdala" is about a fictional country called Nubia which struggles for liberation.His famous sonnet "10 de octubre", later to become one of his most famous poems, was also written during that year, and was published later in his school newspaper.
Abdala is a dramatic poem in eight scenes where a young warrior, Abdala, agrees to serve Nubia from the invaders, his mother Espirta begs him not to go then he argues with her and leave and he is carried back home from the battle in the arms of his warriors.

“...Love, Mother, for the patria
is not the foolish love for the dirt
and grass where our feet walk;
it is an invincible hatred of those who oppress her,
an eternal hostility toward those who attack her.”

In 21 October 1869, aged 16, he was arrested and incarcerated in the national jail, following an accusation of treason and bribery from the Spanish government upon the discovery of an "reproving" letter, which Martí and a Fermín had written to a friend when he joined the Spanish army.More than four months later, Martí confessed to the charges and was condemned to six years in prison.

In 1871, after serving almost 2 years, he was deported to Spain where he studied law in the University of Zaragoza.
José's maltreatment at the hands of the Spaniards and consequent deportation to Spain in 1871 inspired a tract, Political Imprisonment in Cuba, published in July,he was 18 at the time. This pamphlet's purpose was to move the Spanish public to do something about its government's brutalities in Cuba and promoted the issue of Cuban independence.