From Archivology, treasures to be discovered.

Youth and experience met this last Friday in the Hall of Mirrors of the Sauto Theater to write the pages of the IV Workshop on Archivology and History promoted by the specialists of the provincial Historical Archive.

Youth and experience met this last Friday of June in the Hall of Mirrors of the Sauto Theater, in Matanzas, to write the pages of the IV Workshop on Archivology and History promoted by specialists of the provincial Historical Archive (AHP).

In this edition, the objective was to pay tribute to the poet Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés (Plácido), due to his execution by firing squad for alleged links with the so-called Conspiracy of the Staircase, on June the 28th, 180 years ago.

Hence the presentation, on the part of Leonel Perez Orozco, Curator of the City of Matanzas, of a portrait of the bard totally faithful to his figure. The painting was restored thanks to the joint work between the AHP and the Conservator’s Office.

Very much in tune with the events in which thousands of blacks and mulattos, free or not, and many of them with a trade, were involved that sad 1844, was the lecture Oscuros gladiadores (Dark Gladiators), given by Dr. Isabel Hernandez Campos.

Dark gladiators is the term used by Fidel Castro during the event held in Santiago de Cuba for the 73rd anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks to highlight their role as precursors of the social revolutions in Cuba, commented Hernández Campos.

«In that scenario the Commander in Chief highlighted Matanzas for that legacy of rebelliousness that fortunately is amply documented in the provincial government fund that we have in the AHP. It is only up to us as researchers to study and bring to light those slave uprisings in which women and the contribution of blacks and mestizos to the nation’s culture also shone,» he added.

The complement of this conference came with the presentation of papers developed by students of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the University of Matanzas.

Future lawyers, social communicators and journalists showed how much history is kept in our archives about the struggles of the student body against Batista’s dictatorship, the commemorative constructions such as the hotel building La Dominica, in Cardenas and the natural heritage of the territory with the discovery and conservation of sites such as Las Cuevas de Bellamar.

The IV Workshop of Archivology and History of Matanzas, was a space in which they also discussed the prescriptions prescribed by Dr. Alejandro Cuervo to General Máximo Gómez; the practical solutions to restore documents in the midst of the limitations of means and resources ideal for those purposes, as well as the guide of documentary funds that the Network of Archives of Matanzas has, among other topics.

The workshop was closed with the donation of part of the stationery of Cuban professor, historian and intellectual Juan Francisco González García to the AHP.

Documents donated to the provincial Historical Archive of Matanzas by Juan Francisco González (son).

Juan Francisco, the Historian of the City of Matanzas, was also a teacher and researcher at the Instituto Superior Pedagógico Juan Marinello, director of the provincial Museum Palacio de Junco and of the newspaper Girón, as well as organizer of the Félix Varela Chair of Cuban Studies at the Evangelical Seminary of Theology, in the city of Matanzas.

Juan Francisco González (son): «… besides guarding this treasure, my father’s work will continue to be useful in his hands».

Summary of a program in which Matanzas was ratified as an emporium of rebelliousness, culture and scientific activity.

Written by Ana González Goicochea.