Havana city historian Eusebio Leal dead

[Nino]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-eusebio-leal-obituary/eusebio-leal-castro-loyalist-who-started-old-havana-restoration-dies-idUSKCN24W2G8

Eusebio Leal, Castro loyalist who started Old Havana restoration, dies

 

Nelson Acosta

HAVANA (Reuters) - Eusebio Leal, a historian and orator who befriended Fidel Castro and led the reconstruction of the crumbling historic center of Havana, died on Friday morning from a “painful illness,” Cuban official media said. He was 77.

 

 

FILE PHOTO: Eusebio Leal, the official historian of Havana, addresses the audience during an event with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (not pictured) and Cuba's First Secretary of the Communist Party and former President Raul Castro (not pictured) at the Capitol, in Havana, Cuba July 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fernando Medina/File Photo

Calling himself a “Fidelist” rather than a Marxist, Leal was a member of the ruling Cuban Communist Party’s elite Central Committee and came to be seen as an elder statesman of Cuba.

Inside Cuba, he earned recognition as an articulate historian, originally a self-taught student who through intellect and hard work passed the university entrance exam without a formal education.

He would go on to earn a doctorate in history and become a member of Cuba’s National Assembly.

Outside Cuba, he was best known as leader of the project to rebuild Old Havana, the historic center built by Spanish colonists which had been deteriorating from age, neglect and the damaging effects of seawater on the buildings along Havana’s famous boardwalk.

The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) named Old Havana a World Heritage site. With financial help from Spain and under the direction of Leal, Cuba rebuilt dozens of colonial-era buildings, contrasting sharply with the many that continued to crumble.

The campaign helped make Old Havana a tourist attraction that was an alternative to the country’s popular beach resorts.

Leal was a close friend of Castro as well as his younger brother Raul Castro, who officially took over the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party in 2011, though he shied away from overtly political gestures, concentrating on academia and rebuilding the historic center.

“More than a Marxist, I was a Fidelist,” Leal told a meeting of artists and writers in April 2014. He added, referring to Fidel Castro, “His thinking was more inclusive and comprehensive than the dogmatic canons or doctrine.”

“Fidel was the only one capable of uniting this country after the revolution, in the face of so many discordant ideas,” he said.

Leal said he built his appreciation for restoring old buildings on his early dedication to the Roman Catholic Church, which fell out of favor in the early days of the communist government but later regained stature with the Castro brothers and other aging revolutionaries.

“My cultural education was formed through the discipline of the church,” he said in a 2010 interview with Cuban state television. “It was difficult to make religion and revolution compatible. People didn’t understand, and there were some difficult moments, but for me they were never incompatible.”

Leal also embraced the market-oriented economic reforms implemented under Raul Castro, saying the country must produce economically in order to progress.

“Bread is just as important as thinking. One must have bread in order to think,” Leal said. “Think about it. Bread comes before philosophy.”

 

 

[Nino]

 

[LLC]

Great video. Thanks for posting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ryan]

Somebody I would have loved to have met and never got a chance. 

Very rare in Cuba, or anywhere, to hear of anyone so universally well-liked and well-regarded. Especially someone so well-educated, well-spoken and not a populist. As far as I remember when the military tried to oust him from his position a few years ago, he got it back due to public outcry. A rare thing in Cuba, or again, anywhere. 

Plus, while there are plenty of negative things to say about Cuba, I find it admirable that any city would run and finance an "Office of the City Historian"

He gave a talk at the Convention Centre on the Wednesday morning of the Habanos festival in 2019. The topic was "Havana and The Habano", something like that. I tried to go but couldn't get a ticket. I'm not big on selfies (well I kind of am) but I would have loved one with him. And just even 10 minutes with him.

I hope what he has done and tried to do for Havana can continue.

[Ken Gargett]

just saw a report on this. interesting stuff and interesting guy.

i have added it in case anyone is interested. so terrific stuff above though.

 

Eusebio Leal Spengler, Cuban historian and restorer of Old Havana, dies aged 77

Prominent intellectual is credited with rejuvenating crumbling centre into tourist hub

Associated Press

Sat 1 Aug 2020 13.31 AESTFirst published on Sat 1 Aug 2020 13.24 AEST

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 Eusebio Leal Spengler, right, with former US secretary of state John Kerry. The prominent de-facto mayor of Old Havana has died aged 77. Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/AP

Eusebio Leal Spengler, the Cuban historian who oversaw the transformation of Old Havana from a crumbling quarter into an immaculately restored colonial tourist attraction, has died at the age 77. He had been suffering from cancer.

Leal and his restoration efforts became so famous that he became the de-facto mayor of the historic city centre and one of the nation’s most prominent public intellectuals.

“To call it reconstruction of something that seemed dead and buried may draw dirty looks and dismissals that ours is a romantic crusade,” Leal wrote in a city bulletin in 2010. “But if that were the case, we wouldn’t feel embarrassed to be seen as romantics in times that are so apocalyptic.”

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Born in Havana on 11 September 1942, Leal became city historian in 1967 and recognised that the resurrection of its historic district could be a moneymaker. That became especially important when communist Cuba embraced foreign tourism en masse after the disbanding of the Soviet Union. The loss of its billions of dollars in annual subsidies to the island brought the economy to the brink of total collapse.

After a series of nationwide economic reforms and the December 2014 declaration of detente with the US, Leal’s government-driven restoration of Old Havana gained momentum with the opening of hundreds of private businesses, from elegant restaurants to art galleries, that filled with tourists as visits to the country soared.

The boom raised worries about gentrification as expatriate Cubans or those with ties to foreign capital bought out longtime residents and turned their homes into businesses.

 

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 Leal is credited with restoring Old Havana’s historic heart. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

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Leal’s office refurbished more than 300 buildings in Old Havana, the heart of a city founded in 1519 by the Spanish. He got all of Old Havana designated as a Unesco world heritage site in 1982.

That distinction brought international funding to revitalise the area, but Leal was also granted unprecedented autonomy by government superiors, allowing him to levy taxes in the neighbourhood and keep the profits his projects generated to reinvest in new rebuilding efforts.

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Leal was a member of Cuba’s parliament, but enjoyed more power serving on the central committee of the Communist party. It was not uncommon for him to travel to the airport to greet arriving foreign heads of state, as well as oversee public political and cultural events.

By February 2008, Leal’s name was mentioned as a candidate for major promotion when Raúl Castro succeeded his brother Fidel as Cuba’s president – especially given the city historian’s generally moderate political views. Instead, Leal stayed at the helm of Old Havana.

 

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 El Morro fortress, which guards Havana, was restored by Leal. Photograph: Stephen Taylor/Alamy Stock Photo

Leal rebuilt tourist-friendly sites such as El Floridita, where Ernest Hemingway is said to have helped pioneer the daiquiri, and another famous watering hole, La Bodeguita del Medio. He oversaw restoration of some of the faded facade of the Malecón, the city’s famous seawall, and El Morro, the Spanish fort that guards the entrance to the Havana harbour.

One of his largest projects was the restoration of the domed Capitol building to become the seat of the Cuban parliament as it was before Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

 

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 Havana’s Capitol building. Photograph: Ernesto Mastrascusa/EPA

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But the on-the-surface charm of Leal’s efforts belied the problems of Cubans who live in grinding poverty mere blocks from tourist areas.

When the New York Times wrote a largely favourable 2007 article saying that Leal’s work had far more aesthetic benefits than real value for Old Havana residents, the visibly angry city historian organised a press conference to denounce the article, the reporter who wrote it and the newspaper.

“The question is, ‘Isn’t culture a positive? Isn’t the state of [Cuban] culture a positive?’,” Leal demanded to know.