Abstract
The concept of ‘nostalgia’ has been recently coined to characterise the remnants of the Soviet past and its psychological impact in Cuban society. This article claims that during the 1960s, relationships with the USSR engendered divergent reactions, sometimes accompanied by strong resistance, to the canons of the ‘International communism’. The Cuban revolutionary experience did not always match with Moscow's priorities, especially in the cultural field, which was reflected on multiple debates about the appropriateness of applying the Soviet model. Although the 1970s and 1980s were decades of massive Soviet influences, producing in Cuba a growing adoption of the Socialist realism's techniques, the fall of the Berlin wall and the Periodo Especial have generated a renovated way of expression. Nowadays, a post-Soviet generation of artists seeks to unveil the fractures produced by the definitive collapse of the illusions embodied by the Soviet Union.
Highlights
The concept of ‘nostalgia’ has been recently coined to characterise the remnants of the Soviet past and its psychological impact in Cuban society
Eastern Bloc: publications for example, as well as canned food, well-known television shows muñequitos or the everlasting home appliances, induce some Cubans to see the 1980s with a touch of longing; a nostalgia that was increased by the brutal contrast with the penuries that the population had to face during the Periodo Especial
We could mention the shortterm president Manuel Urrutia (January–July 1959), who even identified his country with the Capitalist sphere when he received, with unhidden praises, the brand-new American Ambassador in March 1959, Philip Bonsal: ‘Ciertamente, tanto los Estados Unidos como Cuba responden a una misma ideología democrática, republicana y liberal’, said in this opportunity President Urrutia, keeping hard words to the Eastern system: De un lado, nuestra cultura occidental, que tienen por divisa el respeto a los valores del espíritu y a los derechos del hombre, y de otro, la que secuestra tanto la soberanía de los pueblos como la consciencia individual, mediante la persecución y la muerte.[2]
Summary
The concept of ‘nostalgia’ has been recently coined to characterise the remnants of the Soviet past and its psychological impact in Cuban society. Let us not forget Ángel Augier, author of a book surprisingly entitled Do Svidanya!12 (Goodbye) But beyond those numerous examples, we would like to insist that these laudatory expressions should not be taken as a whole, not even as a majority; they were encouraged by an authentic sense of gratitude – explained by the efforts of Soviet hosts who organised ostentatious and gargantuan feasts – but these sort of comments did not represent the predominant feeling of Cuban intellectuals.
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