Cuba, the Beautiful
Cuba, a rich and beautiful paradise, ravaged by the sugar crisis and a hurricane, cries out for charity.
Loose Pages
Ramiro de Maeztu y Whitney
Vitoria, Basque Country, May 4, 1874–Aravaca, Madrid, October 29, 1936. He was a Spanish essayist, journalist, press correspondent, columnist, diplomat, and political thinker, belonging to the so-called Generation of '98. Between 1928 and 1930, he served as ambassador to Argentina during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and was a promoter of the concept of "hispanidad," a reference for an entire school of cultural and sociopolitical thought in Spain. His work consists mainly of essays and compilations of his press columns. Among his most relevant books are ‘Hacia otra España’ (1899), ‘La crisis del humanismo’ (1920), ‘Don Quijote, Don Juan y la Celestina’ (1926), ‘Defensa de la Hispanidad’ (1934), and ‘La brevedad de la vida en la poesía lírica española’ (1935), which was his admission speech to the Royal Academy of the Language. He was also the author of a novel (‘La guerra del Transvaal’) and a play (‘El sindicato de las esmeraldas’). After the start of the Spanish Civil War, he was arrested, imprisoned, and the victim of one of the roundups carried out by agents of the Provincial Committee of Public Investigation (CPIP, a leftist revolutionary group) in the autumn of 1936. He was shot without trial in the Aravaca cemetery, Madrid. He was 62 years old.
