House where former Cuban Vice President Enrique José Varona lived in his final years
8th between Linea and 7th.
Enrique José Varona was a Cuban writer, philosopher, thinker, educator, soldier, and politician who participated in the Ten Years' War and many years later became the Vice President of Cuba.
Born in Santa María de Puerto Príncipe, in the province of Camagüey, on April 13, 1849, he completed his primary education in his home province and shortly thereafter in Havana. In 1868, when the Ten Years' War broke out, he joined the battlefield. When it ended in 1878 with the Pact of Zanjón, he joined the autonomist movement and resumed his literary activities, which became more intense. He delivered and published in Havana his famous "Philosophical Lectures on Logic, Psychology, and Morality." Later, after his unsuccessful tenure as a deputy to the Spanish Cortes representing Cuba, he broke with autonomism. Between 1885 and 1895, he collaborated with El Libre Pensamiento, La Habana Elegante, La Ilustración Cubana, and La Revista Cubana, where he published several works of a philosophical, political, literary, and scientific nature.
At José Martí's request in 1895, he took over the editorship of the newspaper Patria in New York, the official organ of the independentist Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC). In 1896, he delivered the lecture titled "The Colonial Failure of Spain." During the American occupation, he held the position of Secretary of Finance and later that of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, implementing the modernization of education through the Varona Plan.
**With the establishment of the Republic in 1902, he dedicated himself entirely to his work as a professor at the University of Havana. He reissued his philosophical lectures, updating them with the most advanced thinking of the early 20th century. He returned to politics, founded the National Conservative Party, and assumed the vice presidency of the Republic during the government of Mario García Menocal (1913-1917). However, frustrated by social realities and the onset of World War I, he entered a period of marked skepticism, which is reflected in the aphorisms of his work "Con el eslabón."
In 1921, he delivered his speech "Yankee Imperialism in Cuba." He also collaborated with the Cuban Bimonthly Review, served as honorary president of the Academy of History, and was a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1923, at the request of communist student leader Julio Antonio Mella, he presided over the founding act of the Federation of University Students (FEU) in Havana. In his later years, he became a mentor and teacher to young Cuban university students. He supported the university reform movement and the youth struggles to overthrow Gerardo Machado's dictatorship. He passed away on November 19, 1933, in his home in El Vedado, Havana.
He was the grandfather of Dora Varona, the widow of Peruvian writer Ciro Alegría, author of "El mundo es ancho y ajeno," "La serpiente de oro," and "Los perros hambrientos.
This house is currently a multi-family dwelling in a state of disrepair.
House where former Cuban Vice President Enrique José Varona lived in his final years
8th between Linea and 7th.
Enrique José Varona was a Cuban writer, philosopher, thinker, educator, soldier, and politician who participated in the Ten Years' War and many years later became the Vice President of Cuba.
Born in Santa María de Puerto Príncipe, in the province of Camagüey, on April 13, 1849, he completed his primary education in his home province and shortly thereafter in Havana. In 1868, when the Ten Years' War broke out, he joined the battlefield. When it ended in 1878 with the Pact of Zanjón, he joined the autonomist movement and resumed his literary activities, which became more intense. He delivered and published in Havana his famous "Philosophical Lectures on Logic, Psychology, and Morality." Later, after his unsuccessful tenure as a deputy to the Spanish Cortes representing Cuba, he broke with autonomism. Between 1885 and 1895, he collaborated with El Libre Pensamiento, La Habana Elegante, La Ilustración Cubana, and La Revista Cubana, where he published several works of a philosophical, political, literary, and scientific nature.
At José Martí's request in 1895, he took over the editorship of the newspaper Patria in New York, the official organ of the independentist Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC). In 1896, he delivered the lecture titled "The Colonial Failure of Spain." During the American occupation, he held the position of Secretary of Finance and later that of Public Instruction and Fine Arts, implementing the modernization of education through the Varona Plan.
**With the establishment of the Republic in 1902, he dedicated himself entirely to his work as a professor at the University of Havana. He reissued his philosophical lectures, updating them with the most advanced thinking of the early 20th century. He returned to politics, founded the National Conservative Party, and assumed the vice presidency of the Republic during the government of Mario García Menocal (1913-1917). However, frustrated by social realities and the onset of World War I, he entered a period of marked skepticism, which is reflected in the aphorisms of his work "Con el eslabón."
In 1921, he delivered his speech "Yankee Imperialism in Cuba." He also collaborated with the Cuban Bimonthly Review, served as honorary president of the Academy of History, and was a member of the Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1923, at the request of communist student leader Julio Antonio Mella, he presided over the founding act of the Federation of University Students (FEU) in Havana. In his later years, he became a mentor and teacher to young Cuban university students. He supported the university reform movement and the youth struggles to overthrow Gerardo Machado's dictatorship. He passed away on November 19, 1933, in his home in El Vedado, Havana.
He was the grandfather of Dora Varona, the widow of Peruvian writer Ciro Alegría, author of "El mundo es ancho y ajeno," "La serpiente de oro," and "Los perros hambrientos.
This house is currently a multi-family dwelling in a state of disrepair.