Nieve sobre La Habana: el ideal soviĕtico en la cultura cubana pos-noventa

247 Pages·2017·1.25 MB·Spanish

by  Damaris Puñales AlpÃŁzar

University of Iowa
Iowa Research Online
Theses and Dissertations
Spring 2010
Nieve sobre La Habana: el ideal soviético en la
cultura cubana pos-noventa
Damaris Puñales Alpízar
University of Iowa
Copyright 2010 Damaris Puñales Alpízar
This dissertation is available at Iowa Research Online: https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/579
Recommended Citation
Puñales Alpízar, Damaris. "Nieve sobre La Habana: el ideal soviético en la cultura cubana pos-noventa." PhD (Doctor of Philosophy)
thesis, University of Iowa, 2010.
https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.i3vpvz2w
Follow this and additional works at:https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd
Part of theSpanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons
NIEVE SOBRE LA HABANA:
EL IDEAL SOVIETICO EN LA CULTURA CUBANA POS-NOVENTA

by

Damaris Puñales Alpízar

An Abstract

Of a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy degree in Spanish
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

May 2010

Thesis Supervisors: Associate Professor Kathleen Newman
Professor Daniel Balderston
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ABSTRACT

My dissertation explores how the concepts of collective memory, identity and
nostalgia are defined in Cuban culture after the end of the Soviet Union, and how these
definitions relate to the presence of Soviet culture in Cuban daily life during at least thirty
years, from the 1960s to the 1990s. The presence of Soviet aesthetics and symbols in
Cuban literature and cinema from the 1990s to onward appears not just as physical traces
but also as the representation of a nostalgic space and as the allegory of an identity in
transition. I argue that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a group of Cuban authors
experienced a sense of nostalgia that is linked to the loss of a collective memory from the
period when their nation thrived as an ideological partner of the Soviet Union. I also
argue that despite the fact that the Communist Party continues to hold power, with the de-
penalization of American currency, Cuba is a post–socialist country. These circumstances
contributed to the emergence of an imagined Soviet–Cuban sentimental community,
which despite ideological differences among its members, retains a common focal point:
a generation‘s memories.
The consumption of certain cultural products, among them cartoons, allowed the
formation of a Cuban identity marked by affection towards Soviet cultural forms. Daily
contact with the Soviet experience brought about an aesthetic where the use of Soviet
symbols is frequent: words in Russian, music, graphic arts and other Soviet references.
There are many young Cubans with Russian names; also, in the houses and on the streets
there are still cars and appliances from the Soviet period. This Soviet aesthetic includes
literature, cinematography, music, theatrical performances, and even online sites.
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The Cuban Soviet past continues in the Cuban present as one of the crucial
cultural imaginaries. There is not an ideological nostalgia; nostalgia is a means for
mourning the end of a world. The end of this world, finally, has allowed the birth of
multiple, unstable and personal worlds, some of them related to the Soviet era in Cuba.
I center my analysis on authors such as Anna Lidia Vega Serova, Jesús Díaz,
Adelaida Fernández de Juan, Gleyvis Coro Montanet, Antonio José Ponte and José
Manuel Prieto. In their novels and short stories we encounter traces of Soviet presence.
At the same time, there has been a flourishing of documentaries after the 1990s that
explore what the Soviets left behind in Cuban society after their country disappeared.

Abstract Approved:
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Thesis Supervisor

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Title and Department

____________________________________
Date

____________________________________
Thesis Supervisor

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Title and Department

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Date
NIEVE SOBRE LA HABANA:
EL IDEAL SOVIETICO EN LA CULTURA CUBANA POS-NOVENTA

by

Damaris Puñales Alpízar

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
Doctor of Philosophy degree in Spanish
in the Graduate College of
The University of Iowa

May 2010

Thesis Supervisors: Associate Professor Kathleen Newman
Professor Daniel Balderston
Copyright by
DAMARIS PUÑALES ALPÍZAR
2010
All Rights Reserved
Graduate College
The University of Iowa
Iowa City, Iowa

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL
_______________________

PH.D. THESIS

_________

This is to certify that the Ph.D. thesis of

Damaris Puñales Alpízar

has been approved by the Examining Committee
for the thesis requirement for the Doctor of Philosophy degree
in Spanish at the May 2010 graduation

Thesis Committee:

_______________________________
Kathleen Newman, Thesis Supervisor

_______________________________
Daniel Balderston, Thesis Supervisor

_______________________________
Luis Martin-Estudillo

_______________________________
Tom Lewis

_______________________________
Michel Gobat

_______________________________
Russell Valentino
To my Mom
To Cristian
without them, this dissertation would not be
possible

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The memories of one generation locked irretrievable,
as it were, in the brains and bodies of that generation

Paul Connerton. How Societes Remember

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ACKNOWLEGMENTS

This dissertation is the result of a year of daily hard work and the collaboration of many
friends and colleagues. First of all I want to thank Laura Ruiz Montes: she not only made
the final editing review of my dissertation but during the whole process she was really
helpful with information, books, articles, ideas and contacts. I am in eternal gratitude
with her. I also thank Xenia Reloba de la Cruz, who provided me information and books
in Havana and who was my best company in my trip to Camaguey during the summer of
2009. Vladimir Smith, from the United Kingdom, who without knowing me personally,
made easier my search for sources and books. All his recommendations were taken into
consideration and were very helpful to my work. I also am in debt with Juan Antonio
García Borrero, Gustavo Pérez and Oneyda González who shared their work and offered
me their sincere friendship and wide knowledge about Cuban cinema. Tania Pérez Cano
not just shared ideas and anecdotes with me, but also provided me important books to
complete my dissertation. Other people I would like to thank for their generosity in
having contributed with ideas, articles, comments, suggestions and personal experience
are: José Miguel Sánchez (Yoss), Dmitri Prieto Samsonov, Polina Martínez Shvietsova,
Zoia Barash, Jacqueline Loss and Otoniel Denis Alpízar. I profoundly appreciate my
advisers, Daniel Balderston and Kathleen Newman, because they trusted and supported
me during the whole process. Cristián Gómez Olivares was my biggest fan and supporter
during the endless hours of work. His brilliant comments, ideas and wide literary
knowledge have been like having a live library at hand all the time. This dissertation is
dedicated to my mother, who encouraged me all the way long and always believed in me.
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