Birches Too Difficult to Cut Down: The Rejection and Assimilation of the Soviet Reference in Cuban Culture

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.9.1.0127
• Published date: 01 April 2017
• Date: 01 April 2017
• Pages: 127-141
• Author: Rafael Pedemonte
• Subject Matter: Cuba,USSR,literature,Socialist realism,Marxism,nostalgia

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ARTICLE

BIRCHES TOO DIFFICULT TO CUT DOWN:

THE REJECTION AND ASSIMILATION

OF THE SOVIET REFERENCE IN CUBAN

CULTURE

Rafael Pedemonte

University of Ghent, Belgium

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.

Keywords: Cuba, USSR, literature, Socialist realism, Marxism, nostalgia

Recently, some observers have been alluding to a sort of lasting ‘nostalgia’ con-

cerning the Soviet Union, perceptible in different spheres of society. It is undoubt-

able that during the 1980s, Soviet cooperation brought a kind of material

‘abundance’. As some scholars (Damaris Puñales-Alpízar, Jacqueline Loss, Yoss,

Reina María Rodríguez)1 have convincingly demonstrated, products from the