Guáimaro: monuments, symbols and memory I

 A city can be read from the writing of its architecture or its urban shape but it can only be interpreted emotionally, through monuments, Guáimaro is not a city prolific of monuments although it has spread the imprint symbolic in its people that to assume ownership identity. Because of its symbolic and urban brand of its location two of them make up the essential segment : The Obelisk to Constituents in the Constitution Park and the Mausoleum  to Ana Betancourt de Mora.

Chronologically the first to be raised it was the Obelisk to Constituents, which emerged as a project of the for the Historical Facts Pro Teaching Association on the early decade of the forties of last century when the organization was directed by veteran commander mambí Luis Rodolfo Miranda and Rua, the obelisk stone received its first public event on May 7, 1944 and it was opened with a big gathering on July 30 of that year.

So allegorical monument at the base of lead were placed pots containing soil of Cuba historical places as the birthplace of Martí , Abra farm in Isla de Pinos in which the apostle was imprisoned , the Paso de las Damas in the Zaza river where Serafin Sanchez died in combat, from Coliseum victorious battle place as part of the western invasion, from the place in which Mayor Ignacio Agramonte fell in combat in Jimaguayú, Las Taironas battle fought by Antonio Maceo in Pinar del Rio and soil form the house in which mambí General Vicente Garcia was born.

Built from Jaimanita Rock it has 80 square meters of base and an obelisk that rises up to twelve meters from the base, topped with a high relief of the Cuban flag . In the form based sexagonal obelisk has on each side an effigy of Cuban patriots representing one of the old six provinces of the island with his shield cast in bronze and embossed by the artist Juan Hernandez who had been turned collaborator of Martí in New York.

The Patriots represented are: Agramonte on the shield of Camagüey , Martí in Havana, Cespedes in Las Villas, Matanzas by Gomez, Maceo in Pinar del Rio and Calixto Garcia on the shield of the province of Oriente .

In its nearly seventy years of being erected, the obelisk encloses a long history, it was tribune of the strike movement by Pro grinding Elia Sugar Mill, space in which the result of intense social movements have been released, stage for ceremonies, statements and events of all nature and personalities have come to it as Jesus Menendez, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez, Eduardo Chivaz, etc. . it is one of the urban landmarks in the city and a symbol for the villagers .

The mausoleum Ana Betancourt de Mora was designed to hold the remains of the patriot that in Guáimaro, that April 14^th, 1869 demanded the rights of women and as did exclaim Carlos Manuel de Céspedes " the historian of the future will have to say that here a woman went further a century ahead of her time " . A mausoleum was erected - place in the final months of 1981 and it was inaugurated on April 10^th, 1982 when at the ceremony , the remains of Ana Betancourt were brought and deposited in the niche of the monument's base representing gushing button a long pistil of ten meters high topped with the statue of the patriot Ana Betancourt , in the underlying pit are built in bronze famous words of the patriot acclamatory discourse of women's rights during the days following Constituent Assembly of April 10, 1869 .

The mausoleum is adjacent to the General Municipal Museum of Guáimaro and the whole area is a National Monument with the dual function of sacred place and public square. Like the Obelisk, the Mausoleum is part of the imaginary of the people in Guaimaro and one of the symbols of the city's collective memory .