Entre Rusia y Cuba: Contra la memoria y el olvido
Jorge Ferrer
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Books that explore revolutions always offer something valuable, more so in these troubled times. Besides, when they include details about the author’s life, there is a certain voyeuristic pleasure in reading them, as they allow the reader to delve into the author’s intimacy, learn about their ups and downs and adventures and misadventures. Of course, it’s a well-known fact that writers “remember what they want to remember,” as Agatha Christie said about her memoirs, which weren’t published until after her death. However, in the case of Entre Rusia y Cuba: Contra la memoria y el olvido (Ladera Norte 2024), it doesn’t seem like the author, writer and translator Jorge Ferrer, leaves much out. The book is written with such openness that it feels as if you’re sitting next to him, sharing a few beers. Or a bottle of vodka. Though the book includes the author’s memories, this volume isn’t just a memoir. It’s truly an “unclassifiable” book because it’s an essay on revolutions (in plural), in which Ferrer uses his family’s history and his own as the connecting thread. So here are three life stories that intertwine with the bigger and formidable History. The personal and the national, or perhaps the binational. Feelings and politics. The first life belongs to Federico Ferrer, the author’s grandfather, the byvshi (ex-man or, in Cuban terms, siquitrillado), who was, among other things, a cop in Havana and a janitor and waiter in Manhattan. The story of his love affairs could be a novel in itself. In this section, there are several pages dedicated to Boris Polevoi, the concept of byvshi-ness, and the translation of terms like “worms” and “caterpillars,” which is delightful, semantically speaking. José Lezama Lima, Heberto Padilla, and Virgilio Piñera also make appearances, with Piñera being described as “a byvshi who did not see himself as such until he was told he was and was harassed for it.” |
From the byvshi Federico Ferrer, we move to his son, the apparatchik. The term “del aparato” is familiar to those who grew up in Cuba. As Ferrer explains: “in its primary usage, it refers to mid-level officials of the Party. The Communist Party, that is. In other words, those who don’t belong to the upper echelon of power nor enjoy the privileges of those at the top, the so-called ‘nomenklatura.’” This section details the rise of Comrade Ferrer from a regular employee who took the bus from La Lisa neighborhood to a high-ranking official with a chauffeur (there’s a spicy anecdote about this chauffeur) and a board member of a bank located near the Kremlin.
The life and death of Ferrer junior (Federico’s son) and his wife, the apparátchitsa, take around a quarter of the book. They were the dreamers, the ones who believed in the revolution that ultimately let them down. In the pages dedicated to his father, the author, at a certain point, questions his right to write about him and to criticize him. The answer he gives himself is the core of this book and, perhaps, of all reputable memoirs.
The life and death of Ferrer junior (Federico’s son) and his wife, the apparátchitsa, take around a quarter of the book. They were the dreamers, the ones who believed in the revolution that ultimately let them down. In the pages dedicated to his father, the author, at a certain point, questions his right to write about him and to criticize him. The answer he gives himself is the core of this book and, perhaps, of all reputable memoirs.
In her book En memoria de la memoria, Russian poet Maria Stepanova asserts that our relatives are our hostages while we write about them, but we are also their hostages in the process. And not just because of the trite and ridiculous idea that children do not bear the sins of their parents, but because of a responsibility that is even greater than the one we have towards memory, which is our responsibility towards truth.
The third man in the lineage is the pioner, a term whose origins the author explains: “it comes into Russian from English, specifically from the Boy Scouts movement that existed in Tsarist Russia.” The author’s youth in Moscow, which coincided with the perestroika years, allowed him to witness this process from a front-row seat, from “the belly of the beast.” Or perhaps “the belly of the bear.” After returning to Havana, the disillusioned former pioner went into exile in Barcelona, where he currently lives.
The author’s honesty is truly remarkable. There are episodes, such as those about the Moscow psychiatric hospital, that he could have easily omitted, but didn’t. And there are others that are amusing, of course, like his visit to Fulgencio Batista’s former mansion in Estoril to deliver a phenomenal piece of good news to the resident ghost.
The allegorical image of the byvshi, the apparatchik, and the pioner singing “sones, hymns, and boleros” around the San Juan’s bonfire that closes the book is laden with powerful symbolism. Entre Rusia y Cuba has already joined the ranks of books that examine revolutions and the way culture suffers and thrives within them.
The author’s honesty is truly remarkable. There are episodes, such as those about the Moscow psychiatric hospital, that he could have easily omitted, but didn’t. And there are others that are amusing, of course, like his visit to Fulgencio Batista’s former mansion in Estoril to deliver a phenomenal piece of good news to the resident ghost.
The allegorical image of the byvshi, the apparatchik, and the pioner singing “sones, hymns, and boleros” around the San Juan’s bonfire that closes the book is laden with powerful symbolism. Entre Rusia y Cuba has already joined the ranks of books that examine revolutions and the way culture suffers and thrives within them.
Jorge Ferrer (Havana, 1967), writer and translator of Russian literature, studied journalism at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. Upon returning to Cuba, he was part of Paideia, a dissident cultural collective. In 1994, he went into exile and settled in Barcelona, where he currently lives. Entre Rusia y Cuba: Contra la memoria y el olvido (Ladera Norte, Madrid, 2024) is his most recent book. His columns, chronicles, and interviews have appeared in magazines in Spain and America.
Entre Rusia y Cuba: Contra la memoria y el olvido is a publication by Ladera Norte.
Entre Rusia y Cuba: Contra la memoria y el olvido is a publication by Ladera Norte.
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