On Tuesday night, Prieto closed the main activity to mark Cuban Culture Day (October 20), headed by Cuban Parliament President Ricardo Alarcón.

The Cuban Minister affirmed that stoicism, generosity and disregard for material things in the face of the call of duty, characterize the best of the island’s revolutionary tradition and artistic vanguard.  

He recalled that the founders of the nation, led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, loved poetry, music and other artistic expressions.

He stressed that, in all epochs, creators have headed resistance against any attempt of distortion or cultural absorption, and underlined how they have accompanied the people in the worst moments of the special economic period in the 1990’s.

The presence of Cuban artists in areas devastated by the last hurricanes that hit the island also deserves our tribute and congratulation, he expressed. 

Prieto praised the center by painter and ceramicist Nelson Dominguez inaugurated on Tuesday at Granma’s provincial museum, which perpetuates the memory of the fire started by Bayamo residents in their city on January 12, 1869, who preferred to burn it down before it fell in the hands of Spanish colonizers.

Nelson donated the people of Bayamo a powerful and remarkable vision of one of the most sacred and essential events in the history of the island, a symbol of the permanent struggle of Cubans for justice and dignity, he added.  

After the Minister’s speech, young jazz performer Yasek Manzano and his group offered a concert to close the activities of the 15th Cuban Fiesta, which had begun here on Saturday.