At the age of 22, Lina Ruz could hardly see under the light of the oil lamps that morning of San Hipólito in 1926, that third birth hurt: a 12-pound child that the family would name Fidel Castro.
Ángel, the father of the newborn, was waiting anxiously in another room in the house in Birán (Oriente), a fertile and humid place that he chose to live after emigrating from his native Galicia. That August 13, Fidel would join a family that also included Ramón and Ángela, who grew up in a home built on wooden stilts from the caguairán tree.
According to the book All the Time of the Cedars, by the researcher Katiuska Blanco, this is how one of the main figures in the history of the 20th century and leader of the triumphant Cuban Revolution in 1959 was born.
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz came to a house of notable economic solvency and inherited his first name from a wealthy landowner friend of the family, who was originally going to be his godfather. In conversations with the Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet, he would later comment on the influence that his childhood in Birán would have on his character, his links with the Haitians who worked there, his relations with the poor children of the area, the rural school where he studied, the stay in Santiago de Cuba.
Historical investigations refer to the transformation of the young Fidel, the political maturity he reached while studying Law at the University of Havana and his commitment to overthrow the tyrant Fulgencio Batista, in power since the 1952 coup.
On the day of his birth, in tribute to his life and work, our embassy invites our readers to access the video with the biography of the Historical Leader of the Cuban Revolution, the unforgettable and forever loved "Fidel".