Held in Venezuela as part of the program commemorating the centennial of the birth of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, to be celebrated on August 13, the session will be focused an analyzing the strategic leadership of the Commander-in-Chief Fidel during the period of socialist consolidation.

It will also assess the Cuban leader’s capacity for political interpretation in the face of critical events such as the definition of the socialist character of the Revolution after the victory at Playa Girón (1961) and the defense of national sovereignty during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

The Fidel Castro Open Chair is organized by the Romulo Gallegos Center for Latin American Studies in conjunction with the Cuban Embassy in Caracas.

This year’s main panelists will be Francisca Lopez Civeira, a Cuban historian and PhD in Historical Sciences with numerous published works and awards, and Erika Farias, a Venezuelan politician and member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela and the Francisco de Miranda Front.

At the Chair’s inauguration on March 3, Pedro Calzadilla, president of the Center for Latin American Studies, described it as another point of convergence between the Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions.

He stated that this center of Latin American culture and thought is “joyful and moved” to be inaugurating the Chair, which, in his opinion, will soon become a “vigorous space” for reflection, study, debate, discussion, and the development of the immense wellspring of Fidel Castro’s thought.

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