THE ATHENAEUM AND THE REAFFIRMATION OF PUERTORICAN CULTURE

Abstract

The Puerto Rican professor of art and history, Juan David Cupeles, remembers in this text the trajectory of the Puerto Rican Athenaeum, founded in Puerto Rico in 1876 to develop artistic, scientific and literary activities, in the image of the Spanish institutions of the same type. The difference rested, according to Cupeles in that the intellectuals who congregated in the new institution transformed it from its very origins into a free tribune, a critical witness of the society of its time, from which it has always defended national values and Puerto Rican cultural identity.