JOSÉ ANTONIO RAMOS Y LAS AMBIVALENCIAS DEL DISCURSO NACIONALISTA DE LA PRIMERA GENERACIÓN REPUBLICANA EN CUBA.

The "official" conception of Cuban nationalism, identified exclusively with national independence and an anti-U.S. sentiment, seems to explain the relative absence of critical studies about the first republican generation in Cuba. To fill this gap, this article explores the works of Jose Antonio Ramos, who represented a current of nationalist thinking seeking to balance Arielism and pro-Americanism in the early twentieth century. Unable to reconcile the two poles in a coherent formula, this discourse condemned part of the first republican generation to political isolation. By formulating an elitist, antipolitical discourse, intellectuals like Ramos rejected public opinion and failed to establish the necessary alliances to consolidate a national identity even in neocolonial, reformist terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]