This December 13th marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of a historian to whom we Cubans owe the most meticulous study of the life of Major General Antonio Maceo, the Lieutenant. That historian, not much cited but very modest, self-taught and extremely laborious, is named José Luciano Franco .

Consecrated, erudite, tenacious and wise are also uplifting adjectives that can be applied to the character and work of José Luciano Franco.

With great modesty he titled his capital work as Notes for a history of his life , although it is the most comprehensive and passionately truthful study written about the protagonist of the Baraguá Protest and his time.

However, let us clarify something: if he had not written this biography, there would still be reasons to thank him for many other books that today are an obligatory source of consultation and that make it difficult to classify this author, in whom the conditions and demands of the historian, those of the folklorist, those of the ethnologist, those of the biographer, those of the pedagogue and those of the journalist.

Born in Havana on December 13, 1891, José Luciano had a long and hard life, during which he did not tire of studying, reviewing files, and serving others with his work. He studied Commerce and obtained a qualification degree from the Manuel Márquez Sterling School of Journalism, but José Luciano Franco's training was largely the result of his personal effort.

He belonged to the Society for Afro-Cuban Studies, to the Academy of Cuban History and his work, Politics of the Continental American of Spain in Cuba, 1812-1830 , earned him the Municipal Prize for History in 1947.

Endowed with the weapons of investigative journalism, he sowed collaborations with several of the publications most requested by readers over half a century, including Social, Carteles, Mediodía, El Mundo, Hoy, Islas, Granma, La Gaceta de Cuba , Casa de las Américas ... Hence, tracking his texts is a task that requires patience, because there were various research companies that he undertook and many results that he was revealing day after day in the press. Also significant was his presence and voice in congresses outside and within Cuba, where his opinions were considered among the most authoritative in island historiography.

In his role as compiler, his production is equally valuable, particularly what he published of the existing documents in the National Archives for the histories of Haiti, Venezuela and Mexico, in the 50s and 60s of the last 20th century. And it is worth mentioning that one of his texts, The Echo of the First Russian Revolution in Cuba, was first published in the Russian language, in 1965, although other works of his have also appeared in English, French and Portuguese.

Patient and tireless (some of his traits were aching), in addition to being a born teacher, José Luciano Franco taught at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Havana and worked as a researcher at the Institute of History (later the Institute of Social Sciences), of the University of Havana, work for which many of those who were his students remember him today with invariable affection.

Bearer of an extraordinary lucidity, he kept working until the end of his days, becoming himself a legend of historical research in Cuba and one of the best connoisseurs of the interdisciplinary framework that make up the identity of a nation, its history and idiosyncrasy .

It is irrelevant to cite the enormous bibliography of José Luciano Franco. Suffice it to say that he left several titles on General Antonio Maceo and that reading any of them reveals a profound approach to the personality of the Lieutenant General. "He is not carried away by novelization," Professor José Antonio Portuondo once commented, "but rather strictly abides by duly documented news."

Perhaps this is the highest praise for Don José Luciano Franco, who died in Havana on December 5, 1989. New editions deserve more than one of his books. And the proposal is well worth considering.