Related videos:
Mirta Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez, who was the first wife of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the mother of his eldest son, passed away this Saturday at the age of 95.
The news was announced on Twitter by his grandson Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov, the son of Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart "Fidelito" (who committed suicide in 2018) and Russian citizen Olga Smirnova.
"Surrounded by much love, my dear grandmother Mirta Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez has passed away. A great woman is leaving us. Her end is not death. Her special affection, loyalty, and extraordinary story will remain eternal. She will continue to be the most tangible and kind expression of beauty," she wrote.
Mirta Francisca de la Caridad Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez was born in Havana on September 30, 1928, the daughter of a wealthy Cuban politician.
She was studying Philosophy at the University of Havana when she met Fidel, a student from the Law School and a student leader. They married in 1948 against her family's wishes, although they financed the wedding. They spent their honeymoon in Miami and New York.
In 1949, Fidelito was born, the only child of the couple. They divorced in 1955, when Fidel was in exile in Mexico. She retained sole custody of the child.
In 1956, Mirta married lawyer Emilio Núñez Blanco, who came from a family loyal to Fulgencio Batista and was the son of a former Cuban ambassador to the UN, Emilio Núñez Portuondo.
A report by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo from 2016 recounts that when Fidel learned of the wedding, he had his son sent to Mexico under the pretext of wanting to say goodbye to him, in case he died in his political struggles. However, once there, he forcibly retained him. In the end, it was Núñez Portuondo who rescued Fidelito.
After the triumph of the revolution, in 1968, Mirta and her husband, the parents of two daughters, Mirta and América Silvia, permanently moved to Spain, while Fidelito was sent to study in the Soviet Union.
Emilio, a staunch opponent of Castroism, contributed to various newspapers in Miami. She, on her part, maintained a low profile throughout her life and never appeared in the media, nor did she speak about her past or her relationship with Fidel.
"He never spoke ill or well of Fidel; he never spoke at all. Even for those of us who knew his past, it was unmentionable, perhaps because he wanted to erase that page of his existence," revealed a close friend to El Mundo.
In Madrid lived Mirta's two brothers: Waldo, a sought-after painter, and Rafael, a former official in Fulgencio Batista's government, who also resided in Miami. Rafael is the father of the well-known Republican congressmen Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart, whom Mirta loved like her own sons.
Fidelito and his mother were always very close. He would visit her in Madrid, and she also made occasional trips to Havana, organized by Raúl Castro himself, according to a 2020 article from El Nuevo Herald.
According to a report by the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, in 2006, when it was announced that Fidel Castro was handing over power to his brother Raúl due to his illness, she was in Havana. During her stay there, her husband passed away in Madrid, where he had been suffering from Alzheimer's for years and was living in a care facility.
Two years later, at the age of 80, she returned to the Island and was with her son at the inauguration of a scientific event. On that occasion, mother and son posed for the cameras together for the first time in decades.
"She looked radiant, very happy to be with Fidelito. She is a woman who has aged remarkably well despite her years," a source told El Nuevo Herald.
Mirtha Díaz-Balart was the only woman Fidel Castro married in a religious ceremony.
After learning about the dictator's death in 2016, she stated that she was affected.
"I have felt sorrow for his death, even though that story happened more than 60 years ago. These days, I have prayed for his soul; I am Christian," she told El Mundo.
"I remember my marriage to Fidel as something distant, but also as a very beautiful stage of my youth. I have never wished him any harm, I have always wished him well," she added.
Filed under: