José Nucete Sardi was a Venezuelan historian, journalist and diplomat. He was born on August 4, 1897 in Mérida and died on November 12, 1972 in Caracas. He was married to Julia Salas Ruiz, daughter of the illustrious intellectual Julio Cesar Salas, with whom he had four daughters.
Nucete Sardi did considerable work as a journalist, starting as editor of the newspaper El Universal between 1922 and 1936. He was also director of El Relator in 1927 and later director of the National Culture Magazine from 1940 to 1944, and the political-literary weekly magazine - Diagonal. He was a contributor to El Nacional from its founding in 1943, as well as on its Literary Paper. He also worked on Cultura Universitaria from Elite magazine and many other periodicals. He received numerous awards and literary prizes.
Political and diplomatic career
Nucete Sardi's career as a public servant includes:
Nucete Sardi was also elected alternate deputy to the Constituent Assembly of 1945 by the state of Mérida and remained closely linked to democratization and progressive movement in his native Venezuela between 1936 and 1945. He later fought against the dictatorship of Marco Pérez Jiménez, being one of the signatories to the Manifiesto de los Intelectuales, which outlined strategies on the road to overthrow the dictator. For his opposition to dictatorship and democratic struggle he suffered persecution and later went into exile. As Venezuela's ambassador to Cuba, Nucete Sardi he broke relations with the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista after President Carlos Prío Socarrás was ousted. Relations were restored after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro. They were again broken as a result of violations of sovereignty by the Castro regime in Venezuela with the invasion of Machurucuto, in an effort by Fidel Castro to expand communist guerrillas on the continent. In his diplomatic work in Europe during World War II he was a defender of the rights of the Jewish people and later in promoting the creation of the State of Israel.
Academic, writing and history career
He taught at the university level. Among the academic and cultural positions he had to perform were:
Secretary General and Vice - President of the Ateneo de Caracas, during various periods,
President of the Association of Venezuelan writers,
Notas sobre la Pintura y la Escultura en Venezuela -.
He translated the 5th volume of the Ministry of Education's 1942 edition of Viaje a las regiones equinocciales del Nuevo Continente, by Alexander von Humboldt into Castilian. He also translated El Bosquejo de Caracas by Robert Semple and several original texts on the Miranda expedition of 1806. He was also the author of biographies of heroes in the Venezuelan Jackson Encyclopedia and in the Biographical Dictionary of Venezuela, edited by Garrido, Mosque and Co.. As a lecturer he promoted a vast amount of work on the history and literature of Venezuela throughout New York City, Paris, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Havana, Tel-Aviv, La Plata and London.
Recognition
His native state of Mérida recognized him with one of the busts in the Plaza de los Escritores, the José Nucete Sardi Parish in the Alberto Adriani Municipality and the José Nucete Sardi Lyceum in the city of Tovar.