Che Guevara,Che,Guvara

Che Guevara

"Guerrillero Heroico"

Che Guevara at the La Coubre memorial service.

Taken by Alberto Korda on March 5, 1960.

Born     June 14, 1928 [1]

Rosario, Argentina

Died     October 9, 1967 (aged 39)

La Higuera, Bolivia

Resting place    Che Guevara Mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba

Organization     26th of July Movement, United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution,[2] National Liberation Army (Bolivia)

Religion            None [3][4]

Spouse Hilda Gadea (1955-1959)

Aleida March (from 1959)

Children           Hilda (1956-1995), Aleida (born 1960), Camilo (born 1962), Celia (born 1963), Ernesto (born 1965)

Early life

 Ernesto Guevara was born to Celia de la Serna y Llosa and Ernesto Guevara Lynch on June 14, 1928[1] in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a white Argentine family of Spanish, Basque and Irish descent.[17] In lieu of his parents' surnames, his legal name (Ernesto Guevara) will sometimes appear with de la Serna, or Lynch accompanying it. In reference to Che's "restless" nature, his father declared "the first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels."[18] Very early on in life Ernestito (as he was then called) developed an "affinity for the poor."[19] Growing up in a family with leftist leanings, Guevara was introduced to a wide spectrum of political perspectives even as a boy.[20] His father, a staunch supporter of Republicans from the Spanish Civil War, often hosted many veterans from the conflict in the Guevara home.[21]

Though suffering crippling bouts of acute asthma that were to afflict him throughout his life, he excelled as an athlete, enjoying swimming, soccer, golf, and shooting; while also becoming an "untiring" cyclist.[22][23] He was an avid rugby union player,[24] and played at fly-half for the University of Buenos Aires First XV.[25] His rugby playing earned him the nickname "Fuser"—a contraction of El Furibundo (raging) and his mother's surname, de la Serna—for his aggressive style of play.[26]

Guevara learned chess from his father and began participating in local tournaments by age 12. During adolescence and throughout his life he was passionate about poetry, especially that of Pablo Neruda, John Keats, Antonio Machado, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, César Vallejo, and Walt Whitman.[27] He could also recite Rudyard Kipling's "If—" and José Hernández's "Martín Fierro" from memory.[27] The Guevara home contained more than 3,000 books, which allowed Guevara to be an enthusiastic and eclectic reader, with interests including Karl Marx, William Faulkner, André Gide, Emilio Salgari and Jules Verne.[28] Additionally, he enjoyed the works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Vladimir Lenin, and Jean-Paul Sartre; as well as Anatole France, Friedrich Engels, H.G. Wells, and Robert Frost.[29]

A 22-year-old Guevara in 1951

 

favorite subjects in school included philosophy, mathematics, engineering, political science, sociology, history and archaeology.[30][31]

Years later, a February 13, 1958, declassified CIA 'biographical and personality report' would make note of Guevara’s wide range of academic interests and intellect, describing him as "quite well read" while adding that "Che is fairly intellectual for a Latino."[32]