1958 HIMNO del 26 de Julio Manuscript by request of Castro!

Dated 28 August 1958, during the final months of the Cuban Revolutionary War, this extraordinary manuscript preserves a wartime witness to the Himno del 26 de Julio, the anthem of the July 26 Movement led by Fidel Castro. The text appears to have been copied in the hand of Melba Hernández—heroine of the Moncada assault and one of the Revolution's most important figures—and bears the signature of Fidel Castro together with the signature and date of Agustín Díaz Cartaya, the composer of the anthem. Unlike later standardized versions, the manuscript preserves the revolutionary-era wording of the hymn, including the historically significant line, "La sangre que en Oriente se derramó," as well as the stanza beginning, "La muerte es victoria y gloria," passages later altered or omitted from official publications. While the original musical score composed by Cartaya is reported to survive in institutional custody in Bayamo, no comparable wartime lyric manuscript combining the apparent hand of Melba Hernández with the signatures of Fidel Castro and Agustín Díaz Cartaya has yet been identified in publicly accessible scholarship, institutional collections, or auction records. As both a documentary artifact and a surviving witness to the transmission of one of the Cuban Revolution's defining symbols, this manuscript offers a rare and compelling glimpse into the movement's cultural and political history at the very moment of its triumph.