Virginia Elena Ortea

Virginia Elena Ortea
Born Virginia Elena Ortea Mella
(1866-06-17)17 June 1866
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Died 1 January 1903(1903-01-01) (aged 36)
Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic
Nationality Dominican
Other names Elena Kennedy
Occupation journalist, writer
Years active 1879–1903

Virginia Elena Ortea (17 June 1866 – 1 January 1903), who wrote under the pen name Elena Kennedy, was a journalist and writer, credited as one of the first women novelists and first woman to have her own byline in the Dominican Republic. She was also the writer of the only known zarzuela from the Dominican Republic. There is a street and a school named in her honor in the country.

Early life

Virginia Elena Ortea Mella was born on 17 June 1866 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to Emilia Mella de la Peña and Francisco Ortea Kennedy.[1][2] Her father was a prominent politician, Governor of the Puerto Plata Province[3] and a writer, who was forced into exile[1] in 1871 to Mayagüez and again in 1878 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.[3] Her uncle, Juan Isidro Ortea y Kennedy was Vice President of the Dominican Republic under Ignacio María González's administration.[3] Her paternal grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Francisco Ortea, was a military officer from Asturias, Spain; while her paternal grandmother, Fanny Kennedy, known as La Madama, had lived in Puerto Rico before immigrating to the Dominican Republic. Kennedy was born to a French mother and a British father. Her maternal grandparents, largely of Spanish heritage, were María Caridad de la Peña and Ildefonso Mella Castillo, brother of the national hero Matías Ramón Mella. She had a brother, Francisco Ortea (1845–1899), and a sister, Luisa Matilde Ortea Mella, who married Antonio Luciano Cocco Dorville (1870–1945) from a Puerto Plata upper-class family.[2][4][5]

Ortea began her schooling in Santo Domingo, studied with the noted Dominican teacher José Dubeau in Puerto Plata and finished her education in Mayagüez.[1][3] She also studied music in Puerto Rico with José María Rodríguez Arresón, who would later write the music to her zarzuela and piano and singing with Francisco de Arredondo Miranda.[3]

Ancestors of Virginia Elena Ortea
4. Spain Asturias Juan Francisco Ortea
2. Dominican Republic Francisco Carlos Ortea Kennedy (1844–1899)
10. United Kingdom Mr. Kennedy
5. Dominican Republic Fanny Kennedy
11. France Mme. Kennedy
1. Dominican Republic Virginia Elena Ortea Mella (1866–1903)
24. Dominican Republic Manuel Mella Sánchez
12. Dominican Republic Antonio Mella Álvarez (1794–1837)
25. Dominican Republic Juana Álvarez Pereyra
6. Dominican Republic Ildefonso Mella Castillo (1818–?)
26. Dominican Republic José Castillo
13. Dominican Republic Francisca Javier Castillo Álvarez (1790–1864)
27. Dominican Republic Úrsula Álvarez
3. Dominican Republic Emilia Mella de la Caridad (1846–?)
7. Dominican Republic María Caridad de la Peña
Sources:[2][4][5]

Career

In 1879, Ortea wrote Las feministas, a zarzuela (The Feminists, A Zarzuela), the only known zarzuela by a Dominican writer. The lyric drama, with music by Rodríguez Arresón, was performed only once, at the House of Culture of Puerto Plata.[2] Ortea first began publishing under the pseudonym Elena Kennedy, the name of her paternal grandmother, while she was living in Mayaguëz.[1] She published the poem, Puerto Plata in 1889.[3] After returning to the Dominican Republic, she wrote for the daily newspaper Listín Diario Puerto Plata. She also published editorials and poems for various journals, such as La casa de América, Letras y ciencias, and Revista ilustrada.[1] In 1901, she became the first woman in the Dominican Republic to have her own byline.[6]

Though she first wrote as a journalist, Ortea is most known as a fiction writer. Often described as creatively simple or naïve by critics of her era, underlying humor and subject matter in her works demonstrate that she understood the gender role assigned to women in her time.[1] In her own way, she wrote social critiques, but balanced topics against each other, as in Recuerdos y sonrisas (Memores and Smiles) and La mala madrastra (The Evil Stepmother), representing good and bad.[7] Her first published works included Los Diamantes (The Diamonds), La Rosa de la Felicidad (The Rose of Happiness), Los Bautizos (The Baptisms)[8] and Mi hermana Carolina (My Sister Carolina), but her most mature work was Risas y lágrimas (Laughter and Tears) published in 1901. The introduction was written by noted Dominican critics like Américo Lugo, which led to her becoming the subject of many studies by Dominican literary critics and scholars.[1]

Death and legacy

Ortea died on 1 January 1903 of kidney failure in Puerto Plata.[1][2] In 1978, a second edition of Risas y lágrimas was released, which is a rare occurrence in small countries with few publishing houses, indicating the appeal Ortea continued to generate.[1] In 2011, the Virginia Elena Ortea Model Education Center, a training facility for pedagogy, was opened in Puerto Plata, where a street has also been named in her honor.[9][10] In 2016, a play based on one of Ortea's journalistic interviews was performed to highlight gender violence. The interview occurred in 1901 with Jacobito de Lara, the assassin of President Ulises Heureaux, who two years later killed his fiancée in a jealous rage.[6]

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Cocco de Filippis 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Hoy 2006.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Nacidit-Perdomo 2015.
  4. 1 2 Larrazábal Blanco, Carlos (1955). Familias de Santo Domingo (in Spanish). pp. 71–73.
  5. 1 2 Larrazábal Blanco, Carlos. Familias Dominicanas (in Spanish). Santo Domingo: Academia Dominicana de la Historia.
  6. 1 2 DR1 2016.
  7. ↑ Zakrzewski Brown 1999, p. 116.
  8. ↑ Educando 2016.
  9. ↑ Morrobel Sandoval 2011.
  10. ↑ El Faro 2010.

Bibliography

  • Cocco de Filippis, Daisy (2016). "Ortea, Virginia Elena (1866–1903)". In Knight, Franklin W.; Gates, Jr, Henry Louis. Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro–Latin American Biography. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-199-93580-2.  – via Oxford University Press's Reference Online (subscription required)
  • Morrobel Sandoval, Juan José (12 June 2011). "Dejan inaugurado Centro de Eduación Modelo Virginia Elena Ortea" [Leaving the inaugurated Virginia Elena Ortea Model Center of Education] (in Spanish). Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic: Ultimo Diario. Archived from the original on 9 November 2017. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  • Nacidit-Perdomo, Ylonka (11 May 2015). "Virginia Elena Ortea y la prensa de su época" [Virginia Elena Ortea and the press of her time]. Acento.com.do. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Editora Acento. Archived from the original on 8 March 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  • Zakrzewski Brown, Isabel (1999). Culture and Customs of the Dominican Republic. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-30314-2.
  • "Ayuntamiento asfalta calles, alcalde anuncia otros trabajos mejoramiento social" [City Hall asphalt streets, mayor announces other works of social improvement] (in Spanish). Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic: El Faro. 31 December 2010. Archived from the original on 25 August 2014. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  • "La familia Ortea en la lírica puertoplateña" [The Ortea family in the lyrics of Puerto Plata] (in Spanish). Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Hoy. 27 November 2006. Archived from the original on 30 September 2016. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  • "Virginia Elena Ortea". Noticias Pop (in Spanish). Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic: Educando. 2016. Archived from the original on 10 March 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  • "Who was Virginia Elena Ortea?". DR1. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Teatro Guloya. 10 April 2016. Archived from the original on 31 May 2017. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
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