ABSTRACT
The decade from 1920 to 1930 was a period of prolonged social and political upheaval, precipitated by an irreversible crisis of government, which gave rise to a new national consciousness. The generalized crisis was to have profound repercussions in all sectors of society including the literary milieu, causing a small but influential group of intellectuals to question the very foundations of national culture. From 1921 to 1925 Alfredo Zayas Alonso governed the nation; from 1925-33, Gerardo Machado. A comparison of literary journals of the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries reveals a common denominator in the persistent efforts of editors and contributors. The limitations remained the same for nineteenth-and twentieth-century journals: lack of a stable, broad-based reading public able to afford, if not books, at least the more accessible periodicals, on a regular basis. The displacement of popular cultural forms by mass culture responds to the requirements of the modem global industry and depends on the degree of passive receptivity of the audience.
