With the disappearance of Soviet aid and the Soviet Union itself by 1993, Cuba’s mail service ground to a virtual halt. Yet stamps continued to be produced even though the island’s mail carriers were in short supply. These years, known by Fidel Castro’s moniker as “The special period in a time of peace,” coincided historically with the centenary of Cuba’s final war for independence and the deaths of many of its heroes, including Antonio Maceo, a three-war veteran general who had openly fought for racial equality—rather the mere “racial harmony” endorsed by his peers. Here, Maceo’s prominence is superseded by other Latin American liberators. The Nineties also produced a series featuring pedigree dogs, undoubtedly the least likely icon one might associate with post-Soviet but still Communist-led Cuba. Eduardo “Guayo” Hernández Collection, Smathers Libraries, University of Florida
