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Between Institutional Survival and Intellectual Commitment: The Case of the Argentine Society of Writers during Perón’s Rule (1945–1955)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Flavia Fiorucci
Flavia Fiorucci*
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Bernal, Argentina
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Extract

An analysis of Peronism constitutes an obligatory point of departure of any study of Argentina’s history since 1945. The advancement of the popular masses toward the Plaza de Mayo on 17 October 1945, clamoring for their new leader (the Colonel Juan Domingo Perón) inaugurated a new era for this nation. For some, especially for those who marched on that day, it represented the beginning of a period of hope. For others, those who looked with stupor at the crowds “invading” the city, this was the start of a decade of undemocratic practices and populist pseudo-fascist reforms. Perón’s rise to the presidency in 1946 would find the majority of the Argentine intelligentsia in the ranks of the opposition. The intellectuals were particularly worried by the emergence of this political movement which, in their eyes, was a combination of a local incarnation of European fascism and the ‘barbaric’ regime of the caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas. In 1956, the writer Ezequiel Martínez Estrada summarized the horror that this march signified for the “decent people.” He declared it the threat of a “San Bartolomé del Barrio Norte” (an affluent neighborhood in Buenos Aires) and characterized the Peronists as “those sinister demons of the plains which Sarmiento described in El Facundo.” In his description Perón was depicted as a local Franco, a Mussolini or a Hitler. Only those intellectuals who defended different versions of local nationalism joined the enterprise of the colonel-turned-popular-politician and put their hopes in him.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , April 2006 , pp. 591 - 622
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2006

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References

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3 Hereinafter referred to as SADE.

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5 Some of the arguments of this paper were published in Flavia Fiorucci, “Los escritores y la SADE: entre la supervivencia y el antiperonismo. Los límites de la oposición (1946–1956), Prismas 5 (2001), pp. 101–25. The article by Jorge Nallim, “los, De intereses gremiales a la lucha política: la Sociedad Argentina de Escritores (SADE), 1928–1946,” Prismas 7 (2003). pp. 117–38 Google Scholar, concentrates on the decade of the thirties and the unpublished thesis by Jesús Mendéz, , “Argentine Intellectuals In The Twentieth Century, 1900–1943” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The University Texas at Austin, 1980)Google Scholar, provides interesting information on SADE’s foundation.

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19 The decade of 1920s was certainly a period of literary polemics. These were years, as pointed out by Beatriz Sarlo, of attacks on the literary establishment by the voices of the younger generations. Nevertheless, when those discussions are compared to the divisions that the decade of 1930 brought, we can see that dialogue and team-work was still possible among Argentina intellectuals of different groups. Maria Rosa Oliver, one of the protagonists of the literary scene of the 1920s stated that the polemic between the writers of the group called Boedo (supporters of a “social literature”) and those of Florida (followers of an aesthetic vision of literature)—which was one of the divisive axes upon which the writers defined their identities in the 1920—did not break the friendly atmosphere among the literati, as “respect” always prevailed. See Sarlo, Borges: Interview with María Rosa Oliver, Archivo de Historia Oral, Instituto di Telia, C2–3, 1971, p. 40. For an interesting discussion on how the liberal consensus among intellectuals disintegrated, see Donghi, Tulio Halperin, La Argentina y la tormenta del mundo, (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 2003)Google Scholar.

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33 Act N. 341, 4 September 1943.

34 Among these “aborted plans” were the celebration of a Pan-American congress of writers and the organization of the third congress of Argentine writers projected for that year. Boletín de la SADE, 1943, p. 1.

35 Loris, Zanatta, El mito de la nación católica. Iglesia y Ejército en los orígenes del peronismo 1943–1946 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1999)Google Scholar.

36 This provoked the discontent and relegation of nacionalistas inside the Argentine government.

37 Act N. 376, 3 April 1945.

38 Act N. 388, 30 July 1945 (italics added), Act N. 384, 5 July 1945; Act 385, 12 July 1945, Act N. 386, 17 July 1945; Act N. 387, 26 July 1945.

39 Act N. 390, SADE, 25 August 1945.

40 Ibid.

41 Act N. 392, 7 September 1945; Act N. 399, 23 November 1945 and Act N. 400, 7 December 1945.

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50 During those years Martínez Estrada suffered from a strange disease that he attributed to his dislike of Perón and called “peronitis.”

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52 Ibid.

53 Act N. 421, 4 November, 1946. At the end the project (although approved unanimously), it was not put into practice.

54 Juan Domingo Perón, Perón expone su doctrina (Subsecretaria de Informaciones, 1949), p. 28.

55 Ibid.

56 Perón, Juan Domingo, “Discurso pronunciado con motivo de la entrega del título de ‘Doctor Honoris Causa’ por la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba,” 23 February 1948 Google Scholar, in la, Revista de Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Volumen 35, March-April 1948, p. 10 Google Scholar.

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59 Juan Doming Perón, La cultura en el Pensamiento de Perón (no details), p. 3; Biblioteca Peronista del Congreso de la Nación Argentina. On the state sponsorship of cultural propaganda see GirbalBlancha, Noemí , Mitos, paradojas y realidades en la Argentina peronista (1946–1955) (Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Quilmes Editorial, 2003), pp. 223–256 Google Scholar; see also Ciria, Alberto, Poltica y cultura popular: la Argentina peronista 1946–1955 (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Flor, 1984)Google Scholar.

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61 Only a few Peronist intellectuals participated in the government, and their role was quite limited. The positions assigned to them were lower-echelon from which they could not have leverage or acquire public esteem. The fate of Arturo Jauretche during Perón’s regime epitomizes the destiny of Peronist intellectuals: he was appointed President of the Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires from 1946 to 1949 when he had to resign due to a polemic over the concession of a loan to the opposition newspaper Prensa, La.Details of this event can be read in Hugo Gambini, Historia del Peronismo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta, 1999), p. 305 Google Scholar. Perón’s disdain for his own intellectual cadres was the source of certain frustration among them because, as stated by Leopoldo Marechal (one of the most important intellectuals who embraced Peronism in 1945) that meant that the symbolic power in the field remained in the hands of the anti-Peronists. See Marechal, , “Testimonios,” Dinamis 13 (1969), p. 142 Google Scholar.

62 This social cleavage is mentioned by the teller, Doña Maria Roldan, in her narration transcript by James, Daniel, Doña Maria’s Story. Life History, Memory, and Political Identity (Duke University Press, 2000), p. 44 Google Scholar.

63 Mariano Plotkin describes in detail how Perón used diverse methods during his regime—such as political rituals, transformations in the school system, the Fundación Eva Perón and state policies for women and children—to recreate this unity. Mariano Plotkin, Mañana es Sán Perón (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1993). Perón’s policies were not unilaterally accepted. Silvina Gvirtz and Mariano Narodowsky argued that in the case of education policies, resistance was “situated in the micro-levels of schools activity” not in the “macro-political scene where the government’s goals were expressed.” See Gvirtz, and Nadorowsky, , “The Micro-Politics of School Resistance: the Case of Argentine Teachers Versus the Educational Policies of Perón and Evita,” in Discourse. Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 19:2 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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66 Roberto Giusti, “Perfil del tiempo—Actos de Fe,” Expresión, Year I, Vol. I, December 1946. Palacio was a national deputy of Peronism, and because of this issue he was questioned in that chamber and obliged to resign to his post in the Comisión de Cultura. Quattrochi-Woisson, Diana, Los males de la memoria: historia y política en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1995), pp. 260–9 Google Scholar.

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86 Act N. 486, 19 August 1950.

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88 Quattrochi -Woisson, Los males, pp. 277–281.

89 Neiburg, Los intelectuales, p. 171.

90 Act N. 513, November 1952. Act N. 510, 28 August 1952.

91 In July 1953 Borges traveled and Manuel Mújica Lainez (the vice-president of SADE) acted as president.

92 Act N. 510, 28 August 1952.

93 Act N. 510, 28 August 1952.

94 Act N. 509, 21 August 1952 to Act N. 521, SADE August 1953.

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96 Act N. 543, 27 July 1954.

97 Manuel Romero Delgado, “¿Quién logró del ministro Borlenghi la libertad de los intelectuales de ASCUA: el Círculo de Prensa o el Sindicato Argentino de Escritores,” Mayoría, 19 February 1959.

98 Leónidas Barletta, Letter to Manuel Gálvez, 12 December 1953, Academia Argentina Letras, de,“Un grupo de escritores solicitó la libertad de varios colegas detenidos,” La Prensa, 13 June 1953, p. 5 Google Scholar, and Barletta, Leónidas, “Problemas del escritor,” Propósitos 11 (August 1955)Google Scholar.

99 Barletta, Letter to Gálvez.

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101 Atilio Castelpoggi, interview by the author, 27 August 1999.

102 Act N. 538, 16 June 1954 and the following Acts of that year.

103 Act N. 539, 22 June 1954.

104 Act N. 543, 27 July 1954.

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109 Act N. 541, 30 June 1954.

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111 Act N. 564, 8 August 1955.

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113 Act N. 569, 24 September J955.

114 Ibid., italics added.

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119 On the re-reading of Peronism by younger generations see Sigal, , Intelectuales, , and Terán, Oscar, Nuestros años sesenta La formación de una nueva izquierda intelectual argentina 1956–1966 (Buenos Aires: Ediciones el Cielo Por Asalto, 1993)Google Scholar.

120 See Act N. 546, 31 August 1954.

121 Soon after September 1955, the relationship with the government of the Revolución Libertadora would bring a motif of dispute that would affect the cohesion of the group.

122 See King, Sur.

123 Leonidas Barletta, “Problemas del escritor,” Propósitos 11 (August 1955).