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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
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.
1 Estrada, Ezequiel Martínez, ¿Qué es esto? Catilinarias (Buenos Aires: Lautaro, 1956), pp. 31–32 Google Scholar.
2 Neiburg’s, Federico recent book—Los intelectuales y la invención del peronismo (Buenos Aires: Alianza Editorial, 1998)—clarifies some aspects of this relationshipGoogle Scholar.
3 Hereinafter referred to as SADE.
4 Altamirano, Carlos, Peronismo y cultura de izquierda (Buenos Aires: Temas, 2001), p. 9 Google Scholar.
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.
6 This paper will make use of the concept of intellectual field presented by Pierre Bourdieu, in which this is defined as a field in struggle with its own rules and hierarchies. Clearly, the fields of cultural production and power were too concomitant at that time in Argentina to postulate that the intellectual field was indeed autonomous. Nonetheless, this paper will make use of this term, because only by seeing politics as something external to culture, can we study the effect of government policies on culture. See Bourdieu, Pierre, The Field of Cultural Production, (Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 29–73 Google Scholar. This reading of the intellectual field has been inspired by Williams, Daryle, Culture Wars in Brazil (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 20–1 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sigal, Silvia, Intelectuales y poder en la Argentina. La década del sesenta (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 2002), p. 9 Google Scholar.
7 Viala, Alan, “Effets de Champ, Effets De Prisme,” Littérature 70 (1988), p. 66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 “SADE, —El acta de su fundación,” Mundo Literario 1 (1996), p. 8 Google Scholar.
9 On the literary polemics of the Martín Fierro group see Sarlo, Beatriz, Borges: a Writer on the Edge (London: Verso, 1993)Google Scholar.
10 Giusti, Roberto, “El Primer congreso de los escritores argentinos,” in Roberto Giusti, Rafael Alberto Arrieta and others, La profesionalización de la critica literaria, antología (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1980), p. 161 Google Scholar.
11 “SADE. El acta.”
12 The struggle for social recognition and the consolidation of a market seems to be intrinsic to all processes of professionalism. For an overview discussion of professionalism processes see Leandri, Ricardo González, Las Profesiones. Entre la Vocación y el Interés Corporativo. Fundamentos para su Estudio Histórico (Madrid: Editorial Catriel, 1999)Google Scholar.
13 SADE. El acta”
14 On the professionalization process of writers see Sarlo, Borges.
15 See Nallim, “De los intereses,” and Mendéz, “Argentine.”
16 Boletín de la SADE, 1 July 1938.
17 Boletín de la SADE, Vol. II,-Year XII, N. 23, November 1943.
18 “Breve historia de la Sociedad Argentina de Escritores,” in Boletín de la SADE, Vol. I, Year II, N. 2, 1933, p. 33.
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.
20 Amadeo, Mario, Ayer hoy y mañana (Buenos Aires: Gure, 1956), p. 112 Google Scholar.
21 The bibliography on Argentine nationalism is extensive and had been recently updated. Alberto Spektorowski’s and Fernado J. Devoto’s recent books provided fresh and interesting insights to this subject. Spektorowski, Alberto, The Origins of Argentina’s Revolution of the Right (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Devoto, Fernando J., Nacionalismo, fascismo y tradicionalismo en la Argentina moderna. Una Historia (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno de Argentina Editores, 2002)Google Scholar.
22 Only Carlos Ibarguren, author of a history of the caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas, was named interventor of the province of Córdoba, and the poet Lugones became a speechwriter for Uriburu.
23 Donghi, Halperin, La Argentina, pp. 88–89 Google Scholar.
24 Castillo, Laura Ayerza de, Felgine, Odile, Victoria Ocampo-Intimidades de una visionaria (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1992), p. 154 Google Scholar.
25 Meinvielle, Julio, quoted by Victor Trifone and Gustavo Svarzman, La repercusión de la guerra civil española en la Argentina (1936–1939) (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1993), p. 3 Google Scholar.
26 King, John, Sur: Estudio de la revista argentina y de su papel en el desarrollo de una cultura 1931–1970 (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1989), p. 97 Google Scholar.
27 See Nallim, “Escritores.”
28 /// Congreso de Escritores—Tucumán—Resoluciones, declaraciones y conferencias (Buenos Aires, SADE, 1941), p. IGoogle Scholar.
29 Act N. 3, 3 August 1942.
30 See Fitte, Rodolfo and Zinny, Sánchez, Génesis de un sentimiento democràtico (Buenos Aires: Imprenta López, 1944), p. 224 Google Scholar.
31 “Declaración de buena voluntad’” Boletín, de la SADE, Vol. II, Year XII N. 23, November 1943, p. 12 Google Scholar.
32 Act N. 336, 26 July 1943, Act N.335, 14 July 1943; Act N.338, 18 August 1943; Act N. 339, 24 August 1943 and Act N. 341, 4 September 1943, Boletín de la SADE, 1943.
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.
42 See Torre, Juan Carlos, ed., El 17 de Octubre de 1945 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1995)Google Scholar.
43 Act N. 396, October 1945.
44 Ibid.
45 “Declaración de escritores en apoyo a la Unión Democrática,” in Altamirano, Carlos, ed., Bajo el signo de las masas (1943–1973) (Buenos Aires: Editorial Ariel, 2000), p. 182 Google Scholar.
46 Act N. 400, 7 December 1945.
47 Act N. 404, 28 February 1946, for ADEA see Fiorucci, Flavia , “Neither Warriors nor Prophets: Peronist and Anti-Peronist Intellectuals, 1945–1956” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of London, 2002)Google Scholar. Although no members were ever expelled from the association, this converted into a myth of the “heroic anti-Peronism of SADE.” See Samuel Eichelbaum’s declarations in Antinazi 53, 28 February 1946.
48 Borges, Jorge Luis, “En forma de parabola,” Boletín de la SADE, Year XIV, N. 29, December 1946 Google Scholar.
49 Luna, Félix, Perón y su tiempo (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987), vol. 1, p. 385 Google Scholar.
50 During those years Martínez Estrada suffered from a strange disease that he attributed to his dislike of Perón and called “peronitis.”
51 “Aspiraciones gremiales que se concretan,” Boletín de la SADE, Year XV, N. 30, 1947.
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.
57 Perón, Juan Domingo, “Discurso pronunciado en la Unidad Básica Eva Perón en ocasión de inagurar las escuelas de artes, la biblioteca y los consultorios medico-odontológicos,” 18 September 1953 Google Scholar.
58 Ibid.
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.
60 On the nature of the spectacles promoted by the government see Ciria, Política.
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.
64 On Perón’s treatment of the media see Girbla-Blancha, , Mitos, , paradojas, ; Plotkin, , Mañana, and Sirven, Pablo, Perón y los medios-de comunicación (1943–1955) (Buenos Aires: CEAL, 1984)Google Scholar.
65 For a list of anti-Peronist writers and their works published during Perón’s rule see Marechal, “Testimonios,” p. 143.
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.
67 Bourdieu, The Field, p. 46.
68 Barletta, Leónidas, “Los premios nacionales: el fallo inaudito,” Argentina Libre, 20 October 1946 Google Scholar.
69 Carlos Alberto Erro, “Manuel Mújica Láinez—Gran Premio de Honor 1955–1956,” Boletín de la SADE, 1957–1959.
70 Borges, Jorge Luis, “El profeta de La Pampa, Vida de Sarmiento,” Boletín de la SADE, Year XIV, N. 29, December 1946 Google Scholar.
71 See Fiorucci, , “Neither Warriors nor Prophets,” pp. 43–57 Google Scholar. On Perón and intellectuals see also Plotkin, , Mañana, pp. 18–71 Google Scholar.
72 La Nación, 21, 22, 23 December 1947; La Prensa, 22 and 23 December 1947.
73 Act N. 460, 3 July 1948.
74 “El estatuto del trabajador intelectual,” Boletín de la SADE, Año 1948–1950Google Scholar.
75 Act N. 467, 28 April 1949, Act N. 468, 3 June 1949.
76 “El estatuto,” p. 4.
77 Erro, Carlos Alberto, “Discurso en la entrega del Gran Premio de Honor 1948,” Boletín de la SADE, 1948–1950 Google Scholar.
78 Ibid.
79 Act N. 453, 12 January 194.8; Act N. 454, 19 January 1948; Act N. 460, 3 July 1948.
80 Act N. 461, 26 July 1948.
81 “La representación de la SADE en la Comisión de Cultura,” Boletín de la SADE, Año 1948–1950.
82 Carlos Alberto Erro, Boletín de la SADE, Año 1948–1950.
83 On ASCUA, see Fiorucci, , “Neither Warriors nor Prophets,” pp. 201–207 Google Scholar.
84 Act N. 461, 27 August 1949.
85 Act N. 521, 31 August 1953.
86 Act N. 486, 19 August 1950.
87 Ibid.
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.
95 Giusti, Roberto, Visto y vivido (Buenos Aires: Secretaria de Cultura de la Nación, 1994), p. 262 Google Scholar.
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.
100 Giusti, Visto, p.262.
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.
105 Judt, Tony, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944–1956 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992)Google Scholar.
106 Ibid., p. 32.
107 See Lottman, Herbert R., The Left Bank: Writers, Artists, and Politics from the Popular Front to the Cold War (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 165 Google Scholar; and Sápiro, Gisele, La guerre des écrivains: 1940–1953 (Paris: Fayard, 1999), p. 65 Google Scholar.
108 Luna, Félix, Perón y su tiempo (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987), pp. 130–138 Google Scholar.
109 Act N. 541, 30 June 1954.
110 ActN.556, 21 March 1955; Act N. 557, 4 April 1955, Act N. 558, 18 April 1955.
111 Act N. 564, 8 August 1955.
112 See Luna, Félix, Perón, Vol. 3, p. 294 Google Scholar.
113 Act N. 569, 24 September J955.
114 Ibid., italics added.
115 Act N. 570, 4 October 1955 and Act N. 571, 18 October 1955.
116 Enrique Fernández Latour, Mayoría, 8 January 1959 Google Scholar.
117 Giusti, Roberto, “Gran Premio de Honor 1957–1958,” Boletín de la SADE—1957–1959, italics addedGoogle Scholar.
118 Luis, Jorge Borges with Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, Autobiografía 1899–1970 (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1999), p. 122 Google Scholar.
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).
