One of my favorite historical topics is the intellectual and cultural history of the early twentieth century. Recently I’ve been reading a book titled Yrigoyen Entre Borges Y Arlt (1916 – 1930). It’s the second volume in a planned seven volume history of Argentine literature during the twentieth century. The series is edited by the writer David Viñas.

What about 1916

As its title suggests, the book says a lot about the political and social aspects of the times as well as literature. Historical periods never follow calendars very clearly. Rather than focusing on just the 1920s, the book uses the two presidencies of Hipólito Yrigoyen as the cornerstones of the time period.

The 1916 presidential election was the first under the Sáenz Peña law, which reformed the election process with compulsory voting by males over the age of 18.

The new city

At the time Argentina was undergoing massive transformation, particularly impacted by immigration. In 1916 more than 50% of the population of Buenos Aires were immigrants who brought their own languages, cultures, and ideologies to the city. (Robert has an interesting post on the housing projects built for immigrants).

From a literary angle, the population increase also raised the number of potential readers and consumers of newspapers, magazines, and books.

Architecturally, the city transformed into a modern metropolis with an urban landscape very different from its 19th century version.

When I read about the literature produced during this period, I’m always reminded that those writers were very aware of this urban transformation, the changing demographics, the multitude that changed the perception of everyone in Buenos Aires. Writers such as Borges and Arlt took the appearance of the new Buenos Aires as their subject: “its social conflicts, fascination with the modern and cosmopolitan, the injustices, the beauty, and the horror.”

While any such period of rapid change may bring a sense of nostalgia and melancholy, those same perceptions often lead to resentment and prejudices. For a generation before even 1916 the threat of the immigrant to the traditional Argentine culture had been a focus of many writers, from which emerged a type of cultural nationalism.

A corresponding political nationalism was quite active in this period. Of course, Argentina was hardly alone among countries with conflicts between nationalist attitudes and socialist perceptions. One now distant event, the 1917 Russian Revolution, was then a prominent aspect of the political-cultural world. It was a turbulent time with massive strikes and social unrest, but the times also brought the construction of so many grand buildings that define the landscape of Buenos Aires.

The 1920s

Most of the book covers the 1920s. Alvear was president from 1922 – 1928, succeeded by Yrigoyen who would be overthrown by a military coup in 1930. Borges returned to Buenos Aires in 1921 after spending many formative years of his youth in Europe. He and others brought the avant garde movement from Europe to Buenos Aires.

During the 1920s a large number of small, literary journals flourished in Buenos Aires. On the pages of these publications were debated the cultural perspectives of the city. An appendix to Yrigoyen Entre Borges y Arlt provides a chronology of the important books, magazines, poems, plays, and essays published in Argentina between 1916 – 1930. More than forty literary magazines are listed for this period.

The writers

Of course, the book features chapters on Borges and Arlt. Other chapters cover writers such as Lugones, Girondo, Quiroga, Guiraldes, Baldomero Fernandez Moreno, and more. There is also a chapter devoted to “Florida and Boedo” literary rivalry (which deserves a blog post all of its own) and a chapter on women writers of the time such as Alfonsina Storni and Norah Lange.

There’s a lot in this book and I’ll probably be dipping back into it for some future blog postings. Another appendix also includes a summary of political events for the years covered, providing a nice overview of the period. I’m looking forward to other volumes in this series on 20th century Argentine literature.

If you’re not seen Comet McNaught, then you’ve missed a spectacular sight. I took a couple of photos Sunday night from the roof of our building but the photos are not great. The lights from the nearby Clarín building are way too bright and there’s not an interesting foreground. Also, the photos are really grainy but it gives you an idea of the size and brightness of the comet. Oh, how I wish to live in dark sky country.

For the story behind how the comet was first spotted late last year, see the home page of its namesake Rob McNaught who spends his time in Australia searching the southern sky for asteroids and comets that pass close to earth. There’s some fascinating stuff on that site if you’re at all interested in astronomy. Another history of the comet along with a spectacular photo from Australia on Gary W. Kronk’s Cometography site, including some images of the comet visible in broad daylight.

Lately I’ve blogged about my street, Av Caseros, so I figured it’s a good time to talk about the place behind the name. Caseros, in addition to being a street in the southern part of the city of Buenos Aires is also the name of a town to the north of the city. The street is named for that location, which is known for a major battle of the mid-19th century.

Here’s a question for the Argentine guys among my readers: Do boys here grow up reading about the great battles and wars of Argentine history?

In the attic

As a lad I remembered being engrossed in the details of the American Revolutionary War and Civil War. Particularly as a boy from an old Southern family in Tennessee, I learned about the exploits of the Confederacy in fighting the Yankees. And I’ve been to my share of battlefields, those state and national parks that conserve the land on which those conflicts were fought. (Are there any battlefield parks in Argentina?) While I’ve not been to any Civil War re-enactments (even when I lived in Virginia), my family does have a few Confederates in the Attic.

So, I’m wondering if this phenomenal obsession with the military heroics of the past is something that you grow up with in Argentina? Or, does the horrors of military dictatorships color the perceptions of an Argentine boy about the country’s military history? I’m just curious. Of course, I suspect boys growing up in military families have a very different perspective but I’m wondering about the “typical” perspective (whatever that is).

The defeat of Rosas

Avenida Caseros takes its name from the Battle of Caseros, a turning point in Argentine history that occurred on February 3, 1852. For much of the first half of the 19th century Buenos Aires was ruled by Juan Manuel de Rosas. While Rosas had the support of the urban poor, his decades long rule was marked by state terrorism and ruthless vigilante squads that sought out his opponents with bloody reprisals.

(To make a very long story short, I’m omitting a lot about the political context of early 19th century Argentina).

Justo José de Urquiza, who controlled the Entre Rios province north of Buenos Aires, rebelled and started building his own army to challenge that of Rosas. Urquiza built a large army with soldiers not just from the northern provinces of Entre Rios and Corrientes but also with soldiers from Brazil and what is now Uruguay. Urquiza’s army of more than 25,000 men advanced on Buenos Aires and met Rosas army of nearly equal size at Caseros, which at the time was a rural area located just north of the city of Buenos Aires.

It was one of the largest battles to be fought in the Americas up to that time. But the fighting was slow. The men were armed with smoothbore flintlock muskets that required fourteen steps to load, firing approximately one shot per minute.

Many in the cavalry fought with crude lances, often nothing more than bamboo poles with a knife blade or sheep shearing clippers tied to the end with strips of rawhide. Rosas also enlisted Indian squads as irregular cavalry.

The battle began just after eight in the morning. At ten Urquiza advanced one division of his cavalry in a maneuver to outflank Rosas infantry. The resulting cavalry charge was so fast and furious that the dust rising from the charge caused the cavalry to completely miss the enemy, riding right pass them. Nevertheless, Urquiza himself led another cavalry charge that was successful.

Several battalions under Rosas command mutinied and killed their own commanders. Seeing that defeat was inevitable, Rosas quietly made his way away from the battle zone, hiding out in Buenos Aires for a day before boarding a British vessel for exile in England where he lived until his death twenty-five years later.

By three in the afternoon Urquiza had rode into Buenos Aires and established headquarters at Rosas house in Palermo and commenced a bloody purge that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Rosas supporters. (Rosas’ estancia was located on the land that is now Parque 3 de Febrero, ironically named after the date of the Battle of Caseros).

The fall of Rosas in 1852 started a new phase in Argentine history, the era that would eventually bring the development of modern Argentina.

Urquiza, however, wouldn’t enjoy for long his role in bringing down Rosas as politicians clad with swords and their own armies would wrestle over control of Buenos Aires throughout the remainder of the decade.

Eventually returning to his home province of Entre Rios Urquiza solaced himself by building the largest house in Argentina at that time (Palacio San Jose). Urquiza was killed in his own home by his political enemies in 1870.