Continuing our ‘Beyond Borges’ series is an author who if you don’t know for his contribution to Argentine literature, you may well know for being Argentina’s seventh president, the subject of one of Rodin’s final sculptures, or the face of the fifty pesos note.

Sarmiento's writing on the fifty peso note (Photo: Julián Rodriguez Urihuela)

Aside from his achievements in areas of education and modernisation, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was also an intellectual, an activist, and a prolific writer whose historical essay ‘Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie’ has been elevated to classical status among works of Latin American literature.

Life and Early Exiles

Born in the landlocked Argentine province of San Juan in 1811, Sarmiento grew to be an unlikely intellectual. By 15 years of age he had already identified himself as a supporter of the Rivadavia government that was dividing unitarian and federalist ideologies.

Prevented from attending school in Buenos Aires by the outbreak of a civil war in the province, he joined the unitarian army to fight against the invasion of Juan ‘Facundo’ Quiroga – the gaucho who would become his obsession and subject.

With Argentina under the rule of federalist dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas, Sarmiento fled to Chile in 1831 where he lived the first of three periods of exile, and began exploring an environment of free expression by writing political commentaries.

In an effort to recreate this same environment inside Argentina, he directed his energies into the foundation of an anti-federalist review, ‘El zonda’, but was forced into exile a second time in 1840. It was during this passage to Chile that he wrote out the misquoted French “On ne tue point les idées” – an incident that would become the preface to ‘Facundo’, his most famous work.

The phrase “ideas cannot be killed” translated as a warning to Rosas, but also served to further emphasise the difference Sarmiento perceived between the civilised intellectual who understood French and the uneducated barbarian who could not.

Back in Chile, and bearing a larger than life chip on his shoulder, Sarmiento resumed an extremely active literary career. Through regular contributions to ‘El mercurio’ and articles in his own newspaper ‘El progreso’, he strove to defeat the political ideologies of Rosas from across the Andes.

Facundo

‘Facundo’ itself was written during this second period of exile, and first appeared in serial form inside ‘El progreso’ in May 1845. Through the impassioned study of real-life figure Juan ‘Facundo’ Quiroga, it launched a strong protest against the federalist dictatorship, painting Facundo’s barbarism as a product of his environment and of the Rosas regime.

Presenting an Argentine national character torn between the dichotomy of civilisation and barbarism, it can be seen as both a critique and a symptom of Argentina’s internal cultural conflicts at the time. In it Sarmiento delivers a written prescription for the modernisation of Latin America, in accordance with his own vision for Argentina’s future under a democratic unitarian government.

The interior of Sarmiento's home (Photo: Axel Rosito)

Often cited an exemplary precursor to the genre of the Latin American dictator novel, ‘Facundo’ set the bar high. Many consider it crucial reading in understanding not only Argentine history but also Latin American history in general.

What began as a biogaphy of the barbaric gaucho nicknamed “the tiger of the plains”, ended as a combination of biography, autobiography, creative non-fiction, essay and political diatribe which fuelled by Sarmiento’s own fascination with his subject, read as easily as fiction.

Political Writing

As an author Sarmiento wrote diversely and extensively, publishing several autobiographical works including ‘Recuerdos de Provinca’ and ‘Campaña del ejército grande’ – describing his own part in the tri-nation army which finally defeated Rosas in the 1852 ‘Battle of Caseros’.

With Rosas in exile and a programme of national organisation underway, Sarmiento remained in Argentina where he forged a promising political career alongside an ongoing literary one.

Although the majority Latin American literature from the time can be earmarked political in some respect, politics ran as a common thread through almost all of Sarmiento’s work. The appearance of a new edition of ‘Facundo’ at the end of his presidency was considered by some to be a form of political gesturing. The 1874 edition spanned 15 chapters broadly divided in to three sections: the history and geography of Argentina, the barbaric life of the gaucho Juan ‘Facundo’ Quiroga, and several chapters originally left out of the 1845 edition in which Sarmiento outlined his own political visions.

In addition, the much talked about ‘Conflictos y armonias de las razas en América’ is an example of post-presidency writing in which Sarmiento put forward controversial ideas about the effects of racial mixing in Latin America, while continuing to offer the existence of the rural pampas as a reason why Argentina had failed to achieve civilisation.

Ironically, whilst denouncing the barbarism of the Argentine gaucho, Sarmiento simultaneously romanticised him, transforming him into a symbol of national mythology that would soon be at the head Argentine literature. Despite his sometimes controversial opinions, his bold ambition and his renowned egotism, Sarmiento is nowadays reflected upon favourably as a public figure and heralded as the best Argentine writer of the 19th century.

Kick-starting The Argentina Independent’s ‘Beyond Borges’ series is an author generally accepted as marking the beginning of Argentine literature, and arguably the first writer to play a significant role in its development.

Esteban Echeverría (courtesy of Wikipedia)

As one of the earliest romantic writers in Latin America, founder and figurehead of the first circle of young Argentine intellectuals, and the author behind the country’s first work of literary prose, poet Esteban Echeverría is a man credited with many literary titles.

His graphic and bloody vignette, ‘El matadero’, is commonly considered a cornerstone of national literature and remains one of the most studied texts in Argentina.

For this reason, his poetry and prose can be seen as marking the beginning of a new style of writing – one which signified Argentina’s literary break from the Spanish and a move away from the artistic currents that had previously flowed from Madrid. Until then, Argentine writers had grown up under independence fervour, but remained limited by a paradoxical Spanish influence that prevented them from developing their own distinct style.

Quoting French poet Victor Hugo by describing romanticism as “liberalism in literature”, Echeverría became one of the first Latin American writers to employ literature as a vehicle for communicating strong political and social opinion.

Romantic Writing

Although he authored several works, Echeverría’s reputation as a writer rests most securely on ‘El matadero’ and on his long narrative poem ‘La cautiva’, published as the 2,100-line centrepiece of ‘Rimas’ in 1837.

‘El matadero’ was written in the late 1830s but not published until 1871. It came politically-charged and packed a powerful punch against the federalist dictatorship that existed in Argentina at the time. Set inside a Buenos Aires slaughteryard, this short story describes the capture and torture of a passing unitarian by the Mazorca – brutal enforcers of Juan Manuel de Rosas’ federalist regime.

Inside 'El matadero' slaughteryard (Photo: Sam Verhaert)

Written as a political allegory, the Mazorca can be seen to represent barbarism and the young protagonist to represent civilisation. Or in a different light, the federalists are presented as butchers and the unitarians as animals.

First published inside the ‘Revista del Río de la Plata’ twenty years after Echeverría’s death and more than thirty years after it was written, the text is widely acclaimed for its realistic presentation of a gruesome period in Argentina’s history.

The poem ‘La cautiva’, translated into English as ‘The captive woman’, marks the first instance of rural Latin America serving as poetic backdrop, and is also listed among the best known romantic works of 19th century Latin American literature.

Featuring the indigenous people of the time as its subjects, the poem was commended for bursting the illusion of harmonious racial relations. Whereas captivity tales had traditionally been told in the first person by the survivor, ‘La cautiva’ uses the third person to narrate the fate of a couple captured by indians at the frontier.

Like ‘El matadero’, the poem is noted for its incorporation of local dialects and regionalisms without the use of italics or quotation marks. It also explores the struggle to position a national identity somewhere between Europe and America – an issue which journalist, essayist, and author Domingo Faustino Sarmiento would later place at the heart of Latin American culture.

The Generation of 1837

Along with many intellectuals of the period, Echeverría sought shelter from the Rosas dictatorship in neighbouring Uruguay, where he lived until his death in 1851. What forced him into exile, however, was not the unpublished manuscript of ‘El matadero’, but his association with the group of Argentine writers and intellectuals known collectively as the ‘Generation of 1837’.

The Generation of '37 created a literary salon in the backroom of Marcos Sastre's bookstore (Photo: Sam Verhaert)

Brought together by a shared passion for aesthetics and freedom, they gathered in the backroom of Marcos Sastre’s bookstore to give readings and engage in intellectual debate.

Within six months, the movement Echeverría had been so fundamental in starting was taken underground. Renamed the ‘Assosciation of May’ and holding onto the spirit of the 1810 revolution, they became Rosas’ most determined opposition with the slogan: “May, Progress, Democracy”.

When his signature on an anti-Rosas petition eventually brought about his exile in 1840, Echeverría moved to Montevideo where he made up part of a far-reaching network of exiled intellectuals in Uruguay, Chile and France. The movement continued to actively oppose the Argentine government whilst simultaneously campaigning for the creation of a national literature that was representative and responsive to social climates.

Echeverría’s popularity among his peers was such that one present day scholar has described him as “a Beatle”, with others suggesting that his esteem exceeded the literary merit of the majority of his work, taking care to make an exception of his brief but impacting novel ‘El matadero’.

As undoubtedly the most popular Argentine intellectual of the first half of the 19th century, Echeverría became a leader of many and an attraction for the rest- paving the way for a change of direction in Argentine literature.