Martin Fierro

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Old edition of Martin Fierro, 1894.

Martín Fierro is an epic poem by the Argentine journalist José Hernández . The poem was originally published in two parts - El Gaucho Martín Fierro (1872) and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro (1879). It is directed against Europeanization and the book Barbarism and Civilization of the later Argentine President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and is considered the Argentine national epic . Versions by various authors were later published, for example by Silverio Manco , Santiago Rolleri and Eladio Jasme Ignesón . Numerous issues are in the holdings of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin and the German National Library .

Action according to Hernández

Part 1: El gaucho Martin Fierro

Martin Fierro boasts of his courage, then he begins to tell the story of his life. He was once married with children and owned a ranch, chickens, cattle and horses. He rode to wild horses. He was content with his life. In a tavern, Fierro is obliged to do military service while drunk. He suffers from the hard drill. His troops are used in the fight against rebellious Indians. Fierro describes the Indians as wild beasts who mercilessly kill children and old people. When his squad is attacked by an overwhelming number of Indians, he kills the chief's son. He himself can escape. Conflicts with the officers arise because of insufficient wages. After a drunken guard fired at Fierro, he was punished, although he was innocent. Immediately before the start of an offensive against the Indians, Fierro deserted and returned home. It has been three years since he was recruited. He finds his ranch dilapidated and learns that after his wife's death, greedy neighbors have taken the land and the animals. He does not find out where his sons are. At a folk festival, Fierro provokes and insults a black woman while drunk. When her black partner intervenes, it comes to a duel, in the course of which Fierro kills his opponent. He rides away. In a tavern he is challenged by a drunk who he kills in a duel. Again he can escape. He wanders aimlessly through the country. Finally, Fierro is caught by the police. Several police officers are killed in the fight. When Fierro is seriously injured, a stranger named Cruz intervenes and saves Fierro. After the fight, Cruz tells his story. His wife cheated on him with his commanding officer. When he found out, he left home after a physical altercation with his wife's lover. Cruz felt ridiculed by a singer in a dance hall, killed him and has been on the run ever since. Fierro and Cruz continue on their way together.

Part 2: La vuelta de Martin Fierro

Cruz and Fierro encounter an Indian camp and are captured. Again Fierro describes the bestiality of the Indians. A smallpox epidemic breaks out in the Indian camp , costing many victims. Cruz also falls ill and dies painfully in Fierro's arms. Fierro meets a woman who lives with her young son as a prisoner with the Indians and has to do slave labor. Her husband was killed by the Indians. The woman is accused of witchcraft. An Indian whips her and kills her son. Then he ties her up with her child's bowels. Fierro arrives and fights with the Indian. In the course of the fight, the Indian slips on the slashed infant body, and Fierro kills him. Fierro flees with the woman. Five years of imprisonment with the Indians are behind him. Fierro finds his sons again. The sons tell of their fate. The eldest son had a difficult childhood as an orphan . He works as a servant. When an ox driver is found dead, he and two other day laborers are accused of the crime. Though innocent, they are imprisoned. In prison, the eldest son suffers from boredom and loneliness. The second son is taken in by an aunt who looks after him. He lives carefree into the day. When the aunt dies, the second son loses the property to the judge. The judge appoints Vizcacha, an old crook, as guardian of the second son. Vizcacha and the second son kill strange animals at night and steal their meat and fur. During a night robbery, Vizcacha is caught and beaten up by a cattle owner. The second son learns from a friend that Vizcacha was married at a young age and killed his wife. Vizcacha suffers a stroke and dies soon after. The second son falls in love with a widow and woos her, but the widow rejects his advances. The second son tries to win the widow's love through voodoo . The pastor tells the second son that the widow has sworn not to remarry. The second son then gives up his advertising. Martín Fierro finds his sons. In a tavern they recapitulate their fate.

The importance of Martín Fierro

The Martín Fierro is the Latin American poetry that has been the most controversial. For some critics, it represents a plea against the oligarchy of the big landowners, who instrumentalized the gaucho in the fight against the wild indigenous population, for others it is the plaintive index finger against the petty bourgeoisie, embodied in the greedy pulpero, the rural petty trader, or the local commander who squandered the wealth of the country selfishly. Other interpretations see the work as a list of the adversities that led to the decline of the gauchos, as an epic of democracy, as an accusation against progress and the defense of the tradition of idleness, or as the liberation of the individual from the overwhelming power of organized society.

The Martín Fierro has clarified the rehabilitation of the Gauchos goal. However, it reaches much further in its depth dimensions. In a serene and noble way, he “sings about” that justice, that freedom and that peace which are promised in many speeches but which are never actually redeemed. The plot and the episodes represent the solid framework of this work. The artistic message, which sits like a neon sign on the top floor of a building, is a "silver-sounding song for justice and solidarity". Not cheap retribution, as Hernández describes it in the pub episode, or cheap, narrow-minded selfishness, which the author personifies in the figure of Vizcacha, not the barren, worried life of the indigenous population or the military routine in the border fort are the core message of this poem This core message is only at the end of the work: Here the old Martín Fierro passes on his won and hard-won wisdom, which aims at a peaceful and socially just world, to his sons. This plea will remain valid as long as the man in the country, the little man in the city or the worker seeks the social understanding that is due to him. “ Martín Fierro does not ask for anything extraordinary: responsible action by those in command and fair treatment of those governed. Justice as a sign of community spirit in human coexistence. History is not possible without justice, because history means commitment to people and connects them [...] "

The path of the gaucho, actually the path of every human being, cannot lead back into an individualistic, isolated existence. His path cannot and must not end in a state that dominates many existences and is socially degrading. Both are wrong ways that cause an infinite amount of calamity and human suffering. Only a community that allows even the smallest and the smallest to enjoy, guarantee and provide their dignity and personal development opportunities can avoid this unnecessary suffering and is something everyone should strive for. With this, José Hernández and his Martín Fierro have given the young, emerging state structures of the La Plata region their deeper meaning and set their everlasting task.

expenditure

German language translations

(A translation by Max Tepp was never published.)

  • José Hernández: The Gaucho Martín Fierro (first and second part), Spanish and German, translated from Argentine Spanish by Pedro Pluhar, 2nd improved edition, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-00-004428-0
  • José Hernández: The Gaucho Martín Fierro , translated by Alfredo Bauer, Stuttgart 1995 (Hans-Dieter Heinz Akademischer Verlag), ISBN 3-88099-315-7
  • José Hernández: The Gaucho Martín Fierro , translated by Adolf Borstendoerfer, Buenos Aires 1945 (Editorial Cosmopolita)

literature

  • Brockhaus, 19th completely revised edition, volume 9, Mannheim 1989, ISBN 3-7653-1109-X , page 713, article: "Hernández José", there also a brief description of "Martín Fierro"
  • Kindler's Neues Literaturlexikon, Volume 7, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-463-43200-5 , page 752, article "José Hernández, El Gaucho Martín Fierro"

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The preceding passage (“The Meaning of Martín Fierro”) is taken from the preface by Alberto Gómez Farías to the following work, both in the marked quotations and in the description: José Hernández: The Gaucho Martín Fierro - El Gaucho Martín Fierro. Translated from Argentine Spanish by Pedro Pluhar, 2nd improved edition, Cologne 1999, ISBN 3-00-004428-0 , pages I – IV.
  2. ↑ Compare this to the first part of the work: The Gaucho Martín Fierro .
  3. ↑ Compare this to the second part of the work: The Return of Martín Fierro .
  4. ↑ See the legacy Martín Fierro gives to his two sons at the end of the book.

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