Juan Bautista Alberdi
Juan Bautista Alberdi (born August 29, 1810 in San Miguel de Tucumán , † June 19, 1884 in Neuilly , France ) was an Argentine politician , diplomat , writer and journalist .
Life
Soon after his birth, Juan Bautista Alberdi lost his mother, Josefa Aráoz y Balderrama, and at the age of 10 also his father, Salvador Alberdi, a Spanish merchant and sympathizer of the May Revolution ; thanks to a grant from the Argentine government, he came to Buenos Aires in 1825 , where he received his doctorate from the law faculty in 1837. In 1838, together with Esteban Echeverría and José María Gutiérrez, he founded the "Asociación de Mayo", a club of liberal intellectuals that was soon crushed by the Rosas police. Alberdi was influenced by the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau ; he was also a musician, lawyer and diplomat. From 1838 he lived in exile in Montevideo for a long time , as he was instrumental in organizing the resistance against the dictatorship of Rosas. There he worked as a journalist and secretary to Juan Lavalle , with whom he later fell out. In 1843, after a short stay in Europe, he settled as a lawyer in Valparaíso , Chile , where he wrote as a journalist under the pseudonym "Figarillo". He remained in exile in Chile until 1855. From 1855 to 1862 he was ambassador of the Argentine Confederation in England and France . In 1878 he returned to Argentina, but due to a violent argument with Bartolomé Miter he left his native country again and went to Europe, where he died in a suburb of Paris in 1884 .
Political importance
Alberdi fought together with other Argentinian intellectuals of the so-called " Generation of 1837 " for democracy in his country. Alberdi is called the "father of the Argentine constitution" of 1853, which is still in force today and which he decisively shaped with his writing Bases y puntos de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina . As a statesman, he succeeded in recognizing Argentina's independence. He is considered to be the most important theoretician of Argentine liberalism. Alberdi stood up for European immigration in Argentina and against the war with Paraguay as well as for a political unity of America, beginning for a customs union .
Literary work
From a literary point of view, Alberdi belongs to the current of " realismo romántico ".
Dramatic works
As a writer, Alberdi mainly produced politically militant literature, he shows disagreements among the revolutionaries of 1810 and is quite rhetorical or patriotic- heroic.
Juan Bautista Alberdi wrote, among other things, a satire with caricature features and in a politically militant tone under the title La revolución de Mayo, crónica dramática en cuatro partes (1839), of which only the second and third parts were completed and which was never performed . A work that is still played today is El gigante Amapolas y sus formidables enemigos, o sea fastos dramáticos de una guerra memorable (written in 1841, published in 1844), a one-act play in prose ("Peti-pieza cómica en un acto"). It is a satire on Juan Manuel de Rosas; it has also been called the forerunner of the later genre of the farce because it combines elements of the absurd and the grotesque . A giant made of straw with a dagger bathed in blood symbolizes the tyrant Rosas; the piece is dedicated to the generals Rivera, Bulnes and Ballivián, named Capitán Mosquito, Teniente Guitarra and Mayor Mentirola in the drama. In 1993 it was performed in a musical theater version (“comedia musical”) by Oli Alonso by the “Tream Teatro”, and in 2004 in Neuquén in a new version by the Grupo Experimental de Teatro “Tribu Salvaje”.
List of his works
- Fragmento Preliminar al estudio del derecho. 1837.
- Predicar en desiertos. 1838.
- Reacción contra el españolismo. 1838.
- La generación presente a la faz de la generación pasada. 1838.
- La Revolución de Mayo. 1839.
- El gigante Amapolas y sus formidables enemigos, o sea fastos dramáticos de una guerra memorable. 1842.
- Ideas for presidir a la confección del curso de filosofía contemporánea. 1842.
- Memoria sobre la conveniencia y objetos de un Congreso General Americano. 1844.
- Bases and points de partida para la organización política de la República Argentina. 1852.
- Elementos de derecho público provincial para la República Argentina. 1853.
- Sistema económico y rentístico de la Confederación Argentina. 1854.
- El crimen de la guerra. 1870.
- Peregrinación de Luz del Día, o Viajes y aventuras de la Verdad en el Nuevo Mundo. 1871.
- La Omnipotencia del Estado es la Negación de la Libertad Individual. 1880.
bibliography
- José Luis Busaniche: Historia Argentina. Solar-Hachette, Buenos Aires 1973.
- John Lynch: Historia de la Argentina. Crítica, Buenos Aires 2002.
- Jorge M. Mayer: Alberdi y su tiempo. Eudeba, Buenos Aires 1963.
- José Luis Romero: Las ideas políticas en la Argentina. Fondo de Cultura Económica, Buenos Aires 1975.
Web links
- Literature by and about Juan Bautista Alberdi in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
- Biography (in Spanish)
- Newspaper article about Juan Bautista Alberdi in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Alberdi, Juan Bautista |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Argentine politician, writer, diplomat and journalist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 29, 1810 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | San Miguel de Tucuman |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 19, 1884 |
| Place of death | Neuilly , France |