Simón Bolívar

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Simón Bolívar, posthumous representation (painting by A. Michelena, 1895)
Simón Bolívar Signature.svg

Simón José Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Ponte (-Andrade) (y) Palacios y Blanco [ simɔn boliβaɾ ], called "El Libertador" (* 24. July 1783 in Caracas , New Granada , today Venezuela; † 17th December 1830 in Santa Marta , Greater Colombia , now Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia) was a South American independence fighter. He is the national hero of several South American and Caribbean countries. He led the wars of independence against Spanish colonial rulein Venezuela , Colombia , Panama and Ecuador . He also intervened decisively in the independence processes in Peru and in Bolivia , which is named after him.

Life

Childhood and stays in Europe

Simón Bolívar was the son of a wealthy Creole family and enjoyed a very good education. His father was Juan Vicente de Bolívar y Ponte-Andrade (1726-1786) and his mother was María de la Concepción Palacios de Aguirre Ariztía-Sojo y Blanco de Herrera (1758-1792). However, he first lost his father (when he was three) and then his mother (when he was nine) and grew up with his siblings with a grandfather and uncles.

As a child, he spent a lot of time on his parents' cocoa plantations, where slaves worked. His private tutors included Andrés Bello and Simón Rodríguez , with whom he later traveled through Europe. After the death of his parents, he went to Spain as an orphan in 1799 to continue his education. He received lessons in "foreign languages, dance, math, horse riding and history." In Spain, he married María Teresa Rodríguez del Toro y Alaysa in 1802, with whom he then returned to Venezuela. However, the following year his wife succumbed to yellow fever . In 1804 Bolívar began a trip through France and Italy, where he was particularly impressed by Napoleon Bonaparte and his politics. There were two meetings with Alexander von Humboldt , in Paris in 1804 and in Italy in 1805. In 1807 Bolívar became a member of the Confederation of Freemasons and returned to Venezuela.

The War of Independence

The increasing national consciousness in the Spanish colonies led to an independence movement in Latin America during this period. Simón Bolívar joined a resistance junta in Caracas . This announced on April 19, 1810 the self-government of Venezuela in the name of the deposed King Fernando VII and sent Bolívar for diplomatic negotiations to Great Britain . The Spanish army tried to stop the independence movement - which resulted in fighting in the colonies. In 1811 Bolívar returned to Venezuela, where he helped found a congress. On July 5, 1811, independence was declared by this congress and the First Republic proclaimed. Francisco de Miranda , leader of the junta in Caracas, and his men had to surrender to the Spanish troops on July 25th. With this decisive defeat, the first Venezuelan republic failed. Bolívar fled to Cartagena , Colombia. There he wrote the Cartagena Manifesto , in which he summarized the causes for the failure of the First Venezuelan Republic.

On May 14, 1813, the liberation struggle continued. In New Granada , Simón Bolívar led the invasion of Venezuela. He captured Mérida on May 23 , followed by Trujillo on June 9. Finally, on August 6th, he succeeded in conquering Caracas and proclaimed the Second Venezuelan Republic there. These battles earned him the honorary name El Libertador (The Liberator). He went to New Granada again, took command of a Colombian unit there and took Bogotá with her in 1814 .

Exile in Jamaica

Simón Bolívar

Then Bolívar planned the conquest of Cartagena and hoped for a merger with the local armed forces. However, the project failed due to both political disputes and military conquests by Spanish troops, so that Bolívar was forced to go into exile in Jamaica . He stayed there from May to December 1815. During this time he wrote the Carta de Jamaica , the letter from Jamaica, in which he described the successes of the liberation struggle of Spanish America so far, listed the reasons for the need for independence and reflected on the future of the individual nations.

In Jacmel on the south coast of Haiti he met the Haitian President Alexandre Sabès Pétion , whom he asked for support in his campaign. On December 24, 1818, Bolívar called the port of Aux Cayes in southern Haiti to receive support for his freedom struggle. Among other things, he could borrow weapons and hire fighters here. With their help, Bolívar landed in Venezuela and was able to take the city of Angostura, today's Ciudad Bolívar , which became the starting point for his further operations.

Greater Colombia

After the conquest of Boyacá in 1819, New Granada was also liberated from the Spanish. On September 7, 1821, Bolívar founded the Republic of Greater Colombia , a state that comprised the territories of the previously liberated provinces of Venezuela, Ecuador and New Granada. He immediately became the first President of Greater Colombia, and General Francisco de Paula Santander became Vice President. The military victories at the Battle of Carabobo (June 24, 1821) and the Pichincha (1822) consolidated his position.

On July 26th and 27th, 1822, the legendary meeting between Simón Bolívar and the Argentine general José de San Martín took place. San Martín had waged the war of independence in Argentina , Chile and Peru . In Peru, which was dominated by royalism, he met some fierce resistance. In addition, San Martin had quickly made himself unpopular in Peru due to domestic political measures, which is why he left Simón Bolívar to complete independence in Peru and high Peru. San Martín gave him command of his troops and withdrew from the War of Independence. The Peruvian Congress appointed Bolívar dictator on February 10, 1824 , which allowed him to reorganize the political and military leadership.

With the help of General Antonio José de Sucre and the German Otto Philipp Braun , he won the battle of Junín on August 6, 1824 over the Spanish cavalry . In the Battle of Ayacucho (Peru) on December 9 of the same year, Sucre defeated the remaining - but nevertheless numerically superior - Spanish forces (in the absence of Bolívar) and thus finally forced the Spanish to leave the South American continent. Bolívar saw Sucre as his best general and closest confidante, and the two military leaders had a lifelong friendship.

At the Congress of Alto-Peru on August 6, 1825, the new republic was renamed Bolivia after its liberator . The Libertador worked out a new constitution for the country. However, the rule over Greater Colombia became increasingly difficult for him. National currents in the republics and disputes within the government threatened to break up the community of states. In an effort to preserve the Republic of Greater Colombia as a whole, he invited a constituent assembly in Ocaña in 1828 . He wanted to incorporate parts of the Bolivian constitution into that of Greater Colombia. The changes would have included a tenure presidency, along with the right to appoint a successor. The proposals were viewed with great skepticism and strong opposition arose.

Assassination attempt in September 1828

Bolívar's death, depicted by the Venezuelan painter Antonio Herrera Toro

The meeting failed due to major political differences between the participants. Bolívar viewed this outcome as a disaster. As a result, he made himself dictator on August 27, 1828. It was to be a temporary measure to restore his authority within the fragmented parties and to ensure the preservation of the republic. However, this led to an even greater dissatisfaction among his political opponents and culminated in an attack on him in September, in which Santander was also involved. Thanks to the help of his lover Manuela Sáenz, Bolívar was unharmed in the attack. Because of this act she is also called La Libertadora del Libertador (Liberator of the Liberator). A plaque commemorates the incident under the window of Bolívar's residence through which he fled.

However, his position in the republic remained controversial and his influence was increasingly undermined by political opponents. In the following two years there were repeated uprisings in the greater Colombian republics. Finally, on April 27, 1830 , the libertador resigned from all his political offices.

death

Bolívar decided to seek exile in the Caribbean or in Europe. But before he could leave the continent, he died on December 17, 1830 in Santa Marta , Colombia . According to the findings of the time, tuberculosis was the cause of death. However, according to a 2010 study at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, arsenic poisoning would be more likely. To clarify the cause of death, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez ordered the exhumation of Bolívar in July 2010 . His tomb is in Caracas. In July 2011, forensics experts concluded that there was no evidence of poisoning or any other unnatural cause of death.

Shortly after his death, the Republic of Greater Colombia broke up into the states of Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia. Bolívar's death was initially viewed as a liberation by many South Americans; But hero worship began as early as the 1840s and continues to this day.

Political goals and guidelines

Constitution of liberated Latin America

Statue for Bolívar in Berlin
2.5 Pesos of the Republic of Colombia from 1919 with a portrait of Simón Bolivar

Bolívar's central political guidelines were Latin America's political independence from Europe and the USA , progressive social ideas and Pan-Americanism . He favored a centralized community of the South American states he had liberated and rejected a federal structure. His corresponding plan, presented at the Panama Congress in Panamá in 1826, of a confederation of all Latin American states present could not, however, be implemented. Bolívar advocated the separation of powers and restraints of power for governments in individual states. In the centralized community of Hispanic American states, however, there should be a strong executive (e.g., through a Senate elected for life) that can assert itself against the interests of various groups (e.g., influential landowners).

The main goals of Bolívar's Pan-American policy were: 1. The maximum goal of a centralized Pan-American Congress that should stand above all Hispanic American states, 2. The idea of ​​a unity of the Andean republics, which he presented at the Panama Congress, 3. Greater Colombia as a realpolitical concession.

Political theory

Bolívar's upbringing was particularly influenced by the republicanism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . In particular , he read the social contract with enthusiasm and shared Rousseau's admiration for ancient Sparta and its values. However , he was critical of the Emile education book or education . At the beginning of the 19th century he also read and processed the works of Voltaire and John Locke . In Bolívar's writings, Montesquieu's “ From the Spirit of Laws ” is most frequently quoted, although he distances himself from the required separation of powers and wants to establish another form of violence in the Hispanic American context, which he calls poder moral (moral violence). Divided into two chambers, it should rule on matters of public interest.

Bolívar was a supporter of the United States political system and the American Revolution . However, with the exception that Bolívar condemned slavery and wanted to abolish it. In particular, Bolívar admired Thomas Jefferson and sent his nephew to the University of Virginia , which had been founded at the instigation of Jefferson.

Bolívar believed that complete freedom, in which everyone could supposedly act unrestrictedly, led to tyranny by a few powerful. Bolívar took over from Montesquieu's factory, among other things. as goals the principle of the separation of powers and the rule of law and supplemented this by a fourth power, the poder moral (moral power). At the same time, however, he concluded from the works he had read and from his experience that political institutions should not only be based on philosophical principles, but should above all adapt to real conditions. He also adopted many thoughts and metaphors from Alexander von Humboldt , with whom he met several times, in his own writings.

Bolívar left about 10,000 documents (letters, speeches, essays, declarations and constitutions). His most famous writings are the Carta de Jamaica of 1815 and his speech at the Congreso de Angostura in 1819.

Unsuccessful abolition of slavery

Bolívar counted the abolition of slavery among its most important goals; he enforced it among his troops at the beginning. In addition, from 1820 onwards, he passed a series of decrees to protect the property of the indigenous population. However, in his attempts neither in Colombia nor in Bolivia did he succeed in freeing the indigenous slaves of society at large. The Creole upper class or oligarchy had too great a power in society for slavery to be abolished only through a legal prohibition. It wasn't until a few decades after Bolívar's death that slavery was abolished in Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela in the 1850s. Its failure may be due to the extensive exclusion of indigenous peoples from the political organization of the newly created independent republics. The Latin American struggle for independence was based on Creole values ​​and Bolívar's writings do not yet contain any indications of an ethnic self-image for establishing Latin American identity.

Understanding of nature

After Caracas was largely devastated by a devastating earthquake in 1812 , Bolívar said: "If nature opposes it, we fight it and make it obedient." Alberto Costa places his attitude in the thinking of this time, according to which nature itself Let people subordinate. He sees the foundation, also represented by Simón Bolívar, as a foundation for imperialism in the countries of South America: "The desire to dominate nature in order to transform it into export goods has always been present in Latin America."

Commemoration

Bust in the city park of Funchal, Madeira
Memorial near Santa Marta , Colombia
Bust and memorial plaque in Frankfurt am Main
Monument to Simon Bolivar in Santiago de Chile
Equestrian statue "Al Libertador" in Parque Bolívar in Tarija , Bolivia

2007 was a collection of documents, which in the Archivo General de la Nacion de Venezuela (National Archives) in Caracas are in the list of world cultural heritage of UNESCO added. The collection contains more than 82,000 documents including: personal letters, decrees, orders, proclamations, speeches, war news, military appointments and press releases.

There are a number of towns and cities in South America that bear Bolívar's name. The states of Bolivia and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela) bear the name of the freedom hero, and Venezuela's currency is also called " Bolívar ". In Colombia, one of the two highest mountains in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta was also christened “ Pico Simón Bolívar ”.

In San José , the capital of Costa Rica , there is a zoological garden that bears the name of Simón Bolívars, and there is a bust of him in the nearby Parque Morazán (Calle 7).

The asteroid (712) Boliviana , discovered by Max Wolf in Heidelberg on March 19, 1911, is named after Bolívar . A brand of cigars is also named after Bolívar. It produces some of the strongest and most flavorful cigars in Cuba. The Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar de Venezuela also bears his name. A Venezuelan Order of Merit, the Order of the Bust of Bolivar , was donated by the government under President Jose Gregorio Monagas on March 9, 1854 in honor of Bolívar as liberator from Spanish rule. The award went to the fighters of the Liberation Army and those who had distinguished themselves through special services in the Venezuelan state. The UNESCO awarded from 1983 to 2004 the International Simón Bolívar Prize for outstanding achievements, "contribute freedom, independence and dignity of peoples and to the strengthening of a new international economic, social and cultural order" in line with the objectives of Bolivar for.

In Germany there are statues of Bolívar in front of the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin-Tiergarten , in Bonn in a facility on Friedrich-Ebert-Allee, on the grounds of the University of Bremen the Simón Bolívar bust , in Bremen town hall a bust and in Simón -Bolívar-Park in Hamburg-Harvestehude . Additional are Berlin , the Simon Bolivar Street in Alt-Hohenschönhausen ( Lichtenberg district ), and the Bolivar Avenue in Westend ( Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to find). In Frankfurt am Main , in the Westend Nord district , there is a Simón Bolívar facility with a memorial plaque and bust. In Leipzig there is also a Simon-Bolivar-Straße , which is located in the Mockau district. There is also Simon-Bolivar-Straße in Endingen am Kaiserstuhl. In Vienna's 22nd district in the Danube Park there is a statue of and a plaque for Simón Bolívar.

The Scottish composer Thea Musgrave wrote the lyrics and music for an opera entitled Simón Bolívar from 1989-1992 . The United States Navy named the strategic nuclear submarine USS Simon Bolivar (SSBN-641), completed in 1964, after the Libertador . Venezuela put the former Spanish gunboat Galicia into service as a Bolívar in 1899 , which was included in the fleet list until around 1918.

More recently, the Venezuelan government under Hugo Chávez, following the so-called “Bolivarian” revolution , tried to claim Bolivar's legacy politically, including: by designating Venezuela as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , invoking a Bolivarian constitution , concluding a trade agreement under the name Bolivarian Alliance for America , etc.

The Bolivar Soloists are a Venezuelan ensemble for chamber music .

Movies

literature

  • Gerhard Masur: Simon Bolívar . University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1948, 2nd ed. 1969; German as Simon Bolivar and the liberation of South America . Südverlag, Constance 1949; Spanish as Simon Bolivar . Mexico City 1960.
  • Salvador de Madariaga : Simon Bolivar. The Liberator of Spanish America . Manesse-Verlag, Zurich 1986, 2nd edition 1989, ISBN 3-7175-8066-3 ; German first under the title Bolivar . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1961.
  • Gabriel García Márquez : The general in his labyrinth . Novel . Kiepenheuer and Witsch, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-462-03057-4 ; originally Spanish as El general en su laberinto . Mondadori, Madrid 1989, ISBN 84-397-1579-X .
  • Bill Boyd: Bolivar. Liberator of a continent. A dramatized biography . SPI Books, New York 1998, ISBN 1-56171-994-3 .
  • Ingrid Beutler-Tackenberg: Gabriel García Márquez and Simón Bolívar in the labyrinth of history. The political dimension of the historical novel El general en su laberinto . Logos-Verlag, Berlin 2000 (also: Dissertation, Wuppertal 2000), ISBN 3-89722-504-2 ( online publication , PDF , 532 kB).
  • John Lynch: Simón Bolívar. A Life , Yale University Press, New Haven 2006, ISBN 0-300-11062-6 .
  • Michael Zeuske : From Bolívar to Chávez. The history of Venezuela , Zurich: Rotpunktverlag, 2008, ISBN 3-85869-313-8 .
  • Michael Zeuske : "Simón Bolívar in history, myth and cult", in: Molden, Berthold; Mayer, David (eds.): Polyphonic Pasts - History Policy in Latin America , Münster [etc,]: LIT Verlag, 2009 (= ¡Atención! Yearbook of the Austrian Latin America Institute; Vol. 12), pp. 241–265.
  • Norbert Rehrmann : Simón Bolívar. The life story of the man who liberated Latin America . Wagenbach, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-8031-3630-X .
  • Michael Zeuske : Simón Bolívar, Liberator of South America. History and myth . Rotbuch, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86789-143-1 .
  • Andrea Wulf : Alexander von Humboldt and the invention of nature . Chapter 12: Revolutions and Nature. Simón Bolívar and Humboldt . Translated from the English by Hainer Kober . Bertelsmann, Munich 2016. ISBN 978-3-570-10206-0 .

radio

comics

  • Simon Bolivar. South America becomes free , adventure of world history. The interesting youth magazine, No. 62 (Walter Lehning Verlag, Hanover) undated [approx. 1957].
predecessor Office successor
Start-up President of Greater Colombia
1821–1830 		Domingo Caycedo
José Bernardo de Tagle Portocarrero President of Peru
1824–1827 		Andrés de Santa Cruz
Start-up President of Bolivia
1825 		Antonio José de Sucre

Web links

Commons : Simón Bolívar  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Simón Bolívar  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bolívar, Simón (1783-1830) In: Enciclopedia Universal Micronet. Edición clásica. Micronet SA, Madrid 2005, ISBN 84-96533-02-6 , OCLC 776718361 , CD-ROM.
  2. ↑ Imanuel Geiss: History at hand. Volume 3: People. The biographical dimension of world history. Harenberg Lexikon-Verlag, Dortmund 1993, OCLC 610914127 , p. 201
  3. ↑ Sara Castro-clear: Framing Pan-Americanism. Simón Bolívar's Findings. In: CR. The New Centennial Review. 3, 1, spring 2003, pp. 25 - 53, here p. 27.
  4. ^ Hanno Beck: Alexander von Humboldt. Vol. II: From the travel work to the cosmos 1804-1859. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1961, p. 2, 57 .
  5. ^ Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurerlexikon. Revised and expanded new edition of the 1932 edition, Munich 2003, p. 951, ISBN 3-7766-2161-3 .
  6. ^ Karl Marx: Bolivar y Ponte , January 1858 in "The New American Cyclopædia"
  7. ^ Doctors Reconsider Health and Death of “El Libertador,” General Who Freed South America ( June 18, 2010 memento on the Internet Archive ), University of Maryland , April 30, 2010
  8. ↑ Chávez has Simón Bolívar's coffin opened , Der Standard, July 17, 2010
  9. ^ Simón Bolívar in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved July 11, 2016.
  10. ↑ Venezuela unable to determine cause of Bolivar's death
  11. ↑ Jaime Sierra García: Bolívar, el panamericanismo, el modelo sociológico americano y el derecho , in: Estudios de Derecho , 128, Medellín 1997, pp. 255-273, here pp. 260f.
  12. ↑ Simon Collier: Nationality, Nationalism and Supranationalism in the Writings of Simón Bolívar. In: Hispanic American Historical Review. 63, 1, 1983, pp. 37-64, here p. 48.
  13. ↑ Who was Simón Bolívar? ( Memento of July 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), evening paper February 11, 2007
  14. ↑ Sara Castro-clear: Framing Pan-Americanism. Simón Bolívar's Findings. In: CR. The New Centennial Review. 3, 1, spring 2003, pp. 25–53, here pp. 34–44.
  15. ↑ Lynch, John, Simón Bolívar: A Life , p. 33. Yale University Press, 2006
  16. ^ Jaime Sierra García: Bolívar, el panamericanismo, el modelo sociológico americano y el derecho. in: Estudios de Derecho. 128, Medellín 1997, pp. 255-273, here p. 262.
  17. ↑ "[M] adness did a revolution for liberty should try to maintain slavery" from: John Lynch: Simon Bolivar: A Life. Yale University Press, 2006, p. 288.
  18. ^ A b John Lynch: Simón Bolívar. A life. Yale University Press, 2006, pp. 284, 33-34.
  19. ↑ Catherine Davies: Colonial Dependence and Sexual Difference. Reading for Gender in the Writing's of Simón Bolívar (1783-1830). In: Feminist Review. 79: Latin America: History, war and independence, 2005, pp. 5 - 19, here p. 9.
  20. ↑ For the entire section: Lynch, John, Simón Bolívar: A Life , p. 288. Yale University Press, 2006
  21. ↑ Simon Collier: Nationality, Nationalism and Supranationalism in the Writings of Simón Bolívar. In: Hispanic American Historical Review , 63, 1, 1983, pp. 37-64, here pp. 43-45.
  22. ^ Alberto Costa: Buen Vivir. The right to a good life . Oekom Verlag, Munich, p. 100 .
  23. ↑ General Archive of the Nation - Writings of The Liberator Simón Bolívar. UNESCO - Memory of the World, accessed June 27, 2019 .
  24. ↑ International Simón Bolívar Prize - Rules for the Prize ( Memento of March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), last accessed: February 15, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Bolívar, Simón
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simon José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco; El padre de la Patria; El Libertador
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South American independence fighter
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1783
PLACE OF BIRTH Caracas
DATE OF DEATH December 17, 1830
PLACE OF DEATH Santa Marta , Colombia