The Generation of '37 It is the literary-intellectual group that made life in Argentina in the first half of the 19th century. This conglomerate of learned men advocated the breakdown of the doctrines acquired during the Spanish yoke, present even after the emancipation.
It was a concertation product of historical circumstances. After the long decade that the independence struggle meant (1810-1820), Argentina was mired in institutional disorder. There was a lack of a unitary line of thought with a patriotic sense, identity.
There was no clear unit, but the territory was in a kind of clashes dispersed by power where causal leaders did their thing..
This group of men were greatly influenced by French and English Romanticism, and their expeditious medium for the exposition of their ideas was literature, in its various genres..
Esteban Echeverría, Juan María Gutiérrez, Juan Bautista Alberdi and Domingo Faustino Sarmiento were among its main representatives. They considered themselves the guarantors of citizens 'rights, the children of the independence struggle, those chosen for the forging of Argentine citizens' rights..
That zeal, that deeply rooted nationalist sense, allowed the early consolidation of the movement and eventually the realization of one of its prominent ideals: the national organization and subsequent democracy of Argentina..
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Although the date of its establishment is 1837, the lives of the men who made up the movement converged before.
Causally, a large number of its members studied at the College of Moral Sciences (currently called "Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires"), which allowed the group's line of thought and ideology to point towards the same interests..
The school was closed from 1830 to 1836 by Juan Ramón González de Balcarce, then governor, and later reopened by Juan Manuel de Rosas, but under tariffs. In both cases, and due to events that occurred later, the actions against the educational institute had a political mark.
After the conditioned reopening of the school, its former students, moved in the occult by the patriotic sense, made up the Literary Hall. The headquarters took place in Buenos Aires. They met there: Juan Bautista Alberdi, Esteban Echeverría, Juan María Gutiérrez, Vicente Fidel López, among others.
The Rosas government, realizing the high political content of the literary discussions that took place there, ordered the place to be closed.
Barely 6 months had elapsed since the Literary Hall was created when it was dissolved. However, despite the superfluous dispersion, the libertarian and democratic flame had already been lit, and it would continue until its purposes were achieved..
Esteban Echeverría was responsible for assuming the subsequent command of the group that had been established, but now clandestinely, for fear of reprisals, under the name: Asociación de Mayo. This is how the Generation of 37 was consolidated.
The movement inevitably had a political-literary-idealistic connotation, a situation that, due to the advanced training of its members, gave it a scope that the Rosas government never thought it could achieve..
In the texts of the romantic writers of the Generation of 37, women are a necessary figure, the foundation on which the nation is sustained. It is the female who is in charge of shaping customs, allowing the progress of civilization itself through the organization of the basic spaces of the homeland..
Despite what may be believed, these were not dissertations that promoted feminism, on the contrary, women were seen as a necessary complement to men in everything related to political and social events, and vice versa..
These writers created at that time, through their proposals, a little-studied historical background on the role of Argentine women in the independence struggle, and in the formation and consolidation of gaucho democracy..
The discourse of the writers of the Generation of 37, in a great variety of texts, recognizes women as an inexorable bulwark in the formation of citizenship.
This assessment, as is common in many other cultures due to the exacerbated machismo, is not made by the writings of Argentine history..
It is due to the thinkers and literati of the generation of 37 the sowing of philosophical and political ideas and values of the concept of democracy.
Its representatives achieved a high degree of rapport with the masses, due to the strong influence of the works and the authors they read, mostly European, among them: Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, Rousseau, Saint Simon, among others.
The Generation of '37 understood early on the importance of education to achieve the necessary changes that urged the nation at that time. The change was not instantaneous, in fact it took 15 years to forge, but it was worth the effort.
After the battle of Caseros, in 1852, Juan Manuel de Rosas was defeated, overthrown and exiled, who at that time ruled the province of Buenos Aires, and was also the diplomatic in charge of foreign relations of the Confederation.
The truth is that the uprising against them had a lot to do with the Generation of '37 and the ideological canons that its members spread. Justo José de Urquiza, who commanded the so-called “Big Army”, with the support of Santa Fe, Brazil and Uruguay, was in charge of defeating Rosas.
In 1853, the constitution that governed the vast majority of the confederate states of Argentina was signed, except Buenos Aires, which was added later, in 1856..
The vast majority of its young members were born just after 1810, when the Argentine Independence began to take shape..
This self-recognition served as an incentive, injected into the writers' discourse a messianic air that greatly contributed to the fact that the people who read them believed and felt what was written..
More than an idea of political and democratic freedom, the generation of 37 sought intellectual liberation.
As it happened in all the Latin American countries that were under the Spanish yoke, after achieving liberation from the power of the Spanish crown, education continued to maintain the same themes as when the kings dominated. That was totally counterproductive..
The most difficult thing was to get out of people's minds the intellectual dominance that the Spanish had established after decades of dominance..
The process was slow, but safe. The gradual introduction of the ideas of the own, of the gaucho identity, they were penetrating with the passing of the years. Among the Latin American nations, it can be said that Argentina was the one that most quickly achieved its intellectual emancipation.
It must be clear that a total ignorance of the Hispanic was not raised. On the contrary, what was just and necessary was respected. However, there was a revaluation of one's own identity and a recognition of aboriginal cultures and their contributions, as important and necessary as foreigners..
Due to the differences already marked due to the recent emancipation, the writers of the Generation of 37 moved away from the Spanish literary customs and approached the styles of French and English Romanticism.
Esteban Echeverría, thanks to his studies in France, was one of the precursors of French Romanticism in Argentina. He was in charge of training his colleagues around the most representative authors of Europe that he was able to get to know up close..
Lord Byron, from England, was greatly studied and his poetic style widely applied by many of the members of the Mayo Association. Therefore, it was up to the members of this group to omit the influence of Spanish Romanticism and to sow the Anglo-Gallic legacy in Gaucho lands..
He was born in Buenos Aires. He was one of the most representative writers of the Generation of '37. He received studies in France and, after his return, was in charge of training his colleagues in relation to French Romanticism and other European manifestations, with a clear distancing, of course, from the spanish forms.
He was a leader by nature and he knew how to lead it in a noble way. He was the founder of the Mayo Association, a clandestine group that sheltered the recently dissolved Generación del 37.
Representative works:
- Elvira or the bride of Plata (1832).
- Don Juan (1833).
- To the heart (1835).
- Hymn of Pain (1834).
- Consolations (1842).
He was an Argentine writer born in Río de Plata. He played important roles in politics, teaching, journalism and the militarism of his country. He has to his credit being cataloged one of the greatest Castilian prose writers.
His contributions to Argentina include his determination to improve public education, as well as his contribution to the cultural and scientific advancement of his country..
Representative works:
- My defense, 1843.
- Facundo or Civilization and Barbarism (1845).
- Gradual method of teaching to read Spanish (1845).
- Of popular education (1849).
- Big Army Campaign (1852).
- Commentary on the Constitution of the Argentine Confederation (1853).
- Schools, foundations of prosperity (1866).
He was an Argentine polymath born in the province of Tucumán. He practiced as a jurist, politician, economist, lawyer, diplomat, statesman, musician, and writer. He had Basque roots on his father's side. His mother died while giving birth to him.
Her work within the members of the Generation of 37 and the Mayo Association had a very felt impact, since her family was directly linked to the events of the May Revolution, supporting her directly from the beginning..
Representative works:
- Reaction against Spanishism (1838).
- The present generation in the face of the past generation (1838).
- The May Revolution (1839).
- The giant Poppies and his formidable enemies, that is, the dramatic glory of a memorable war (1842).
- Memory on the convenience and objects of an American General Congress (1844).
- Bases and starting points for the political organization of the Argentine Republic (1852).
- Elements of provincial public law for the Argentine Republic (1853).
- Economic and income system of the Argentine Confederation (1854).
- Of anarchy and its two main causes, of the government and its two necessary elements in the Argentine Republic, on the grounds of its reorganization by Buenos Aires (1862).
- The Omnipotence of the State is the Denial of Individual Freedom (1880).
He was a versatile Argentine citizen born in Buenos Aires. He stood out as an Argentine historian, statesman, surveyor, jurisconsult, poet and critic. It represented in itself the liberalism that founded the real construction of Argentina.
He is taken into account as a model to follow for his work in the promotion and teaching of Argentine culture throughout the 19th century. It covered various literary genres, among which the novel, criticism and biographies stand out..
He also had a considerable impact on the Argentine political field, becoming part of the entre Ríos entourage during the constituent convention given in 1853. He also held the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1854 to 1856, leaving the Argentine Confederation.
As if that were not enough, and thanks to his support as well as the scientific and technical advances of Argentina, he was invested with the noble position of rector of the UBA (University of Buenos Aires) in 1861, since he held until he was retired in 1874.
Representative works:
- The American Reader (1874).
- Poetic work of D. José Joaquín Olmedo, the only complete collection (1848).
- Historical news about the origin and development of Higher Education in Buenos Aires (1868).
- Poetic America (1846).
- Biographical Notes of Writers, Speakers and Statesmen of the Argentine Republic - Volume VII (1860).
- "Physiognomy of Spanish knowledge which should be among us", speech at the inauguration of the Literary Hall of 1837.
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