Ezequiel Martínez Estrada
Encyclopedia
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
writer, poet, essayist, and literary critic. An admired biographer and critic, he was often political in his writings, and was a confirmed anti-Peronist. While in his middle years he was identified with the ideas of Nietzsche or Kafka, in his last years he was closely identified with the Cuban revolution
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement against the regime of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista between 1953 and 1959. Batista was finally ousted on 1 January 1959, and was replaced by a revolutionary government led by Castro...
and Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
.
Life
Originally from rural Argentina, Martínez Estrada was born in San José de la Esquina, in Santa Fe ProvinceSanta Fe Province
The Invincible Province of Santa Fe, in Spanish Provincia Invencible de Santa Fe , is a province of Argentina, located in the center-east of the country. Neighboring provinces are from the north clockwise Chaco , Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Buenos Aires, Córdoba, and Santiago del Estero...
and grew up until the age of twelve there and in Goyena, a village in the southern reaches of Buenos Aires province. (In 1937, he would buy a farm in Goyena). In 1907, his parents separated, and he went to live with his aunt Elisa in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, and to study at the Colegio Avellanda. It appears that his formal studies were cut short due to poverty. By 1914 he was working at the central post office in Buenos Aires; he would remain in Buenos Aires until retiring in 1946.
Within a few years, he began to establish a reputation as a poet; he also published a few short essays. In 1921 he married the Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
-born artist Agustina Morriconi, who definitely subordinated her career and unquestioned talents to his; she was, by all accounts, the muse of much of his poetry.
Beginning in 1924, Martínez Estrada taught literature at the Colegio Nacional of the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. He would continue this for decades, losing the job only when Juan Domingo Perón rose to power in 1945 (and returning briefly after Perón fell from power in 1956).
In 1933, responding to the 1930 Argentinian coup by José Félix Uriburu
José Félix Uriburu
General José Félix Benito Uriburu y Uriburu was the first de facto President of Argentina, achieved through a military coup, from September 6, 1930 to February 20, 1932.-Biography:...
, Martínez Estrada published Radiografía de la pampa, the first of a series of rather pessimistic sociological-psychological-historical essays that would make his reputation. That year, Martínez Estrada received the first of what were to be a series of national literary prizes. It is also about that time that he began travelling abroad; his generally favorable impressions during a U.S.-government-sponsored 1942 visit to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
are recounted in his posthumously published Panorama de los Estados Unidos; his impressions on this visit apparently contrasted sharply with his earlier and later anti-Americanism
Anti-Americanism
The term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
.
In 1946 Martínez Estrada became a regular contributor to the Argentine magazine Sur, edited and published by Victoria Ocampo
Victoria Ocampo
Victoria Ocampo Aguirre was an Argentine writer and intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as La mujer más argentina ....
. His contributions to Sur included poems, essays, and Kafkaesque short stories.
During the Perón years, Martínez Estrada suffered from an extremely disabling form of neurodermatitis, quite possibly psychosomatic
Psychosomatic illness
Psychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field studying the relationships of social, psychological, and behavioral factors on bodily processes and well-being in humans and animals...
. After the fall of Perón, his health regained, but still feeling himself a bit of a voice crying in the desert, he embarked on a series of writings he called his "catilinarias" (after Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
's Catiline Orations
Catiline Orations
The Catiline Orations or Catilinarian Orations were speeches given in 63 BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the consul of Rome, exposing to the Roman Senate the plot of Lucius Sergius Catilina and his allies to overthrow the Roman government....
), a series of acerbic writings directed at the Argentine elite, both in government and among the intellectuals, predicting that Argentina faced a century of "Pre-Peronism, Peronism, and Post-Peronism." During this time, he returned briefly to the Colegio Nacional, then was appointed as an Extraordinary Professor at the Universidad Nacional del Sur, in Bahía Blanca
Bahía Blanca
Bahía Blanca is a city located in the south-west of the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, by the Atlantic Ocean, and seat of government of Bahía Blanca Partido. It has a population of 274,509 inhabitants according to the...
.
Beginning in mid-1959, Martínez Estrada began what became a semi-exile lasting nearly to the end of his life. First he went on a lecture tour of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, then to a peace conference in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he met the Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n poet Nicolás Guillén
Nicolás Guillén
Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.Guillén was born in Camagüey, Cuba...
. In September 1959, he went on to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, where he remained for a year at the Institute of Political Science at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and wrote Diferencias y semejanzas entre los países de América Latina (Differences and resemblances among the Latin American countries), a long essay even broader than its title might suggest, in that it also drew parallels to Asia and Africa, and generally cast his lot with the emerging Third World
Third World
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO , or communism and the Soviet Union...
-ist view, condemning imperialism
Imperialism
Imperialism, as defined by Dictionary of Human Geography, is "the creation and/or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationships, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination." The imperialism of the last 500 years,...
and colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
and expressing his admiration for the revolution then in progress in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, which proved to be his next destination (although with some brief trips back to Argentina).
From September, 1960 until November 1962, Martínez Estrada served as director of the Center for Latin American Studies of Cuba's Casa de las Américas
Casa de las Américas
Casa de las Américas is an organization that was founded by the Cuban Government in April 1959, four months after the Cuban Revolution, for the purpose of developing and extending the socio-cultural relations with the countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and the rest of the world...
. There, he became very much a part of the heady intellectual atmosphere of the first years of the revolution: above all, he studied the life and works of José Martí
José Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...
. He also edited two books of Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...
's speeches, and numerous writings and pamphlets including El nuevo mundo, la isla de Utopía y la isla de Cuba (The New World, the Island of Utopia, and the Island of Cuba), in which he saw Cuba as having a manifest destiny
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. It was used by Democrat-Republicans in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.Advocates of...
, under which the indigenous Taíno
Taíno people
The Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Bahamas, Greater Antilles, and the northern Lesser Antilles. It is thought that the seafaring Taínos are relatives of the Arawak people of South America...
s of Cuba were linked to the "Amaurotos" of Thomas More
Thomas More
Sir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
's Utopia and Castro's Cuba to the ideal Cuba of Martí.
Martínez Estrada left Cuba shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...
. With his health beginning to fail, with Cuba expelled from the OAS
Organization of American States
The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...
, and with a need to attend to his own economic affairs, he decided that he "would better serve the revolution from abroad." After a brief stop in Mexico he returned to Argentina, to Bahía Blanca, and to his status as a voice in the wilderness. He completed his three books on Martí (none of which were published in his lifetime and one of which remains unpublished ), wrote a work on Balzac, and continued to write poems (notably his Tres poemas del anochecer -- Three Poems at Dusk -- the last work he published in Sur). He spoke of returning to Cuba; it is not entirely clear whether his failure to do so was entirely a matter of his health or related to traces of disillusionment with the revolution that are evidenced in his correspondence. He died November 4, 1964 in Bahía Blanca.
Works
The themes of Martínez Estrada's work can largely be gleaned from his choices of whom to write about. The names Nietzsche, Montaigne, and Kafka presumably speak for themselves, but there is also a specifically Latin American theme of skepticism about certain aspects of modernity to be found in his writings. In looking at the works of Domingo SarmientoDomingo Faustino Sarmiento
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the seventh President of Argentina. His writing spanned a wide range of genres and topics, from journalism to autobiography, to political philosophy and history...
, he picked up Sarmiento's themes of "civilization" and "barbarism", but with a greater ambivalence about the virtues of civilization than were found in the earlier writer. Writing about nineteenth-century naturalist Guillermo Enrique Hudson, Martínez Estrada showed himself to be in sympathy with the idea of a return to a more paradisical natural world. He shared with his older contemporary Horacio Quiroga
Horacio Quiroga
Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza was an Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer....
a concern for the mediocrity, injustice, and dehumanization of contemporary industrial / technological society. Like Sarmiento and José Martí
José Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...
, he believed that as a writer he could not only comment upon the world, but influence it. Towards the end of his life, this led to his support for the Cuban revolution and to his "catilinarias", acerbic writings on Argentine politics and culture.
| Ezequiel Martínez Estrada Bibliography | ||
(Gold and Stone)
(The Motives of Heaven)
(Humoresque)
(Light-footed marionettes)
Pampa
The Pampas are the fertile South American lowlands, covering more than , that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and the southernmost Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul...
(An X-ray of the Pampa)
(Goliath's Head)
(The Flood)
Victoria Ocampo
Victoria Ocampo Aguirre was an Argentine writer and intellectual, described by Jorge Luis Borges as La mujer más argentina ....
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the seventh President of Argentina. His writing spanned a wide range of genres and topics, from journalism to autobiography, to political philosophy and history...
(Panorama of Literature)
(Poetry)
(Historic Invariants in Facundo)
(Death and Transfiguration of Martín Fierro)
Martín Fierro
Martín Fierro is a 2,316 line epic poem by the Argentine writer José Hernández. The poem was originally published in two parts, El Gaucho Martín Fierro and La Vuelta de Martín Fierro . The poem is, in part, a protest against the modernist tendencies of Argentine president Domingo Faustino Sarmiento...
by José Hernández
(The marvelous world of Guillermo Enrique Hudson)
(Portrait of the Pampas-dweller)
(What is this?)
(The Glorious Saturday)
(Three Stories Without Love)
("The Cough" and other Amusements)
(Three plays: What We Don't See Die, Shadows, The Hunters)
Horacio Quiroga
Horacio Silvestre Quiroga Forteza was an Uruguayan playwright, poet, and short story writer....
(Brother Quiroga)
(Exhortations)
(The 40)
(Heralds of Truth)
(Blind Man's Rhymes)
(More Blind Man's Rhymes)
(A Functional Analysis of Culture)
(Differences and resemblances among the Latin American countries)
(In Cuba, and At the Service of the Cuban Revolution)
(The True Story of Uncle Sam)
Siné
Maurice Sinet , known as Siné, is a French cartoonist.As a young man he studied drawing and graphic arts, while earning a living as a cabaret singer. After his military service he started publishing his drawings and also worked as a photo-retoucher for porn magazines. His first published drawing...
.
(The New World, the Island of Utopia, and the Island of Cuba)
(Reality and fantasy in Balzac)
(Three Poems at Dusk)
Nicolás Guillén
Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista was a Cuban poet, journalist, political activist, and writer. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.Guillén was born in Camagüey, Cuba...
(The Afro-Cuban poetry of Nicolás Guillén)
José Martí
José Julián Martí Pérez was a Cuban national hero and an important figure in Latin American literature. In his short life he was a poet, an essayist, a journalist, a revolutionary philosopher, a translator, a professor, a publisher, and a political theorist. He was also a part of the Cuban...
: el héroe y su acción revolucionaria
(Martí: The Hero and his Revolutionary Action)
(The Poetry of Ezequiel Martínez Estrada)
(Martí as Revolutionary)
("On Kafka" and other essays)
(For a Revision of Argentine Letters)
(Four Novels)
Leopoldo Lugones
Leopoldo Lugones Argüello was an Argentine writer and journalist.-Early life:Born in Villa de María del Río Seco, a city in Córdoba Province, in Argentina's Catholic heartland, Lugones belonged to a family of landed gentry...
: retrato sin retocar
(Leopoldo Lugones: an Unretouched Portrait)
(Meditations After Sarmiento)
(Reading and Writing)
(Complete Stories)
(Panorama of the United States)
(The doctrine, the Apostle)
Honors
- 1933-(Argentine) National Prize for Literature (for his poems)
- 1933 - 1934—President of Argentine Society of writers (SADE)
- 1937-(Argentine) National Prize for Letters for Radiografía de la pampa
- 1942 - 1946—President of SADE, again
- 1948—SADE's highest honor, the "Gran Premio de Honor"
- 1949—SADE puts forward his name as a candidate for a Nobel Prize, but he does not receive it.
- 1957—President of the Argentine League for Human Rights ("Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre")
Further reading
- Acree, William. "Tracing the Ideological Line: Philosophies of the Argentine Nation from Sarmiento to Martínez Estrada". Contracorriente: A Journal of Social History and Literature in Latin America (Contracorriente) 1.1 (Fall 2003): 102-33.
- Ayala, Francisco. "El Sarmiento de Martínez Estrada". En Los ensayos. Teoría y crítica literaria. Prólogo Helio Carpintero. Madrid: Aguilar, 1971; pp. 1257-1260.
- Coleman, Alexander. "Marti y Martinez Estrada". Revista Iberoamericana (Pittsburgh, PA) 41 (1975): 629-45.
- Earle, Peter G. Prophet in the Wilderness: The Works of Ezequiel Martínez Estrada. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.
- Fuestle, Joseph A.,Jr. "Sarmiento and Martinez Estrada: A Concept of Argentine History". Hispania 55 (1972) 446-55.
- Garasa, Delfían Leocdio. "Ezequiel Martíenz Estrada". Latin American Writers. Vol. II. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989: II: 809-813.
- Orgambide, Pedro. Genio y figura de Ezequiel Martínez Estrada. Buenos Aires: Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1985.
- Sebreli, Juan José. Martínez Estrada: una rebelión inútil. Buenos Aires. Palestra, 1960.
- Stabb, Martin S. "Martínez Estrada frente a la crítica". Revista Iberoamericana 61 (1966): 77-84.
- ---. "Ezequiel Martínez Estrada: The Formative Writings". Hispania 49 (1966): 54-60.
- Ward, Thomas. "Ezequiel Martínez Estrada y el telurismo". La resistencia cultural: la nación en el ensayo de las Américas. Lima: Universidad Ricardo Palma, 2004: 85-98.
External links
- Extensive Spanish-language site about Martínez Estrada including his autobiographical letter to Victoria Ocampo
- Martínez Estrada's essay on Nietzsche, in Spanish
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
