Alcides Arguedas

Alcides Arguedas Díaz (La Paz, July 15, 1879-Chulumani, May 6, 1946) was a Bolivian writer, politician and historian. His literary work, which addresses issues related to national identity, miscegenation and indigenous problems had a profound influence on Bolivian social thought in the first half of the 20th century. His pinnacle novel, Raza de bronce , is considered one of Bolivia's best novels and a precursor of indigenismo.

Politics and diplomacy

The son of Fructuoso Arguedas and Sabina Díaz, he studied at the Ayacucho College and later Law and Political Science (1904) at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés.

Alcides Arguedas in 1926

Since his student days he collaborated in various media, beginning with El Comercio; for the El Diario he wrote the column A Vuelo de Pluma (1908), as well as in the short-lived Magazine of America and World ; he became assistant director of El Debate (1915).

As a diplomat, he was second secretary of the Bolivian Legation in Paris (1910), where he would meet Rubén Darío and Francisco García Calderón and would be headed by former President Ismael Montes. Later, he was sent to London.

After returning to Bolivia, he was elected deputy in 1916 for the Liberal Party, and Bolivian representative in the creation of the League of Nations (1918). He was also Consul General in Paris (1922), and Plenipotentiary Minister in Colombia (1929), from where he was dismissed due to his criticism of President Hernando Siles (1930).

He maintained a critical position towards some governments, for which he was exiled (1906), was fired from his posts and even slapped (by President Germán Busch).

Senator for the department of La Paz (1940), he came to lead his party, which did not prevent him from maintaining a close friendship with Nicolás Esguerra Miranda, head of the conservatives.^{[citation required]}

Under the government of President Enrique Peñaranda, he served as Minister of Agriculture, Colonization and Immigration (1940), and then left for Venezuela as Minister Plenipotentiary (1941).

Literature

Arguedas (sensed, penultimate left to der.) together with other intellectuals of the 1920s Decade.

Arguedas is one of the most renowned Bolivian writers. In his work, he describes Bolivian society and its indigenous peoples with despair and pessimism. Through his books, loaded with social analysis, he sought a solution or explanation for his country's permanent state of conflict. Conflicts between cultures, the complex miscegenation and the sometimes violent relationship between the indigenous world and the criollo/mestizo world, are themes that were later recovered by other currents of thought, including the indigenistas, although from a different perspective.

His first literary texts date from his student days, and the first book he published was Pisagua, a novel that appeared in 1903. The following year he published Wata-Wara. His novel production would continue with Vida criolla (1912) and culminate with Raza de bronce.

Alcides Arguedas in 1940

His essay Pueblo enfermo, published in Barcelona in 1909, marked his consecration in Spanish-American literature, earning the praise of important writers, such as Miguel de Unamuno or Amado Nervo. However, in Bolivia caused controversy and Franz Tamayo responded critically to his ideas in the editorials that in 1910 would be compiled in the book Creación de la pedagogía nacional., according to which "a mixture of fatal biological laws, historical reasons and environmental circumstances have made the indigenous a stunted or sick race. It is not surprising, Therefore, some critics identify Arguedas with a vision of contempt for Bolivian society and deny that he is an indigenous author.

Argued in 1945 in one of his latest known photos.

However, in his pinnacle novel, Raza de bronce, Arguedas touches on several themes that would later be fundamental in the development of Bolivian literature, such as the criollo-mestizo oppression of indigenous people, the of uprising of these before the abuses, the place in the society of the cholo-mestizos, the disagreement between the Creole society and the indigenous one in Bolivia.

Arguedas was writing this novel practically until the last years of his life, although he published its first edition in 1919, he continued correcting and re-editing it until he released the final one in 1945. The story of Raza de bronce is an evolution of his second novel, Wata-Wara, which went relatively unnoticed at the time of publication. Later, and despite numerous criticisms, it was classified by experts as one of the essential works of the national bibliography.

Over the years, Arguedas found in history a more direct means of reflecting on and interpreting Bolivian social reality. His first book in this area was, in 1920, The Foundation of the Republic, which marked a turning point in the life of Arguedas: from here, history and politics came to the fore. and literature is relegated to second place.

The first volume of his General History of Bolivia was published two years later under the auspices of the tin baron, Simón I. Patiño. He finished only five of the eight projected volumes of that collection, which spans from the founding period to the time of caudillismo.

In 1935 Arguedas received the Rome Prize in France for his autobiographical book La danza de las sombras.

Private life

Arguedas married Laura Tapia Carro in 1910, and was widowed in 1935. The couple had three daughters.

In 1944 he spent some time in Buenos Aires sick, where he left Losada the definitive version of Raza de bronce; He returned to Bolivia the following year and died of leukemia in the town of Chulumani on May 6, 1946, at the age of 66.

Works

• Complete works, 2 v. preparation, prologue and notes by Luis Alberto Sánchez; Aguilar, Mexico, 1959