Fernando Gonzalez Ochoa

Fernando González Ochoa (April 24, 1895 in Envigado - February 16, 1964 in Envigado) was a Colombian writer and philosopher. He wrote books on sociology, history, art, morality, economics, ethics, epistemology, and theology, among other topics. Among the best-known works are Journey on Foot, My Simón Bolívar, The Sleeping Hermaphrodite, Santander, Don Mirócletes and The school teacher.

Biography

Early Years

The sons of Daniel and Pastora: Alfonso, Daniel, Alberto, Graciela, Fernando and Sofia. Stand up, go ahead, Jorge. A picture of 1907.

Fernando González Ochoa was born and raised in Envigado, a municipality located southeast of the Aburrá Valley. The son of Daniel González, a schoolteacher —also a businessman—, and Pastora Ochoa, a housewife, he was the second of seven siblings. In his childhood he was sent to study at La Presentación school, from where he was expelled. The same would happen when the Jesuits from the San Ignacio School in Medellín marginalized him in his fifth year of high school for reading Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and other prohibited authors, and for questioning the “first philosophical principle” before Father Quirós. He was then accused of religious skepticism, although his theological reflection treatises have been considered to date of enormous intellectual value.^{[citation needed ]}

Entry in intellectual circles

The young Fernando Gonzalez on the right, with his friend Fernando Isaza in 1915.

In 1915 he joined Los Panidas, a group of young rebels that included other future notable characters such as the poet León de Greiff and the cartoonist Ricardo Rendón. The following year he published his first book, Thoughts of an Old Man , with a foreword by journalist Fidel Cano.

In 1919 he obtained a law degree from the University of Antioquia. His degree work, a sociology study entitled The right not to obey , is not well received by the institution's directives. González, pressured by circumstances, makes some modifications and publishes it under the title A thesis.

Professional and diplomatic career

Fernando Gonzalez in the Nevado del Ruiz in 1929 during the journey that inspired Journey on foot.

In 1921 he was appointed magistrate of the Superior Court of Manizales, the city where he moved. The following year he married Margarita Restrepo Gaviria, daughter of former President of the Republic Carlos E. Restrepo, in Medellín. They have five children. The least of them was the political leader Simón González Restrepo.

In 1928 he was appointed Second Civil Judge of the Medellín Circuit. There he meets Benjamín Correa, his secretary, with whom he establishes a close friendship. In his company, he walked through various towns in Antioquia, Caldas and Valle, an experience from which one of his most popular books emerged, Journey on Foot, published in 1929. That same year the book was banned under sin. death by the Archbishop of Medellín, Manuel José Caycedo:

Dr. Fernando González’s book, “Travel on foot”, is vetoed by natural and ecclesiastical law, and therefore his reading is forbidden under mortal sin. This Decree will be read in all the churches and chapels of the archbishop city and published by the press for the knowledge of the faithful. Given in Medellín, December 30, 1929.

The prohibition was imitated and ratified the following year by the Archbishop of Manizales, who ends his decree thus: "It is enough to read its pages saturated with voltarianism and lasciviousness to be persuaded that it is prohibited by the same right natural.".

In 1931 he traveled to Venezuela to meet the ruler Juan Vicente Gómez, in whom he believes he sees a offspring of the Liberator Simón Bolívar. Later he wrote a biography entitled My Compadre, since Gómez was the godfather of his son Simón's baptism, and creator of the Otraparte Corporation, an entity that currently disseminates the life and work of his father and preserves his Otraparte house. as a museum and cultural center.

In 1932 he traveled with his family to Italy to take office as Colombian consul general in Genoa after having been appointed the previous year by President Enrique Olaya Herrera. That same year, the publishing house Le livre libre published in Paris Don Mirócletes, a book that the poet Eduardo Escobar has highlighted for its ability to reflect on the facts of reality, its descriptive power and the singular way of intensifying life.^{[citation needed]}

In 1933, the Italian police found some notebooks criticizing Benito Mussolini and his fascist regime; he is then transferred to Marseilles after the expulsion from the country by the Italian Government. Those notes gave rise to The Sleeping Hermaphrodite , a book about his experiences with classical art in Italian museums. Published in Spain, it is very well received by readers.^{[citation required]}

During his stay in France he also wrote Remorse. Two years later he returned to Envigado, where he began publishing the magazine Antioquia , which he would continue until 1945.

The German's garden - Another part

In 1940, thanks to his savings, he built "La huerta del alemán" in Envigado, a country residence that would later become Otraparte. There he received the American playwright Thornton Wilder, to whom he would dedicate his book The Schoolmaster the following year. In 1953 he was appointed consul of Colombia in Europe, a position that he would hold most of the time in Bilbao. In September 1957 González returned to Colombia permanently, to his home in Otraparte, where he would live until his death, which occurred in 1964 due to a heart attack.

González's work was decisive in the birth and promotion of the Nadaista movement founded by one of his disciples, the Antioquian writer Gonzalo Arango.

Otherpart Corporation

On November 16, 2005, the Senate of the Republic exalted the memory of González:

“This is a special moment in the history of the Nation, so that the Colombian State through the Congress of the Republic further enhances the culture of our country, exalting the memory of the philosopher Fernando González Ochoa, who dedicated his life to the cultivation of artistic and philosophical values, and is recognized nationally and internationally as one of the most important Colombian thinkers of all time.”

In 2006, Law 1068 was promulgated, "by which the Nation exalts the memory, life and work of the philosopher Fernando González", and the Otraparte House Museum, in Envigado, where the writer lived.

According to the norm, the philosopher "dedicated his life to the cultivation of artistic and philosophical values, achieving well-deserved national and international recognition as one of the most important Colombian thinkers of all time".

Works