Romulo Gallegos

Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire (Caracas, August 2, 1884-Ib., April 5, 1969) was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. He has been considered the most relevant Venezuelan novelist of the 20th century, and one of the greatest Latin American writers of all time. Some of his novels, such as Doña Bárbara or Barracuda , have gone on to become classics of Spanish-American literature.

He served as President of Venezuela in 1948 for barely nine months, becoming the first presidential leader of the XX century Elected directly, secretly and universally by the Venezuelan people, and he has been the President of the Republic who has obtained the highest percentage of votes in his favor in elections held in the country at all times, with more than 80% of all the votes.

However, his separation from power was due to the 1948 coup d'état, led by Carlos Delgado Chalbaud. In 1960 he was elected as a commissioner and as the first president of the newly created Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a position he held until 1963. From then on he lived in Caracas until the day he died.

Life and work

Childhood and youth

He was born in Caracas. The son of Rita Freire Guruceaga and Rómulo Gallegos Osío, he began elementary school in 1888. In 1894 he entered the Metropolitan Seminary but was forced to leave by the death of his mother on March 13, 1896 due to the need to help his father support the family. In 1898 he entered the Sucre school, where he had Jesús María Sifontes and José Manuel Núñez Ponte as teachers. He received his bachelor's degree in 1902 and that same year he enrolled in the Central University of Venezuela to pursue a law degree, which he abandoned in 1905. In 1906, he was appointed head of the Central Railroad station in Caracas.. Gallegos had already begun his long career as a writer.On April 1, 1912, he married Teotiste Candelaria Arocha Egui (1895-1950), daughter of Rafael Arocha Merchán and María de Jesús Egui.

Literary Life

Rómulo Gallegos and his wife Teotiste Arocha Egui (1895-1950)

The beginning of Rómulo Gallegos as a writer is associated with the theater. Together with his colleagues from the magazine La Alborada he shared a passion for this genre. He came to write several works, such as "Los ídolos" (1909) and "El motor" (1910), of which only the latter was published during the author's lifetime. «Los ídolos» was a piece of which he made a version probably from the same year, «Los predestinados» (the first remains unpublished; the second was published in no. 2 of La Alborada, the 2/14/1909). In the "Obras selectas", Editorial Edime, 1959, appears "El motor" and "El milagro del año" from 1915, which he also published as a short story.

Gallegos makes references at different times to plays that he had in projects, or that he destroyed, such as «Listos» (which he refers to in a letter to his friend Salustio González) and «La espera» (probably from 1915). His experience as a playwright will later be shown in the cinema with the script for "Doña Bárbara" (1940), and "La Trepadora", "Canaima" and "La Señora del Frente", for the Mexican industry. He also in "Juan de la Calle" (1941). Almost none of his scripts survive. Except for a piece in 32 acts called "La doncella", which was published in Mexico in 1957. It is an exciting piece about the life of Joan of Arc, and where her mastery of dialogue is strongly shown, but it was not carried out. filming even though it was commissioned.

In his beginnings as a storyteller, Rómulo Gallegos published Los Aventureros (Caracas, 1913), a collection of short stories. Other stories are compiled in La Rebelión y otros cuentos (Caracas, 1946), La Doncella and El Último Patriota (Mexico, 1957). His period as a storyteller covers from 1913 to 1919, although other stories will be published in 1922. In his works he will always maintain realism, which are divided into three fundamental themes: Those of criticism of customs, those of a Creole environment where he raises the antinomy civilization and barbarism, and those that describe passions, imbalances and abnormalities.

His novels reflect his interest in the life of the Venezuelan peasantry. His first novel, El último Solar (1920), was republished in 1930 under the title Reinaldo Solar, which tells the story of the decline of an aristocratic family through its last representative, in which his friend Enrique Soublette can be guessed, with whom he founded the magazine Alborada in 1909. In 1922 he wrote El forastero but published it beginning in 1942 for fear of the reaction of the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. In 1922 he managed to publish La rebellion and in 1925 La Climber , portraying in both works the problem of miscegenation, proposing mixed marriages as a solution. In 1926 he traveled to Europe and rediscovered his lost faith in the sanctuary of Lourdes.

In 1927 he traveled to witness the Venezuelan Llanos and thus document himself for his next novel. The result would be Doña Bárbara published in 1929. Doña Bárbara represents that cruel and insensitive Venezuela affected by corruption, betrayal, despotism, lack of freedom, landlordism, injustice and witchcraft; but in the melodrama it is shown that in reality there was also a good race that loves, suffers and waits to fight against the unbridled dictatorship of that time, represented in the character of Santos Luzardo. This novel would bring him to public recognition, it was the most successful of his works. The dictator Juan Vicente Gómez, seeing his prestige, appointed him senator for the state of Apure in 1931, but his democratic convictions made him resign from office and expatriate, going into exile in 1931 in New York.

In 1932 he went to Spain and stayed there until the dictator died in 1935 and Rómulo Gallegos decided to return to Venezuela. In 1934 he published Cantaclaro , and in 1935 Canaima . Just as for Gallegos, miscegenation was the solution to the conflicts between Mantuanos and indigenous people, miscegenation would also be the solution to conflicts of civilization and barbarism.

In 1937 he published Poor black man, in 1942 The stranger, and the following year On the same land. In 1951 he published The blade of straw in the wind. In 1952 he began to write his last novel Tierra bajo los pies , which would remain unpublished until its late publication in 1973.

President Gallegos and U.S. President Harry S. Truman

Political life

Rumulus Gallegos after his swearing as President on 17 February 1948

He began his political career at a very young age militating in opposition to the dictator Juan Vicente Gómez. In 1937 Gallegos is elected deputy and little by little he will abandon literature to dedicate himself to politics. When General Eleazar López Contreras assumed the presidency in 1936, a reformist era began in Venezuela and Gallegos was appointed Minister of Public Instruction, an office that he tried to reform, even changing its name to the Ministry of National Education; however his efforts to carry out a profound school reform were hampered by a National Congress largely dominated by gomecismo and he was forced to resign. In 1941 Acción Democrática (formerly the National Democratic Party), of which he appears as founder, proposed Gallegos as a candidate for the presidency of the Nation, losing to General Isaías Medina Angarita.

Romulo Gallegos' presidential campaign in 1947.

In 1945 he participated in the military coup that brought Rómulo Betancourt to power as provisional president of the country, and it was in the first free elections in Venezuela in 1947 that he was elected president of the nation through universal, direct and secret suffrage. He took office on February 15, 1948 and stood out for raising the state's tax participation in oil revenue from 43% to 50%, a tax scheme known as "fifty / fifty" and which was later replicated in several producing countries., notably Saudi Arabia.

Vital senators Rómulo Gallegos and Eleazar López Contreras at the Federal Legislative Palace during the inauguration of Rómulo Betancourt.

However, in November of the same year the army rose up in the coup d'état of 1948 under the command of a military junta headed by Carlos Delgado Chalbaud and he was removed from office; Thus the democratic experience dies. Exiled again, he went to Cuba and Mexico in 1949, and lived in the Mexican capital and in the city of Morelia. Rómulo Gallegos returned to Venezuela at the end of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez dictatorship in 1958, but he would no longer dedicate himself to politics. In 1960 he was elected Commissioner and first president of the newly created Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an OAS body in Washington, D.C., a position he held until 1963. From then on he lived in Caracas until the day he died.

Ministerial Cabinet

Death

Rómulo Gallegos died in Caracas in 1969, at the age of 84. On May 3, 1994, President Rafael Caldera had decreed the honors of the National Pantheon for Gallegos, but he was never buried because the last wish of the writer was to rest next to the grave of his wife Teotiste, in the south wing of the General del Sur Cemetery.. On June 15, 2016, the tomb of Gallegos and his wife were desecrated and the mayor's office of the Libertador Municipality unofficially announced that his remains would be transferred to the National Pantheon.

Works

Novel

• Solar reign (1920)
• The climber (1925)
• Barbara (1929)
• Cantaclaro (1934)
• Canaima (1935)
• Poor black (1937)
• The stranger (1942)
• On the same earth (1943)
• The straw breeze in the wind (1952)
• The last patriot (1957)
• Earth under your feet (1973)

Books of stories

• The maiden and the last patriot (1957)
• The adventurers (1911)
• Rebellion and other stories (1946)
• Full stories (1981)

Theatre

• Idols. Drama in four acts. Caracas. (1909)
• Predestined. Caracas, La Alborada, No. 2, 14 February (1909)
• The Motor. Drama in three acts. Caracas. July (1910)
• The miracle of the year. (1915), published in Selected Works, Madrid, Edime (1959)

Other

• A position in life (1954), writings and political discourses.

Predecessor: Rómulo Betancourt

President of the United States of Venezuela 17 February - 24 November 1948

Successor: Carlos Delgado Chalbaud (de facto)

First publication of the stories of Rómulo Gallegos

• The Last Patriot, published in The Illustrated CojoJanuary 15, 1911. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• The Adventurers, published in The Illustrated CojoFebruary 1, 1911. Included in The Adventurers.
• Between the ruins, published in The Illustrated CojoAugust 15, 1911. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• Support, published in The Illustrated CojoOctober 1, 1912. Included in The Adventurers.
• The miracle of the year, published in The Adventurers1913.
• Stars on the ravine, published in The Adventurers1913.
• The carnival story, published in The Illustrated CojoFebruary 15, 1914. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• The analysis, published in The Illustrated CojoApril 15, 1914. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• A clinical case, published in La RevistaJune 20, 1915. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• The Sphinx, published in La RevistaSeptember 26, 1915. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• The old piano, published in La Revista1916. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The Mengánez, published in UpdatesFebruary 9, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• A strong resolution, published in UpdatesFebruary 16, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The room across the street, published in UpdatesFebruary 23, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The Devil's Twilight, published in Updates. March 2, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• Alma Aborigen, published in UpdatesMarch 9, 1919. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• The Paréntesis, published in UpdatesMarch 16, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The dead city, published in UpdatesMarch 23, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The crossroads, written in 1913 but published in Updates March 30, 1919. Included in The Maid and the Last Patriot.
• Pataruco, published in UpdatesApril 6, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• Pegujal, published in UpdatesApril 20, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The hour is down, published in UpdatesApril 27, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• Marina, published in UpdatesMay 11, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• Peace in heights, published in UpdatesMay 18, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• A Mystic, published in UpdatesJune 1, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The fruit of the foreign fence, published in UpdatesJune 8, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The Master, published in UpdatesJuly 27, 1919. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• The Rebellion, published in The Weekly ReadingApril 30, 1922. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.
• Immigrants, published in The Weekly NovelSeptember 9, 1922. Included in The Rebellion and other stories.

Translations

There have been countless editions of many works by Rómulo Gallegos in a large number of languages, being Doña Bárbara the most popular and the one that has had the most translations worldwide (English, French, Russian, Italian, Esperanto, among others). A notable Italian translation of La Climbing was made in Caracas, which helps to understand the idea that the focus of the topics dealt with by Rómulo Gallegos is much more universal than it might seem at first..

Acknowledgments

Columbia University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1948, which he resigned in 1955 when they awarded the same distinction to the Guatemalan dictator Carlos Castillo Armas, with this he continues to show his democratic conviction. He is distinguished by other universities, among which are the University of San Carlos in Guatemala (1951), the University of Costa Rica (1951), the University of Oklahoma in the United States (1951), the Central University of Venezuela (1958), the University of Los Andes in Venezuela (1958) and the University of Zulia (1958). He won the National Prize for Literature (1958) and was nominated 9 times for the Nobel Prize for Literature between 1951 and 1967.

Film Production

In 1938 he founded Estudios Ávila (1938-1942) one of the first film companies in the country that, with cultural and commercial aspirations, deals with the production of institutional propaganda through cinema. It was through this production company that the novelist, in close relationship with the filmmaker Rafael Rivero Oramas, made the feature film with neorealist overtones entitled Juan de la Calle in 1941. In 1943 he participated as supervisor and co-writer of the Mexican film Doña Bárbara , based on his novel of the same name, directed by Fernando de Fuentes and starring María Félix and Julián Soler.

Tributes

• Novela Rómulo Gallegos International Prize, awarded every two years by the government of Venezuela.
• Universidad Nacional Experimental de los Llanos Centrales Rómulo Gallegos (UNERG), a university based in San Juan de los Morros, Guárico state.
• Municipality Rómulo Gallegos, state Apure, Venezuela.
• Municipality Rómulo Gallegos, Cojedes State, Venezuela.
• Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos Rómulo Gallegos (CELARG), institute of cultural diffusion of Caracas, Venezuela
• Avenida Rómulo Gallegos, one of the most important roads in Caracas, Venezuela
• Santos Luzardo National Park, a name taken from one of the main characters of his famous novel by Doña Barbara.
• Educational unit Instituto Rómulo Gallegos in Valencia, Carabo state.
• Avenida Rómulo Gallegos (Barquisimeto, Lara)
• Colegio Rómulo Gallegos (Petare, Estado Miranda)