Seven Essays of Interpretation of Peruvian Reality (Translated and Illustrated)
(The Seven Essays given the marxist approach very little ...)
The Seven Essays given the marxist approach very little assimilated, by then seized the imagination of the Peruvian people, and later, of the entire world. With scholarly patience and the insight of a surgeon for a self-taught writer who never attended college or a university he touched the raw nervous centers of Perú. By examining symptoms, analyzing palliative cures often erroneous he made it clear that although the marxist solutions were incipient, they could at least give an initial impetus to the improvement of the country. The problems that Mariátegui examines are: 1) Economic evolution; 2) The problem of the indian; 3) The problem of the land; 4) The process of public instruction; 5) the religious factor; 6) Regionalism and centralism; and 7) The process of literature.
(En este volumen Mariátegui alerta sobre la necesidad de u...)
En este volumen Mariátegui alerta sobre la necesidad de un arte nuevo acorde con el futuro revolucionario que despunta no limitado a simples exploraciones y conquistas formales, ni a describir la realidad mediante los parámetros de la estética realista. La obra de Mariátegui es una defensa apasionada de las vanguardias artísticas y muy especialmente del surrealismo o suprarrealismo, y en esta alegato se desprende una de sus concepciones más profundas sobre lo literario: su capacidad para revelar los aspectos escondidos o usurpados de la realidad. La verdad literaria es ofrecer una nueva lectura de la realidad, librándose del bastión de la burguesía que no quiere que nadie cuestione su modo de representar el mundo. «La calle, ese personaje anónimo y tentacular que la Torre de Marfil y sus macilentos hierofantes ignoran y desdeñan. La calle, o sea, el vulgo; o sea, la muchedumbre. La calle, cauce proceloso de la vida, del dolor, del placer, del bien y del mal.»
Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (Texas Pan American)
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Jose Carlos Mariátegui was one of the leading South Ame...)
Jose Carlos Mariátegui was one of the leading South American social philosophers of the early twentieth century. He identified the future of Peru with the welfare of the Indian at a time when similar ideas were beginning to develop in Middle America and the Andean region. Generations of Peruvian and other Latin American social thinkers have been profoundly influenced by his writings.
Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana), first published in 1928, is Mariátegui's major statement of his position and has gone into many editions, not only in Peru but also in other Latin American countries. The topics discussed in the essayseconomic evolution, the problem of the Indian, the land problem, public education, the religious factor, regionalism and centralism, and the literary processare in many respects as relevant today as when the book was written.
Mariátegui's thinking was strongly tinged with Marxism. Because contemporary sociology, anthropology, and economics have been influenced by Marxism much more in Latin America than in North America, it is important that North Americans become more aware of Mariátegui's position and accord it its proper historical significance.
Jorge Basadre, the distinguished Peruvian historian, in an introduction written especially for this translation, provides an account of Mariátegui's life and describes the political and intellectual climate in which these essays were written.
The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism (Revolutionary Studies (Paperback))
(Jose Carlos Mariategui is widely considered one of Latin ...)
Jose Carlos Mariategui is widely considered one of Latin America's greatest Marxist theoreticians and activists and remains nearly unknown in the English-speaking world. This collection of essays is an attempt to introduce the breadth and depth of Mariategui's thought to a new generation of English-speaking students of history, philosophy, literature, radical theory and practice.
(El Amauta, José Carlos Mariátegui (Perú, 1894-1930), figu...)
El Amauta, José Carlos Mariátegui (Perú, 1894-1930), figura clave del pensamiento crítico e integrador latinoamericano, legó al continente una vasta obra sociológica, periodística, política y literaria de trascendencia universal. A través de sus escritos, con una gran agudeza interpreta la realidad americana, evidenciando la función social de la literatura, pues considera que ésta no es independiente de las demás categorías de la historia y que está íntimamente permeada de política. En este volumen, que la Biblioteca Ayacucho ofrece al lector, el ensayista alerta sobre la necesidad de crear un arte nuevo -acorde con el futuro revolucionario que avizora- no limitado a simples exploraciones y conquistas formales ni a describir la realidad mediante los parámetros decadentes de la estética realista; en consecuencia, propone la insurgencia de una estética suprarrealista donde impere la imaginación y la fantasía.
José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira was a Peruvian intellectual, journalist, political philosopher, and activist.
Background
José Carlos Mariátegui was born on June 14, 1895, in Lima. One of three children, José Carlos Mariátegui was born in Moquegua, although his pious Catholic mother, María Amalia La Chira Ballejos, led him to believe he was born in Lima. His father, Francisco Javier Mariátegui Requejo, abandoned his family when José Carlos was young. To support her children, José Carlos' mother, moved first to Lima, then to Huacho, where she had more relatives who helped her make a living. José Carlos had a brother and a sister: Julio César and Guillermina.
Education
In 1902, as a young schoolboy, he badly injured his left leg in an accident, and was moved to a hospital in Lima. Despite a four-year-long convalescence, his leg remained fragile and he was unable to continue his studies. Although he was unable to continue formal schooling, Mariátegui read widely and taught himself French.
Career
On his return to Peru, he found the country seething with proposals for nationalist reform. Along with other young idealists-all followers of the programs laid down by fellow countryman Manuel González Prada-Mariátegui gave vociferous support to such issues as the defense of the Indian and wide-sweeping reform in political as well as social spheres.
In 1924 the APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) movement was instituted, and in 1926 Mariátegui founded the magazine Amauta, which came to be the principal voice of the leftist APRA rebels.
In 1925 Mariátegui published his first book, The Contemporary Scene, a group of essays written on a wide variety of issues, such as the crisis of democracy, anti-Semitism, fascism, and the Indian problem.
In 1928, Mariátegui became alienated from the APRA, and he set about establishing the Socialist Party, which formally constituted in October of that year, with Mariátegui as general secretary (it later became the Communist Party of Peru). That year, he published his best-known work, Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality, in which he examined Peru's social and economic situation from a Marxist perspective. It was considered one of the first materialist analyses of a Latin American society. Beginning with the country’s economic history, the book proceeds to a discussion of the “Indian problem", which Mariátegui locates firmly within the “land problem”. Other essays are devoted to public education, religion, regionalism and centralism, and literature.
Also in the same work, Mariátegui blamed the latifundistas, or large land-owners, for the stilted economy of the country and the miserable conditions of the indigenous peoples in the region. He observed that Peru at the time had many characteristics of a feudal society. He argued that a transition to socialism should be based on traditional forms of collectivism as practiced by the Indians.
His death on April 16, 1930, in Lima, did not still the urgings of his socially aware conscience. He remains today one of the most important voices of reform to have been raised in Latin America.
An edition of his complete works has been undertaken by his son. In addition to the two titles mentioned above, the following collections of Mariátegui's essays have appeared: The Morning Soul and Other Seasons of Today's Man (1950) and Novel and Life (1955).
Achievements
Mariátegui's most famous work, Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928), is still widely read in South America, and called "one of the broadest, deepest, and most enduring works of the Latin American century. " In 1929, Mariátegui participated in the establishment of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP), which then sent a delegate to Montevideo for the Constituent Congress of the Latin American Trade Union Conference.
An avowed, self-taught Marxist, he insisted that a socialist revolution should evolve organically in Latin America on the basis of local conditions and practices, not the result of mechanically applying a European formula. Mariátegui is also responsible for coining the phrase, in reference to Marxism, sendero luminoso al futuro ("the Shining Path to the future"). This phrase later became the name of the Shining Path Maoist guerrilla organization in Peru as a means of differentiating them from other Communist groups (they preferred to be called the Communist Party of Peru).
Striking out on his own in 1928, Mariátegui was instrumental in the founding of the Socialist party of Peru, supported mainly by middle-class adherents and characterized by a specifically Marxist-Leninist line.
Views
During his young manhood he wavered between accepting life passively and aggressively imposing his nonconformist will on the world about him. This conflict was decided when Mariátegui, an avid reader of all types of writing, came across the work of the Spanish socialist Luis Araquistán.
Mariátegui was now stirred to witness socialism in action. He made a lengthy and significant visit to Europe, where, particularly in Italy, he was exposed to socialist theories and practice.
The topics treated by Mariátegui in this treatise are varied and far-reaching: the role of religion in Peru's history; the effect of colonial feudalism on the country; economic development; the problem of the enormous imbalance between the nation's urban and rural areas; the place of the Indian in Latin American society; and the questions of education and the need for university reform constitute the subjects of six of the essays.
The seventh essay deals with the manner in which the country's social structure has influenced the literature produced by Peruvian writers. Largely as a consequence of this fresh examination of the sources of literary expression, Mariátegui was able to contribute significantly to a critical evaluation and reorientation of his country's literature. Though Mariátegui lived only two years longer, his message had been heard.
Quotations:
"Italian fascism represents, clearly, the anti-revolution or, as it is usually called, the counter-revolution. The fascist offensive is explained, and is realised in Italy, as a consequence of a retreat or a defeat of the revolution. "
"I am self-taught. I once registered in Arts in Lima, but only in the interest of taking an erudite Augustine’s Latin course. And, in Europe I freely attended some courses, but without ever deciding to lose my extra-collegiate, and perhaps anti-collegiate, status. "
"Peru is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country at the same time. Though this may seem as a paradox, this is a fact and has to be changed.
The fight is long and tough, but together we can make it. "
He argued that a transition to socialism should be based on traditional forms of collectivism as practiced by the Indians. In a famous phrase, Mariátegui stated "the communitarianism of the Incas cannot be denied or disparaged for having evolved under an autocratic regime. "
Membership
He was a member of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers (CGTP) from 1929.
Personality
As a child, he was introverted and meditative, owing in part to having been invalided for years by an injury which eventually resulted in the loss of a leg. This was the first of a series of health problems that plagued him throughout his life.
Quotes from others about the person
Professor Solomon Lipp stated that the Seven Essays "did much to channelize leftist thought in Peru, " adding that these essays "constituted an incisive, penetrating analysis of the nation's cultural and economic life. "
Connections
During is time in Italy, he married an Italian woman, Ana Chiappe, with whom he had four children.
