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Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism
File:Facundo sarmiento.jpg
The cover of a recent translation, from the University of California Press.
AuthorDomingo Faustino Sarmiento
LanguageSpanish
PublisherEl Progreso de Chile (first, serial, edition in original Spanish)
Publication date
1845
Publication placeArgentina
Published in English
1868 (Mary Mann translation)
Media typePrint

Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism is an 1845 book by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the seventh president of Argentina. It is a keystone in Latin American literature. Subtitled Civilization and Barbarism, Facundo contrasts civilization and barbarism as seen in early nineteenth-century Argentina and is a commentary on Juan Manuel de Rosas, the dictator who ruled Argentina from 1829 to 1832 and again from 1835 to 1852. The literary critic Roberto González Echevarría calls it "the most important book written by a Latin American in any discipline or genre".[1]

Sarmiento published Facundo to condemn the tyrannical dictatorship of Juan Manuel de Rosas.[2] Sarmiento attacks Rosas by describing the Argentine national character, explaining the effects of Argentina's geographical conditions on personality, contrasting barbarism and civilization in Argentina, and expressing optimism regarding a future when European mores would influence the Argentines.[2]

Facundo describes the life of Juan Facundo Quiroga, a gaucho who exemplifies Argentine culture. He was both a caudillo and a leader of the provincial area of Argentina, and represents barbarism in the countryside.[3] Throughout the text, Sarmiento describes a dichotomy between civilization and barbarism. On the one hand, European countries such as France and Britain, cities in Argentina, the Unitarian political party, General Paz, and Bernardino Rivadavia represent civilization. On the other, Latin American countries, rural areas in Argentina, Federalists, as well as Juan Facundo Quiroga, and the dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas are barbarous.[4]

Background

Facundo was written in 1845 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento while he was living in exile in Chile and is now recognized as "one of the foundational works of Spanish American literary history".[2] When Sarmiento wrote Facundo, he was taking revenge against his enemy Juan Facundo Quiroga, who was ruling San Juan. However, his main target were Juan Manuel de las Rosas, the dictator that was governing Argentina at that time. To describe both characters, Sarmiento used the term caudillo -persons who rules by his personal charisma rather than with law.[5] Part of the context in which Facundo was written, was the dispute between the different cultures in the Latin American country. Buenos Aires was the country’s biggest and most wealthy city. With the facility to have the South Atlantic river linking with all the interior, Buenos Aires was exposed not only to the trade, but also to the fresh ideas. As a result, the capital city was influenced by the European culture. Contrast to that, the other Argentine cities were smaller and with very different thoughts. Therefore, tension between the capital city and the rest of the country was creating confrontations between the different ideologies.[6]

Synopsis

Sarmiento divided Facundo into 15 chapters. It is difficult to classify as belonging to a specific genre, as it combines "history, biography, sociology, geography, poetic description, and political propaganda".[2] It broadly falls into three sections, in which the first (Chapters I to IV) examines Argentine geography and history, the second (Chapters V to XIV) recounts Juan Facundo Quiroga's life, and the third (Chapter XV) expounds on Sarmiento's vision of Argentina's possible future under a Unitarist government.[3]

South America, showing the extent of the Pampas in Argentina and Uruguay
The Argentine plains, or pampas. For Sarmiento, this bleak, featureless geography was a key factor in Argentina's failure to achieve civilization.

Main Characters

Facundo

Juan Facundo Quiroga. As the central character of Sarmiento's Facundo, he represents barbarism as the antithesis of civilization.

Juan Facundo Quiroga is the book's central character. He is called the "Tiger of the Plains",[5] and is described as being "el jugador", meaning the player.[6] He loves to gamble, to the point where gambling is described for him as "an ardent passion burning in his belly".[7] Portrayed as wild and untamed, Facundo is a normal caudillo of the period. He had a narrow education, only learning to read and write. Through him Sarmiento demonstrates that the caudillos were more barbaric than civilized, linking to one of the themes of his book.

During his childhood, Facundo is depicted as being stubborn, uninvolved and a loner.[8] At the time of his rise to El General, he is described as being of a short yet muscular stature, well built with wide, broad shoulders a short neck supporting his slightly oval face. His features are typical of a caudillo at that time, with thick curly hair and a black beard. His strong black eyes, covered by bushy eyebrows and filled with passion and wilderness, were a key element that terrified many.[5] According to Sarmiento, "Quiroga governed San Juan solely with his terrifying name."[9]

Juan Manuel de Rosas

Sarmiento directed Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism against the dictator Rosas, during whose reign Facundo was written. Although ostensibly about Juan Facundo Quiroga, the book was also "a vantage point from which to explore the social and historical situation" under Rosas's tyranny.[citation needed][10]

Juan Manuel de Rosas was a landowner, a rural caudillo, and the dictator of Buenos Aires from 1829 to 1852.[11] He was born into a wealthy, high status family, but his harsh mother had a huge influence on his development.[12] Sarmiento argues that because of his mother, "the spectacle of authority and servitude must have left lasting impressions on him."[13] Banished to an estancia by his father when he was barely into puberty, Rosas remained there for almost thirty years. By 1824 he had established an authoritarian style in dealing with matters regarding the estancias, and had introduced a harsh regime. Sarmiento points out that this is the type of regime he later tried out in Buenos Aires.[14] In government, Rosas imprisoned many citizens for unknown reasons, and for long periods, which was much like the roundup in which cattle were tamed and enclosed inside the corral. Sarmiento also argues that the whippings in the street and the massacres were his methods of making his citizens like the "tamest, most orderly cattle known."[15]

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

In Facundo, Sarmiento is both the narrator and a main character. The book contains autobiographical elements from Sarmiento’s life, and he comments on the entire Argentine situation. He also analyses and expresses his own opinion, as well as chronicling some historic events. In the book's dichotomy between civilization and barbarism, Sarmiento's character represents civilization, steeped as he is in European and North American ideas. He stands for education and development, as opposed to both Rosas and Facundo, who symbolise barbarism.

In real life, Sarmiento was an educator, a civilized man who was a militant adherent to the Unitarian movement. During the Argentine civil war he fought against Facundo several times, and while in Spain became a member of the Literary Society of Professors.[16] Exiled to Chile by Rosas when he started to write Facundo, Sarmiento would later return as a politician. He was member of the Senate after Rosas's fall, and was president of Argentina for six years (1868–1874). During his presidency, Sarmiento concentrated on migration, sciences, and culture. His ideas were based on European civilization; for him, the development of a country was rooted in education. To this end, he founded Argentina's military and naval colleges.[17]

Genre and style

Literary critic Ezequiel Martínez Estrada argues: "I never took Facundo by Sarmiento, as a historical work, nor do I think it can be very valued in that regard. I always thought of it as a literary work, as a historical novel."[18] However, Facundo cannot be classified either as a novel or as a specific genre of literature. According to González Echevarría, the book is an "essay, biography, autobiography, novel, epic, memoir, confession, political pamphlet, diatribe, scientific treatise, travelogue" at the same time.[19] Sarmiento's style unifies the three distinct portions of his work, and the common thread is the life of Juan Facundo Quiroga. Even the first section, describing Argentina's geography, follows this pattern, since Sarmiento contends that Facundo is a natural product of this environment.[20]

Furthermore, the book is a combination between the fiction and the real context of the Argentinean Republic. In the book, Rosas has characteristics of both, the real life and the imagination of Sarmiento. Because the book is criticizing the government, the dictatorship is seen as the main cause of all the problems in Argentina, therefore, the barbarism and the savagism that Sarmiento is explaining in all the book, is a function of the dictatorship. .[21]

Themes

Civilization and barbarism

More than just a critique of Rosas's dictatorship, Facundo is also a broader investigation into Argentine history and culture, which Sarmiento charts through the rise, controversial rule, and downfall of Juan Facundo Quiroga, an archetypical Argentine caudillo. Sarmiento summarizes the book's message in the phrase: "That is the point: to be or not to be savages."[22] This dichotomy, between civilization and barbarism, is the book's central idea; Facundo Quiroga is portrayed as wild, untamed, and as standing in opposition to true progress through the common enlightenment of European society—found at that time in the metropolitan society of Buenos Aires.[23]

The conflict between civilization and barbarism mirrors Latin America's struggle in its post-Independence era. Although Sarmiento was not the one to create this dichotomy, he turned it into an influential concept that would impact on future Latin America Literature.[24] He explores the issue of civilization versus the cruder aspects of a caudillo culture of brutality and absolute power. Caudillos like Facundo Quiroga are seen, at the beginning of the book, as the antithesis of education, high culture, and civil stability. They are the agents of instability and chaos, destroying societies through their blatant disregard for humanity and social progress.[25]

As caudillos took control of Argentina and other Latin American countries, establishing authoritarian governments, questions of what was best for the progress of society were largely ignored by the ruling elites in preference for the immediate goal of exploiting the masses. Facundo set forth an opposition message that promoted a more beneficial alternative for society at large. Although Sarmiento advocated various changes, such as honest officials who understood enlightenment ideas of European and Classical origin, for him education was the essential key. He viewed barbarism, linked with ignorance, poverty, lack of education and anarchy, as a never-ending litany of social ills.[26] He used the pampas wilderness described in Facundo to illustrate his social analysis; those who were isolated and opposed to political dialogue were symbols of ignorance and anarchy, a reflection of Argentina's desolate physical geography.[26]

If Sarmiento viewed himself as civilized, Rosas was barbaric. Literary critic David Rock argues that "contemporary opponents reviled Rosas as a bloody tyrant and a symbol of barbarism."[27] Sarmiento attacked Rosas through his book by promoting education and "civilized" status, while using political power to dispose of any kind of hindrance. In linking Europe with civilization, and civilization with education, Sarmiento conveyed an admiration of European culture and civilization which at the same time gave him a sense of dissatisfaction with his own culture, motivating him to drive it towards civilization. Conversely Latin America was connected to barbarism, which Sarmiento used mainly to illustrate the way in which Argentina was disconnected from the numerous resources surrounding it, which limited the growth of the country.[28]

Writing and Power

In post-independence Latin American history, dictatorships have been relatively common—Manuel Noriega, Augusto Pinochet, Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner are among the region's more notable examples. In this context, Latin American literature has been distinguished by the protest novel; the main story is based around the dictator figure, his behavior, characteristics and the situation of the people under his regime. Writers such as Sarmiento used the power of the written word in order to criticize government, using literature as a tool, an instance of resistance and as a weapon against repression.[21]

Making use of the connection between writing and power was one of Sarmiento's strategies. For him, writing was a catalyst that aroused action.[29] While the gauchos fought with physical weapons, Sarmiento used his voice and language.[30] The text he wrote was his choice of weapon.[21] Sarmiento wanted his book to gain an audience, not only in Argentina, but also in Europe and United States—his purpose was to seduce his readers toward his own political point of view.[31] The numerous translations of Facundo are proof of this concept; for Sarmiento, writing was associated with prestige, power, and conquest.[32]

Sarmiento mocks the government in many of his books, although Facundo is the most overt example. He elevates his own status at the expense of the ruling elite, almost portraying himself as invincible due to the power of writing. Toward the end of 1840, Sarmiento was exiled. Covered with bruises received the day before from unruly soldiers, he wrote in French "On ne tue point les idees" (misquoted from "on ne tue pas de coups de fusil aux idees", which means "ideas cannot be killed by guns"). The government summoned a commission to decipher the message, and on learning the translation, said "So! What does this mean?"[33] With the failure of his oppressors to understand his meaning, Sarmiento is able to illustrate their ineptitude. His written words are presented as a "code" that needs to be "deciphered".[33] Unlike Sarmiento, those in power are barbaric and uneducated, and their bafflement not only demonstrates the ignorance of Rosas’ associates, but also shows the essential displacement in cultural absence since Argentine rural inhabitants and Rosas' associates were unable to accept the civilized culture which Sarmiento believed would lead to the progression of Argentina.[34]

Legacy

Facundo has been enormously influential because of its liberal ideology, guidance for modernization and prose style, which was filled with "tremendous beauty and passion". Facundo is a powerful founding text which caused rapid changes in Argentina.[2] Not only is it the founding text of Argentine literature but, according to literary critic González Echevarría, it is the first Latin American classic, and the most important book written about Latin America by a Latin American in any discipline or genre. He argues that "in proposing the dialect between civilization and barbarism as the central conflict in Latin American culture it gave shape to a polemic that began in the colonial period and continues to the present day in various guises."[1] He asserts that Facundo provided the impetus for other writers to examine dictatorship in Latin America. Moreover, González Echevarría explains that Facundo is still read today since Sarmiento created a voice for modern Latin American authors. He argues that the reason for this is that "Latin American authors struggle with its legacy, rewriting Facundo in their works even as they try to untangle themselves from its discourse."[19] Subsequent dictator novels, such as El Señor Presidente by Miguel Ángel Asturias and The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa, were influenced by its publication.[19] A knowledge of Facundo boosts and expands the reader’s understanding of these later books.[35]

According to González Echevarría, due to the immensity of Sarmiento's legacy both in the essay genre and in Argentine fictional literature, the gaucho has become "an object of nostalgia, a lost origin around which to build a national mythology."[35] He argues that Juan Facundo Quiroga continues to exist, since he represents "our unresolved struggle between good and evil and our lives' inexorable drive toward death."[35] By trying to eliminate the gaucho, Sarmiento managed to turn Facundo into a national symbol.[35] According to translator Kathleen Ross, Facundo continues to inspire controversy and debate because it contributes to "national myths of modernization, anti-populism, and racist ideology."[36]

Early Facundo readers were deeply motivated and inspired by the information that Sarmiento provided, and the struggles that occurred during and after Rosas's dictatorship. Because of this, their views moved from conciliation to antipathy for political hegemony.[37] An empirical proof of the book's influence is the fact of Sarmiento’s rise to power. He became president of Argentina in 1868—an educator and writer, he used his skills to his advantage in order to consolidate the nation. Sorenson states that "Facundo lends itself admirably to being read as a blueprint for modernization", underlined by the great impact that the book and its author had in Argentina.[38] Sarmiento wrote several books, but he viewed Facundo as authorizing his claims to political office.[39]

Publication and translation history

The first edition of Facundo was published in instalments in 1845, in the literary supplement of the Chilean newspaper El Progreso. The second edition, also published in Chile (in 1851), contained significant alterations—Sarmiento removed the last two chapters on the advice of Valentín Alsina, an exiled Argentinian lawyer and politician.[3] However the missing sections reappeared in 1874 in a later edition, because Sarmiento saw them as crucial to the development of the book.[40]

Facundo was first translated in 1868, by Mary Mann, with the title Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants; or, Civilization and Barbarism. Recently Kathleen Ross has undertaken a modern and complete translation, published in 2003 by the University of California Press. In Ross's "Translator's Introduction," she notes about Mann's nineteenth-century version of the text that it "had much to do with the fact that in 1868 Sarmiento was a candidate for the Argentine presidency" and "Mann wished to further her friend's cause abroad by presenting Sarmiento as an admirer and emulator of United States political and cultural institutions." Hence this translation cut much of what made Sarmiento's work distinctively part of the Hispanic tradition. Ross continues: "Mann's elimination of metaphor, the stylistic device perhaps most characteristic of Sarmiento's prose, is especially striking."[41]


Footnotes

  1. ^ a b González Echevarría 2003, p. 1
  2. ^ a b c d e Ross 2003, p. 17
  3. ^ a b c Ross 2003, p. 18
  4. ^ Moss & Valestuk 1999, p. 177
  5. ^ a b Sarmiento 2003, p. 93
  6. ^ Newton 1965, p. 11
  7. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 95
  8. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 94
  9. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 157
  10. ^ Possibly taken from Moss & V 121.
  11. ^ Lynch 1981, p. 1
  12. ^ Lynch 1981, p. 11
  13. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 213
  14. ^ Sarmiento 2003, pp. 213–214
  15. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 215
  16. ^ Mann 1868, p. 357
  17. ^ González Echevarría 2003, p. 10
  18. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 42
  19. ^ a b c González Echevarría 2003, p. 2
  20. ^ Carilla 1973, p. 12
  21. ^ a b c Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 33 Cite error: The named reference "sorgood33" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  22. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 35
  23. ^ Sarmiento 2003, p. 99
  24. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 6
  25. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 8
  26. ^ a b Bravo 1994, p. 487
  27. ^ Ludmer 2002, p. 7
  28. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 9
  29. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 25
  30. ^ Ludmer 2002, p. 9
  31. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 85
  32. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 27
  33. ^ a b Sarmiento 2003, p. 30
  34. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 84
  35. ^ a b c d González Echevarría 2003, p. 15
  36. ^ Ross 2003, p. 21
  37. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 64
  38. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, p. 99
  39. ^ Sorensen Goodrich 1996, pp. 100–101
  40. ^ Carilla 1973, p. 13
  41. ^ Ross 2003, p. 19

References

  • Bravo, Héctor Félix (1994), "Domingo Faustino Sarmiento" (PDF), Prospects: The Quarterly Review of Comparative Education, 24 (3/4), Paris: UNESCO: International Bureau of Education: 487–500, retrieved March 15, 2008.
  • Carilla, Emilio (1973), Lengua y estilo en el Facundo, Buenos Aires: Universidad nacional de Tucumán, ISBN 3942402108 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help).
  • González Echevarría, Roberto (1985), The Voice of the Masters: Writing and Authority in Modern Latin American Literature, Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, ISBN 0292787162.
  • González Echevarría, Roberto (2003), "Facundo: An Introduction", in Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (ed.), Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 1–16.
  • Lynch, John (1981), Argentine Dictator: Juan Manuel de Rosas 1829–1852, New York, US: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198211295
  • Moss, Joyce; Valestuk, Lorraine (1999), "Facundo: Domingo F. Sarmiento", Latin American Literature and Its Times, vol. 1, World Literature and Its Times: Profiles of Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events That Influenced Them, Detroit: Gale Group, pp. 171–180, ISBN 0787637262
  • Newton, Jorge (1965), Facundo Quiroga: Aventura y leyenda, Buenos Aires: Plus Ultra, ISBN unavailable {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Ross, Kathleen (2003), "Translator's Introduction", in Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (ed.), Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism, trans. Kathleen Ross, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 17–26.
  • Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino (1868), Life in the Argentine Republic in the Days of the Tyrants; Civilization and Barbarism. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author, New York: Hafner Publishing Co.. First published in 1868. Trans. Mrs.Horace Mann.
  • Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino (2003), Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press (published 1845), ISBN 0520239806 The first complete English translation. Trans. Kathleen Ross.
  • Sorensen Goodrich, Diana (1996), Facundo and the Construction of Argentine Culture, Austin: University of Texas Press, ISBN 0292727909
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