Intertexts

7 6 I N T E R T E X T S Degiovanni, Fernando. Los textos de la patria. Nacionalismo, politicos culturales ycanon en Argentina. Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo, 2007. The main question that Fernando Degiovanni raises in Los textos de la patria is a vast one: how was the canon of Argentine literature built? Such abroad question could have rendered the book unmanageable. However, Degiovanni lucidly addressesthecomplexityofthetopicbybreakingitdowntoaseriesofkeyprob¬ lemsandbyusingasimplebookstructure. Los textos de la patria offers acritical and theoretical reading of cultural nationalism in Argentina during the first three decades of the twentieth century. Anyone familiar with some of the postcentennial history—the decades of what has been called the “first cultural nationalism”—knows that it was Ricardo Rojas who shaped and systematized the canon of national authors, institutionalizing not justArgentine literature but “argentinidad” (“Argentinism”) itself. However, Rojassprominentleadingroleleftenoughmarginforanonlinear,nonhomogenous , and conflictive process of canonization to take place. In fact, as the book argues, two opposite perspectives came to dispute the ownership and definition of thosetextsthatDegiovannisuggestivelycalls“lostextosdelapatria”(thehome¬ lands texts). Ontheonehand,RicardoRojas’scollectionLaBibliotecaArgentina(the ArgentineLibrary)(1915-1928)managedtoidentifyintheauthorsofthepast tenecessaryharmonytoprovidethepresentwithasymbolichomogenization devoid of conflict and tensions: the “argentinidad” belonged to the old-time criollos (Creoles) and excluded any trace of cosmopolitism. This meant that his collec¬ tionruledoutanyideologycomingfromtheleft,andanyculturalmanifestation broughtbythenewwaveofimmigrants(mostofthemfromItaly)whohad startedrapidlytopopulatethecountryinthelastdecadesofthenineteenthcen¬ tury.Ontheotherhand,JoseIngenieros’sLaCulturaArgentina(theArgentine Culture)(1915-1925)includedalesstraditionalrepertoireoftextsthattriedto linkthecountrysoriginstosocialistandJacobindoctrines,andexplicitlyincor¬ porated the immigrants as key actors in shaping Argentina’s national identity. Thestructureofthebookisperfectlyconsistentwithitsobjectofstudy,thatis, with the texts themselves. The first chapter analyzes the poetry anthologies pub¬ lishedintheyearsgoingfromindependencetotheCentennial.Thus,theanalysis spans nearly acentury and covers some dismissed works such as Ramon Diaz’s La lira argentina (TheArgentine Lyre) (1824) or Ernesto Mario Barreda’s Nuestro Parnaso {OurParnassus)(1914).AsDegiovannidemonstrates,acloselookatthese anthologies is crucial for understanding the nationalist construction that would latertakeplaceinRojas’sandIngenieros’scollections.Aninterestingparadoxthat Degiovanniaddressesisthattheseanthologiesthatwouldpavethewayforalater, moreexplicitnationalismwere,infact,transnational,astheyincludedpoetsfrom R e v i e w s 7 7 throughout the continent. For example, Juan Maria Gutierrez’s America Poetica (1846) established aconnection among the recently emancipated SpanishAmeri¬ can nations. If the only common ground shared by these nations was that they had all just freed themselves from Spain, the anthology provided anew common ground in which poetry was the space for apotential continental unity to develop. The political significance of these collections also proves to be crucial—though for reasons conflicting with Gutierrez’s anthology—in the analysis of Menendez Pelayo’sAntologia de poetas hispano-americanos {Anthology of SpanishAmerican Poets) (1892-1895). Commissioned by the Royal SpanishAcademy, this project was intended to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the “Discovery” of the New World in amoment in which the United States was clearly threatening Spain’s last imperial bastions. Followingthesameunderlyingprincipleofallowingthetextstostructurethe book’snarrative,thesecondchapterexplainshowRojas’scollectionLaBiblioteca Argentina granted literature aleading role in the building of nation and citizen¬ ship. In atime in which foreign linguistic inflections proliferated, “contaminat¬ ing the “true” and “authentic”Argentine culture, and at amoment in which leftwingpoliticsabounded ,threateningthesupremacyofthetraditionaloligarchies (theold-timeelitesofcriolloorigin),Rojasusedphilologyasatoolforpolitical exclusion. Asthebookargues,hisscholarlyeditionsof Argentineclassicssuch DomingoFaustinoSarmiento’sFacundo,Jos6Herndndez’sMartinFierro,orBartolome Mitre’s Flistoria de Belgrano are good examples of how modern philology playedakeyroleintheconsolidationofnationalism,notjustinEuropebutalso intheAmericas.InhiscloseexaminationofRojas’snationalistitinerary,Degiovanni shows how the antimaterialist, traditiondist, and moralizing nationalist underpinningsofCosmopolis(1908)wouldleadtotheexacerbatedintolerance and anti-immigration reaction of his later works. In fact, as progressesandRojas’sexclusionistmissionbecomesmoreapparent,thereaders ruishtgetthesensethat,byopposition—andperhapsbecausesomeofDegiovanni ’santicipatorycommentsmightmisleadthemtobelieveso—Jos6Ingenieros ’sprojectleftsomeroomforademocraticunderstandingofcitizenship. Nonetheless, as it becomes clear in the third and last chapter, Ingenieross rationalewasnotbasedonadvanceddemocraticprinciples.Asthechaptersug¬ gests, what was at stake in Ingenieros’s disagreement with Rojas, and what the cul¬ tural war between the two anthologies ultimately revealed, was adiscussion of the rolethatthestatewassupposedtoplayintheeducationofitscitizensandinthe installationofanationalcanon.Ingenierosraisestheneedtobreakwiththestatefunded mechanisms of cultural consecration and with the bureaucratic nature of culture’s institutionalization. In the transition from Rojas’s to Ingenieros’s collec¬ tions, the book introduces the reader to anew discourse, one that Degiovanni callsanationalismofthemarket.ContrarytoRojas’seruditeandstate-mediated a s the second chapter I N T E R T E X T S 7 8 editions, Ingenieros’s collection was meant to reach alarger audience. In the light of Jorge Salessi’s influential book Medicos, maleantes ymaricas,^ Los textos de la patria analyzes Ingenieros as atechnocrat who would help to implement the mechanisms of social control and discipline to an increasingly large population of workers, marginalized groups, and other “suspicious...