Identity and Nationalism in Modern Argentina by Jeane DeLaney;

Author:Jeane DeLaney; [Неизв.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc. (Tier 3)
Published: 2020-06-25T21:00:00+00:00

REVISIONISM AND ESSENTIALISM IN POST-1955

PERONIST DISCOURSES

That historical revisionism would become central to the Peronist Resistance of the late 1950s and beyond was not inevitable. As noted in the previous chapter, during his first two terms in office, Perón had kept historical revisionism, and the nationalists who promoted this line of thinking, at arms length. Refusing to enter into the dispute, he famously (and pragmatically) proclaimed that he “had enough problems with the living to be concerned with the history of the dead.”99 Instead, the populist leader had maintained a somewhat ambiguous position vis-à-vis Argentina’s liberal past, neither vilifying historical figures associated with nineteenth-century liberalism nor glorifying Rosas. But by 1957, the exiled Perón had switched course entirely. In his Los vendepatria, published that same year, he fully embraced the revisionist line, excoriating Rivadavia as a traitor and lauding Rosas as the heroic defender of Argentina from both its external and internal enemies.100 This about face, as Mariano Plotkin has argued, can be seen as a strategic move by the exiled Perón, who sought to encourage the support of those nationalists who had allied with the resistance in Argentina.101

Perón’s rejection of the liberal past and his new enthusiasm for Rosas became all the more necessary as more and more of his followers in Argentina began to tout revisionist ideas. This welling up of revisionist fervor can be explained by two factors. First, despite Perón’s dismissive stance toward revisionism, it was clear that it had always mattered to many of his supporters. Now, in the leader’s absence, these voices became more audible.102 A second reason had to do with the Aramburu government’s constant linking of Perón to the barbarism of Rosas, and its accompanying claim that the 1955 coup was analogous to the defeat of Rosas in 1852. For many Peronists who suffered under the new military regime, this linking of Rosas and Perón (to which they often added independence leader José de San Martín to form the slogan “San Martín-Rosas-Perón”) was embraced as a badge of honor. As Michael Goebel has observed, “Peronist publications reacted to [the identification of Rosas with Perón], accepted it as true, but inverted its values” into something positive.103 Thus within just a few years, revisionism became, in the words of Mariano Plotkin, “the official historiography of Peronism.”104

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