A Rioplatense Kingdom?

New book explores the monarchic projects of the River Plate, 1808–1825

A book recently published in Buenos Aires sheds new light on the difficult transition period between the Spanish Empire on the River Plate and the foundation of the Argentine Republic. The launch party for Bernado Lozier Almazán’s Proyectos monárquicos en el Río de la Plata 1808-1825. Los reyes que no fueron (“Monarchic projects in the River Plate 1808–1825: The kings who weren’t”) was held recently in the Quinta ‘Los Ombúes’, home of the municipal library, museum, and archives of San Isidro, the city in the Provincia de Buenos Aires known as Argentina’s ‘Rugby Capital’.

Proyectos monárquicos highlights the forgotten truth that most of the Argentine ‘patriots’ — San Martín, Belgrano, and Alvear among them — were monarchist, not republican. Proposals involving the courts of Spain, Portugal, France, and even England were proffered, and there was even an interesting proposal to marry a European prince to an Incan princess and offer him the throne of the Río de la Plata. (more…)

Civilised Barbarism, Barbaric Civilisation

“Despite my inclinations to the contrary, I have racial sensitivities. I am Latin. I regard the civilised barbarian in the North with an inherited sense of mistrust. Today [the United States] has become a colossal society, and has adopted the goal of imposing its industry, its commerce, and its imperialism. Each citizen of the Union is a kind of stockholder… [upholding] an ideal of material perfection above moral perfection, and equating civilisation with the triumph of industry and commerce. We, by contrast, descendants of the Latins and educated by the Greeks, regard that person as most civilised who is most morally perfect. … I am proud to say I am bored with railroads and factory chimneys.” – Belisario J. Montero

ONE OF THE best aspects of Catholicism is the affirmation (for lack of a better word) of absolutely everything that is good throughout the world. All the peoples of the earth, each with their particular genius, eventually descend from the same parents. This gives one, I hope, a certain sympathy towards every nation and every people, and an anticipation that each one will eventually grow into the full flower of a Christian order appropriate to their particular characteristics and personality. Christianity is not oppressive and conformist in its universalism but instead all-embracing.

There is much to be admired in the sentiments expressed by Belisario Montero, an Argentine diplomat, in the comments cited above. To put them in context, they were made after the final collapse of the Spanish Empire following the Spanish-American War of 1898. Argentina, as you already know, is a place that excites me. In her is found so much of the idea of Europe, varyingly perfected and perverted, accidentally demolished in an attempt to save it and then put back together again not precisely as it was before. Marx “travelled” to Buenos Aires, but so did Maurras (and ultimately the Frenchman was more influential). For a time, photographs of Mussolini cut from the illustrated magazines were plastered onto the walls of aspirational working-class porteños trying to keep up with the latest European fad, and the military elite and social aristocracy combined to oppose the vulgar and destructive forces of liberal democracy and unbridled capitalism. Almost every coup in the nation’s history was received with a sigh of relief, especially (and ironically) the coups getting rid of whomever the previous welcome coup put in charge. Argentina has a long history of terrible success and beautiful failure. Perón himself is the very embodiment of this.

Of course, unlike Don Belisario, I am not a Latin. (more…)

The Drakensberg in Buenos Aires

An Argentine-South African Naval Encounter

The South African Ship Drakensberg sailed into Buenos Aires last month as part of the sea phase of ATLASUR VIII, a naval exercise involving ships from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and South Africa. Mr Tony Leon, former Leader of the Opposition and currently South African Ambassador to Argentina, was picked up by the ship-borne Oryx helicopter and landed on Drakensberg to observe the sail into Buenos Aires’s harbour. Mr Leon served in the SAN aboard President Pretorius in 1976. (more…)

The Start of Something Big in Argentina

The first-ever Nuestra Señora de Cristiandad Pilgrimage to Luján

SMALL SEEDS, IF well-planted and tended to, flower into much larger growths. On a Friday morning last month, just four pilgrims set out from the town of Rawson in the Buenos Aires province of Argentina, but by the time they reached their destination — a Latin Mass in the Marian basilica of Luján — their numbers swelled to nearly a hundred. The pilgrimage of November 5th, 6th, and 7th, under the patronage of ‘Our Lady of Christendom’ (Nuestra Señora de Cristiandad) was inspired by the traditional Paris-Chartres pilgrimage every Pentecost weekend. The organisers hope that, like the Chartres pilgrimage, this trek to Luján will become an annual recurring event.

“Renewing Christendom in Argentina” was the theme of this year’s pilgrimage, which “seeks to promote the rich tradition of the Roman Catholic Church for our times” the organisers announced in a press release after its completion.

“This new 100-kilometre pilgrimage was an act of reparation and praise to God, imploring the salvation of souls through the renewal of Christian culture and the rediscovering of the bi-millennial tradition of the Church.” (more…)

A Pro-Life Politico in Argentina

In the Sunday after-church tea-drinking circles of Manhattan, much thought and disputation was provoked by Damian Thompson’s recent revelation that the senator-elect from Florida, Mr. Marco Rubio, is in fact an evangelical Protestant despite his office claiming he is a Catholic. Word comes from Argentina about a member of parliament named Cynthia Hotton, a brazen defender of the right to life and solidarity with the unborn. (more…)

Monument to the Latin Genius

The Palacio Barolo, Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires

THE PROSPECT WAS horrifying. The year was 1919, and Europe had only just brought to an end an orgy of self-destruction lasting several years. The negotiations to conclude a peace treaty at Versailles were ongoing, but from abroad it looked as if the continent had descended into a trend of violence, decline, and destruction. That year, Luis Barolo, an Italian textiles manufacturer who had immigrated to Argentina, commissioned his fellow-countryman Mario Palanti to design a fascinating and mysterious structure as a monument to “the Latin Genius” Dante Alighieri — a repository in the New World for the poet’s legacy as the continent that gave him birth slid into oblivion. (more…)

4 de Junio

On June 4, 1943, a murky group of Argentine military officers called the GOU (standing for United Officers’ Group, or Government, Order, Unity) overthrew President Ramon Castillo and ended the Década Infame, or ‘Infamous Decade’ that had begun with the 1930 coup against Hipólito Yrigoyen. The ’43 coup was led by General Arturo Rawson, who served as President of Argentina for a month before being replaced by the more politically minded Gen. Pedro Ramírez.

Ramírez sympathised with the Axis powers in the Second World War, and his inability to successfully maintain Argentina’s neutrality in the face of U.S. pressure led to his resignation and succession by Gen. Edelmiro Farrell, who was viewed by most as the instrument of his charismatic junior, the infamous Col. Juan Perón (with whom we are all too familiar).

This poster produced by the junta incorporates a number of the symbols of Argentine patriotism and nationalism. ‘Liberty’ and ‘Justice’ are proclaimed the principles of the junta, and underneath the date of the coup is announced the ‘Dawn of a Greater Argentina’. The Phrygian cap of liberty, a frequent Argentine emblem, rests atop the scales of justice while the stars of the Southern Cross imply a divine favour over the new regime.

The map of Argentina coloured in yellow includes the British colony of the Falkland Islands and Antártida Argentina, the Argentine Republic’s claimed possession on the Antarctic continent (which overlaps with competing claims by Chile and the United Kingdom). Behind the whole composition, the Argentine Cockade looms ascendant like a rising sun, affirming the text’s proclamation of a new dawn under the nationalist-revolutionary regime.

BA: “an old-fashioned European city”

“Argentina has to be one of the most underrated travel destinations,” Michael Buerk writes in his salute to Argentina in today’s Daily Telegraph. An excerpt:

AT THE HEART OF IT ALL IS Buenos Aires, one of the world’s most exciting cities. I was there for months during the Falklands War, reporting for the BBC. They were praying for me in our local church. If only they had known how close I had come to eating myself to death – those steaks are huge – they would have prayed even harder.

It is an intensely Anglophile country, and was even then. The upper crust didn’t want to argue about the sovereignty of the Falklands (any more than they would want to argue now about oil drilling); they wanted to know where in Jermyn Street to order their cavalry twills. The hundreds of thousands of descamisados (literally, “shirtless ones”) who packed the Plaza de Mayo screaming for Mrs Thatcher’s blood would break off when they saw the BBC logo on the camera to make sure they had got the lyrics to “Hard Day’s Night” exactly right. The city’s biggest department store was called Harrods, the poshest club was (and is) the Hurlingham and the most popular film during the war was “Chariots of Fire”.

The veterans of the Malvinas, portly and grey-haired now, camp out in the Plaza de Mayo, still begging for better pensions. Porteños (the locals’ name for themselves) call them “the whiners”. The memorial to the 700 or so Argentine dead is prominent enough, but it is just a list of names and the eternal flame has long since gone out. It faces the great clock, built by the British a century ago (with a movement copied from Big Ben). The locals still call it the English Tower, even though it was officially renamed after the conflict. The cause still rankles, but the war is an embarrassment.

There’s poverty in the suburbs but, at its heart, Buenos Aires is a grand city, laid out in the days when its wealth and its future seemed unlimited. The world’s widest avenues, finest opera house, most opulent fin de siècle town houses, and – my idea of heaven – Italian restaurants cooking the world’s most wonderful meat. (Try La Brigada, where they cut the tenderloin with spoons. And don’t order “Baby Beef” looking for a light meal; it weighs in at just short of a kilo.)

It’s an old-fashioned European city, with a café society oddly short of dark faces. The original natives, and the African slaves, were wiped out or pushed out. The most prominent of the country’s remaining blacks (70 or so, it is said) was arrested at the airport recently because officials thought her Argentine passport must be a forgery.

The city is full of grand monuments, mostly to the chancers who snatched independence when Spain had its back turned, bowing the knee to Napoleon. They are as extravagantly memorialised in death as they were spurned in life; nearly all of them died in exile.

Argentina’s real heroes can be seen, stuffed, in the colourful old dock area, La Boca. Life-size models stare at you from the shops and down from the balconies. There are just three of them, and a tawdry trio they are. Eva Duarte Peron, of course, the actress who slept her way to the bottom of the movie business and into the life of a crypto-fascist colonel on the make; a long-dead tango warbler called Carlos Gardel; and Maradona, the squat footballer with the hand of God and the soul corroded by cocaine. Two of them died young; the third is still trying.

Death is a big thing in Argentina. La Recoleta cemetery is worth the trip in itself. It’s an entire suburb of gloriously overblown mausolea; a gentleman’s club for the dead, even harder to get into than the Garrick. Evita is there, in the Duarte family tomb. Her father’s relatives famously said they wouldn’t be seen dead with her; now she’s banged up with them for all eternity. There’s a new museum to Evita that’s worth seeing, with a pinch of salt.

I would dispute Bs.As. being “an old-fashioned European city”. It is instead a rather vigorous American city that retains many of the best attributes of an old-fashioned European city.

Argentines Recall Blessed Emperor

An Argentine correspondent informs us that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was offered on October 28th at the Church of St. Boniface, the German-speaking parish of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Charles, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary. The mass was organized by Viscountess Huges Stier de Saint Jean (née Princess Isabelle Auersperg-Breunner), whose mother was a descendant of the Emperor Franz Joseph through his daughter Valerie. The Mass was offered in Spanish and German, with the prayers of intention read in those languages as well as Hungarian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Croatian, and Italian.

Category: Charles of Austria

Avenida de Mayo

Looking down the Avenida de Mayo towards the Argentine Congress in the 1910s.

A humble house in Buenos Aires

Landowner Ignacio Pirovano rests in his family’s Buenos Aires townhouse, 1964.

A new look for Argentina’s Herald

The Buenos Aires Herald is one of those newspapers that, by the grace of God, simply must continue existing no matter what horrors befall the newspaper industry as a whole. Finding up-to-date information on Argentina, in English, can be exceptionally frustrating and I had the Sunday version of the paper sent to me in New York every week; perfect reading for the train ride into work. Martin Gambarotta’s “Politics & Labour” column has to be one of the most informative and well-written political columns in any English-speaking newspaper. I also enjoyed the paid announcements section, informing readers of golf tournaments in aid of the Hospital Británico, meetings of the British-Argentine Chamber of Commerce, and when the next convocation of the South America Piping Association would be held. That said, when the Herald started denominating their subscription fee in dollars instead of pesos, I had to call it quits — though very reluctantly.

All the time while perusing the newspaper, however, I kept thinking “This could be better…”. Readers know how design-obsessed I am, especially when it comes to newspapers, and the Buenos Aires Herald would be such a better newspaper if they just tweaked a few things: a more judicious font choice, standardized white-spaces between columns, a few meliorations here and there. But now they’ve gone and redesigned the thing — without seeking the input of this devoted fan! — and they’ve got it all wrong. (more…)

Argentina Mourns an Honest Man

RAÚL ALFONSÍN WAS often a stumbling, bumbling leader when he served as President of the Argentine Republic but, in a country of rampant corruption and abuse, his personal integrity was unassailable. It was probably for that reason that Argentines came on to the streets of Buenos Aires in April to mourn the loss of, certainly not the greatest statesman of the country’s history, but at least something simple: an honest man. For more on the late president, see my piece over at InsideCatholic.com. (more…)

A Sunday Afternoon in Buenos Aires

A sidewalk café on a Sunday afternoon, Buenos Aires, 1964.

Photograph by Leonard Mccombe.

Life at the Jockey Club, Buenos Aires

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Our Lady of Luján

Fr. Finigan tells us that a million young people joined a recent pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Luján, forty miles west of Buenos Aires. I had the privilege of being a pilgrim there myself on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in the summer (or rather winter) of 2001.

The Good Priest of Blackfen also recently pointed out an article from La Nacion about the twenty-fifth anniversary of the apparitions at San Nicolas (below).

The Municipalidad

This news photo showing a protest (what else?) of bus drivers on the Avenida de Mayo in Buenos Aires gives a good view of the capital’s city hall. The municipal headquarters is located between the Plaza de Mayo and the former home of the newspaper La Prensa; the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s presidential palace (officially called Government House, Casa del Gobierno) can be seen in the distance at the end of the square.

I’ve long thought they should reduce the auto space by two lanes, one on each side, and double the width of the sidewalks — but that would probably make the bus drivers even more irate.

La Rural 2008

The 122nd Exhibition of the Sociedad Rural Argentina

One of the highlights of the Argentina calendar is the Rural Exposition or “La Rural” which takes place every year at the Buenos Aires showgrounds of the Sociedad Rural Argentina. La Rural is one of the few events which takes up the entirety of the Society’s thirty-acre home nudged between Palermo Viejo and Palermo Nuevo and facing onto the Plaza Italia. Lasting from July 24 to August 4, with admission just 13 pesos (about $4.25 or £2.30), the show usually attracts a million visitors over its thirteen days.

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High Drama in Argentina’s Halls of Power

IT IS AN age-old question: what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? The force in question is the farming community of Argentina, once among the agricultural powerhouses of the world, and the object is the country’s slippery presidential couple, President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her husband (and predecessor in the top job) Néstor Kirchner. From all the way back in March, the Kirchners have been locked in a bitter dispute with the farming sector of the country since the presidential couple unilaterally imposed a massive tax on soy exports.

The Kirchners deride the farmers as “oligarchs” and claim that the exorbitant tax on one of Argentina’s most successful commercial sectors will be redistributed to the poor. Of course it would be irresponsible to simply take from the haves and give to the have-nots; the money raised would only go to the deserving poor, namely those who happen to support the Kirchner regime. Along the way, every cog in the machine will take his fair share, with a respectable amount left over to fatten the calves (metaphorically speaking) of the Kirchnerite street operators who quite openly buy votes during election time and pay union members to show up at pro-government rallies in between.

Argentine farmers protesting the Kirchner soy tax.

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