Manuel Gonzalez Prada
Born	( 1844-01-05 ) January 5, 1844 Lima , Peru
Died	July 22, 1918 (1918-07-22) (aged 74) Lima, Peru
Burial place	Cementerio Presbitero Matias Maestro 12°02′34″S 77°00′34″W  /  12.042852552053436°S 77.00957408578998°W  / -12.042852552053436; -77.00957408578998
Alma mater	Real Convictorio de San Carlos
Known for	Influences on indigenismo and Peruvian nationalism
Political party	National Union

Jose Manuel de los Reyes Gonzalez de Prada y Ulloa (Lima, January 5, 1844 – Lima, July 22, 1918) was a Peruvian politician and anarchist , literary critic and director of the National Library of Peru . The first writer to criticize the oligarchy within Peru, ^[1] he is well remembered as a social critic who helped develop Peruvian intellectual thought in the early twentieth century, as well as the academic style known as modernismo .

He was born into the aristocratic class. ^[2] He was close in spirit to Clorinda Matto de Turner whose first novel, Torn from the Nest approached political indigenismo , and to Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera , who like Gonzalez Prada, practiced a positivism sui generis.

Early life [ edit ]

Gonzalez Prada was born on January 5, 1844, in Lima to a wealthy, conservative, aristocratic Spanish family. ^{[1] [3] [2]} His father was the judge and politician Francisco Gonzalez de Prada Marron y Lombrera, who served as Member of the Superior Court of Justice of Lima and Mayor of Lima. His mother was Maria Josefa Alvarez de Ulloa y Rodriguez de la Rosa. His grandfather was an important administrative figure in the Viceroyalty of Peru . ^[2]

Due to the political exile of his father, the family temporarily settled down in Valpariso , where he started his education at an English school. During his youth, Gonzalez Prada would remove the "de" portion of his name in repudiation of his family's aristocratic background. ^[3] Upon returning to Peru, his father was elected Mayor of Lima in 1857 and he continued his studies at the Seminary of Santo Toribio. Prada abandoned Santo Toribio and enrolled the liberal San Carlos Convictorium , where he studied law and letters.

He would go on to live much of his life in Lima, living in a city full of Spanish traditions and conservatism , though he would become estranged from much of his family. ^[3]

Biography [ edit ]

Travel in south, solitude [ edit ]

For a period of time, Gonzalez Prada traveled through Southern Peru, especially near Cerro de Pasco , where he met with peasants and some of the indigenous peoples of Peru , developing an opposition to centralismo in Lima. ^[2] Following the death of his father in 1863, Gonzalez Prada would live in the Tutumo hacienda of his family until 1869. ^[2] During this period of solitude, he would experiment with a chemistry lab, developing a profitable starch compund, became a more improved poet and received political literature from Europe that would influence him. ^[2]

War of the Pacific [ edit ]

In 1879, he would release Cuartos de hora just prior to Chile's invasion of Peru, attacking the ruling class and Catholic Church. ^[4] During Peru's impending defeat by Chile in the War of the Pacific , Gonzalez Prada would stay in his home for three years, refusing to look at the foreign invaders occupying Peru . ^{[1] [2]} The conflict proved to him that Peru was a failure under the economic oligarchy and that large reforms were necessary to improve the nation. ^[1] He would identify businessmen, clergy, military leaders and politicians as the upper class, saying that their wealth and power was gained through crony capitalism . ^[1] Gonzalez Prada saw the political elites in two fashions; the civilian elite who stole public funds through special interest groups and the militaristic caudillos who plundered state coffers blatantly. ^[1] To enforce this system, he said that the elites utilized political repression through the police and military. ^[1] Culturally, he said the elites were foreign to the majority of Peruvians since they adopted Spanish customs and continued colonial practices, including feudalism , continuing inequality and poor development in rural areas . ^[1]

Literary Circle [ edit ]

He was an original partner in the Lima Literary Club and he participated in the foundation of the Peruvian Literary Circle , a vehicle to propose a literature based on science and the future. ^[5] The Literary Circle saw themselves as freethinkers and that they were destined to change Peru, reaching out to Gonzalez Prada, who immediately reoriented the groups direction. ^{[2] [5]} During his first address to the group at the Ateneo, he would criticize those who looked to the past, stating "Our liberty will be useless if we limit ourselves in torm to the exaggerated purism of Madrid, or if in substance we submit ourselves to the Syllabus of Rome. Let us rid ourselves of the tendency that induces us to prefer the foliage of words to the fruit of ideas." ^[5] In 1886, he became the head of the Literary Circle, stating: ^[2]

I see myself, from this day on, at the head of a group destined to become the radical party of our literature.

During Fiestas Patrias on 28 July 1888, Gonzalez Prada's Speech at the Politeama , read by an Ecuadorian orator due to the writer's stage fright , received thunderous applause by the audience, with President of Peru Andres Avelino Caceres , who was in attendance, saying "l did not know whether to arrest him or embrace him". ^[5] The publication of the speech was unsuccessfully censored by the Caceres government. ^[2]

His most famous book, Free Pages , caused a public outcry that brought Gonzalez Prada dangerously close to excommunication from the Catholic Church . His mother, a devout Catholic, died in 1888 and his criticism became more vitriolic afterwards. He said the Church "preached the sermon on the mount and practiced the morals of Judas." In fact Gonzalez Prada was part of a group of social reformers that included Ricardo Palma , Juana Manuela Gorriti , Clorinda Matto de Turner and Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera . These important authors were concerned with the enduring influence of Spanish colonialism in Peru. Gonzalez Prada was perhaps the most radical of them all. The most radical work he published during his lifetime was Hours of Battle , translated as Hard Times .

National Union [ edit ]

In political life, Gonzalez Prada was initially a member of the Civilista Party , but left to found with his friends, a radical party known as the National Union , a party of "propaganda and attack." The Literary Circle was transformed into National Union in 1891. ^[2] Gonzalez Prada was named as a presidential candidate, but had to flee to Europe following persecution . He would spend seven years in Europe, visiting France and Spain, finally returning to Peru in May 1898. ^[2] Upon his return, he called for social revolution and the "greatest liberty" be brought through social reform. ^[2] He stood as his party's Presidential Candidate in the Presidential election of 1899 and came in third with 0.95% of the vote, with aristocrat Eduardo Lopez de Romana receiving 97% of the vote. Following the presidential election, he was asked to work for the newly formed government.

In 1902, Gonzalez Prada would leave National Union and instead chose to write for working-class newspapers. ^[2] He began writing for Los Parias , a Peruvian anarchist newspaper, in 1904. ^[2] He also took up the post of director of the National Library of Peru on Abancay Avenue and helped to improve and reorganise the library to one of international stature.

Later life [ edit ]

His books Minusculas (1901) and Exoticas (1911) are often considered as modernista although his work transcends the scope of that movement. Some critics have suggested that his poetry is pre-proletarian . Baladas peruanas (1935), perhaps his best book, is a vindication of the Indian. His metrical and rhythmical innovations and experiments are remarkable in Spanish-American poetry. Horas de lucha (1908) is a good example of his prose. ^[6]

Until his death, Gonzalez Prada dedicated himself to educating university students and workers, holding Luz y Amor (Light and Love) discussion groups and sharing his writings with them. ^[2] Gonzalez Prada died of cardiac arrest on 22 July 1918 and was buried in the Cementerio Presbitero Matias Maestro as a Peruvian patriot . ^[7] His writings on Anarchism , Anarquia , was posthumously released in 1936. ^[8]

Political views [ edit ]

Upon returning to Peru from Europe in 1898, Gonzalez Prada would support anarchism , believing it provided more liberty compared to liberalism , which had prevented reform in Peru. ^[2] He had similar anarchist thoughts as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Bakunin . An atheist, a follower of Darwin , Spencer , and Comte , Manuel Gonzalez Prada was a powerful polemicist whose targets were the Catholic Church, the Spanish tradition, and, generally, any form of conservatism. He would describe anarchism as "a new Christianity ... without Christ" and that it would provide "unlimited freedom and the greatest well-being for the individual with the abolition of the state and private property". ^[2]

Gonzalez Prada did not see the crisis facing Peru as a class conflict , saying that one class achieving power over the other would only mimic actual social justice . ^[2] When giving the " El intelectual y el obrero " address to the anarchist group Federacion de Obreros Panaderos during a International Workers' Day event in 1905, he would make the cautioning statement that "revolutions come from above, but are made operative from below ... every revolution once successful tends to become a government of force, every victorious revolutionary degenerates into a conservative". ^[2]

After seeing the failures of nationalism, his strong moral values and after embracing anarchism, Gonzalez Prada concluded: ^[2]

"Given the general inclination of man to abuse power, all government is evil and all authority means tyranny."

Legacy [ edit ]

The legacy of Gonzalez Prada would not be recognized until later into the 20th century, influencing progressive movements within Peru. ^[3] His writings would also influence indigenismo due to his criticism of the pervasive Spanish culture amongst the Peruvian elite. ^[1] Linguistics scholar Bohdan Plaskacz would describe Gonzalez Prada "as one of the greatest essayists of Latin America, champion of the rights of Peruvian Indians and spiritual father of the socialist movement of the following generation". ^[9] Peruvian intellectuals influenced by Gonzalez Prada include Jose Carlos Mariategui and Victor Raul Haya de la Torre . ^[1] Victor Andres Belaunde was influenced by Gonzalez Prada's description of a superficial elite class. ^[1] His intellectual and stylistic footprint can be found in the writing of Clorinda Matto de Turner , Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera , Jose Santos Chocano , Aurora Caceres , Cesar Vallejo , Jose Carlos Mariategui and Mario Vargas Llosa .

Following a curriculum change in the 1960s for the studies of the Peruvian Armed Forces , military students were taught the writings of Gonzalez Prada and became disillusioned with the political elite, with officers ultimately overthrowing the government of Fernando Belaunde in 1968 Peruvian coup d'etat due to concerns of inequality. ^[1]

Thomas Ward, director of the Latin American and Latino Studies at Loyola University Maryland , would say of Gonzalez Prada: ^[10]

"[E]ach century can boast of a voice that sounds in the desert shouting against colonialism, the corrupt, and its accomplices. ... A voice that, from the ruins of the War of the Pacific , ... rose up against pusillanimity, against the lack of principles, the Creole concept of Peru excluding the Andean, was that of Manuel Gonzalez Prada."

Besides being a philosopher and a significant political agitator, Gonzalez Prada is important as the first Latin American author to write in a style known as modernismo (modernista in Spanish, different from Anglo-American modernism ) poet in Peru, anticipating some of the literary innovations that Ruben Dario would shortly bring to the entire Hispanic world. He also introduced new devices such as the triolet, rondel and Malayan pantun which revitalized Spanish verse. Besides his poetry, he cultivated the essay, and most recently Isabelle Tauzin Castellanos has published some of his hitherto unknown fiction.

References [ edit ]

• Gonzalez Prada, Manuel, Free Pages and Hard Times: Anarchist Musings . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN   0-19-511687-9 (hardcover) and ISBN   0-19-511688-7 (paperback).
• Gonzalez Prada, Manuel, "The Slaves of the Church". Trans. Cathleen Carris. PMLA 128.3 (May 2013): 765-777.

Secondary bibliography [ edit ]

• Rufino Blanco Fombona, Grandes escritores de America , Madrid, 1917.
• Eugenio Chang-Rodriguez, La literatura politica: De Gonzalez Prada, Mariategui y Haya de la Torre , Mexico, 1957, esp. pp. 51?125.
• John A. Crow, "The Epic of Latin America," Fourth Edition, pp. 636?639.
• Joel Delhom, "Ambiguites de la question raciale dans les essais de Manuel Gonzalez Prada", en Les noirs et le discours identitaire latinoamericain , Perpignan, 1997: 13-39.
• Efrain Kristal, Una vision urbana de los Andes: genesis y desarrollo del indigenismo en el Peru, 1848-1930 , Lima, 1991.
• Robert G. Mead, Jr., Perspectivas interamericanas: literatura y libertad , New York, 1967, esp. pp. 103?184.
• Eduardo Muratta Bunsen, "El pensamiento filosofico de don Manuel Gonzalez Prada," en Filosofia y sociedad en el Peru , Lima, 2003: 128-143.
• Luis Alberto Sanchez, Nuestras vidas son los rios…historia y leyenda de los Gonzalez Prada , Lima, 1977.
• Isabelle Tauzin-Castellanos, ed., Manuel Gonzalez Prada: escritor de dos mundos , Lima, 2006.
• Marcel Velazquez Castro, Las mascaras de la representacion: el sujeto esclavista y las rutas del racismo en el Peru (1775-1895) , Lima, 2005, esp. pp. 249?264.
• Thomas Ward, La anarquia inmanentista de Manuel Gonzalez Prada . New York, 1998.
• Thomas Ward, “Gonzalez Prada: sonador indigenista de la nacion”, en su Resistencia cultural: La nacion en el ensayo de las Americas , Lima, 2004: 160-177.
• Thomas Ward, “Manuel Gonzalez Prada vs. Rigoberta Menchu: When Indigenismo meets Indigenous Thought.” Hispania 95.3 (September 2012): 400-423.
• Thomas Ward, ed, El porvenir nos debe una Victoria. La insolita modernidad de Manuel Gonzalez Prada . Lima, 2010.

External links [ edit ]

• Manuel Gonzalez Prada page . Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia (English)
• Times of Struggle An ongoing translation project of Horas de lucha
• El porvenir nos debe una victoria , a new website dedicated to Manuel Gonzalez Prada replacing "Ensayos y poesia"
• His most important collections of essays and poetry , archived from "Ensayos y poesia", Manuel Gonzalez Prada