Eva Perón
Juan Domingo Perón | |
---|---|
Preceded by | Conrada Victoria Farrell |
Succeeded by | Mercedes Lonardi (1955) |
President of the Eva Perón Foundation | |
In office 8 July 1948 – 26 July 1952 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Delia Parodi |
President of the Female Peronist Party | |
In office 29 July 1949 – 26 July 1952 | |
Preceded by | Position established |
Succeeded by | Delia Parodi |
Personal details | |
Born | María Eva Duarte 7 May 1919 Junín or rural area of the General Viamonte municipality, Buenos Aires province, Argentina |
Died | 26 July 1952 Unzué Palace, Buenos Aires, Argentina | (aged 33)
Resting place | La Recoleta Cemetery |
Political party | Justicialist Party Female Peronist Party |
Spouse | |
Parent(s) | Juan Duarte (father) Juana Ibarguren (mother) |
Signature | |
María Eva Duarte de Perón (Spanish pronunciation:
She met Colonel Juan Perón on 22 January 1944 during a charity event at the Luna Park Stadium to benefit the victims of an earthquake in San Juan, Argentina. The two were married the following year. Juan Perón was elected President of Argentina in June 1946; during the next six years, Eva Perón became powerful within the pro-Peronist trade unions, primarily for speaking on behalf of labor rights. She also ran the Ministries of Labor and Health, founded and ran the charitable Eva Perón Foundation, championed women's suffrage in Argentina, and founded and ran the nation's first large-scale female political party, the Female Peronist Party.
In 1951, Eva Perón announced her candidacy for the Peronist nomination for the office of
upon her death, a prerogative generally reserved for heads of state.Eva Perón has become a part of international popular culture,[5] most famously as the subject of the musical Evita (1976).[6] Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez has said that Evita has never left the collective consciousness of Argentines.[3] Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the second female president of Argentina (after Isabel Perón), claims that women of her generation owe a debt to Eva for "her example of passion and combativeness".[7]
Early life
Early childhood
Eva's 1951 biography,
Eva Perón spent her childhood in
When Eva was a year old, Duarte returned permanently to his legal family, leaving Juana Ibarguren and her children in abject poverty. They were forced to move to the poorest area of Junín. Los Toldos was a village in the dusty region of Las Pampas, with a reputation as a desolate place of poverty. To support herself and her children, Ibarguren sewed clothes for neighbors. The family was stigmatized by the abandonment of the father and by the illegitimate status of the children under Argentine law, and was consequently somewhat isolated.[16] A desire to expunge this part of her life might have been a motivation for Eva to arrange the destruction of her original birth certificate in 1945.[12][page needed][17]
When Duarte suddenly died and his mistress and their children sought to attend his funeral, there was an unpleasant scene at the church gates. Although Juana and the children were permitted to enter and pay their respects, they were promptly directed out of the church. Duarte's widow did not want her late husband's mistress and children at the funeral and, as she was the legitimate wife, her orders were respected.[18]
Junín
Before abandoning Juana Ibarguren, Juan Duarte had been her sole means of support. Biographer John Barnes writes that, after this abandonment, all Duarte left to the family was a document declaring that the children were his, thus enabling them to use the Duarte surname.[19][page needed] Soon after, Juana moved her children to a one-room apartment in Junín. To pay the rent on their single-roomed home, mother and daughters took up jobs as cooks in the houses of the local estancias.
Eventually, owing to Eva's older brother's financial help, the family moved into a bigger house, which they later transformed into a boarding house.[12][page needed] During this time, young Eva often participated in school plays and concerts. One of her favorite pastimes was the cinema. Though Eva's mother had a few plans for Eva, wanting to marry her off to one of the local bachelors, Eva herself dreamed of becoming a famous actress.[19][page needed] Eva's love for acting was reinforced in October 1933, when she played a small role in a school play called Arriba Estudiantes (Students Arise), which Barnes describes as "an emotional, patriotic, flag-waving melodrama".[19][page needed] After the play, Eva was determined to become an actress.[19][page needed]
Move to Buenos Aires
In her autobiography, she explained that all the people from her town who had been to the big cities described them as "marvelous places, where nothing was given but wealth". In 1934, at the age of 15, Eva escaped her poverty-stricken village when she ran off with a young musician to the nation's capital of Buenos Aires. The young couple's relationship ended quickly, but Eva remained in Buenos Aires. She began to pursue jobs on the stage and the radio, and she eventually became a film actress. She bleached her naturally black hair to blonde, a look she maintained for the rest of her life.[9][page needed]
It is often reported that Eva traveled to Buenos Aires by train with
Buenos Aires in the 1930s was known as the "Paris of South America". The center of the city had many cafés, restaurants, theaters, movie houses, shops, and bustling crowds. In direct contrast, the 1930s were also years of great unemployment, poverty, and hunger in the capital, and many new arrivals from the interior were forced to live in tenements, boardinghouses and in outlying shanties that became known as
villas miserias.[21]
Upon arrival in Buenos Aires, Eva Duarte was faced with the difficulties of surviving without formal education or connections. The city was especially overcrowded during this period because of the migrations caused by the Great Depression. On 28 March 1935, she made her professional debut in the play Mrs. Perez (la Señora de Pérez), at the Comedias Theater.
In 1936, Eva toured nationally with a theater company, worked as a model, and was cast in a few
As a result of her success with radio dramas and the films, Eva achieved some financial stability. In 1942, she was able to move into an apartment in the exclusive neighborhood of Recoleta, on 1557 Calle Posadas (currently the site of the Hotel Melia Recoleta Plaza). The next year, Eva began her career in politics, as one of the founders of the Argentine Radio Syndicate (ARA).[12][page needed]
Early relationship with Juan Perón
On 15 January 1944, an earthquake occurred in the town of San Juan, Argentina, killing ten thousand people. In response, Juan Perón, who was then the Secretary of Labour, established a fund to raise money to aid the victims. He devised a plan to have an "artistic festival" as a fundraiser, and invited radio and film actors to participate. After a week of fundraising, all participants met at a gala held at Luna Park Stadium in Buenos Aires to benefit earthquake victims.
It was at this gala, on 22 January 1944, that Eva Duarte first met Colonel Juan Perón.[24] Eva promptly became the colonel's girlfriend. She referred to the day she met her future husband as her "marvelous day".[25] Juan Perón and Eva left the gala together at around two in the morning.[26] (Perón's first wife, Aurelia Tizón, had died of uterine cancer in 1938.)
Eva Duarte had no knowledge of or interest in politics prior to meeting Perón; therefore, she never argued with Perón or any of his inner circle, but merely absorbed what she heard.[27] Juan Perón later claimed in his memoir that he purposefully selected Eva as his pupil, and set out to create in her a "second I".[28] Juan Perón may have allowed Eva Duarte such intimate exposure and knowledge of his inner circle because of his age: he was 48 and she was 24 when they met. He had come to politics late in life, and was therefore free of preconceived ideas of how his political career should be conducted, and he was willing to accept whatever aid she offered him.[27]
In May 1944, it was announced that broadcast performers must organize themselves into a union, and that this union would be the only one permitted to operate in Argentina. Shortly after the formation of the union, Eva Duarte was elected its president. Juan Perón had made the suggestion that performers create a union, and the other performers likely felt it was good politics to elect his mistress. Shortly after her election as president of the union, Eva Duarte began a daily program called Toward a Better Future, which dramatized, in soap opera form, the accomplishments of Juan Perón. Often, Perón's own speeches were played during the program. When she spoke, Eva Duarte spoke in ordinary language as a regular woman who wanted listeners to believe what she herself believed about Juan Perón.[29]
Rise to power
Juan Perón's arrest
History of Argentina |
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Argentina portal |
By the early 1940s, a group of Army officers called the GOU for "Grupo de Oficiales Unidos" (United Officers' Group), nicknamed "The Colonels", had gained considerable influence within the Argentine government. President Pedro Pablo Ramírez became wary of Juan Perón's growing power within the government and was unable to curb that power. On 24 February 1944, Ramírez signed his own resignation paper, which was drafted by Juan Perón himself; Edelmiro Julián Farrell, a friend of Juan Perón, became president, and Juan Perón returned to his job as Labor Minister, at which point he was the most powerful man in the Argentine government.[30] On 9 October 1945 Juan Perón was arrested by his opponents within the government who feared that, with the strong support of his base, largely unskilled unionized workers that had recently moved from rural areas to industrialized urban centers and several allied trade unions, Perón would attempt a power grab.
Six days later, between 250,000 and 350,000 people[31] gathered in front of the Casa Rosada, Argentina's government house, to demand Juan Perón's release. At 11 pm, Juan Perón stepped onto the balcony of the Casa Rosada and addressed the crowd. Biographer Robert D. Crassweller claims that this moment was particularly powerful because it dramatically recalled important aspects of Argentine history. Crassweller writes that Juan Perón enacted the role of a caudillo addressing his people in the tradition of Argentine leaders Rosas and Yrigoyen. Crassweller also claims that the evening contained "mystic overtones" of a "quasi-religious" nature.[32]
After Perón won the elections of 1946, his administration started circulating a highly fictionalized version of the 17 October demonstration where Eva Perón was portrayed as knocking on every door in Buenos Aires in order to bring out people to the street. This version of events was popularized in the movie version of the Lloyd Webber musical; historians agree that this version of events is false.[33] At the time of Perón's imprisonment, Eva was still merely an actress. She had no political influence with any of the various labor unions, and she was not well liked within Perón's inner circle, nor was she even particularly popular within the film and radio business at that point. The massive rally that freed Perón from prison was organized by various unions, particularly the CGT, which was Perón's main base.
On 18 October 1945, a day after he was released, Perón married Eva discreetly in a civil ceremony in Junín. A church wedding was held on 9 December 1945 in La Plata. To this day, 17 October is celebrated as a holiday for the Justicialist Party (celebrated as Día de la Lealtad, or "Loyalty Day").
1946 presidential election
After his release from prison, Juan Perón decided to campaign for the presidency of the nation, which he won in a landslide. Eva campaigned heavily for her husband during his 1946 presidential bid. Using her weekly radio show, she delivered powerful speeches with heavy populist rhetoric urging the poor to align themselves with Perón's movement.
European tour
In 1947, Eva embarked on a much-publicized "Rainbow Tour" of Europe, meeting with numerous dignitaries and heads of state, such as Francisco Franco and Pope Pius XII. The tour had its genesis in an invitation that the Spanish leader had extended to Juan Perón; Eva decided that if Juan Perón would not accept Franco's invitation for a state visit to Spain, then she would.[34] Argentina had only recently emerged from its "wartime quarantine", thus taking its place in the United Nations and improving relations with the United States. Therefore, a visit to Franco, with António Salazar of Portugal, the last remaining Western European authoritarian leaders in power, was diplomatically frowned upon internationally. Advisers then decided that Eva should also visit other European countries in addition to Spain. This would make it seem that Eva's sympathies were not specifically with Francoist Spain. The tour was billed not as a political tour but as a non-political "goodwill" tour.
Eva was well received in Spain, where she visited the tombs of Spanish monarchs
Eva then visited Rome, where the reception was not as warm as it had been in Spain. Though
Her next stop was France where she met with Charles de Gaulle. She promised France two shipments of wheat.
While in France, Eva received word that
Eva also visited Switzerland during her European tour, a visit that has been viewed as the worst part of the trip. According to the book Evita: A Biography by John Barnes, while she travelled down a street with many people crowding her car, someone threw two stones and smashed the windshield. She threw her hands up in shock, but was not injured. Later, as she sat with the Foreign Minister, protesters threw tomatoes at her. The tomatoes hit the Foreign Minister and splattered on Eva's dress. After these two events, Eva had had enough and, concluding the two-month tour, returned to Argentina.
Members of the Peronist opposition speculated that the true purpose of the European tour was to deposit funds in a
During her tour to Europe, Eva Perón was featured in a cover story for Time magazine. The cover's caption – "Eva Perón: Between two worlds, an Argentine rainbow" – was a reference to the name given to Eva's European tour, The Rainbow Tour. This was the only time in the periodical's history that a South American first lady appeared alone on its cover. (In 1951, Eva appeared again, but with Juan Perón.) The 1947 cover story was also the first publication to mention that Eva had been born out of wedlock. In retaliation, the periodical was banned from Argentina for several months.[39]
After returning to Argentina from Europe, Evita never again appeared in public with the complicated
Charitable and feminist activities
Eva Foundation
The
It had been the tradition of the Sociedad to elect the
In
Within a few years, the foundation had assets in cash and goods in excess of three billion pesos, or over $200 million at the exchange rate of the late 1940s. It employed 14,000 workers, of whom 6,000 were construction workers and 26 were priests. It purchased and distributed annually 400,000 pairs of shoes, 500,000 sewing machines, and 200,000 cooking pots. The foundation also gave scholarships, built homes, hospitals, and other charitable institutions. Every aspect of the foundation was under Evita's supervision. The foundation also built entire communities, such as Evita City, which still exists today. Due to the works and health services of the foundation, for the first time in history there was no inequality in Argentine health care.[45]
Toward the end of her life, Evita was working as many as 20 to 22 hours per day in her foundation, often ignoring her husband's request that she cut back on her workload and take the weekends off. The more she worked with the poor in her foundation, the more she adopted an outraged attitude toward the existence of poverty, saying, "Sometimes I have wished my insults were slaps or lashes. I've wanted to hit people in the face to make them see, if only for a day, what I see each day I help the people."
Female Peronist Party and women's suffrage
Eva Perón has often been credited with gaining the right to vote for Argentine women. While Eva did make radio addresses in support of women's suffrage and also published articles in her Democracia newspaper asking male Peronists to support women's right to vote, ultimately the ability to grant to women the right to vote was beyond Eva's powers. Eva's actions were limited to supporting a bill introduced by one of her supporters, Eduardo Colom, a bill that was eventually dropped.
A new women's suffrage bill was introduced, which the
Eva Perón then created the Female Peronist Party, the first large female political party in the nation. By 1951, the party had 500,000 members and 3,600 headquarters across the country. While Eva Perón did not consider herself a feminist, her impact on the political life of women was decisive. Thousands of previously apolitical women entered politics because of Eva Perón. They were the first women active in Argentine politics. The combination of female suffrage and the organization of the Female Peronist Party granted Juan Perón a large majority (63 percent) of the vote in the 1951 presidential elections.
1952 presidential election
Vice-presidential nomination
In 1951, Duarte was chosen by her husband as a candidate for vice-president. This move was not welcomed by some of Perón's more conservative allies to whom the possibility of Eva becoming president in the event of Juan Perón's death was not acceptable.[5][page needed]
Eva was immensely popular particularly among working-class women. The intensity of the support she drew from the people is said to have surprised even Juan Perón himself. The wide support Evita's proposed candidacy generated indicated to him that Eva had become as important a figure of the Peronist party as Juan Perón himself was.[49]
On 22 August 1951, the aligned labour unions held a massive rally that they called the "Cabildo Abierto", a reference to the first local government of the May Revolution, in 1810. The Peróns addressed the crowd from the balcony of a huge scaffolding set up on the Avenida 9 de Julio, several blocks away from the Casa Rosada, the official government house of Argentina. Overhead were two large portraits of Eva and Juan Perón. It has been claimed that "Cabildo Abierto" was the largest public display of support in history for a female political figure.[21]
She declined the invitation to run for vice-president. She said her only ambition was that in the large chapter of history to be written about her husband, the footnotes would mention a woman who brought the "hopes and dreams of the people to the president", a woman who eventually turned those hopes and dreams into "glorious reality". In Peronist rhetoric, this event has come to be referred to as "The Renunciation", portraying Evita as having been a selfless woman in line with the Hispanic myth of marianismo.
Re-election and Spiritual Leader of the Nation
On 7 May 1952, Evita's 33rd birthday, she was given the title of "Spiritual Leader of the Nation" by her husband.[citation needed]
On 4 June 1952, Evita rode with Juan Perón in a parade through Buenos Aires in celebration of his re-election as President of Argentina. Evita was by this point so ill that she was unable to stand without support. Underneath her oversized fur coat was a frame made of plaster and wire that allowed her to stand. She took a triple dose of pain medication before the parade and took another two doses when she returned home.[citation needed]
Death and aftermath
Declining health
On 9 January 1950, Evita fainted in public and underwent surgery three days later. Although it was reported that she had undergone an appendectomy, she was actually found to have advanced cervical cancer.[50] Fainting episodes continued through 1951 (including the evening after "Cabildo abierto"), with extreme weakness and severe vaginal bleeding. By 1951, it had become evident that her health was rapidly deteriorating. Although her diagnosis was withheld from Juan by her,[51] he knew she was not well, and a bid for the vice-presidency was not practical. A few months after "the Renunciation", Evita secretly underwent a radical hysterectomy, performed by the American surgeon George T. Pack[52] at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in an attempt to remove the cervical tumor.[53][page needed] In 2011, a Yale neurosurgeon, Daniel E. Nijensohn, studied Evita's skull X-rays and photographic evidence and said that Perón may have been given a prefrontal lobotomy in the last months of her life "to relieve the pain, agitation and anxiety she suffered in the final months of her illness".[54][55][56][57]
Péron's cervical cancer had metastasized and returned rapidly despite the hysterectomy.[53][page needed] She was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy – a novel treatment at that time. She became emaciated, weighing only 36 kg (79 lb; 5 st 9 lb) by June 1952.[58][59]
Death
Péron died at 8:25 p.m. on Saturday, 26 July 1952 at the Unzue Palace. Radio broadcasts throughout the country were interrupted with the announcement that "the Press Secretary's Office of the Presidency of the Nation fulfills its very sad duty to inform the people of the Republic that at 20:25 hours, Mrs. Eva Perón, Spiritual Leader of the Nation, died."[60][page needed]
Mourning
Immediately after Evita's death, the government suspended all official activities for several days and ordered that all flags be flown at half-mast for 10 days. Business across the country was put to a halt as movies were stopped and patrons were asked to leave restaurants.[58] Popular grief was overwhelming. The crowd outside of the presidential residence, where Evita died, grew dense, congesting the streets for ten blocks in each direction.
The morning after her death, while Evita's body was being moved to the Ministry of Labour Building, eight people were crushed to death in the throngs. In the following 24 hours, over 2,000 people were treated in city hospitals for injuries sustained in the rush to be near Evita as her body was being transported, and thousands more were treated on the spot.[19][page needed] For the following two weeks, lines stretched for many city blocks with mourners waiting hours to see Evita's body lie in state at the Ministry of Labour.
The streets of Buenos Aires overflowed with huge piles of flowers. Within a day of Perón's death, all flower shops in Buenos Aires had run out of stock. Flowers were flown in from all over the country, and as far away as Chile.[19][page needed] Despite the fact that Eva Perón never held a political office, she was eventually given a state funeral usually reserved for a head of state,[61] along with a full Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. A memorial was held in Helsinki for the Argentine team to attend during the 1952 Summer Olympics due to Eva Perón's death during those games.[62]
On Saturday, 9 August, the body was transferred to the Congress Building for an additional day of public viewing, and a memorial service attended by the entire Argentine legislative body. The next day, after a final Mass, the coffin was laid on a
There were different interpretations of the popular mourning of Eva Perón's death. Some reporters viewed the mourning as authentic; others saw a public succumbing to another of the "passion plays" of the Peronist regime. Time reported that the Peronist government enforced the observance of a daily period of five minutes of mourning following a daily radio announcement.[63]
During Perón's time, children born to unmarried parents did not have the same legal rights as those born to married parents. Biographer Julie M. Taylor, professor of anthropology at Rice University,[64] has said that Evita was well aware of the pain of being born "illegitimate". Taylor speculates that Evita's awareness of this may have influenced her decision to have the law changed so that "illegitimate" children would henceforth be referred to as "natural" children.[65] Upon her death, the Argentine public was told that Evita was only 30. The discrepancy was meant to dovetail with Evita's earlier tampering with her birth certificate. After becoming the first lady in 1946, Evita had her birth records altered to read that she had been born to married parents, and placed her birth date three years later, making herself younger.[5][page needed]
Memorial
Shortly after Evita's death, Pedro Ara, who was well known for his embalming skill, was approached to embalm the body. It is doubtful that Evita ever expressed a wish to be embalmed, which suggests that it was most likely Juan Perón's decision. Ara replaced the subject's blood with glycerine in order to preserve the organs and lend an appearance of "artistically rendered sleep".[66]
Disappearance and return of body
Shortly after Evita's death, plans were made to construct a memorial in her honour. The monument, which was to be a statue of a man representing the
Following his flight, a military dictatorship took power. The new authorities removed Evita's body from display, and its whereabouts were a mystery for 16 years. From 1955 until 1971, the military dictatorship of Argentina maintained a ban on Peronism. In 1971, the military found that Evita's body was buried in a crypt in Milan, Italy, under the name "María Maggi". It appeared that her body had been damaged during its transport and storage, including compressions to her face and disfigurement of one of her feet due to the body having been left in an upright position.
In 1995, Tomás Eloy Martínez published Santa Evita, a fictionalised work propounding many new stories about the escapades of the corpse. Allegations that her body was the object of inappropriate attentions are derived from his description of an 'emotional necrophilia' by embalmers, Colonel Koenig and his assistant Arancibia. Many primary and secondary references to his novel have inaccurately stated that her body had been defiled in some way resulting in the widespread belief in this myth. Also included are allegations that many wax copies had been made, that the corpse had been damaged with a hammer, and that one of the wax copies was the object of an officer's sexual attentions.[67]
Final resting place
In 1971, Evita's body was exhumed and flown to Spain, where Juan Perón maintained the corpse in his home. Juan and his third wife, Isabel, decided to keep the corpse in their dining room on a platform near the table.[citation needed] In 1973, Juan Perón came out of exile and returned to Argentina, where he became president for the third time. Perón died in office in 1974. That year the group Montoneros stole the corpse of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, whom they had also previously kidnapped and assassinated. Montoneros then used the captive body of Aramburu to press for the repatriation of Eva's body.[68] His third wife, Isabel Perón, who had been elected vice-president, succeeded Perón and had Eva Perón's body returned to Argentina to be displayed beside her husband's corpse. Once Eva's body had arrived in Argentina, the group unceremoniously dumped Aramburu's corpse on a random street in Buenos Aires.[68] Eva's body was later buried in the Duarte family tomb in La Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires.
Later Argentine governments took elaborate measures to make Eva Perón's tomb secure. The tomb's marble floor has a trapdoor that leads to a compartment containing two coffins. Under that compartment is a second trapdoor and a second compartment. That is where Eva Perón's coffin rests.[69]
Legacy and criticism
Argentina and Latin America
In all of Latin America, only one other woman has aroused an emotion, devotion, and faith comparable to those awakened by the
Virgin of Guadalupe. In many homes, the image of Evita is on the wall next to the Virgin.— Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir[70]
In his essay titled "Latin America" published in The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity,
In a 1996 interview, Tomás Eloy Martínez referred to Eva Perón as "the Cinderella of the tango and the Sleeping Beauty of Latin America". Martínez suggested she has remained an important cultural icon for the same reasons as fellow Argentine Che Guevara:
Latin American myths are more resistant than they seem to be. Not even the mass exodus of the Cuban raft people or the rapid decomposition and isolation of Fidel Castro's regime have eroded the triumphal myth of Che Guevara, which remains alive in the dreams of thousands of young people in Latin America, Africa and Europe. Che as well as Evita symbolize certain naive, but effective, beliefs: the hope for a better world; a life sacrificed on the altar of the disinherited, the humiliated, the poor of the earth. They are myths which somehow reproduce the image of Christ.[73]
Although not a government holiday, the anniversary of Eva Perón's death is marked by many Argentines each year. Additionally, Eva Perón has been featured on Argentine coins, and a form of Argentine currency called "Evitas" was named in her honour.[74] Ciudad Evita (Evita City), which was established by the Eva Perón Foundation in 1947, is located just outside Buenos Aires.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the first elected female president in Argentine history, is a Peronist who has occasionally been referred to as "The New Evita". Kirchner says she does not want to compare herself to Evita, claiming she was a unique phenomenon in Argentine history. Kirchner also says that women of her generation, who came of age in the 1970s during the military dictatorships in Argentina, owe a debt to Evita for offering an example of passion and combativeness.[7] On 26 July 2002, the 50th anniversary of Eva Perón's death, a museum opened in her honour called Museo Evita. The museum, created by her great-niece Cristina Alvarez Rodriguez, houses many of Eva Perón's clothes, portraits, and artistic renderings of her life, and has become a popular tourist attraction. The museum was opened in a building that was once used by the Eva Perón Foundation.[75]
In the book Eva Perón: The Myths of a Woman, cultural anthropologist Julie M. Taylor claims that Evita has remained important in Argentina due to the combination of three unique factors:
In the images examined, the three elements consistently linked—femininity, mystical or spirituality power, and revolutionary leadership—display an underlying common theme. Identification with any one of these elements puts a person or a group at the margins of established society and at the limits of institutional authority. Anyone who can identify with all three images lays an overwhelming and echoing claim to dominance through forces that recognize no control in society or its rules. Only a woman can embody all three elements of this power.[76]
Taylor argues that the fourth factor in Evita's continued importance in Argentina relates to her status as a dead woman and the power that death holds over the public imagination. Taylor suggests that Evita's embalmed corpse is analogous to the incorruptibility of various Catholic saints, such as Bernadette Soubirous, and has powerful symbolism within the largely Catholic cultures of Latin America:
To some extent her continuing importance and popularity may be attributed not only to her power as a woman but also to the power of the dead. However a society's vision of the afterlife may be structured, death by its nature remains a mystery, and, until society formally allays the commotion it causes, a source of disturbance and disorder. Women and the dead—death and womanhood—stand in similar relation to structured social forms: outside public institutions, unlimited by official rules, and beyond formal categories. As a female corpse reiterating the symbolic themes of both woman and martyr, Eva Perón perhaps lays double claim to spiritual leadership.[77]
John Balfour was the British ambassador in Argentina during the Perón regime, and describes Evita's popularity:
She was by any standard a very extraordinary woman; when you think of Argentina and indeed Latin America as a men-dominated part of the world, there was this woman who was playing a very great role. And of course she aroused very different feelings in the people with whom she lived. The oligarchs, as she called the well-to-do and privileged people, hated her. They looked upon her as a ruthless woman. The masses of the people on the other hand worshipped her. They looked upon her as a lady bountiful who was dispensing Manna from heaven.[78]
In 2011, two giant murals of Evita were unveiled on the building facades of the current Ministry of Social Development, located on
Allegations of fascism and antisemitism
Fewer antisemitic incidences took place in Argentina during Perón's rule than during any other period in the 20th century. ... Upon reading the numerous speeches that [Juan] Perón pronounced against antisemitism during his first two presidencies, it immediately becomes clear that no other president before Perón had rejected discrimination against Jews so clearly and unambiguously. The same goes for Eva Duarte de Perón. In many of her speeches, Evita argued that it was the country's oligarchy that upheld antisemitic attitudes, but that Peronism did not.
From the start, Juan Perón's opponents accused him of being a fascist. Spruille Braden, a diplomat from the United States who was greatly supported by Juan Perón's opponents, campaigned against Juan Perón's first candidacy on the platform that Juan Perón was a fascist and a Nazi. The perception that the Peróns were fascists may have been enhanced during Evita's 1947 European tour, during which, she was a guest of honor of Francisco Franco. By 1947, Franco had become politically isolated because he was one of the few remaining right-wing authoritarian leaders who was able to retain his power. Franco, therefore, was in desperate need of a political ally. With nearly a third of Argentina's population of Spanish descent, it seemed natural for Argentina to have diplomatic relations with Spain. Commenting on the international perception of Evita during her 1947 European tour, Fraser and Navarro write, "It was inevitable that Evita be viewed in a fascist context. Therefore, both Evita and Perón were seen to represent an ideology which had run its course in Europe, only to re-emerge in an exotic, theatrical, even farcical form in a faraway country."[81]
Laurence Levine, the former president of the U.S.-Argentine Chamber of Commerce, writes that in contrast to Nazi ideology, the Peróns were not anti-Semitic. In the book Inside Argentina from Perón to Menem: 1950–2000 from an American Point of View, Levine writes:
The American government demonstrated no knowledge of Perón's deep admiration for Italy (and his distaste for Germany, whose culture he found too rigid). Nor did they appreciate that although anti-Semitism existed in Argentina, Perón's own views and his political associations were not anti-Semitic. They paid no attention to the fact that Perón sought out the Jewish community in Argentina to assist in developing his policies and that one of his most important allies in organizing the industrial sector was José Ber Gelbard, a Jewish immigrant from Poland.[82]
Biographer Robert D. Crassweller writes, "Peronism was not fascism", and "Peronism was not Nazism." Crassweller also refers to the comments of U.S. Ambassador George S. Messersmith. While visiting Argentina in 1947, Messersmith made the following statement: "There is not as much social discrimination against Jews here as there is right in New York or in most places at home."[83]
She was not a fascist—ignorant, perhaps, of what that ideology meant. And she was not greedy. Though she liked jewelry, furs and Dior dresses, she could own as many as she desired without the need to rob others. ... In 1964 Jorge Luis Borges stated that "the mother of that woman [Evita]" was "the madam of a whorehouse in Junín." He repeated the calumny so often that some still believe it or, more commonly, think Evita herself, whose lack of sex appeal is mentioned by all who knew her, apprenticed in that imaginary brothel. Around 1955 the pamphleteer Silvano Santander employed the same strategy to concoct letters in which Evita figures as an accomplice of the Nazis. It is true that (Juan) Perón facilitated the entrance of Nazi criminals to Argentina in 1947 and 1948, thereby hoping to acquire advanced technology developed by the Germans during the war. But Evita played no part.[84]
The governments that preceded Juan Perón's government were anti-Semitic but his government was not.
International popular culture
By the late 20th century, Eva Perón had become the subject of numerous articles, books, stage plays, and musicals, ranging from the 1952 biography
As early as 1978, the musical was considered as the basis for a movie. After a nearly 20-year production delay,
Nicholas Fraser writes that Evita is the perfect
Eva Perón appears on the 100 peso note first issued in 2012 commemorating the anniversary of her death. She is also featured on a new 100 peso note, issued in 2022.[94]
Honours
National
- Argentina: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Liberator General San Martín
- Argentina: Grand Cross of Honour of the Argentine Red Cross
Foreign
- Bolivia: Grand Cross of the Order of the Condor of the Andes
- Brazil: Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross[95]
- Order of Boyaca, Special Class
- Netherlands: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Orange-Nassau
- Spain: Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
- Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Dame Grand Cross of Sovereign Military Order of Malta
- Mexico: Grand Cross of the Order of the Aztec Eagle
- Syria: Grand Cross of the Order of Omeyades
- Ecuador: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit and the Ecuadorian Red Cross
- Haiti: Grand Cross of the Order of Honour and Merit
- Perú: Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru
- Paraguay: Grand Cross of the Merit of Paraguay
See also
References
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 150.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 158, "As Evita's health continued to deteriorate that month, the city of Quilmes resolved to change its name to 'Eva Perón,' and Congress, after a special legislative session, devoted to eulogies of 'the most remarkable woman of any historical epoch', gave her the title Jefe Espiritual de la Nación (Spiritual Leader of the Nation)."
- ^ a b Bolocco, Cecilia (18 November 2002). "A nation seeks salvation in Evita". The Scotsman. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
On 26 July 1952, a hushed Argentina heard Eva Perón, the 'spiritual leader of the nation', had died, aged 33.
- ^ Crassweller (1987), p. 245, "A week later, on her thirty third birthday, she received from Congress the title of Spiritual Leader of the Nation."
- ^ a b c d Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 193, "even she could not have foreseen her sudden transformation, from Latin American politician and religiose national cult figure to late-twentieth-century popular culture folk heroine."
- ^ Brantley, Ben (3 July 2006). "In London, a Pious 'Evita' for a Star-Struck Age". The New York Times.
- ^ a b "Interview: Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner of Argentina". Time. 29 September 2007. Archived from the original on 30 October 2007. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ^ Published in Argentina in 1952; subsequently published in English-speaking countries under the titles My Mission in Life and Evita by Evita
- ^ a b Perón (1952).
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), pp. 2–3.
- ^ Act 495, from the Church "Capellanía Vicaria de Nuestra Señora del Pilar" registry of Baptisms for the year 1919, baptism took place on 21 November 1919
- ^ a b c d Borroni & Vacca (1970).
- ^ Prutsch, U.: Eva Perón. Leben und Sterben einer Legende. C.H. Beck, München 2015
- ^ Astorga, Antonio (28 April 2011). "Evita convenció a Franco para conmutar una pena de muerte". ABC (in Spanish). Retrieved 25 May 2016.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 3.
- ^ Jennings, Kate (24 November 1996). "Two Faces of Evita". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 4.
- ISBN 978-0802196521. Retrieved 6 October 2018.
- ^ a b c d e f g Barnes (1978).
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 11.
- ^ a b c Quieroz & de Elia, p. 14.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 26.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 27.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), pp. 32–33.
- ^ Perón (1952:17).
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 33.
- ^ a b Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 44.
- ISBN 8432066028.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 43.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 39.
- ^ Anguita, Eduardo; Cecchini, Daniel (17 October 2019). "17 de octubre de 1945". Infobae.com (in Spanish). Infobae. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
- ^ Crassweller (1987), pp. 170–171.
- ^ "Evita: The Woman Behind the Myth". Biography. A&E. 1996.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), pp. 88–89.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 89.
- ^ Michie, Alan (1952). God Save The Queen. p. ___.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), pp. 98–99.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 208.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 91.
- ^ "13 Things You Might Not Know About Eva Perón". mentalfloss.com. 7 May 2017. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 117.
- ^ Main (1980).
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 114.
- ^ Crassweller (1987), pp. 209–210.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 119.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 126.
- ^ Crassweller (1987), pp. 214–217.
- ^ Hollander, Nancy (1974). "Si Evita Viviera". Latin American Perspectives. 3: 22.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 143.
- ^ Famous Patients, Famous Operations, 2002 – Part 6: The Case of the Politician's Wife Medscape Today, 5 December 2002. Retrieved 8 July 2010.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 148.
- PMID 4898694.
- ^ a b Lerner (2000).
- PMID 22079825.
- PMID 26126398.
- PMID 25314884.
- S2CID 24600802.
- ^ a b Robson, David (10 July 2015). "The gruesome, untold story of Eva Peron's lobotomy". BBC News.
- PMID 26126398.
- ^ Ortiz.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), pp. 164–166.
- ^ 1952 Summer Olympics official report (PDF). p. 91. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 April 2008. Retrieved 1 August 2010.
- ^ "In Mourning". Time. 11 August 1952. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 9 November 2006.
- ^ "Rice University: Julie M. Taylor". Ruf.rice.edu. Archived from the original on 20 June 2009. Retrieved 27 January 2011.
- ISBN 157523677X.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 164.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), Epilogue.
- ^ ISBN 978-9500737692.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 192.
- ^ Rousso-Lenoir (2002), p. 198.
- ^ McManners (2001), p. 440.
- ^ Adams (1993), p. 203.
- ^ "Evita Or Madonna: Whom Will History Remember? Interview with Tomas Eloy Martinez". lasmujeres.com. Archived from the original on 4 May 2001. Retrieved 9 November 2009.
- ^ "Argentines swap pesos for 'Evitas'". BBC. 27 April 2002. Retrieved 4 October 2006.
- ^ Evita Museum. Retrieved 13 October 2006
- ^ Taylor (1979), p. 147.
- ^ Taylor (1979), p. 148.
- ^ "Interview with sir John Balfour in the documentary Eva Perón Queen of Hearts". IMDb. 24 October 1972. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
- ISBN 0-22-800166-8Back cover; page 4.
- ISBN 0-22-800166-8p. 82.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996:100).
- ^ Levine (p. 23).
- ^ Crassweller (1987).
- ^ Martínez, Tomás Eloy (20 January 1997). "The Woman Behind the Fantasy: Prostitute, Fascist, Profligate – Eva Perón Was Much Maligned, Mostly Unfairly". Time. Archived from the original on 21 December 2001. Retrieved 28 January 2009.
- ^ The Jews and Perón: Communal Politics and National Identity in Peronist Argentina, 1946–1955 by Lawrence D. Bell, PhD dissertation, 2002, Ohio State University, Retrieved 2 May 2008
- ISBN 0-19-280155-4.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 195. "Stigwood next hired the flamboyant director Ken Russell, who tested Elaine Paige, who had starred in the stage version, and Liza Minnelli."
- ^ Erickson, Hal (2016). "Evita Peron (1981)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 193.
- ^ Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- ^ "39 Countries Hoping for Oscar Nominations". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 13 November 1996. Archived from the original on 9 February 1999. Retrieved 5 October 2015.
- ^ Fraser & Navarro (1996), p. 194.
- ^ Guillermoprieto (2002), p. 16.
- ^ "Eva Peron On Argentinian Banknotes". Banknote World. 29 June 2022. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
- ^ "Condecorada com a Ordem Nacional do Mérito a Senhora Eva Peron". A Noite. 23 April 1952. Retrieved 30 December 2018.
Bibliography
- Adams, Jerome R (1993). Latin American Heroes: Liberators and Patriots from 1500 to the Present. Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-38384-6.
- Ara, Pedro (1974). El Caso Eva Perón.
- Barnes, John (1978). Evita, First Lady: A Biography of Eva Perón. New York, New York: Grove Press.
- Borroni, Otelo; Vacca, Roberto (1970). Eva Perón. CEAL.
- Crassweller, Robert D (1987). Peron and the Enigmas of Argentina. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-02381-7.
- Fraser, Nicholas; Navarro, Marysa (1996). Evita: The Real Life of Eva Perón. W.W. Norton & Company.
- Guillermoprieto, Alma (2002). Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America. Vintage. ISBN 978-0-375-72582-1.
- Guy, Donna. "Life and the Commodification of Death in Argentina: Juan and Eva Perón" in Death, Dismemberment, and Memory: Body Politics in Latin America, Lyman L. Johnson, ed. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press 2004, pp. 245–272.
- Lerner, Barron H. (2000). "The illness and death of Eva Perón: cancer, politics, and secrecy". Lancet. 355 (9219): 1988–1991. S2CID 35607629.
- Levine, Lawrence (2001). Inside Argentina from Perón to Menem: 1950–2000 From an American Point of View. Edwin House Pub. ISBN 978-0-9649247-7-2.
- Main, Mary (1980). Evita: The Woman with the Whip. Dodd, Mead. ISBN 978-0-396-07834-0.
- McManners, John (2001). The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-285439-1.
- Naipaul, V.S. (1980). The Return of Eva Perón. Alfred A. Knopf.
- Dujovne Ortiz, Alicia (1996). Eva Perón. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-14599-6.
- Perón, Eva (1952). La Razón de mi vida. Buro Editors.
- Quieroz, Juan Pablo; de Elia, Tomas (eds.). Evita: An Intimate Portrait of Eva Peron.
- Rousso-Lenoir, Fabienne (2002). America Latina. Assouline. ISBN 978-2-84323-335-7.
- Taylor, Julie M. (November 1979). Eva Perón: The Myths of a Woman. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-79143-2.
- Nasi, Kristina (2010). "Eva Peron in the Twenty-First Century: The Power of the Image in Argentina". The International Journal of the Image. pp. 99–106.
Further reading
- Guareschi, Roberto (5 November 2005). "Not quite the Evita of Argentine legend". New Straits Times. p. 21.
- Henderson, James D. (1978). Ten notable women of Latin America. Chicago: Nelson-Hall. ISBN 0882294261.
- Main, Mary (1977) [1952]. Evita: The woman with the Whip (Corgi ed.). Corgi Books. ISBN 0552106453.
- Reid, Graham (7 May 2009). "Buenos Aires: Home of Evita, Forever Young and Beautiful". The New Zealand Herald.
- Spaderna, Summer L. (2002). The Evolution of Eva Perón in the North American Consciousness. Archived from the original on 8 March 2017. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
External links
- Eva Perón Historical Foundation
- casahistoria pages on Perón Les Fearns site, also links to Eva Perón pages
- BBC Radio 4 programme about Perón's embalmed body
- The Evita Project – a social media page dedicated to Evita and the preservation of her legacy
- Newspaper clippings about Eva Perón in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
- Eva Perón at IMDb