Osvaldo Bayer was a self-defined "ultra-pacifist anarchist". He was born in the capital city of Santa Fe, and grew up in Bernal and in the Belgrano neighborhood in the capital city of Buenos Aires.[2] His parents lived in the Patagonian town of Rio Gallegos, an experience that would later become the inspiration for his Rebellion in Patagonia, a historical reconstruction of a massacre of striking rural workers.
After his return to Argentina, he dedicated himself to journalism and research into the history of Argentina, as well as writing film scripts. He studied medicine for a year, then philosophy at Buenos Aires. According to him,
Federación Libertaria Argentina (FLA), having already been acquainted to anarchist literature during his time in the German Socialist Students' League.[2]
He also founded the Department of Human Rights in the School of Philosophy and Humanities of the University of Buenos Aires.[2]
("The Spark"), considered to be the first independent newspaper in the history of Patagonia.
A year later, he was accused by
Esquel.[2] Thereafter, Bayer was from 1959 to 1962 general secretary of the Press Syndicate. Immediately after being expelled from Esquel, he was hired by the national daily Diario Clarín, where he became Chief of Politics' section. He had, under his direction, the journalist Félix Luna, who founded in 1963 the history magazine Todo es Historia, to which Bayer collaborated.[2]
During
Gunter Grass, as a protest against the dictatorship; either they would be imprisoned, which would create an international scandal, or their celebrity would protect them, which would give them the opportunity to open a free school giving classes on literature, democracy and human rights. Cortázar backed out, however, saying "I don't want to go just to get shot in the head," and the plan fell apart soon afterwards.[4] Bayer only returned to Argentina after Raúl Alfonsín's 1983 election and the transition to democracy. In 1984, he collaborated with the poet Juan Gelman
on a book on exile.
Bayer's best-selling book on the
military after they took power in 1976. Francesco Rosi, who directed Christ Stopped at Eboli, planned to make a film adaptation of his book on Di Giovanni, but renounced the project after the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, saying it was not the time to make a film about a terrorist.[2]
Bayer died on 24 December 2018 in Buenos Aires, at the age of 91.[5]
Transition to democracy
He was nominated
Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires for his work in the fields of human rights
, literature and journalism. On this day, he alluded to his forced exile, stating that:
I shall never forget the dictatorship for having forced me to go because I wrote La Patagonia Rebelde (...). But this is nothing compared to those who lost their lives or their sons (...). When I had to go, the Air Forces brigadier who was in Ezeiza told me: you will never walk on the fatherland's earth again. And today, not only do I walk on my fatherland, but they grant me an award.[6]
Bayer was involved in the struggle for
Senate (an initiative of Eduardo Menem) for having proposed the unification of the Argentinian and Chilean Patagonia, as the "first step for a common Latin-American market".[7]
. Con un cambio absoluto y total también para mis hijos y mi mujer. Pero esto no es nada comparado con aquellos que perdieron la vida o sus hijos. Ninguna persona con un mínimo de sentimiento humanitario puede soportar una cosa así (...) Recibir este premio que uno nunca soñó. Cuando yo tuve que irme, el brigadier de aviación que estaba en Ezeiza me dijo: usted jamás va a volver a pisar tierra de la Patria. Y hoy no sólo piso tierra de la Patria, sino que me dan un premio
Acha, Omar (2009). "La historia vindicadora en Osvaldo Bayer". Historia crítica de la historiografía argentina. 1, Las izquierdas en el siglo XX (in Spanish). Buenos Aires: Prometeo Libros. pp. 339–360.
