Roberto de Laferrère
Roberto de Laferrère (10 January 1900, Buenos Aires - 31 January 1963, Buenos Aires) was an Argentinean writer and political activist. He was one of the leading figures in the nationalist movement active amongst a group of leading intellectuals in the 1930s.
Nationalism
De Laferrère came from one of Argentina's leading patrician families.[1] He was of partial French descent although on his mother's side his ancestors included Encarnación Ezcurra, the wife of Juan Manuel de Rosas.[2]
He was a strong critic of democracy, denouncing the trust it placed in ignorant masses.[3] He was one of the main developers of the belief within Argentine nationalist thought that liberalism was merely a prelude to communism, arguing that "democracy hands us over unarmed to these forces of extreme socialism and anarchy".[4] He wrote widely for La Fronda, a conservative nationalist journal.[5] Like many of the nationalist leaders de Laferrère was an academic and in 1938 he joined the likes of the Irazusta brothers, Carlos Ibarguren, Manuel Gálvez and Ernesto Palacio in establishing the Instituto Juan Manuel de Rosas. The Instituto soon became a centre for the publication of highly conservative scholarship in which historical revisionism about Argentina's past loomed large.[6]
Liga Republicana
Along with
Following the establishment of the
Later years
Like many of his nationalist colleagues de Laferrère had a strong strain of
His anti-British sentiment was a common feature of nationalist rhetoric in Argentina, deriving in part from the issue's surrounding the Falkland or Malvinas Islands sovereignty dispute as well what the nationalists portrayed as a history of mistreatment at the hands of Britain through a series of loans with very high interest rates after independence, British involvement in the independence of Uruguay and the settling of her borders at the expense of Argentina and a form of commercial imperialism that de Laferrère felt had caused the Argentine Civil Wars.[11]
Unlike some of his fellow nationalists de Laferrère was not an enthusiastic supporter of Juan Perón and he scoffed at what he saw as Perón's cowardice when he was ousted from the Presidency in 1955.[12]
References
- ^ Sandra McGee Deutsch, Las Derechas: The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890-1939, Stanford University Press, 1999, p. 197
- ^ David Rock, Authoritarian Argentina: The Nationalist Movement, Its History and Its Impact, University of California Press, 1995, p. 99
- ^ Deutsch, Las Derechas, p. 216
- ^ Leslie Bethell, The Cambridge History of Latin America, Cambridge University Press, 1991, p. 32
- ^ a b Deutsch, Las Derechas, pp. 197-198
- ^ Rock, Authoritarian Argentina, p. 120
- ^ a b Sandra McGee Deutsch, Social origins of counterrevolution in Argentina, 1900-1932.
- ^ Deutsch, Las Derechas, pp. 200-201
- ^ Rock, Authoritarian Argentina, p. 131
- ^ Rock, Authoritarian Argentina, p. 130
- ^ Rock, Authoritarian Argentina, p. 116
- ^ Rock, Authoritarian Argentina, p. 161