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Evita and the Crisis of 17 October 1945: A Case Study of Peronist and Anti-Peronist Mythology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Marysa Navarro
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Extract

By the time Evita* died on 26 July 1952, she had become the source of two widely contradictory myths coexisting side by side as if their subject were two different persons. In one, she was the beloved saint who had sacrificed her life for the poor; in the other, the ambitious parvenue who used her power to satisfy her insatiable thirst for revenge.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , May 1980 , pp. 127 - 138
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

* Throughout this essay, Eva Perón or María Eva Duarte de Perón will be called by her political name, Evita.

1 Whitaker, Arthur P., Argentina (Englewood Cliffs, Prentice Hall, 1964), p. 113.Google Scholar

2 Blanksten, George I., Perón's Argentina (Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1953), p. 91.Google Scholar

3 Lux-Wurm, Pierre, Le Péronisme (Paris, 1965), pp. 101–2.Google Scholar

4 Bailey, Samuel L., Labor, Nationalism and Politics in Argentina (New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 1967), p. 201.Google Scholar

5 Scobie, James, Argentina, A City and A Nation (2nd edition New York, Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 223.Google Scholar

6 Potash, Robert A., The Army & Politics in Argentina 1928–1945. Yrigoyen to Perón (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1969), p. 272.Google Scholar

7 See, for example: Alexander, Robert J., The Perón Era (New York, Columbia University Press, 1951);Google ScholarBoizard, Ricardo, Esa noche de Perón (Buenos Aires, 1955, 4th edition);Google ScholarBourne, Richard, Political Leaders of Latin America (Middlesex, Penguin Books, 1969);Google ScholarCowles, Fleur, Bloody Precedent: The Perón Story (Chicago, Frederick Muller, 1952);Google ScholarDonghi, Tulio Halperín, Argentina en el cailejón (Montevideo, Arca, 1964);Google ScholarLombille, Román J., Eva, la predestinada. Alucinante historia de éxitos y frustraciones (Buenos Aires, Gure, 1955);Google ScholarPerón, Juan, Del poder al exilio. Cómo y quiénes me derrocaron (Buenos Aires, no pub., no date),Google Scholar and Rabinovitz, Bernardo, Sucedió en la Argentina. Lo que no se dijo, 1943–1956 (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Gure, 1956).Google Scholar

8 See Primera Plana Nos. 152, 153 and 154 (October 1965).Google Scholar

9 Luna, Félix, El 45. Crónica de un año decisivo (2nd edition, Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudamericana, 1972), pp. 340–1.Google Scholar

10 Reyes, Cipriano, Yo hice el 17 de octubre, Memorias (Buenos Aires, 1973), p. 246.Google Scholar Also interview with Cipriano Reyes, November 1975 Monzalvo, Luís, Testigo de la primera hora del peronismo. Memorias de un ferroviario (Buenos Aires, Editorial Pleamar, 1974).Google Scholar Also, Rotondaro, Ruben, Realidad y cambio social en el sindicalismo argentino (Buenos Aires, Editorial Pleamar, 1971).Google Scholar

11 Gambini, Hugo, El 7 de octubre de 1945 (Buenos Aires, Editorial Brújula, 1969).Google Scholar

12 ‘La C.G.T. y el 17 de octubre,’ Todo es Historia, No. 103 (February, 1976).Google Scholar

13 Luna, op. cit., p. 340.Google Scholar

14 See El Líder, 16 October 1947 through 1952.Google Scholar

15 My own research leads me to conclude that Evita was born in Toldos, Los, on 7 May 1919. The birth certificate she presented for her marriage was false. She obtained it because her original document did not include the name of her father, Juan Duarte, and thus revealed her illegitimacy.Google Scholar

16 See Ghioldi, Américo, El mito de Eva Duarte (Montevideo, 1952);Google ScholarAcossano, Benigno, Eva Perón, su verdadera vida (Buenos Aires, Editorial Lamas, 1955);Google ScholarEstrada, Ezequiel Martínez, ¿Qué es esto? Catilinaria (Buenos Aires, Editorial Lautaro, 1956)Google Scholar and Franco, Luís, Biografía patria (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Stilcograf, 1958).Google Scholar

17 Main, Mary (Maria Flores), The Woman with the Whip: Eva Perón (New York, Doubleday, 1952).Google Scholar

18 See Costanzo, Francisco A., Evita. Alma inspiradora de la justicio social en América (Buenos Aires, 1948);Google ScholarPeralta, Jerónimo M., Semblanza heróica de Eva Perón (Buenos Aires, 1950);Google ScholarPresencia de Eva Perón (Buenos Aires, Subsecretaría de Informaciones de la Presidencia de la Nación, 1953)Google Scholar and Valenti, José C., Cuatro mujeres de la historia americana (Buenos Aires, 1951).Google Scholar

19 This statement can be applied in varying degrees to some works recently published: Borroni, Otelo, Vacca, Roberto, La vida de Eva Perón. Testimonios para su historia (Tomo I, Buenos Aires, Editorial Galerna, 1970);Google ScholarSebreli, Juan José, Eva Perón ¿Aventurera o militante? (Buenos Aires, Editorial La Pleyade, 1971);Google Scholarde Martínez, Celina N. Paiva y María Rosa Pizzuto de Rivero, La verdad. Vida y obra de Eva Perón (Buenos Aires, Editorial Astral, 1967);Google ScholarDuarte, Arminda, Mi hermana Evita (Buenos Aires, Ediciones ‘Centro de Estudios Eva Perón’, 1972)Google Scholar and Paz, Carlos and Deutsch, Oscar, Eva Perón, peronismo para el socialismo (Buenos Aires, Ediciones del Mirador, 1974).Google Scholar

20 Luna, op. cit., pp. 337–8.Google Scholar

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22 See Perón, Eva, Historia del Peronismo (Buenos Aires, Editorial Freeland, 1951).Google Scholar

23 Colom, Eduardo, El 17 de octubre. La revolución de los descamisados (Buenos Aires, La Epoca, 1946).Google Scholar

24 A recent work by Abeijón, Carlos and Lafauci, Jorge Santos, La miujer argentina antes y después de Eva Perón (Buenos Aires, Editorial Cuarto Mundo, 1975), insists that Evita played a decisive role on 17 October and that she devised the plan for Perón's release together with Mercante.Google Scholar

25 Luna, op. cit., p. 246.Google Scholar

26 Interview with Petinato, Roberto, October 1974.Google Scholar

27 Interview with Dealessi, Pierina, November 1974.Google Scholar

28 Perelman, Angel, Cómo hicimos el 17 de Octubre (Buenos Aires, Editorial Coyoacán, 1961), p. 73.Google Scholar

29 Interview with Mariano Tedesco quoted in Otelo Borroni and Roberto Vacca, La vida de Eva Perón. Testimonios para su historia, op. cit., pp. 111–12.Google Scholar

30 Demorracia, 27 July 1952.Google Scholar

31 See ‘Little Eva,’ Time, 14 July 1947.Google Scholar

32 See ‘Eva Peron N. I Woman in Politics,’ U.S. News & World Report, 25 March 1949.Google Scholar

33 Cowles, op. cit., p. 160.Google Scholar

34 Alexander, op. cit., p. 104.Google Scholar

35 See p. 3.Google Scholar

36 Main, op. cit. p. 79.Google Scholar

37 Acossano, op. cit., p. 72.Google Scholar

38 The Times of London, 28 July 1952.Google Scholar

39 Perón, Eva, Historia del Peronismo, p. 180.Google Scholar

40 The myth of Perón's cowardice has had a long life. In 1972, it was still being used as a reason to explain why he would not return to Argentina from exile, if allowed to do so by President Alejandro Agustín Lanusse.Google Scholar

41 Franco, op. cit., p. 140.Google Scholar

42 Ghioldi, op. cit., p. 140;Google ScholarEstrada, Martínez, op. cit., p. 241.Google Scholar