Instrument or Inspiration? Commemorating the 1949 Goethe Year in Argentina

Abstract:This essay examines commemorations of the 1949 Goethe Year in postwar Peronist Argentina. Its purview includes numerous musical performances, theatrical presentations, academic lectures, and written scholarship. Most activities occurred in the capital city of Buenos Aires; however, this investigation also makes excursions beyond the epicenter to Mendoza, La Plata, and Rosario, as well as neighboring Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil. There was no German author so broadly recognized and esteemed as Goethe, so the plethora of tributes to him represent an opportunity to analyze the resonance of a German figure among the full diversity of Argentina's educated population, including Argentines of all political persuasions, European nationals and immigrants, and large, conflictive German-speaking blocs of antifascist, Jews, nationalists, and recently arrived Nazis. The sweeping range of homages permits an analysis of Goethe's reception among all these groups while providing insights into their perspectives on Peronism, Nazism, post-war European politics, and, especially, Argentine literary history. Argentina and Goethe are twin lenses for exploring the role of art as an instrument and an inspiration in the cultural contact zones that existed among immigrant groups, their hosts, and nations of origin.