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Cultural Policy in the Old and the New Nicaragua

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Cultural Policy in the Old and the New Nicaragua 1981/No. 41 by Chades L. Stansifer CULTURAL POLICY IN South [CLS-2-'81] THE OLD AND THE NEW America NICARAGUA Rub6n Darlo of Nicaragua ranks as one of the Darlo left Nicaragua as a teen-ager and began his greatest literary figures of the Spanish language. climb to the peaks of literary success in the salons As innumerable critics have pointed out, his of Santiago and Buenos Aires. Although in 1916 greatness rests on his revolutionary approach to he came home to die, he spent the greatest part of language and to poetry. He is considered the his career in France and Spain. Compared to central figure and greatest exponent of the Cuba's hero, Jos Martl, whose life of abnegation modernist literary movement that overwhelmed and commitment to independence fit comfortably the Hispanic world of letters in the late nineteenth within the ideology ofthe Cuban revolution, Darlo and early twentieth centuries. Darlo's impact on appears to have spent little time worrying about his native country has been so deep that no gov- national problems. ernment of Nicaragua, no matter what its political coloration, can fail to pay him homage. Second, after the first phase of his career when with Central It is not that the Sandinista he did indeed deal intensively surprising, then, American political questions, his fame depended movement which has ruled Nicaragua since it on with their themes of ousted the Somoza dynas.ty in 1979 has hastened fundamentally his poems to to beauty, love, and death and his lyrical use of the identify itself with Darlo. The first book be Spanish language. Rather than presenting popu- published by the new Ministry of Culture in the lar or naturalistic scenes of his Nicaraguan child- Popular Collection of Nicaraguan Literature his ailude-to Greek and series was Nuestro Rube'n Dar(o (Our Rub6n hood., poems Roman Dano). of classics and Western European literature. There The Ministry Education likewise is little in his vast to indicate he was quickly brought out a selection of Darlo's poems literary output Dar(o (Rub6n a nationalist, a socialist, or a revolutionary (in the entitled Rube'n y su tiempo Darlo political not the literary sense). His opinions, I and his Time).2A third book, Textos Socio- of the politicos de Ruben Dar{o (Sociopolitical Texts of suspect, reflected political controversies :1 day, and like many great nonpolitical writers of Ruben Darlo), was published in early 1981. voluminous output, Daro expressed varying, These books are evidence both of an unprece- often contradictory, views on issues. He does not dented Nicaraguan governmental cultural initia- to committed himself to tive and an effort by the Sandinistas to identify a appear have any political cultural hero of international prominence with the ideology. revolutionary principles now reigning in Nica- How then can Darlo be considered a hero in ragua. revolutionary Nicaragua? How can a government The bare facts of Darlo's life are not altogether loudly committed to popular culture and egali- helpful in a campaign to identify him with revolu- tarianism and to breaking the bonds of cultural tionary principles. True, he was born (in 1867) in imperialism make Darlo an object of veneration? humble circumstances. It is also true that among Nicaragua's Minister of Culture Father Ernesto his numerous literary works he touched on social- Cardenal, himself a poet of international stand- ist and anti-imperialist themes. There are two ing, answers these questions, saying, "Darfo was a problems, however. The first is doubt about his true poet ofthe people. Many of his poems demon- attachment to his homeland and to America. strate his love of Nicaragua and his revolutionary 2/CLS-2-'81 reputation depends as much on content as Wheelock Roman, "it was essentially a reaction- form."4 ary cultural movement which not only structured The books Nuestro Ruben Daro and Ruben itself to idealize somocismo but it also attacked Dar[o y su tiempo advance the same theme. At its Darlo and Sandino in the name of a pretentious most extreme the Sandinista interpretation insists veneration that was inspired by none other than the Somoza dynasty, and its supporters deliber- the politics of Fascism and Nazism." Further- ately concealed Dano's social concerns. "Never more, Wheelock writes, "in the realm of literature did the [Somoza] tyranny," one Sandinista writes, [the movement] was limited to making a pastiche "mention the poet's social writing. This is the of the decadent cultural movements of the United Ruben that they kept us from knowing...they States and Europ.e from the 1920s."aNeverthe only showed us...the superficial poetry of the less Somoza Garcla's patronage ofthe arts was not Poet, his his to unlike that in other Latin American countries at hiding anti-imperialist work, call the time, and Nicaragua's cultural performance the defense of the Latin race against Caliban, the against the Yankee imperialism that was country's artistic contributionsgiven the characteristic s country's small population (1,109,000 in 1950 for of[Daro]" example), its per capita income (about $500 in In the outpouring of literature by journalists 1950), and its literacy rate (no more than 30% in and social scientists on the phenomena of the fall 1950), were, if not outstanding, certainly re- of Somoza and the rise of Sandinismo, fully jus- spectable. tified by the importance of these events to Latin Diplomatic Appointments America and the United States, there is a ten- One way for a Latin American ruler to demon- dency to overlook the existence of a deep and sys- strate his support for the arts is to appoint a tematic effort by the Sandinista government to literary figure to an important diplomatic post in alter Nicaragua's traditional cultural patterns. Europe, particularly in Paris or Madrid, and to Contradictions such as the remaking of Darlo in a give him enough administrative and secretarial revolutionary image are better understood when help so that the diplomatic duties do not interfere placed in the perspective of Nicaragua's cultural with the Muse. The first Somoza, Anastasio history. Thus a review of the cultural history of Somoza Garca (1936-1956)doubtless spent little Nicaragua from 1936-1979 is a necessary pre- time worrying about the vigor of Nicaraguan liminary to illuminate Sandinista cultural policy cultural life, but he did recognize leading literary differences. By cultural policy I mean official and lights in the traditional manner. Just as President unofficial efforts of the government, semiautono- Jos Santos Zelaya appointed Daro Minister to mous agencies, and private groups to promote Spain so did President Somoza award Jos culture. Culture, for the purposes of this article, Coronel Urtecho (born in Granada, Nicaragua, in simply means the arts. The importance of litera- 1906) with a diplomatic post in Madrid that he ture in Nicaragua, especially poetry, as opposed to might pursue his career in letters among Spanish painting and other art forms leads to emphasis on and Latin American intellectuals in the tertulias the art of poetry. of franquista Spain. Cultural Policy under Anastasio Somoza Garc'a While a student in San Francisco, California, To those who believe that dictatorship is in- Coronel had become enamored of the poetry of compatible with cultural accomplishment it may Ezra Pound. Upon his return to Nicaragua in 1927 come as a surprise that the Somoza dynasty pro- he became the co-founder (with Luis Alberto moted (or even permitted)cultural expression. Of Cabrales) of the right-wing Vanguard Movement, course since December 1972, when an earthquake an important vehicle for the introduction of the leveled the city of Managua, and especially since poetic style of Pound and other North American 1978, when the insurrection intensified, neither poets to Nicaragua. An essayist, short-story the government nor artists were able to give much writer, historian, poet of great erudition and attention to cultural matters, a But in the years of reputation in the Hispanic world, and above all a Anastasio Somoza Garcla, who seized power in teacher, Coronel had a profound influence on 1936, then dominated Nicaraguan politics until Nicaraguan intellectual life. According to his his assassination in 1956, there was a small most famous pupil, Ernesto Cardenal, Coronel cultural renaissance which stands in contrast to "was the master of his generation [of poets] and he the cultural depression following the death of has been the master of all succeeding generations Darlo in 1916. Current Sandinista judgment of up to the present. ''9 If Cardenal is correct (and I this movement is harsh. According to Jaime believe that he is), the generation gap between the CLS-2-'81/3 intellectuals of the 1930s and those of the 1980s is when he died in Paris in 1959. Later, in the 1960s, nowhere near as large as the political gap between Poet Carlos Martlnez Rivas and Historian Carlos Somocistas and Sandinistas. Molina Arguello served the Somoza government Diplomatic service in Spain apparently satis- as diplomatic representatives in Spain and Italy. fied both Somoza and Coronel. Coronel's stature While these appointments do not add up to a cul- undoubtedly diminished somewhat the "banana tural policy, it may be said that Anastasio Somoza republic" image of Nicaragua and Coronel did Garciagave more to support intellectuals than he write a number of works while in Spain. Among received from them in return. his accomplishments was the outline for his Cultural Institutions renowned first volume of Reflexiones sobre la Patronage of culture (in the sense of the dic- historia de Nicaragua (Reflections on the History tator's support of intellectuals) characterized the of Nicaragua), an apology for Spanish coloniza- early Somoza years.
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