Category: In the press

158 years after his death

Proposed transfer of the remains of San Martín

Project on docket in city legislature

In remembrance of the death of General José de San Martín 158 years ago, a Buenos Aires city legislature representative has proposed moving the remains, which lie in the cathedral of Buenos Aires, to Recoleta Cemetery.

Meanwhile, numerous acts throughout the country evoked the memory of the Liberator. Official commemoration services by the national government were held in the Granaderos Horse Guard Regiment in Palermo and were presided over by the Minister of Defense, Nilda Garré, as reported on page 9.

The project of representative Roy Cortina, President of the city’s Socialist Party, suggests locating the mausoleum with the Liberator’s remains —for which a public design & construction contest open to national artists would be called— in front of the main entrance of Recoleta Cemetery, near the tomb of Remedios de Escalada de San Martín.

The initiative, which must be debated in the city legislature, proposes that the transfer take place on July 9th, 2010, as part of the Bicentennial celebrations.

“The will of San Martín deserves to be respected & the place for his remains should be grandiose… in accordance with the place that we have given him in our hearts & in our nation,” expresses Roy Cortina concerning the basis of the project.

The remains of the Liberator rest in the chapel of Our Lady of Peace, inside the Metropolitan Cathedral since 1880, permanently guarded by two Granaderos (the first Argentine regiment, created by San Martín).

“The transfer of his remains makes sense based on respecting the will of General San Martín himself, who requested that his heart lie in the Buenos Aires cemetery. Furthermore, without denying the quality of the sculpture of the [current] mausoleum, it sits practically hidden on one side of Metropolitan Cathedral in a space inappropriate with the greatness & importance he has for all Argentines. Historical concensus recognizes [him] as the Father of our country,” explains Cortina in a press release.

In the project proposal, the Socialista legislator points out that placement of the Liberator’s remains in the cathedral “was always controversial” and that, on Jan 3rd 1844, in Paris, San Martín dictated his third testament in which he expresses his desire to be taken after his death to Recoleta Cemetery.

In this text, San Martín himself wrote: “I forbid that any kind of funeral service be held for me, and from the place where I pass away they should take me directly to the cemetery with no procession or ceremony. But I would like that my heart be deposited in that [supposedly meaning the cemetery] of Buenos Aires.”

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Original article in Spanish located here.

José de San Martín died in Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1850, 28 years after the opening of Recoleta Cemetery. But the statement in his last will & testament is rather vague… at the time of his death, Recoleta Cemetery was the only public burial ground in the city. However a large number of burials were still taking place inside local churches (even though the practice had been offically prohibited by law). Among the most respected was the camposanto of the cathedral. So without mentioning a specific cemetery or church burial site, no one can truly know where San Martín actually meant to be buried.

Argentines love to move their deceased leaders, but the current tomb of San Martín (above photo) is beautiful & completely in line with his historical importance. And the location could not be better. Plaza de Mayo is the most important public space in the nation, in spite of its current run-down condition. Several other more important city projects need to be resolved… no need to add another to the list. Let the Founding Father rest in peace.

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Receiving 2,000 visitors each day, Recoleta Cemetery renews its historical brilliance; more than 100 monuments have already been restored & works continue this year.

Byline: Susana Reinoso

María Rosa Lojo writes about Recoleta Cemetery: “In this museum of mortals, the personal ramblings of its inhabitants —famous or obscure— blend inextricably with Argentine history.” In her work Hidden Stories of Recoleta which was just republished by Alfaguara, the novelist exquisitely states that whoever walks with their ears alert can hear in the cemetery, one of the most popular places in Buenos Aires for tourists, “the murmor of remarkable lives against the immense chorus of collective memory.”

Precisely because this mortuary museum brings together much of the best funerary architecture & statuary in Buenos Aires, the city government will continue the Recoleta Cemetery Revaluation Program, which aims to conserve & restore the sculptures, vaults, sepulcres & tombs. Approval [for continued funding] came at the end of 2007.

With the intervention of the Subsecretary of City Heritage, the Friends’ Association of Recoleta Cemetery —headed by Marta Salas— and the General Administration of Cemeteries —whose director is Néstor Pan— they have completed since 2002 a remarkable plan of recovering that architecture.

Art & Remembrance

Each day the cemetery receives an average of 2,000 visitors. That equates to more than 700,000 people per year since the cemetery is open Monday through Sunday.

“Over 100 monuments have already been recovered, & we rely on group of highly qualified restorers who work with love & a sense of patriotism,” says Marta Salas to La Nación newspaper.

The President of the Friends’ Association points out: “This effort comes from the fact that we consider Recoleta Cemetery to be the most relevant historical/artistic space in our country, & we are proud to show it to the thousands of tourists who visit it.” The organization, which sells detailed maps of the cemetery to tourists, uses part of the proceeds for restoration of historical monuments.

A brief walk through, like the one taken by La Nación reporters, confirms this. The crowds never stop coming, & there are not enough guides to answer every question. Visitors always make a pilgrimage to the sepulcre of Eva Duarte de Perón.

The director of the cemetery, Carlos Francavilla, states that the revaluation of the cemetery is not [immediately] visible to most people. However the scaffolding & work materials around certain monuments make people realize that restoration is in progress.

This year the program has planned to restore the sculptures & vaults of Adolfo Alsina, Nicolás Rodríguez Peña, Juan José Viamonte, Rufina Cambaceres & Pedro J. Díaz.

In each instance, the work of restoration & maintenance carries out the elimination of invasive vegetation, replacement of missing material, elimination of the deteriorated outer layer, chemical cleaning & an anti-corrosive treatment.

In 2006, restoration was performed on the sepulcres & mausoleums of Bartolomé Mitre, Domingo Fidel Sarmiento, Carlos Pellegrini & Juan Martín de Pueyrredón. Last year, works focused on the mausoleums of Luis María Campos & Nicolás Avellaneda, the vault of the José C. Paz family, the Pantheon for Meritorious Citizens & the sculpture of Christ in the cemetery chapel.

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Original article in Spanish located here.

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The latest edition of The Rough Guide to Argentina (published January 2008) mentions the cemetery map… & me:

Update (Jan 2010): The map is no longer available, but a much more in-depth & informative PDF is for sale. It’s much better… trust me 🙂

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Written before tourism took off in Argentina, this interesting piece by Barbara Cansino skillfully avoids many of the clichés found in more recent articles about Recoleta Cemetery. It’s also interesting to see how things have changed since then:

“In Buenos Aires the elegant neighborhood of Recoleta is the fashionable place to stay, to while away hours in cafes and museums, to walk the poodles in the park. And when it’s all over, it’s the place to end up. Across the grassy way from the outdoor cafes, a great white portal marks the most exclusive address of all: Cementerio de la Recoleta, Recoleta Cemetery, burial place of Argentina’s elite. Here patricians and presidents, heroes and heroines, rest in astonishing grandeur.

Mausoleums built side by side resemble Greek temples, Gothic chapels, Egyptian pyramids, fairytale grottoes, postmodern boutiques — or just elegant little houses. They have marble steps, wrought-iron doors, appointed interiors. There are marble Saviours and Madonnas and sculptures of the departed and their pets. The city skyline gives way to palm trees and cypresses, crosses and steeples, busts and domes, great stone angels reaching to heaven. The mausoleums can cost the earth. And the earth they are on, occupied by generations of the high-born departed, is the scarcest — and costliest — land in the country.

Recoleta Cemetery is one of the world’s extraordinary graveyards, a study in architecture and sculpture, a country’s history, mores and soul. A number of tombs are national historic monuments. It is a place of spiritual beauty and extravagant taste. And thanks to Madonna and Broadway, it is hotter than ever as a tourist attraction. Travelers stream through the portal, cameras in hand, and ask the custodians the way to ”Evita.” Some even ask for ”Madonna.”

Evita’s tomb says ”Familia Duarte,” her maiden name, and — with a simple black facade on a narrow side street — is nothing special by Recoleta standards. The masses of flowers, however, the crowds of visitors and the fact that she is there in the first place — surrounded by the rich she despised and who despised her — are ironic. In this enclave of wealth, with tomb inscriptions from national banks and the elite Jockey Club, the plaques to Evita are from the Buenos Aires Taxi Drivers Union or the General Confederation of Labor, an umbrella organization of unions. The inscription in Spanish on the latter plaque ends with her battle cry, first used by Spartacus in leading a slave revolt against the Romans:

”. . .I keep the hope for glory,
I wish only to serve
The humble and the workers”
I will come back and I will be millions. . . !

On a given Monday there are three huge floral arrangements at her tomb. Carnations, roses and fuchsia are stuck in the door wherever there’s space. Fourteen people are crowded three deep, most of them tourists, posing for photos in front of the plaques, discussing why they are there.

A curator from Bilbao: ”I visit cemeteries. In Paris I go to see Oscar Wilde. Here I came to see [Domingo] Sarmiento, one of the fathers of the country, and Eva Peron, who worked for the poorest of the country. She was a myth who overshadowed Peron.” A tourist from Dallas: ”I saw the musical five times in Los Angeles.” A British Airways flight attendant: ”Argentina’s not Argentina without Eva Peron, is it? And I thought Madonna, the actress who portrayed her, should have won an award from the Academy.” And, on a quiet weekday morning, away from the fray, an old woman with no teeth and holes in her shoes stops at the tomb, touches Evita’s face on a plaque, deposits a bunch of daisies and prays.

Evita aside, the main attractions of Recoleta are the architecture, the grandiose aura, the sense of rubbing shoulders with Argentine history. The cemetery, inaugurated in 1822 and redesigned in 1881, encompasses 13.5 acres. The departed include Argentine presidents and vice presidents, governors, generals, admirals, industrialists, publishers, judges, doctors, professors, writers, poets, scientists — and their families. Some of them — Alvear, Dorrego, Pueyrredon — are familiar from the Buenos Aires streets and plazas that bear their names. Others, such as Jose Estrada, are known from the Literature of Argentina shelves in bookshops. Still others, such as Dufour, Barchiesi, O’Shea, Zoltowska or Breitman, reflect the many facets of Argentine society…”

The original article, along with two more pages of text, can be found here. The above photo is by the post author.

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Marcelo writes about a recent photo exhibit:

Even though I’ve loved photography for a long time, I never had the chance to show my pictures in a exhibition. A couple of months ago, Eugenia—a dear friend from the “El Acorazado de Bolsillo” poetry magazine—offered to let me set up a one-night show in an old house in the city of La Plata (70 km south Buenos Aires). I had no doubt about the topic: images of cemeteries. I also chose the date for the show, November 2nd, traditionally known the Day of the Dead in many Western cultures.

I had a huge amount of photos to choose from, but most of them were taken with my old BenQ camera with very low resolution & I couldn’t make good large-size prints with them. But a week before the exhibition, Robert & I went again to Recoleta Cemetery & found a sky full of clouds, perfect for the macabre style of pics I wanted. Those photos were the core of the show.

The exhibit was named “Las Mansiones de la Noche” and was a really great experience… a lot of people looking at the photos, discovering images & unexpected tricks of shadow and light. It’s as if the photos weren’t mine anymore… they belonged to the beholder.

Now I’m trying to exhibit the pics in other places. Next time it could be in Buenos Aires… who knows?

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