The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Songs for the Revolution: Víctor Jara and his universal legacy

2023-05-18T10:54:50.092Z

Highlights: The creator of 'I remember you, Amanda' was loyal to his political commitment until his death. On September 15, 1973 he was assassinated by officers of the Army of the dictator Pinochet. The day after the demonstration in which about 800,000 people, in a country of 10 million inhabitants, had celebrated the second anniversary of the electoral triumph of Salvador Allende, the VII Congress of the Communist Youth was inaugurated. In previous years, for his work in works such as Ánimas de día claro or La remolienda (written by his friend Alejandro Sieveking), Los invasores (by Egon Wolff) or El círculo de chalka caucasiano (by Bertolt Brecht)


The creator of 'I remember you, Amanda' was loyal to his political commitment until his death, in that Chile Stadium where on September 15, 1973 he was assassinated by officers of the Army of the dictator Pinochet


Victor Jara (first right), during the last pro-Allende demonstration, a week before the coup.Marcelo Montecino (GETTY IMAGES)

Santiago, Chile, September 5, 1972. The day after the demonstration in which about 800,000 people, in a country of 10 million inhabitants, had celebrated the second anniversary of the electoral triumph of Salvador Allende, in the Hall of Honor of the Parliament the VII Congress of the Communist Youth (JJ CC) was inaugurated. With the attendance of delegations from 38 countries and a closing ceremony held four days later in a packed National Stadium, its Central Committee was expanded to 80 members, with the entry of Isabel Parra (daughter of Violeta, both composers), Eduardo Carrasco (member of the group Quilapayún) and Víctor Jara, who in those days released his album La población with the Dicap label. created in 1968 by the JJ CC.

More information

The slow death of Victor Jara

Jara militated in the communist ranks since the late fifties, when he trained as an actor at the Experimental Theater School of the University of Chile and began his musical career in the folkloric group Cuncumén. He joined a party to which many of the main names of the intelligentsia belonged, such as the poets Pablo Neruda and Juvencio Valle, the novelist Francisco Coloane, Armando Carvajal (director of the Symphony Orchestra), the soprano Blanca Hauser, the actors Roberto Parada and María Maluenda, the choreographer Patricio Bunster or the theater director Pedro de la Barra.

Only on one occasion, in the interview he gave to the magazine El Musiquero in 1971, did he refer in the press to the motivations of his choice: "I was never oblivious to political work. When I listened to a speech I felt identified with the struggles that were raised in them. I came from a peasant home, those experiences and being able to appreciate closely the injustices and miseries that existed pushed me to define myself." Born in Santiago de Chile on September 28, 1932, he was the fourth of the six children of the marriage formed by Manuel Jara and Amanda Martínez, who very soon left to work in Quiriquina, near Chillán, as landless peasants and in conditions of almost feudal servitude. The poverty in which he grew up, first in the province of Ñuble, then in Lonquén and since 1943 in the suburbs of Santiago de Chile, marked his life. "When we ate meat it was a party. I didn't know why, then I knew," he explained in 1971 to Paula magazine.

In the early 1970s, his political commitment induced him to abandon his stable job as a theater director at the University of Chile. In previous years, for his work in works such as Ánimas de día claro or La remolienda (written by his friend Alejandro Sieveking), Los invasores (by Egon Wolff) or El círculo de chalka caucasiano (by Bertolt Brecht), he had been recognized as one of the best directors in the country. However, the beginning of his solo career in 1965, the great success of his first albums, with songs such as El cigarrito, El aparecido or Pongo en tus manos abiertas, his triumph in 1969 at the First Festival of the New Chilean Song, with Plegaria a un labrador, and the designation of Salvador Allende as candidate of the Popular Unity for the presidential election of September 1970 decided him to dedicate himself completely to the musical creation and to turn with his guitar in the campaign of the UP. Then, together with the composer Sergio Ortega and other comrades they created an anthem, Venceremos, which is the heritage of the world left.

"What would you have done on the night of Allende's triumph?" he wrote on September 23, 1970, to his friend Rubén Ortiz, a Mexican musician. "I'm sure the same thing we all did, crying, jumping, running, singing, shouting, playing the biggest round of joy Santiago had ever seen. Little brother, there are so many years of procrastination, misery and deceit. The night of the triumph I was next to some capos of the Popular Unity and they could not believe that it was true to have defeated the fabulous campaign of reaction and the Americans..."

During those three years, as a creator and communist militant, Victor Jara worked for the Allende government to succeed in its efforts to build socialism with full respect for political pluralism, human rights and democratic values. He traveled to Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Panama, Cuba or Peru, also to the USSR and the United Kingdom, and in his recitals, which became true acts of adhesion to Popular Unity, he also interpreted his tribute to Ho Chi Minh and the Vietnamese people (The right to live in peace), that popular theme destined for the undecided and the neutral (Neither chicha nor limoná) or his most universal song, I remind you, Amanda, who created in 1968 in England.

From 1972, the polarization that Chile was experiencing introduced drops of pessimism and melancholy into his correspondence and songs. "Will we live to see the achievements of socialism?" he asked, in a hitherto unpublished letter, to the Peruvian poet Arturo Corcuera on June 2, 1972. "Working the beginning of a story / without knowing the end," ends When I Go to Work, May 1973.

On September 11, he learned early news of the coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet. Faced with President Allende's call from La Moneda to the people to concentrate on their workplaces, he went to the State Technical University, in whose extension department he worked, after passing through the headquarters of the Communist Youth. There he remained along with a thousand people, until at dawn the next day the Army assaulted the campus and transferred those considered "prisoners of war" to the Chile Stadium, where he was separated, harassed and beaten.

On September 15, sitting in the stands of this sports center (today called Víctor Jara Stadium), despite hunger, thirst and pain resulting from torture, he was able to write a long and emotional poem that he delivered, unfinished, to his companions before the military took him away. A few hours later, in one of the locker rooms, he and his partner Littré Quiroga were gunned down by Army officers. A year later in exile, his widow, Joan Jara, published his posthumous album that included the song Manifesto, of August 1973, in which he sculpted the ethical, aesthetic and political height of his commitment in those verses that proclaim: "My song is of the scaffolding / to reach the stars ...".

This is a text written by Mario Amorós, doctor in History and journalist (Alicante, 1973), adapted from his recent book Life is eternal. Biography of Víctor Jara, edited by Ediciones B.

Sign up for the weekly Ideas newsletter here.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-05-18

You may like

News/Politics 2024-02-22T10:12:59.313Z
News/Politics 2024-03-13T14:04:04.626Z

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z
News/Politics 2024-03-28T05:25:00.011Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.