Francisco Bilbao
(Santiago, 1823-La Plata, 1865) Chilean writer and politician, one of the most prominent revolutionary intellectuals of Chilean society in the 19th century.He was detested as a "madman" and a "destroyer of society", but at the same time adored as a "genius precursor of great social upheavals".
Francisco Bilbao
Outstanding essayist, achieved political notoriety at age 21 during the government of Manuel Bulnes (1841-1851) with the publication of Chilean sociability (1844), in which he harshly criticized the Church, the clergy and the authoritarian system, and where he proposed some liberal political theories.For this he received harsh sanctions, which included the burning of his publication, the payment of a pecuniary penalty and the expulsion of his law studies.However, the large number of people awaiting trial at the courthouse paid the fine that had been imposed.
Shortly after he left for Europe, where he contacted prominent leaders of liberalism and studied languages, history, philosophy and also, paradoxically, the gospels.Upon his return to Chile in 1849, he continued to fight for his ideals and took a new step towards the realization of liberalism by creating, together with friends and supporters (such as Santiago Arcos and Eusebio Lillo) the Equality Society, from where the most bitter fired attacks on the conservative government of Manuel Montt and the Catholic clergy.A great orator, he wrote in the newspaper El Amigo del Pueblo, in whose pages he lashed out at Montt and the clergy, and his Boletines del Espíritu , of 1850, cost him excommunication.In no small measure, his words were the driving force behind the revolution of 1851, which when defeated forced him to flee to Peru.
In Peru he wrote two brochures, Need for a reform and The messages of the outlaw ; He then became interested in the personality of the first American saint, Saint Rose of Lima, and published some Studies on the life of Saint Rose of Lima (1852).He traveled to Europe and in Paris published The dualism of modern civilization (1856), as a tribute to Félicité de Lammenais.In Brussels he was received by Edgar Quinet, exiled there, and in that Belgian city he collaborated in the French immigrant magazine Le Libre Recherche.He published a study, The Social Movement of the Peoples of South America and, again in Paris, America Initiative .
He finally embarked for Buenos Aires, where he arrived in April 1857.In July of that year he put La Revista del Nuevo Mundo into circulation and published La tragedia divina .He collaborated with various newspapers and magazines, maintained philosophical-political polemics, founded the Rationalist Society, organized a literary club, and joined Freemasonry.He later wrote America in Danger (1862) to oppose European invasions in Santo Domingo and Mexico, and The American Gospel (1864).His Complete Works (2 vols.) Appeared posthumously in Buenos Aires in 1866.
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