History - Peru - page 1028

A NEW INTELLECTUAL ERA

As the 20th century loomed, things would look up for Peru. A buoyant world economy
helped fuel an economic recovery through the export of sugar, cotton, rubber, wool and sil-
ver. And, in 1895, Nicolás de Piérola was elected President - beginning an era known as
the 'Aristocratic Republic.' Hospitals and schools were constructed and de Piérola under-
took a campaign to build highways and railroads.
This period would witness a sea change in Peruvian intellectual thought. The late 19th
century had been an era in which many thinkers (primarily in Lima) had tried to carve out
the notion of an inherently Peruvian identity - one largely based on criollo experience. Key
among them was Ricardo Palma, a scholar and writer renowned for rebuilding Lima's ran-
sacked National Library. Beginning in 1872, he published a series of books on criollo folk-
lore known as the Tradiciones Peruanas (Peruvian Traditions) - now required reading for
every Peruvian schoolchild.

But as one century gave way to the next, in-
tellectual circles saw the rise of indigenismo (In-
dianism), a continent-wide movement that ad-
vocated for a dominant social and political role
for indigenous people. In Peru, this translated
into a wide-ranging (if fragmented) cultural
movement. Historian Luis Valcárcel attacked his
society's degradation of the indigenous class.
Poet César Vallejo wrote critically acclaimed works that took on indigenous oppression as
themes. And José Sabogal led a generation of visual artists who explored indigenous
themes in their paintings. In 1928, journalist and thinker José Carlos Mariátegui penned a
seminal Marxist work - Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality - in which he criti-
cized the feudal nature of Peruvian society and celebrated the communal aspects of the Inca
social order. (It remains vital reading for the Latin American left to this day.)
In this climate, in 1924, Trujillo-born political leader Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre foun-
ded the Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (American Popular Revolutionary Alli-
ance) - otherwise known as APRA. The party espoused populist values, celebrated 'Indo-
America' and rallied against US imperialism. It was quickly declared illegal by the auto-
cratic regime of Augusto Leguía - and remained illegal for long stretches of the 20th cen-
tury. Haya de la Torre, at various points in his life, lived in hiding and in exile and, at one
point, endured a 15-month stint as a political prisoner.

Peru's exports of guano in the mid-19th century
totaled more than US$20 million a year - more
than US$517 million a year by today's standards. In
1869, the country was exporting more than half a
million tons of the nitrate-rich fertilizer per year.