1870–71
New yellow fever outbreak in Buenos Aires.
1872
Jose Hernández publishes the first part of his epic poem Martín Fierro, ‘La Ida’.
1878
Julio Argentino Roca launches his war against the Indians, known as the Conquest of the Desert.
1879
Publication of the second part of Martín Fierro, “La Vuelta’. El Cachafaz (José Ovidio Banquet), most famous of early tango dancers, born (he dies in 1942).
1880
Roca becomes president and Buenos Aires becomes the official capital. The beginning of the Guardia Vieja, whose dominion over tango would last until around 1917.
1888
‘Dame la lata’, regarded as the first tango with lyrics, is performed. Pascual Contursi born (he dies in 1932).
1890
Carlos Gardel born in Toulouse, France.
1894
Construction of Avenida de Mayo completed.
1895
Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum) opens in Buenos Aires.
1896
Rosita Quiroga born (she dies in 1984).
1897
Rosendo Mendizábal composes ‘El entrerriano’.
1898
Caras y caretas the magazine which gave extensive coverage to early tango, is founded.
1900
Juan D’Arienzo, ‘the king of rhythm’, born (he dies in 1976).
1902
Azucena Maizani born (he dies in 1970).
1903
Angel Villoldo’s ‘El Choclo’ released. The Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, is built. Election of José Batlle to the Uruguayan presidency.
1904
Mercedes Simone born (he dies in 1990). Sofia Bazan born (dies in 1958). Tita Merello born (dies in 2002).
1905
Francisco Fiorentino born (he dies in 1955). Osvaldo Pugliese born (dies in 1995).
1907
Rent strike in the conventillos.
1908
Teatro Colon opened. Atahualpa Yupanqui born (he dies in 1992).
1911
Publication of Ricardo Guiraldes’s poem ‘Tango’.
1912
Roque Saenz Peña’s government introduces universal suffrage and the secret ballot. Baron Antonio de Marchi organizes his tango night at the Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires. The musical The Sunshine Girl opens in London.
1913
Buenos Aires underground starts operation. Richepin’s Le Tango opens in Paris.
1914
Birth of Anibal Troilo, ‘Pichuco’ (he dies in 1975).
1916
Hipolito Yrigoyen elected to the presidency. Buenos Aires Stock Exchange built.
1917
First performance of Pascual Contursi’s ‘Mi noche triste’ performed and recorded by Carlos Gardel in the same year. Tango ‘La Cumparsita’, by Uruguayan Gerardo Matos Rodríguez, performed for first time.
1918
The University Reform movement in Córdoba transforms the university there.
1919
La Semana Trágica, the Tragic Week, in which several hundred people are killed in clashes between striking workers and right-wing strike breakers.
1921
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse released. Birth of Astor Piazzola (he dies in 1992)
1926
Roberto Goyeneche born (he dies in 1994). Julio Sosa born (dies in 1964).
1928–30
Second administration of Hipolito Yrigoyen.
1929
Birth of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara.
1930
Irigoyen is overthrown in a military coup and replaced by a military government headed by Jose Feliz Uruburu.
1931
Luces de Buenos Aires, directed by Adelqui Millar, and starring Carlos Gardel, is released.
1933
¡Tango! (dir Moglia Barth) the first Argentina sound film, released.
1934
Tango en Broadway, directed by Louis Garnier and starring Gardel, released.
1935
Death in an air accident of Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera. Tango Bar (dir. John Reinhardt) released. El día que me quieras (dir. John Reinhardt) released. Birth of Susana Rinaldi.
1937
Avenida 9 de Julio opened. Jorge Cafrune born (he dies in 1978).
1943
The so-called ‘national revolution’ brings in a military government that includes Colonel Juan Perón as Minister of Labour.
1945
March: Argentina enters World War Two on the side of the Allies. Perón arrested and then freed in the face of popular protests.
1946
Perón elected to the Presidency.
1951
Perón’s second presidential term.
1952
Death of Evita Perón.
1955
Perón ousted by the so-called ‘Liberating Revolution’.
1962
Government led by Arturo Frondizi overthrown in military coup. Academia Porteña del Lunfardo founded.
1964
Mrozek’s ‘Tango’ performed for the first time.
1966
Juan Carlos de Onganía assumes power and bans political parties.
1967
Astor Piazzola begins his collaboration with Horacio Ferrer.
1968
Release of La hora de los hornos (The hour of the furnaces) directed by Solanas and Getino.
1969
‘Balada para un loco’ by Piazzola and Ferrer released.
1970
Alejandro Lanusse replaces Ongania.
1972
Last Tango in Paris, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, is a succès de scandale.
1973
Perón returns from exile. Members of the extreme right-wing Triple A (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) open fire on the crowds awaiting him outside Ezeiza airport. Héctor Cámpora elected as a caretaker candidate to the presidency. Perón elected later that year. The civilian-military regime in Uruguay suspends civil rights and imposes an military dictatorship under Bordaberry.
1974
Perón dies, leaving his second wife, María Isabel, to assume the presidency.
1976
Military coup deposes Peronist government, and Jorge Videla heads the military government. It launches repression across the country, with the extensive use of torture and state assassination. This ‘Dirty War’ continues until 1983.
1977
Demonstrations by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo begin in which relatives of people ‘disappeared’ by the military regime demand to know their whereabouts and their fate.
1978
Argentina hosts and wins the soccer World Cup.
1982
Argentine troops sent to the Falkland Islands / Malvinas. The islands are retaken by British troops later that year.
1983
Collapse of Galtieri regime. Raul Alfonsín elected to the presidency. The show Tango Argentino opens in Paris to become a huge international success.
1985
La historia oficial (The official version) wins Academy Award for best foreign film. El exilio de Gardel (Tangos), directed by Fernando Solanas, released.
1988
‘Tango x2’, a tribute to Gardel begins its extensive tour of Latin America and Europe. Sur, directed by Fernando Solanas, released.
1989
Peronist Carlos Menem elected to the presidency. He is re-elected in 1995.
1990
National Academy of the Tango founded.
1993
Tango, directed by Patrice Leconte, is released.
2001
Argentinazo – widespread protests at economic chaos and retaliatory measures by IMF and World Bank across the country.
2003
Peronist Néstor Kirchner wins presidency.
2007
Cristina Kirchner assumes presidency.
2009
REFERENCES
1 STRANGERS IN THE CITY
1 Richard J. Watter, Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910–1942 (Cambridge, 1993), p. 6.
2 See David Rock, Argentina, 1316–1987 (Berkeley, CA, 1987).
3 D. F. Sarmiento, Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism, trans. Kathleen Ross (Berkeley, CA, 2003).
4 See Peter H. Smith, Politics and Beef in Argentina: Patterns of Conflict and Change (New York, 1969).
5 On the war of the Triple Alliance, see Chris Leuchars, To the Bitter End: Paraguay and the War of the Triple Alliance (Westport, CT, 2002).
6 See Rock, Argentina, pp. 133–6.
7 J. Hernández, Martin Fierro. An English translation, less liberal than mine, can be found at: http://sparrowthorn.com.
8 Quoted in Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln, NE, 1991), p. 10.
9 German García, El inmigrante en la novela argentina (Buenos Aires, 1970), p. 52.
10 See Karin Grammático, ‘Obreras, prostitutas y mal venéreo. Un Estado ern busca de la profilaxis’, in Historia de las mujeres en la Argentina Siglo XX, ed. Fernanda Gil Lozano, Valeria Silvina Pita and María Gabriel Ini (Buenos Aires, 2000), pp. 117–36.
11 Jo Baim, ‘The Tango: Icon of Culture, Music, and Dance in Argentina, Europe and the United States from 1875 to 1925’, PhD thesis, University of Oregon, 1997, p. I. See Jo Baim, Tango: Creation of a Cultural Icon (Bloomington, IN, 2007).
12 Marta E. Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (Boulder, CO, 1995), pp. xiv–xv.
13 Julie Taylor, ‘Tango: Theme of Class and Nation’ in Ethnomusicology, xx/2 (May 1976), p. 276.
14 Ibid.
2 A CITY DIVIDED
1 See David T. Keeling, Buenos Aires: Global Dreams, Local Crises (Chichester, 1996).
2 David Rock, Argentina, 1516–1987 (Berkeley, CA, 1987), p. 132.
3 Chris Moss, Patagonia: A Cultural History (New York, 2008). See also Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia (New York, 1977).
4 Walter Benjamin, ‘Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century’, in The Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1999) pp. 14–26.
5 Mempo Giardinelli, Santo oficio de la memoria (Barcelona, 1997).
6 For example, E. Cambácres, Sin rumbo (Lajouane, Buenos Aires, 1885).
7 Marta E. Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (Boulder, CO, 1995), p. 47.
8 Jo Baim, ‘The Tango: Icon of Culture, Music, and Dance in Argentina, Europe and the United States from 1875 to 1925’, PhD thesis, University of Oregon, 1997, p. 38.
9 Julie Taylor, Paper Tangos (Durham, NC, 2003), p. II.
10 Goyo Cuello quoted in Jo Baim, The Tango, p. 47.
11 Quoted in Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy, p. 115.
12 Keeling, Buenos Aires, p. 229.
3 TANGO GOES TO PARIS
1 Walter Benjamin, ‘Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century’, in The Arcades Project (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1999), pp. 14–26.
2 Nicholas Hewitt, ‘Shifting Cultural Centres in Twentieth-century Paris’, in Parisian Fields, ed. Michael Sheringham (London, 1997), p. 33.
3 See Alexander C. T. Goeppert, Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (Basingstoke and New York, 2010).
4 See C. M. Brosteanu, ‘The influence of the exotic in early erotic photography’ at www.brosteanu.com/erotic-photograph/2010 (accessed 12 June 2012).
5 See Richard Powers, ‘The hidden story of the Apache dance’ at http://socialdance.stanford.edu/syllabi/Apachei.htm (accessed 10 June 2012). YouTube also has a large selection of short films showing the dance.
6 Blas Matamoro, El Tango (Madrid, 1997), p. 25.
7 ‘Paris’, at www.Tango%20Libre.webarchive (accessed 12 May 2012).
8 Salaverria, quoted in M. Savigliano, Tango and the Political Economy of Passion (Boulder, CO, 1995), pp. 115–16.
9 Matamoro, El Tango, p. 26.
10 R. Guiraldes, ‘Tango’, in El cencerro de cristal (Buenos Aires, 1915).
11 R. Guiraldes, Don Segundo Sombra (San Antonio de Areco, 1926).
12 Jean Cocteau, Le passé defini, quoted in Matamoro, El Tango, p. 27.
13 Jo Baim, Tango: Creation of a Cultural Icon (Bloomington, IN, 2007), pp. 60–67. Baim also notes the large number of articles about tango published in the U.S. in the following three years.
14 Quoted in Baim, Tango: Creation, p. 76.
15 Ibid.
16 Savigliano, Tango, p. 47.
17 Julie Verbert, ‘The tango dancer’s costume’ at www.alterinfos.org/spip.php?rubrique159 (accessed 13 March 2012).
18 R. Cunninghame Graham, Rodeo: A Collection of the Tales and Sketches of R. B. Cunninghame Graham (Whitefish, MT, 2005), pp. 133–4.
19 Matamoro, El Tango, pp. 26–7.
20 Savigliano, Tango, p. 117.
21 Ibid., p. 119.
22 Quoted in John Storm Roberts, The Latin Tinge (New York, 1999), p. 46.
23 Halsey K. Mohr, ‘The Tango in the Sky’, quoted in Baim, Tango: Creation, p. 13.
24 Roberts, The Latin Tinge, pp. 48–9.
25 Savigliano, Tango, pp. 147–8.
26 Matamoro, El Tango, p. 31.
27 Savigliano, Tango, p. 138.
4 TANGO FINDS ITS VOICE
1 David Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism (Cambridge, 1975) pp. 32–3.
2 Ibid., p. 50.
3 Richard J. Walter, Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910–1942 (Cambridge, 1993), chap. 3.
4 Paul Vernon, ‘The Tango Trip’ in Folk Roots (2004), pp. 33–4.
5 Donna Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln, NE, 1995), p. 33.
6 The phrase is Julio Mafud’s in Sociología del tango (Buenos Aires, 1965).
8 Julie Taylor, Paper Tangos (Durham, NC, and London, 2003), p. II.
9 See F. Gil Lozano et al., eds, Historia de las mujeres en la Argentina, Siglo XX (Buenos Aires, 2000), pp. 197–223.
10 See Walter Benjamin, ‘On Some Motifs in Baudelaire’, in Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn (London, 1970), pp.157–202.
5 GARDEL AND THE GOLDEN AGE
1 See Pablo Antonio Paranagua, Mexican Cinema (London, 1996).
2 See Simon Collier, The Life, Music and Times of Carlos Gardel (Pittsburgh, PA, 1986).
3 See Simon Collier ‘Carlos Gardel and the Cinema’ at www.gardelweb.com (accessed 13 April 2012).
4 José Ignacio Cabrujas, El día que me quieras (Caracas, 1997), p. 24.
5 See George Dangerfield, The Strange Death of Liberal England (London, 1935).
6 Sung with passion and intensity in a recent incarnation by Estrella Morente in Pedro Almodóvar’s film of the same name.
7 Ed Archetti, Masculinities: Football, Polo and the Tango in Argentina (Berlin, 1989), p. 149.
8 Ernesto Sábato quoted in Julie Taylor, ‘Tango: Theme of Class and Nation’, in Ethnomusicology, xx/2 (May 1976), p. 277.
9 Donald S. Castro, ‘Popular Culture as a Source for Historians: The Tango in its Epoca de Oro, 1917–1943’, in Journal of Popular Culture, XXIX/3 (Winter, 1986), p. 47.
6 THE DYING OF THE LIGHT
1 See N. Torrents and John King, The Garden of Forking Paths: Argentine Cinema (London, 1988). See also Matamoro, El Tango, pp. 76–7.
2 See chapter 5.
3 See Matamoro, El Tango, pp. 74–8.
4 Simon Collier et al., ¡Tango!, the Dance, the Song, the Story (London, 1995), p. 153. This volume contains some extraordinary photographs of the crowded dance halls of the period (on p. 155, for example).
5 Matamoro, El Tango, p. 83.
6 Ibid., p. 85.
7 Legend has it that the song was in fact deeply personal, commemorating Contursi’s lifelong unconsummated fascination with the singer Susana Grisel.
8 Tomas Eloy Marti
nez’s Santa Evita (London, 1997) explores the myth beautifully. And Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita brought her image to an even wider audience.
9 Rock, Politics in Argentina, p. 239.
10 Daniel James has sensitively explored the history and power of Peronism in Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1979 (Cambridge, 1988), and the excellent Doña María’s Story: Life, History, Memory and Political Identity (Durham, NC, 2000).
11 James, Resistance and Integration, p. 290.
7 ASTOR PIAZZOLA AND TANGO NUEVO
1 Evita’s charitable foundation collected money for earthquake victims, for example, and publicly encouraged the ladies of the upper classes to contribute their jewellery. Contemporary news footage shows that they did so, but with gritted teeth.
2 See Ronaldo Munck, Argentina: From Anarchism to Peronism (London, 1987), pp.127–46.
3 For discussion of the complex politics of Peronism, see Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1979 (Cambridge, 1988), Munck, Argentina, and the three-volume study by Felix Luna, Perón y su tiempo (Buenos Aires, 1990).
4 See Munck, Argentina, pp. 142–149.
5 The film The Hour of the Furnaces (dir. Getino and Solanas, 1968) both represents and depicts this period.
6 Munck, Argentina, pp. 160–61.
7 See Pablo Vila, ‘Tango to Folk: Hegemony Construction and Popular Identities in Argentina’, Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, XXIV (2005), pp. 107–39.
8 Vila, ‘Tango to Folk’, p. 128.
9 See María Susana Azzi and Simon Collier, Le Grand Tango: The Life and Music of Astor Piazzolla (Oxford, 2000). See, too, the website piazzolla.org.
10 Azzi and Collier, Le Grand Tango, pp. 58–9.
11 Ibid., p. 59.
12 There are a number of recordings of his performances accessible via YouTube.
13 Their collaboration is recorded, and Ferrer’s poems reproduced in the two-volume Los tangos de Ferrer y Piazzolla (Buenos Aires, 2000) and in Horacio Ferrer’s own prolific writing about tango.
14 Los tangos de Ferrer y Piazzolla, vol. II, p. 42.
15 Recorded and used by many people since, and differing as widely as the post-modernist disco ‘queen’, Grace Jones, and the fine, classical cellist and great admirer of Piazzolla, Yo-Yo Ma.
16 We will address the extraordinary impact of this show and its repercussions in chapter Eight.
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