acase@tulane.edu / --- / 1 / Mira Kohl

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Bryn Mawr college. / Bibliography; p. 145-152.

<p><p>This dissertation examines the trajectory of military conscription in Bolivia from Liberals&rsquo; imposition of this obligation after coming to power in 1899 to the eve of revolution in 1952. Conscription is an ideal fulcrum for understanding the changing balance between state and society because it was central to their relationship during this period. The lens of military service thus alters our understandings of methods of rule, practices of authority, and ideas about citizenship in and belonging to the Bolivian nation. In eliminating the possibility of purchasing replacements and exemptions for tribute-paying Indians, Liberals brought into the barracks both literate men who were formal citizens and the non-citizens who made up the vast majority of the population. This study thus grapples with the complexities generated by an institution that bridged the overarching and linked divides of profession, language, literacy, indigeneity, and urbanity. </p></p><p><p>Venturing inside the barracks, this dissertation shows how experiences of labor, military routines, punishment, teasing, and drinking led to a situation in which many conscripts became increasingly invested in military service, negotiated its terms, and built ties that transcended local power structures. In addition to examining desertion, insubordination, and mutinies, it provides an explanation of the new legal categories created by military service, such as reservist, <italic>omiso</italic>, <italic>remiso</italic>, and deserter. It then points to the 1932-1935 Chaco War and its aftermath as the period when conscription became a major force in tying an unequal nation together. The mass mobilization necessitated by the war redefined the meaning and terms of conscription, even as the state resorted to forcible mass impressment throughout the national territory while simultaneously negotiating with various interest groups. A postwar process of reckoning initiated by the state, combined with mobilization from below by those who served, added a new hierarchy of military service that overlaid and sometimes even trumped long-standing hierarchies based on education, language, profession, and heritage.</p></p><p><p>This study thus explores conscription as a terrain on which Bolivians from across divides converged and negotiated their relationships with each other and with the state. The unique strength of this work lies in its use of unpublished internal military documents, especially court-martial records. These sources are further enriched by extensive use of congressional debates, official correspondence, reports of foreign military attach&eacute;s, memoirs, and published oral histories. Through an analysis of these sources, this dissertation reveals not only elites&rsquo; visions of using the barracks to assimilate a diverse population but also the ways that soldiers and their families came to appropriate military service and invest it with new meanings on a personal, familial, communal, and national level. In the process, a conscript nation would eventually emerge that, while still hierarchical and divided by profound differences, was not merely a project of an assimilationist state but rather constructed in a dialectical process from both above and below.</p></p> / Dissertation

The thesis examines Bolivian fiction written about the war with Paraguay (1932-35), known as the Chaco War. The study takes two different perspectives: the first considers the fiction as works of literature, and studies three major aspects of fictional writing: narrative organization, characterization arid figurative language, in order to investigate the constraints imposed upon writers who produce fiction about an historical event, (in this instance a military conflict). The second perspective views the works of fiction as historical documents and assesses their informative value by comparing factual information supplied in the novels with that provided in historiographical accounts and also by examining the kind of information which is the peculiar contribution of fiction to the understanding of an historical event. These two examinations are undertaken in Chapters V and VI respectively, and constitute the main body of the thesis. In order to place them in a wider context, the thesis considers previous critical studies of Chaco War fiction (in the Introduction). There follows a study of the relationship between the writing of contemporary history and documentary fiction (Chapter I), a brief summary of the Chaco War (Chapter II), an examination of some possible influences and precedents (Chapter III) and a survey of the writers and the works of Bolivian fiction of the Chaco War (Chapter IV). The conclusion suggests that the problems encountered by writers of documentary fiction are those faced by any naturalist writer, compounded here by the nature of the subject matter. If they cannot fully succeed on an artistic level, however, these works do provide a view of the historical facts of the war which is reasonably accurate. In addition they lead to a distinctive understanding of the war as an historical experience which no historiographical work can produce.

[pt] A Guerra do Chaco foi um conflito catastrófico para Bolívia e Paraguai em vários sentidos, tendo sido especialmente transformadora para a literatura dos dois países, já que durante o período que se lhe seguiu, uma nova geração de artistas, intelectuais e escritores, que tinham no conflito o seu principal referencial, teve sua produção artística marcada pelas transformações geradas, que criaram um período de grande instabilidade política e social tanto na Bolívia quanto no Paraguai. A pesquisa se propõe a compreender os projetos de nação elaborados através da crítica social e da representação de elementos contidos na literatura regional, em especial nas duas obras ficcionais que giram em torno desse evento histórico: Hijo de Hombre e Sangre de Mestizos, respectivamente escritos pelo paraguaio Augusto Roa Bastos e pelo boliviano Augusto Céspedes. O Chaco foi objeto de reflexão nas narrativas analisadas a partir de diversos aspectos, uma tela de projeção da nação, um protagonista na narrativa e talvez o símbolo maior das injustiças e opressão sofridas pela população. A Guerra no Chaco define as últimas fronteiras físicas de ambos os Estados-nacionais, e sobretudo as fronteiras imaginárias desses projetos de nação. Verificaremos alguns elementos fundamentais nas propostas apresentadas pelos autores que buscaram homogeneizar não apenas a nação que projetavam, mas também os seus sujeitos nacionais. / [en] The Chaco War was a catastrophic conflict for Bolivia and Paraguay in several senses, having been especially transformative for the literature of the two countries, since during the period that followed, a new generation of artists, intellectuals and writers, who had in the conflict its main reference, had its artistic production marked by the generated transformations that created a period of great political and social instability in both Bolivia and Paraguay. The research proposes to understand the projects of nation elaborated through the social criticism and the representation of elements contained in the regional literature, especially in the two fictional works that revolve around this historical event: Hijo de Hombre and Sangre de Mestizos, respectively written by paraguayan Augusto Roa Bastos and the bolivian Augusto Céspedes. The Chaco was object of reflection in the narratives analyzed from various aspects, a projection screen of the nation, a protagonist in the narrative and perhaps the greater symbol of the injustices and oppression suffered by the population. The Chaco War defines the last physical borders of both Nation-states, and above all the imaginary frontiers of these nation projects. We will verify some fundamental elements in the proposals presented by the authors who sought to homogenize not only the nation they projected but also their national subjects.

Ecrivaine bolivienne des années 30 - oubliée jusqu'aux années 90- Hilda Mundy s'est fait connaître notamment à la fin de la guerre du Chaco (1932-1935) et dans l'immédiat après-Guerre comme chroniqueuse humoristique à Oruro, sa ville natale. Ses chroniques sont autant d'exemples d'une écriture des moeurs, critique et satirique de la bonne société de son temps et notamment à l'égard d'une morale hypocrite et bigote. Satire des puissants, les écrits d'Hilda Mundy viseront également les travers et les scandales de la vie politique de l'époque ainsi que la montée du militarisme qui se profilait à la fin de la guerre ; ceci marquera le destin de l'écrivaine sous le signe de la censure. Son seul livre Pirotecnia, ensayo miedoso de literatura ultraista, publié à La Paz en 1936, est la suite de cette écriture des formes brèves, centrée sur la désacralisation des symboles du pouvoir. Les thèmes de la ville moderne, de la technique, du jeu et de l'attaque contre la tradition, présents aussi dans ses écrits parus dans la presse, constituent l'univers avant-Gardiste de Pirotecnia. Mouvement et méfiance sont au coeur de cette littérature moderne qui dit moi. Le moi de l'écriture mundyenne, riche de son hétéronymie, est porteur d'un projet poétique propre à une esthétique des arts scéniques où le masque dont on parle le plus est celui de la parole. / A Bolivian writer in the thirty's - forgotten until the 90's - Hilda Mundy became known especially at the end of the Chaco War (1932-1935) and in the immediate post-War period as a humouristic columnist in Oruro, the town where she was born. All her columns are instances of a literature of manners, on which she turns a critical and satirical eye. Her remarks on hypocritical and sanctimonious moral standards of her time are particularly scathing. Hilda Mundy's texts satirize the powerful and target the faults and scandals of political life, and the rise of militarism which was looming at the end of the war. This marked the destiny of the writer under the sign of censure. Her only book, Pirotecnia, ensayo miedoso de literatura ultraista, published in La Paz in 1936 remains loyal to this type of writing, favouring short texts and focused on deconsecration of power symbols. The themes of the modern city, of technology, games and gambling and the attack on tradition, which are also present in her press articles, made up the avant-Garde universe of Pirotecnia. Movement and mistrust are at the heart of this modern literature, which is written in the first person. The self of Hilda Mundy's writing is enriched by its heteronymy and continues a poetic project related to an aesthetics of scenic arts, where the most important mask is that of language.