Ancestral languages
The South American continent did not wait for the Spanish colonization to see the development of great civilizations. Numerous peoples have inhabited the current Bolivia whose territory was then merged with that of Peru, whether the Tiwanaku who walked the shores of Lake Titicaca, or the Huaris who succeeded them, and although the best known remain the Incas who suffered the full force of the arrival of the settlers who landed for the first time in 1525 and began their conquest in 1539. These Indians spoke several languages, two of them - the familiar and the official - are still used today by a large number of speakers: Quechua and Aymara. These are at the top of the list - along with Spanish, of course - of the almost fifty languages recognized by the authorities today.
In these ancient times, writing was replaced by quipus, a very elaborate version of the famous handkerchief knot. If this system of knotted strings has been deciphered for all those intended for the census (populations, stocks, debts...), researchers suspect that others conceal much more, that they were used as historical chronicles or even as legal texts. For the moment, the mystery remains. The oral tradition was certainly of importance for all that referred to the myths, and although the arrival of Pizarro entailed a painful destruction of part of the cultural heritage, the founding legends could nevertheless be fixed by the testimony of the missionaries and by the grace of the surviving languages.
One of these legends was set in Collasuyo, the southernmost of the four regions that made up the immense Inca empire, and had as characters the ruler Illampu and his rival Illimani who fought to the death. Their descendants, two sons, continued the fight, but it is on a mutual request of forgiveness that they breathed their last. Their common tomb saw the blooming of a flower symbolizing this reconciliation, the kantuta. Its colors - red, gold and green of the leaves - became those of the Bolivian flag.
In Quechua was also sung the sometimes sad love(yaraví), it is said that some missionaries succumbed so much to this musical form that they did not hesitate to take it back to add verses and spread their faith. The colonial period inspired chronicles, the most famous being that of Bartolomé Arzáns de Orsúa y Vela (1674-1736), who in Historia de la Villa Imperial de Potosí recounts the construction of this city dedicated to the silver mines that made the Spaniards' fortune and caused the death of thousands of natives. Unfinished at the time of his death, his son Diego continued to write the work, although he was unable to match the acuity and humanism of his father.
Independence
The following century saw the beginning of the struggle for independence in 1809, which was proclaimed in 1825 thanks to the men of Simón Bolívar, "El Libertador" to whom the name of the country pays homage. He declined the presidency, which fell to Antonio José de Sucre, who had proved his temerity by taking Ayacucho from the 9,000 soldiers of the royalist army, while his troops were in the minority. From this long war was born a hero and national poet, Juan Wallparrimachi (1793-1814) whose brief existence is the subject of many legends, especially the one that sees him fighting with only a sling. His poems were collected by Father Carlos Felipe Beltrán and published anonymously in 1891, while others are said to have found their way into popular song without being attributed to him. His work, to which a great sensitivity is recognized, is still on everyone's lips. The Aymara language also began to be written thanks to Vicente Pazos Silva (1778-1852), a priest who became a journalist, nourished by the fire of the revolution, and who in 1816 translated the Declaration of Independence of Argentina, and ten years later wrote a version of the Gospel of Saint Mark. Although exiled in London, he published various works about his country, in particular Historical and Political Memoirs in 1834.
In poetry, nationalism became romantic with the work of Ricardo J. Bustamante (1821-1886), "the Prince of poets", who wrote the words of the Hymn to La Paz on a beautiful afternoon in July 1863, and who found in patriotism the source of his inspiration. His famous works include Vuelta a la patria(Return to the Fatherland), Hispanoamérica libertada(Hispanic America liberated) and a historical drama in verse: Más pudo el suelo que la sangre(The soil stronger than blood). In the same vein, although less committed, María Josefa Mujía (1812-1888) shares her melancholy in the verses she dictates to her brother, Augusto, and then to her nephew Ricardo after his death. Having lost her sight at the age of 14, it was her first poem dedicated to her disability - La Ciega - that made her famous in 1850 after its publication in the newspaper Eco de la Opinión. Mujía experienced great periods of distress due to the death of some of her relatives, but she was nevertheless the author of more than 300 poems, a novel and translations of French poetry, which put her on the list of romantic writers of her century.
The proclamation of the independence will not have rhymed with political stability, the forces in presence - conservative party and liberal party - dispute the power, and the war of the Pacific (1879-1884) nibbles the Bolivian territory by making him lose his access to the sea. From this effervescence was born a writer, also a politician like many of his peers, Nataniel Aguirre, who led the 1880 convention and later became Minister of Foreign Relations. His most famous text is Juan de la Rosa, initially published under the title Cochabamba: memorias del último soldado de la Independencia in 1885. Beyond the historical content of this novel, which recalls the insurrection against the Spanish Empire, its form, which is situated between the diary and the testimony, gives it an original value worthy of the literary monument that it seems to have become, since it is regularly cited as the most representative work of Bolivia.
The time seems to be open to a certain experimentation; proof if it is needed, the poets who follow the current of the Modernism to which will succumb even Rosendo Villalobos (1859-1940) however very attached to the Parnassians. This new freedom, which did not forbid rigor, allowed three talents in particular to make a name for themselves: Ricardo Jaimes Freyre, the theorist, Gregorio Reynolds, the symbolist, and Franz Tamayo, the loner. The first one co-founded with his friend Rubén Darío, in 1894 in Buenos Aires, a Revista de América that did not have many issues, but published the manifesto of their movement. The latter stated the desire to reach cultural maturity, praised the love of the Spanish language and advocated the search for beauty, even if it meant resorting to ancient mythologies and metrics. Reynolds, born in Sucre in November 1882, was sensitive to the Baudelairean universe, excelled in the art of the sonnet and distinguished himself in lyrical theater. Finally, Tamayo will be one of the major figures of the Bolivian literature although he always remained in the margin of the circles of intellectuals, what did not contribute besides to make known the totality of his work. Demanding and brilliant, he impressed as early as 1898 with his Odes, and went so far as to devote himself to metaphysics and philosophy in Los nuevos rubayat (1927). Augusto Guzman (1903-1994), Bolivia's first literary critic, praised his contribution to literature. Women also made their presence felt, and at least one of them was a pioneer, Adela Zamudio (1854-1928), a fervent progressive feminist who conveyed her messages through poetry and novels(Nacer hombre, Noche de fiesta, El velo de la Purísima). Her birth date - October 11 - is now the National Women's Day.
20th and 21st centuries
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Chaco war against Paraguay divided the Bolivian territory once again, but it inspired writers for a long time, like Augusto Céspedes (1904-1997), sent by the newspaper El Universal to cover the front. His articles were published in 1975 in a book with a clear title: Crónicas heroicas de una guerra estúpida. Through his writing of short stories, he also exorcised the absurdity of war, as demonstrated in 1936 in the beautiful Sangre de Mestizos, from which his most famous text, El Pozo(The Well), was taken.
Óscar Cerruto was also a journalist, which got him into trouble with the church when he was only 15 years old, although it was his poems that sent him to prison even though he was not yet 30. He narrowly escaped being called up for military service, but this did not prevent him from writing the greatest novel of the Chaco War: Aluvión de Fuego(Torrent of Fire). Roberto Leitón (1903-1999) left the battlefield after being wounded in 1933 and did not publish La Punta de los 4 degollados until ten years after its completion, without the army confirming the veracity of the tragic episode to which he referred. Finally, Jesus Lara, a fighter of Indian origin, would later turn to the defense of Quechua culture, and in this he would be representative of another trend of this century, Indianism, also carried by Víctor M. Ibañez, a great defender of the Aymara heritage, which he proved in Chachapuma (The Lion Man), or Octavio Campero Echazú, who produced a picturesque work(Amancayas, Voces) inspired by his hometown, Tarija, for which he was posthumously awarded the Grand National Prize for Literature.
The dictatorship put a serious stop to literary aspirations. The poet Yolanda Bedregal took advantage of a short interlude to publish the remarkable Bajo el oscuro in 1971, while Jaime Sáenz, despite his personal problems, did not interrupt his incomparable surrealist production. Others, finally, chose exile, such as Víctor Montoya, who took refuge in Sweden. Since the end of the 20th century, a new effervescence reigns, as evidenced by the work of Homero Carvalho Oliva, Edmundo Paz Soldán and Giovanna Rivero.
