The Gauchipoliticos of El Ombú. A cultural, political and Creole view at Uruguay at the end of the 19th century

Abstract

In a context marked by economic recovery after the crisis of 1890, massive immigration, belle époque of Montevideo, political discredit of the government of Juan Idiarte Borda and preludes of revolution, the magazine El Ombú was founded in January 1896. The process of expansion and cheapening of the press served as a framework for the Creole weekly that was financed thanks to advertisements and subscriptions. Orosmán Moratorio, its director, had abruptly separated from the editorial project founded with Alcides de María only four months earlier in the magazine El Fogón. I consider that this distancing responded to a particular reading of the political and cultural dynamics of the time. The traditionalists, generally identified by literary aestheticization or by the “domestication of the gauchesca”, developed an intense political criticism at the same time that they struggled to insert themselves in the center of cultural life in modern Montevideo. The analysis of the 48 issues of El Ombú, the periodical press plus the reports of institutions linked to the magazine shed light on the interventions of this group in Uruguayan culture and politics at the end of the century.