Alberto Ghiraldo

Son of Federico Ghiraldo, an Italian immigrant who arrived in Argentina in the 1850s and dedicated to the export of grains, and Julia Albornoz Castañón, of Creole family with ancestors shot by Juan M. de Rosas in the Maza rebellion. The couple has three children: Federico, Alberto and María Julia, and they settle in Mercedes, where they open a warehouse of general bouquets.

In the wake of the father’s death in 1885, they returned to Buenos Aires under the protection of a relative. Alberto enters the National College, but his studies are incomplete. He works as a dependent of trade and later in a barracks of the port, where he makes contact with the world of labor. By the end of the century it has its own grain consignment company.

Despite his young age, he became a fervent alemist and participated in the manifestations of the Civic Union of 1889 and the revolutions of 1890 and 1893. He approaches the Mitristic circles, possibly through Mariano de Vedia, and writes sporadically in The Nation since 1891. His first collaboration with the newspaper of Mitre is the sending of an apocryphal poem with the signature of Ricardo Gutierrez (22/9/91), but this denies being the author. From there, his poems (idealistic, decadentist and Nietzschean), stories and reports will appear in Buenos Aires Illustrated, The Fortnight, La Agriculture and the newspapers El Tiempo y La Nación, often under the pseudonym Marco Nereo. He publishes several books where he gathers his poems, stories and various articles. He created the Revista Argentina, from which few issues came out in 1895.

It departs from the Alemism and approaches socialism inorganically. As part of this evolution, the newspaper El Obrero (Buenos Aires, 22/9 to 11/11/1996) publishes. Edit and direct the magazine El Sol (Buenos Aires, 1898-1903).

In 1900 he led a campaign against the death penalty. In it he meets Pietro Gori, who wins it for anarchist ideas. Ghiraldo publishes in El Sol an article that impacts the intellectual world (“New Ideas”) and from this moment becomes one of the leading libertarian speakers and journalists. In October 1901 he toured Rosario and made contact with the ports of Villa Constitución. In April 1902 he harangues car drivers, on strike against a municipal resolution. In August of that year it interceded between different anarchist fractions for the creation of a House of the People, but the project does not prosper.

Before the sanction of the Law of Residence (September 1902), Ghiraldo carries out a campaign against it, turning his magazine into a daily bulletin on the general strike. His article “On Cowardice Environment” appears. The circulation of El Sol is not prohibited, but Ghiraldo’s attitude is worth arresting for a few days in February of the following year, without any accusation. In June 1903 he participated in the III Congress of the Argentine Workers’ Federation (FOA) as a delegate of the ports of Villa Constitución and, although some delegate contested his credentials for not being a manual worker, a large majority accepted his delegation. The congress intervenes in favor of the use of the general strike as a method and proposes to edit a daily sheet of the Federation. As a result of the congress, a controversy revolves around the attitude to be adopted with respect to intellectuals and students within the movement is developed in anarchist publications. Speaker at an event in the Vorwärts hall (February 1904), defends the strike as a method of the working class.

He founds and directs the weekly Martín Fierro (Buenos Aires, March 1904 – February 1905), of marked libertarian tone, claiming the past gauchesco of Argentina and dedicating great space to theater and lyrics. New pseudonym: Juan Pueblo. Since September 1904 he directs La Protesta, the main publication of anarchism, of daily appearance, and Martín Fierro becomes his cultural supplement. Ghiraldo, along with the leadership of the Argentine Regional Workers’ Federation (FORA), faces in December a trial for slander that establishes the owner of El Diario, Manuel Láinez, who is diluted in the courts.

On February 5, 1905, on the occasion of the aborted radical deaf, Ghiraldo rejected since La Protesta the coup method of Hipólito Yrigoyen’s party and also opposes the reprisals of the government against the labor movement. The departure of the anarchist newspaper is prohibited, but Ghiraldo clandestinely edits a bulletin reporting the successes of the radical coup in the interior of the country. Following this breach, on 8 February Ghiraldo is arrested. He was taken by a police officer to the ship Maipú, which operated several weeks as a sort of “floating prison,” in the company of other detainees. He is transferred on February 23 to the ship Santa Cruz, until March 4, for being Argentine. he is finally granted the right to leave the country. He is taken to a third ship, the Triton, who will drive him, with other deportees, to Montevideo. He remains in the Uruguayan capital until May, and returns to Buenos Aires to return to lead La Protesta. He recounts the episode in his book The Tyranny of the Frac... (Chronicle of a Prisoner) (1905).

In August, the problem of the relationship between socialists and anarchists and Ghiraldo strongly bets on unity is discussed, but the V congress of the FORA rejects it and, after a debate in the press in early September, the workers’ headquarters makes its position ratify in assemblies by guild. The Protest closes again from October to February 1906 by a new state of siege and since its reopening the economic problems are felt. In April, the Federal Council of FORA was renewed and a sector related to Ghiraldo was directed. An Administrative Council (made up of different sectors of the anarchist movement and led by Eduardo G. Gilimón) to monitor the economic progress of La Protesta. In the face of the continuing financial difficulties, the Council decided to take greater authority in the newspaper and Ghiraldo resigned from the management in August 1906. From there, he moves away from political activity for a few years.

In 1906 he premiered his most important play (Alma gaucha) and married his cousin Cordelia, who died two years later, leaving him two children (Cordelia and Julio), who will be raised by relatives. In 1908 he projected a new magazine, Buenos Aires, which will not come to light, but in May 1909 the first issue of Ideas and Figures appears, which will appear sporadically until 1916. The magazine opens with the protest of Ghiraldo for the repression in Red Week, which is worth a provisional closure and an arrest warrant, which is carried out some time later, for a single day. In the following years Ghiraldo will live on the product of a library and typographic establishment, where he also prints his own publications.

In September 1910 he participated in the creation of the Argentine Society of Dramatic and Lyric Authors and will be its president between 1911 and 1913. Under their mandate the authors will achieve the commitment of the owners of the theater companies to pay 10% copyright. He participates in various acts against the laws of Residence and Social Defense, in December 1911 (unitarily with socialism) and another two in July 1912. In November 1913, Teodoro Antillí and Apolinario Barrera, director and administrator, respectively, of La Protesta, were arrested. In the face of acephaly, Ghiraldo offers his help to take the diary forward, but some articles published in the following weeks recreate the opposition to his figure and must resign again (8/12/1913).

In 1914, before the announced celebration of an anarchist congress in London in August, several libertarian groups proposed it as an Argentine delegate. The acceptance of his name is massive and various acts are carried out in Buenos Aires, La Plata and Rosario to raise the necessary funds, but at the last moment Ghiraldo resigns, following disagreements around the money. The subsequent discussion, which is diluted in the face of the unleashing of the Great War and the suspension of the London Congress, will provoke the rupture of a large group of intellectuals with the anarchist movement.

In May 1915 the IX Congress of the FORA was held and from the pages of Ideas and Figures Ghiraldo celebrates the long-awaited unity of the labor movement. In September 1916 he left for Spain as correspondent of La Razón and with commissions from the Society of Authors. He is accompanied by his two sons and will remain in that country until 1934, developing intellectual activity but renouncing any type of political or social action. It continues the publication of Ideas and Figures, but only manages to edit 4 numbers.

He publishes the works of Benito Pérez Galdós, who named him his albacea, Rubén Darío and José Martí. In 1921 he was arrested and his expulsion from the kingdom of Spain was decreed, but the reaction of the intellectual environment of Madrid reverses the situation. He conceives a monumental anthology of American thinkers and poets in 20 volumes, from which five (1923) come out, where all the heroes of liberal historiography stand out.

It is manifested against the imperialist policy of the United States and in favor of the Nicaraguan rebellion of Augustus C. Sandino in Yanquiland Barbara (1929). He returned to Argentina in January 1934 with his daughter Cordelia, who died months later, while July is in Spain. It fails to accommodate itself in the intellectual environment, settles in La Plata and, after a brief marriage from which another son (Daniel) is born, he leaves for Santiago de Chile (1935). There he reissues stories and poetry and is dedicated to journalistic activity. In his last days he manifests himself against the regime of Perón, whom he calls a fascist tyrant, comparable to Rosas.

As a member of the anarchist movement, Alberto Ghiraldo represented the continuation of the “organizing” wing, initiated by Malatesta and Pietro Gori, and the most fervent defender of unity with socialism and the alliance of the workers’ power plants. As an intellectual, he was one of the main managers of what could be called “libertarian culture”, although his idealistic style and affection to the sublime contrasted with the popular record that predominated in anarchist publications.