The commemoration of the Crossing of the Andes It is usually part of the festive calendar of the Cuyan provinces. Year after year government agencies organize activities to honor the memory of the Liberator of the south, and appeal to the San Martin motive to captivate the attention of tourists and lovers of the mountain landscape, inviting them to travel the routes followed by the compact military machinery to secure the independence of half a continent.
These experiences, individual and collective, not only update the place of San Martin in national mythology, which is evident in the dense and rich repertoire of books, images, statues, historical sites, monuments and museums that since the 19th century have covered and regulated the obligation of memory. The crossing experiences vivified in the present, in addition, they amplify the territorial and emotional dimension of the memory, giving rise to new tributes destined to resignify the images provided by the state liturgies and custodial institutions of the San Martinian memory, based on the nationalist narratives of the 19th and 20th centuries . In particular, of the anonymous individuals who made up the army regiments and battalions, that multi-ethnic conglomerate that brought together free blacks and browns, indigenous people, mestizos and poor whites who were transformed into soldiers of the infantry and cavalry corps through coercion, promises of freedom and patriotic fervor; as well as the plethora of muleteers, baqueanos and connoisseurs of the rugged geography of the central Andes, who attended the decision or will of the general to cross it, in order to demonstrate the firmness of the cause of America and ensure political and military success in a single battle fought on the slope of Chacabuco.
The silhouettes
These characters have taken shape on the San Martín routes of Mendoza and San Juan through discreet interventions and symbolic devices with the purpose of making the prism more complex, the senses fastened in the successive layers of bronze that chiseled the march of the patriot army in the summer of 1817. These are huge silhouettes inspired by the iconography and testimonies of the time that are molded in materials capable of withstanding the inclemencies of the climate, and have been located in sites indicative of the mountain passes traveled by the army columns, so that they can be appreciated by observers in proximity, or at a distance. According to the height and the relief conditions, the silhouettes have been grouped or they appear in the solitude of the Andean peaks. People who visit them usually take photos with them, which are then posted on the networks, becoming a testimony of having revived the audacity carried out two centuries ago.
This memorial fabrication is due to autonomous initiatives that articulate expert knowledge in processes of cultural patrimonialization, and to enthusiastic cultists of the San Martinian myth who contribute to the assembly of the scenes to pay tribute to the protagonists of the epic, becoming, at the same time, discreet architects of a memorial operation destined to influence the way in which the event should be remembered, enthroning the actions of men with unknown faces and voices in the national pantheon.
So the installation of the silhouettes in the mountain range highlights selective forms of public intervention in social and historical memory. An interpretive turn of the representations of the national past that no longer has as exclusive intermediaries the official institutions or professional historians, but respond to initiatives inscribed in the coordinates of expert knowledge, the changes operated in the plane of uses and cultural consumptions and, not least, in the plural forms of questioning the persistent problem of the origins of nationality as a base for identification and social and cultural cohesion.
Project data
The idea and execution of the project “Tribute to the Crossing of the Andes (1817-2017)” is led by the architect Juan Carlos Marinsalda, a specialist in cultural heritage. The first installation, known as “Los materos”, was carried out in Villa de Las Cuevas, at the foot of the slope of Paso Bermejo or La Cumbre, on February 12, 2017, on the Bicentennial of the Battle of Chacabuco.
The most visited and well-known facility is that of Uspallata, close to the 18th century smelting furnaces. It was located on August 11, 2017, with three silhouettes that were manufactured and shipped from Paraná. On the route of the Principal column, on the border of San Juan and Mendoza, on August 25, 2018, the Yalguaraz installation was carried out. It is the most numerous, with four silhouettes. The farthest facility is the Llaretas pass, near the border with Chile; The silhouette was manufactured in Mendoza in 3 assembled pieces and transferred for five days on mule back from Manantiales, the place where San Martín wrote to the director Pueyrredón informing him that he was satisfied with the performance of the army in the following terms: throughout the army march the least loss, desertion, or disorder has been suffered. If everything corresponds to such a happy beginning, the best success of our expedition can be predicted ”. On January 18, silhouettes will be installed in the southern passes, evoking the column led by Freyre and seconded by Lemos. As on other occasions, the transfer of the pieces has the support of the municipalities. Currently, five of the six routes traveled by the Army of the Andes are indicated, with 15 sets made up of 31 silhouettes, located in Mendoza and San Juan. To learn more, visit the Facebook page or the blog crucedelosandes2017.wordpress.com.
Beatriz Bragoni is a historian. Author of “San Martín. A political biography of the Liberator ”(Edhasa).
by Beatriz Bragoni
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