Eduardo Sacheri needs no introduction. He is the author of very successful titles, such as “The question of their eyes” (which inspired Juan José Campanella’s 2009 Oscar-winning film, “The Secret in Their Eyes”), “La noche de la usina” (also made into a movie) and “The general workings of the world”, among other fictional texts. He also wrote volumes of articles and columns where football is your main concern. But, although his original profession is that of historian and he still teaches that subject in secondary schools, never until now have his ideas in that field been captured in a book.
The moment arrive. his latest release (“The days of the Revolution. A history of Argentina when it was not Argentina (1806-1820)” -Alfaguara-) analyzes and recounts the events that precipitated the process of Independence in the Río de la Plata.
Was the Argentine territory always the same? Was there from the beginning a feeling of national unity that drove the revolution or was it more complex? Is it correct to look at history as the struggle between “good guys” and “bad guys”? Those were some of the questions that Eduardo Sacheri answered to NOTICIAS regarding his new book, the first in a series that he plans on the national historyas an inquiry into the past that incubated the present of Argentines.
NEWS: His novels portray different moments in recent Argentine history. Why did you want to write a book about Argentine History with capital letters?
Eduardo Sacheri: As a history professor, I am somewhat dissatisfied that the very good work that is being done in Argentine universities does not penetrate public debate. I feel that, when the public debate uses history, it uses old, anachronistic categories. And there are a lot of new questions and research that would be cool to see come out of academia and into society at large. It’s what you usually do as a teacher, only for your small group of students. And this period, the 19th century, is very interesting in terms of the construction of the National State.
NEWS: What new questions and what old questions are there?
Sacheri: How was the slow construction of Argentina? Argentina in 1810 does not exist. It was built little by little throughout that century. And old questions: who was “good” and who was “bad”? Who “helped the people”? Using history as a moral reservoir seems to me not to help understanding. You can do it, nobody has a monopoly on the good use of history, but I don’t find it useful for understanding.
NEWS: What is the most recurring myth in Argentine history?
Sacheri: That there is an “anti-national enemy” that opposes the happiness of Argentina. As if there was only one form of happiness, in which we would all supposedly agree. That there is an enemy, generally external, but with local allies, who conspires against that happiness. As if we were all one, as if the nation were a homogeneous body of people who think and want the same thing. It is a self exculpatory advantage, a speech that is extremely pleasing to the ear: “We could not avoid what is happening, we did things well, but excessive force defeats us. It doesn’t matter, because since we’re good we’re going to try again”. So history is a cycle of perpetual attempts by good guys defeated by bad guys. I think that sustaining that myth does a lot of damage, because it condemns inaction. The little that is talked about history publicly is usually done in that key, like a hammer to unload on the heads of those who do not think like you. The worst thing is that there are political forces on both sides doing it.
NEWS: You propose a look that revises certain collective identities. For example, when he reflects on “the Spanish”, he tries to specify which Spaniards we are referring to. The same “indigenous” or “criollos.” Not all Creoles thought the same about the Revolution, for example.
Sacheri: More than “identity”, I would say “belonging to a group”. If you propose an “us against them” story, they are ironclad categories, but they don’t hold up. If you are a grocery store in Buenos Aires in 1810, you can be a Creole and at the same time Buenos Aires and a revolutionary. But at the same time, being a porteño, you believe that Buenos Aires has the right to govern the viceroyalty. That pulpero can be your friend against the royalists, but your enemy in another context. Each conflict puts you on different paths, because the paths are changing. For example, inclusive language does not seem useful to me, it seems distracting to me from struggles that I do claim about the right to recognition of each person’s identity. That distances me from people with whom I agree on many things and brings me closer to another with whom the only thing I agree with is that I do not share inclusive language. It’s awkward, but such is life.
NEWS: What is it like to be a history teacher in a high school and to be Eduardo Sacheri?
Sacheri: It is true that, unlike twenty years ago, today I expect my students to know me or have read my novels when they enter the classroom on the first day. But it is a fleeting rarity. What is good and bad about education is that it is a world in itself. When you start the class the only thing that matters is what happens in there; if what is said is of interest, if a cult can be generated by learning something. I like to think that what we achieved during the year, we achieved between those thirty boys and “the ‘bald’ from History”.
NEWS: “History is not the same as the past. History is not the same as memory”, says the book. What does that mean?
Sacheri: History is an intellectual, methodical construction. The past is not a reconstruction, it is what happened. Memory is not methodical, it has to do with emotions, cuts of subjectivity, which are not and do not have to be methodical. I cannot object to someone “your memories are emotionally charged”. What I can ask historians to do is reduce the space for subjectivity as much as possible.
NEWS: We are approaching July 9 and Argentina celebrates 206 years of Independence. How do you see that historic July 9 and how do you think it finds us in 2022?
Sacheri: The July 9th It was the moment when decisions stopped being postponed. What in 1810 is confusion and doubts – very understandable – in 1816 is “burn the ships”. It is the moment when the revolutionaries are sure to become independent. If they don’t do it sooner, it’s because they know it was a key decision and taking it meant greatly shortening the room for manoeuvre. Especially when an eventual reconciliation with Spain, with a certain autonomy, was on the table. Today I see Argentina bogged down, with antithetical projects. Or have, on the one hand, a strongly capitalist economy, open to the world and to the market; or an economy where the state is getting bigger. You look electorally from 2015 to here and two general orientations were very marked. Seven years have passed and you do not have an electorate that has opted in one direction or another. What I see as positive, unlike in the past, is that people vote. And that makes Argentine society bear the responsibility for its destinies in a much deeper way than before. We are where we decide to be. This is good news in terms of what fits us as authors of our present.
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