Manuel González Prada (1844-1918). Intellectual and political. He is the son of Francisco González de Prada and María Josefa Ulloa. Baptized as José Manuel de los Reyes, the future writer was born on January 5, 1844 and died on July 22, 1818. After a period at the Colegio Inglés de Valparaíso (Chile), where his father was exiled, he studied in the seminary of Santo Toribio (1857-1859) in Lima. However, rebellious against the rigidity of that training center, he fled to finish his studies in the San Carlos Convictory (1860-1862). He was fond of science, but faced with family pressure to pursue a law degree, he decided to dedicate himself to agriculture in the Cañete Valley for some time. During the war with Chile (1879-1883) he joined the reserve, participated in the battle of Miraflores (January 1881) and, when Lima was occupied by the invaders, he remained confined in his house . Outraged by the defeat and its causes, he began his public life as president of the Literary Club (1885). From that moment he began his distance from the values and principles of his class, the aristocracy, first in the religious order and shortly after in the social and ideological-political. It is also the time of multiple speeches, such as those delivered at Politeama and Olimpo (1888), and articles against the vices and corruption of republican life until the formation of the National Union (1891), a radical political group .
Public positions of Manuel González Prada
He traveled to France for health reasons for his wife, Adriana de Verneuil, whom he had married in 1887, and after seven years in Europe he returned to Peru (May 2, 1898). He continued his attacks against corruption and mediocrity, he distanced himself from the National Union due to his alliance with the liberals, he presented himself as an opponent of the government of Nicolas de Piérola and founded El Independiente (1899). His anarchist ideas of him reached the workers in favor of a universal brotherhood and, when indifference surrounded him, he accepted the direction of the National Library, vacant due to the resignation of Ricardo Palma (March 4, 1912) . Public opinion censored his acceptance, he was accused of taking advantage of the situation, since he was estranged from the author of the Peruvian Traditions . Upon taking office, he wrote an "Informative note about the National Library" that no capital newspaper wanted to publish, with the exception of the billinghurist newspaper La Acción Popular . In 1914, on the occasion of the military coup led by Óscar R. Benavides that deposed Guillermo Billinghurst, he resigned from the position, which was restored to him two years later by the government of José Pardo y Barreda . One day in July 1918, when he was preparing to go to his office in the library, he died suddenly at his home.
Ideology of Manuel González Prada
González Prada defined himself as a “free thinker” , adherent of positivism and scientific and technical progress, which explains the multiplicity of topics that his work touches:philosophical, grammatical, religious, political, among others. He challenged the Christian religion and the ecclesiastical hierarchy of his day; he considered that many of the defects of republican Peru stemmed from Spanish domination; for him the Indian was not inferior to the white or the mestizo and all he required was to improve his social and economic conditions and provide him with a training education; he considered the defeat against Chile shameful. During his anarchist stage he harbored hopes in the Peruvian youth, a state of mind that was diluted in his last years. He condemned private property, rejected authority and established law, warned against the power of the State and called for its extinction; he extolled libertarian socialism, work and internationalism. He announced the death of the bourgeois world and the world proletarian revolution . Many of these ideas were raised, also, in newspapers such as El Libre Pensamiento that he directed Christian Dam, organ of the League of Freethinkers; The Free Idea of Glicerio Tassara; and The Outcasts , organ that he directed fleetingly.
Work by Manuel González Prada
At the time of his death, González Prada's published work consisted of only two compilations of speeches and essays: Free pages (1894) and Hours of Fighting (1908), and three books of poems:Minuscules (1901), Presbyterians (1909) and Exotics (1911); the second of these collections of poems appeared anonymously. Later his son Alfredo, his wife, Adriana de Verneuil, and Luis Alberto Sánchez would take care of publishing the expanded editions of some already known texts and other new titles. In prose:Under reproach (1933), Anarchy (1936), New Free Pages (1937), Figures and Figurines (1938), The barrel of Diogenes (1945). In verse:Pieces of life (1933), Peruvian Ballads (1935), Graphites (1937), Libertarians (1938), Ballads (1939), Adoration (1947), Unknown Poems (1973) and Letrillas (1975). Ortometry, notes for a rhythmic is a work of literary and grammatical analysis, which remained unpublished until 1977. Between 1985 and 1989 Luis Alberto Sánchez published the complete works of Manuel González Prada in seven volumes.