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The Revolution: A Goddess, a Muse, a Fate
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15614 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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2 / 1989 |
3,223 Words |
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Pablo Antonio Cuadra
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MUSAS EN GUERRA
Edited by Jose M. Oviedo
Mexico City: Joaquin Mortiz
202 pp.
The book Musas en Guerra (Muses at war) was announced in 1982, a year after the terms of the revolutionary equation in Nicaragua had been reversed--by the time the book actually appeared in 1987, the war was against the muses themselves. The announcement of Musas en Guerra marked the high point in Nicaraguan national literary hopes; a moment later the decline of the revolution began, and with it, a profound disillusionment. The book even contains a document ("The Intellectuals in the Revolutionary Future," by Sergio Ramirez) that should have opened the eyes of its editor, Jose Miguel Oviedo, who remained optimistic about the revolution as late as 1982. But perhaps one should not be too harsh on Oviedo; the Nicaraguan revolution kindled far too many such hopes.
What actually happened at that crucial, decisive moment of reversal? I recall that at just about that time I had been invited to a symposium sponsored by Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela, where I read a paper on the history of Nicaraguan literature. I closed with the following paragraph: "The revolution was written and fought at the same time, by those who argued about poetry to the death, or sang to the future in terms of purifying sacrifice, which is the pinnacle of great visions. But literature is unpredictable. A new era has opened its doors to us. We stand before it now." That was in 1980.
It turns out that I was wrong about the direction in which the door was moving. The revolution never opened a new period in Nicaraguan history; it merely closed the previous one.
Questions after the fact
Since Musas en guerra was published as recently as 1987, its author had plenty of time--two years--to add to his prologue a postscript dated 1985, in which, to his credit, he admits that "many things have happened these last three years: internal and external forces have drastically altered the situation in Nicaragua and its historical and continental significance." And, he notes, Nicaragua's "tendency towards radicalization has increased. Censorship exists in Nicaragua, and is used to systematically silence La Prensa. In 1986 the paper was permanently closed." (Oviedo does not say that on that date all independent sources of information and culture, including magazines and radio stations, were likewise shut down.) But, he adds, "In that environment the dissident poet or critical writer cannot express himself without risk. We are not aware, nonetheless, of any serious confrontation between the government and Nicaraguan intellectuals, nor of any proscription of literary works." (Here, Oviedo once again seems uninformed of a crucial fact: Many of the poets who appear in his brief anthology, as recently as 1986 seven of them--among the youngest and best--have opted for exile). Again, we have to ask, What happened to the Nicaraguan revolution?
In the same postscript, Oviedo raises yet another concern.
Everything seems to point to intolerance as the most
attractive political recourse. There is a plurality
...
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